Ballroom dancing is based around music. It is an activity in which two (usually) people move together in relation to music. It’s not enough that they move together. Other activities can do that as well. They move together with music.
So really music is the governing value for us. Without music, the dance means nothing. Note that I’m not referring to showcases where dancers might move on the floor during a silent part of the performance — that’s designed to help the audience “imagine” the music in their heads, so even there music is the primary guiding value.
What happens to us when we dance? We hear the music. We allow this music to infiltrate our body. In that process, our brain connects the imagination to the feelings that this music brings. Music is the main source for energy. We let this energy come inside us, going out in the form of movement that is an embodiment of what the music is saying to us. Dance, then, in a very real way embodies the music.
The music also becomes a bridge between the dancer and the spectator. It becomes a medium of conversation, not only with our partner, but also with the people watching the performance. There is, naturally, the aesthetic aspect of creating beautiful lines. But the most important part is that the spectators must relate to what they see as something that embodies what they are hearing.
In this way, music does two things at the same time. For the dancers it is the source of their movement energy. For the spectator and dancer it’s form of communication.
More than Movement
Musicality is so much more than the movement of our feet. It’s important to be on time to the music. When we are beginners, we learn that the feet should move on certain beats of the music. That has been established in order to have some kind of standard that we can all follow. Without such standards, we would not be able to dance together effectively. But as we get more experienced, we become sensitive in other aspects of our connection that allow the leader to respond in different ways if desired, and still have the partner move together in harmony. In essence, this becomes a form of breathing through our dancing.
How we use breathing changes with different dances. Each dance has its own character, that influences how we use our breath. Waltz is very vertical, with timing that coincides beautifully with the natural rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. The movement flows very much upward. In contrast, Slow Foxtrot moves in a more continuous flow of energy, more like a river than the waves of an ocean. In Waltz, we want our energy to embody that upward swell. There’s a feeling of extension. We feel it in our ribs, in our abs, in our neck and back. We extend our rib cage upward in a way that is different from the use of the rib cage in Slow Foxtrot or Quickstep, even though all three are “swing” dances.
You can practice this by sitting in a chair with music playing and allow your upper body to respond to what the music feels like. Lift your ribcage and turn your body in relation to the music. Since the lower body is stable, not moving, you can better feel how your upper body reacts to the music flow. Play Waltz, then Foxtrot music, then Quickstep to see how they differ in the character that your body wants to express.
Now pay attention to how your breathing pattern begins to change with each style. Waltz counts in 28-30 bars of music per minute. As it happens, the average respiration rate is 15, which corresponds nicely to that timing. It won’t be perfect of course, because you are dancing. It will be more like one and a half bars to breathe in and one and a half to breathe out while dancing. As you move your body to the music, feel how the breathing intersects with the movement.
When Breathing Begins
This kind of breathing should begin even before the movement begins. In fact, it should begin even before the couple connects. The gentleman breathes in, filling the lungs as he raises his arms to invite the lady. She likewise breathes in as she prepares to accept the invitation. There’s another deep breath as the bodies prepare to move into the first step of the dance. All of this connects the body to the music, in harmony with the movement.
This kind of breathing should begin even before the movement begins. In fact, it should begin even before the couple connects.
Very simply speaking, whenever we rise and go up, we breathe in. Whenever we are going down, we gradually breathe out. Because when we breathe out, our muscles relax slightly, allowing our body weight and gravity to contribute to the energy we produce. Driving actions should always be connected to breathing out. You should breathe your dance instead of work your dance. This keeps you from thinking too much about your joints, your ankles, your your body parts doing their job. Your breathing unites the joints and body parts. In this way, your whole body is doing the job, rather than separate bits and pieces that you have to calculate. When we dance, we don’t want people to see a bunch of separate feet and rhythms. We want them to see only the sweeping, flowing and flying movements. In Tango we want people to see the rhythm, but still in a way that emphasizes the feeling of the bodies moving together. The contrast between slow and quick actions should be clear. Breathing is a vital part of illustrating that through our dance. Dancing is a flight of your soul. You should not be focused on working your muscles to dance.
Personally, I’ve found it easier to connect breathing to the Ballroom/Standard dances than to the Latin genre. It may take you longer to apply it to some dances than others. This may be due to your familiarity with the dances or the routines, but these principles apply to all dances. When you first start thinking about breathing, you’ll be very conscious of it and it might feel a bit forced and artificial. But after a few weeks, you should find that you become quite instinctive about it.
What about Viennese Waltz? The steps are very simple. Forward side closed, backward side closed. Together with music, they create a certain character of movement. There’s no way to avoid it. So we have to respect that and go with it. Otherwise, we will try to attempt to dance some weird Viennese waltz, which will be a strange action to the music. When things are not natural, when the body weight is not moving naturally, it is very hard to call it musical. It may be on time, but musicality is not about being on time. It’s much more than that. Musicality is natural movement to music. And in Viennese waltz, natural movement to music is the use of energy through the lowering and drive, through the swing and sway and the controlled closing of the feet.
Finally, let’s talk about Quickstep. This dance is exciting dance to watch. There’s a beautiful rhythmicality to it, a strong melody and rhythm. Even in syllabus Quickstep, you get very nice figures. To dance it well, the upper body has to be light while delivering the action. It needs to be more buoyant, a little bit more picked up and bouncy, compared to the other dances. We can now have a much more active, but nevertheless flowing action. The pendulum swing and metronomic swing in Quickstep is much more pronounced. It’s closer to how our legs and body are used while running. Because the body is in flight, movement is not from balance point to balance point. Instead, movement is from out of balance to out of balance. Even when we walk, we don’t move from balance to balance. What really happens when we walk is out of balance, out of balance, balance, out of balance, out of balance, balance. We send our legs ahead while our body is moving. Speed up those same mechanics and you have a natural rhythm that’s not unlike Quickstep.
I hope you’ve gained some insights to how breathing helps to connect to both the music and the movement in your dances. Take some time to think about it and apply these techniques to your dancing. You’ll feel that your movement is more flowing, more expansive and more free.
The post How to Connect Breathing and Music to Your Dancing first appeared on Delta.Dance.
