Mike the Girl
  • About
    • Bios
  • Classes
    • Private Lessons
  • Media
    • Social Demos and Comps
    • Choreographed Performances
    • Photos
  • Contact

Fusion. Yes, Really.

2/27/2010

9 Comments

 
I've recently had several independent conversations about what I think fusion is, or what I think of fusion, etc.  There's a big muckety-muck of a debate raging on forums (ok, all debates rage into muckety-mucks on forums), so I decided to do this here, where instead of jumping into a philosophical mosh pit, I can simply make a statement about what I think.  No beehive-poking intended.  (I'm going to focus on tango-into-blues influences here, since that's the easiest place for me to draw examples, and I suspect that's the easiest thing for most of you to relate to).


First off, what is fusion?  
I think fusion can have a couple of meanings.  The first meaning is essentially just crosstraining- for instance, at Buenos Aires Blues this year, the idea was that people would work on blues skills, and tango skills, and walk away stronger dancers.  I think the same can be said for a lot of cross-over events.  My thoughts on this?  I think it's fantastic.  There's a biological term for this: hybrid vigor.  One purebred dog may be susceptible to some recessive deleterious genes, while another purebred of another breed may be susceptible to other recessive deleterious genes.  However, when you cross them, the first generation offspring, possessing one copy of each gene, will not show either of the weaknesses of the purebreds.  The metaphor would get weird after that, so I'll stop there.  Likewise, a purebred beg/int blues student may have a really great embrace, but have pretty weak balance (generally, I don't see blues students start drilling balance hard-core until pretty late in the game).  They go to a tango workshop, and the 2nd thing of the day is balance and rotation.  The student walks away with a better understanding of the importance of balance, hopefully practices, and splits weight less often.  Everyone wins.  


The second thing that happens under the name of fusion is basically move-stealing.  Students go to a fusion/crossover/different-dance workshop, and find things to add to their primary dance.  The most common example here is ochos, although other elements like parallel systems, volcadas, and calecitas have also been seen from time to time.  It's pretty much a guarantee that if a blues scene has any tango influence, it also has ochos.  More on my personal feelings on this further down the page.


The third thing that happens under fusion is the mixing of many dances.  I have strong feelings about this, both encouraging and cautionary.  There is a lot of music out there that tells me to move.  And some of doesn't say, "move like  a _____ dancer;" it just says move.  So I'm perfectly fine with taking the elements that I have in my mind/body, and combining them in a way that I think makes sense to that song.  Am I creating a new dance?  Sure.  A dance that will be well-formed, and get passed from dancer to dancer?  Nope.  I'm just dancing, in the moment, in a way that feels good.  Maybe you've heard a jaded old dancer like me snicker about playing a non-blues song at a blues event (Sweat, Fire, songs like that), and thought, "but that song makes me want to dance!"  Sure- but that doesn't make them blues songs, and what most of us crusty old-timers have found is that they don't make us want to dance in a blues way.  So next time you hear it played, dance if you want- just don't label it blues, and I've got no issues.


For those of you who were at DIY last weekend, and heard my "What IS (and isn't) Blues" lecture, you already know the punchline.  But I'll fill the rest of you in.  Defining a dance is not about defining the steps of the dance.  You can watch Rumba, Foxtrot, Tango, and Blues, and define each of them simply by watching them walk down a line.  Defining a dance is entirely about the way the dance is done- the place where the dance spends most of its time on continuums like rotation/liner, expansive/contracted, relaxed/engaged, etc.  Which means that to me, there are very few elements that you can't steal, and make legitimate.  The key, of course, is making it legitimate.  One of my favorite blues couples has a video on youtube (I'm not posting it, because I don't want to throw them under the forum-troll bus), where they do 3 historically tango moves in a row, but the sequence is unquestionably blues- they're blues dancers, do a blues dance, with moves that started off as tango.  


So here I've said that you can take elements, mix them up, and make new compounds- here we have the ultimate dance lab.  So I'm a fusionist, right?  Well, I think the key to successful fusion is this: keep your reagent stock clean.  In order to pull elements into blues (or any dance) successfully, you must be able to define your home dance.  You need to know that your base is blues.  You need to know what makes that dance what it is- the history, the music, the traditional moves, and most importantly, the elements that define it.  What I'm not ok with is the idea that everything is legitimate.  Ok, that's not true- all dance is legitimate on its own.  But not all dancing is legitimate blues dancing.  And that's not my call to make- it's a combination of a personal decision for you, and a collective decision by the blues community as a whole.  So in this sense, I'm a purist.  


So I'm a purist/fusionist lindy/balboa/blues/tango dancer.  Anyone else confused?


Much love and many swingouts/ochos/fishtails/sugar-pushes/wagon-wheels/up-holds/tuck-turns/volcadas/circles......
-m.









9 Comments
Breanna link
2/27/2010 03:06:39 am

Even if you didn't have smart things to say, you would win points for "deleterious". Lucky for you, you have both!

Reply
Bryn
2/27/2010 03:43:19 am

I completely agree, Mike, and I think most "anti-fusionists" do too. I think the debate has always been more about the terminology than anything. IMNSHO, the better dancers (yourself notwithstanding) tend to simply call what you've described... "good dancing."

Reply
haggai
2/27/2010 03:49:36 am

"Defining a dance is entirely about the way the dance is done- the place where the dance spends most of its time on continuums like rotation/liner, expansive/contracted, relaxed/engaged, etc."

but every time you take something from tango and insert it into blues, even when you do it in a blues way, you're potentially pushing the blues continuum in a different direction, albeit by a small amount. Every new thing you add changes "the way the dance is done," bit by bit, until the original place on the dance continuum is no longer occupied.

how long did it take for the lindy hop to be recognized as distinct from the breakaway, and the breakaway as distinct from charleston? jazz music, and by extension, jazz dance, prize innovation. inventing new things and pushing in new directions are part of the whole point. trying to define a bubble in which lindy hop exists misses that.

now I don't know that much about blues. does it value innovation? or is it a classicist's dance — let's dance blues the right way and do it as best we can. it sounds like for you, it's the latter. is that a commonly held opinion?

I haven't been listening to the raging debate, so I might not be saying/asking anything new :)

Reply
MtG
2/27/2010 08:43:33 am

@Haggai: For me, the place on the continuum isn't a definted spot, or even a solid range (part of this is built off a class which unfortunately only Southerners heard... I should do one in Philly)- it's more of a distribution- maybe a bell-ish curve. Personally, I do prize innovation, so long as it's within the frame of what still feels intuitively like blues. Does that make sense? Just like in lindy hop, there's a lot that we can do to a swingout, but as long as we (the community) are comfortable that it's still a swingout, there's no need to redefine the dance. At some point, you change enough variables by enough value, and you get a whip. That's a quickie-example, but you get the idea. When you bring those outside influences into the dance, the idea is to do them such that they fit into your definition, rather than changing your definition to include other moves. Eventually, yes- I do think that dances evolve, and they should. But I also think it's important to keep in mind the history and context of the dance.

Does that make sense, or did I just restate my blog? Dinner before any more comments!

Reply
haggai
3/5/2010 07:28:34 am

Your reply perfectly clarifies your stance (at least, now I assume I know what you're talking about).

What I've been trying to figure out now is whether innovation as you describe it is actually possible. My gut feeling is that historically, innovation has always shifted the center of a dance, even if it's only by a tiny bit. (I was going to write "pushed the boundaries of a dance" but I think neither of us agree that that's a good metaphor.) Over short times — "short" is relative, of course, and I'm not going to try to be more precise — maybe a dance would stay the same, but over longer periods I think tidal forces rip dances apart or make them sufficiently different that we have to give them a new name or two.

I guess if on the one hand we assume that everyone shares your viewpoint about innovation and everyone shares your viewpoint about what "blues" is, then blues stays the same and fosters innovation and you're happy.

If on the other hand, everyone acknowledges dances as changing arts and consciously pushes them in different directions, then everything changes.

Since people's opinions (and conceptions of "blues) lie on a continuum, what will actually happen is likely somewhere in between.

I'm going to think about this more...

Reply
Lauren
3/29/2010 04:04:32 am

Ok I really enjoyed reading this and can totally agree and understand your position. My question for you started when I was browsing Youtube videos and came across soooo many "Swing" videos during TV performances and such. It's so obvious that the dancers, although professional, have had way too much training and are Swinging like ballroom dancers.

Where do we draw the line? It's fine to learn different styles and bring that back to your home base dance. But what happens when you learn so many styles that you can't even capture the true essense of Blues or Swing anymore? It feels like a wolf in sheep's clothing to me. Or a ballroom dancer in Swinger's clothing. And the crowd loves it but it's just so annoying to be a swing dancer and to watch them butcher it sometimes.

Am I being too purist or is there some divide where you can't be a student of all dances and still get the basic foundation of each dance correct?

Reply
MtG link
3/30/2010 01:41:36 am

Ah- the issue with those folks is that they've learned a different dance. The "Swing" dancers are either:

-dancing ballroom swing, and probably doing it well. They're doing the poodle to our pitt- same name (dog), different animal.

or

-trained dancers who've trained in "swing" for a week or less. When you see dance comp shows (like SYTYCD) it looks bad because they've only had a few days to master the dance.

Kelly Arsenault is a great example of someone who is a professional modern dancer, yet she absolutely embodies both bal and lindy fantastically, because she studies them, works them, and is now at the professional level of all three dances. She took the movement training (control, balance, strength, awareness), and used it to fuel her abilities to do other dances, without sacrificing any one dance.

In the case of the "swing" videos, I think the problem is not the amount of training, it's the source of the training. Ask a ballroomer to teach you swing, and you get... ballroom swing. Teach a ballroomer to swing in only a few days and you get... ballroom swing.

But no worries, it's only fair- I'd look horrendous (to a ballroomer) doing American Tango for the first couple of years!

-m.

Reply
Lauren
4/26/2010 03:41:14 am

Thanks Mike. I just got back from a workshop with Tim O'Neil and Whitton Frank and it makes me really want to learn about these different styles of blues from Micro to Argentine Tango or ballroom blues. Do you have any suggestions or resources (books, dvd's, etc.) that teach about the history behind the dancing and how they are each separate styles within blues?

Reply
Bill K
4/29/2010 11:19:11 am

Mike, interesting discussion, but when is dance just a dance? If the music moves me and I move her, does it matter what we call it? Aren't the names just part of the languages we develop for consistent communication and training? Likewise, isn't fusion (and everything in dance) all about connection? Of mind, body(s), music, couple(s), group and environment? Isn't fusion ultimately about building harmony with each and then letting go and just dancing? :) Bill

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    May 2015
    July 2014
    October 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    May 2012
    November 2011
    September 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    September 2010
    June 2010
    February 2010
    November 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009

    Mike Legett

    Whether it's grand themes of life, or what I had for breakfast, here's where I'll tell you what I think.

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Augusta Heritage
    Balboa
    Blues
    Boston
    Camps
    Choreography
    Classes
    Competition
    Dance
    Dancing
    Djing
    Dogs
    Events
    Festivals
    Following
    Food
    Frankie
    Fusion
    Leading
    Lifestyle
    Lindy
    Moving
    Music
    Musicians
    Philadelphia
    Pittsburgh
    Psychology
    Scene Building
    Scene-Building
    Shopping
    Solo
    Troupe

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.