The Process: Original Goals

I was filling out an online survey recently (no, I didn't win the $10 gift certificate), which asked me if I intended to pursue a higher degree of education, and why.  That's such an awkward question for someone in this line of work.  Dance education is constant.  Every class I teach, every workshop I take, every video I watch, and every choreography I learn furthers my dance education.  None of them, of course, lead to a suffix.  All of this, put in the same five minutes of thought as "what on earth do I blog about next?" convinced me to bare my soul a little, and write about my process so far.

I've come to believe that once follows get past the initial introduction to dancing, they very quickly fall into one of two categories: the dancers and the follows.  Obviously, every follow is both, to some degree.  However, since we tend to have an inclination one way or the other, an intermediate follow is likely to hear, over and over, one of two comments:

1. The follows: "You're doing fine on connection, you follow everything I lead, but I want to see more of YOU in your dancing.  You can start experimenting with styling, start adding to the dance.  Be more spunky, less mousy."  These are the follows who live for connection, and try to be "the perfect follow".  Everything that's led gets followed, but the idea of "just do what you feel" simply doesn't apply to musicality.

2. The dancers: "You really know how to move your body, and your stylings/solo movement/movement-quality are great, but you need to tune into your leader more.  You've got a lot of spunk, but you're limiting your what your partner can lead you through."  These are the follows who rock the daylights out of solo jazz comps, and who have the coolest embellishments, but musicality sometimes comes first, at the expense of the partnership.

Every follower has some aspects of each, and the idea is to pursue balance between them- a well-rounded follow, while still inclined to be one or the other, should be able to tap into both skill sets (an introvert needs to be able to communicate verbally, and an extrovert needs to be able to listen). 

For the first several years of my dancing, I was in hot pursuit of technique perfection, at the expense of everything else but rhythm.  Around 2005, though, I started to change my ideas about following a bit.  For starters, I got told by a lead I admired very much that I was boring.  Ouch.  For another thing, you can only hear the advice above so many times before you decide that while it's not your top priority, or your  strong suit, maybe it's still worth looking into. 

Of course, I'm still pursuing that status of "perfect follow", in a way, but my understanding has changed. For one thing, in order to be able to follow everything that's led on me, I have to know how to move my body in a lot of ways; solo jazz isn't an intuitive movement style to follow if you've only done swingouts.  Additionally, I once believed that at the right "heaviness" and the right ratio of savoy/hollywood, I'd hit the jackpot, and be perfect.  Turns out, the key to being a better follow is not finding the right answer, but recognizing that there is no right answer.  The perfect follow has to embrace the zen ideal of knowing nothing.  The right answer is not a way of dancing; it's versatility (that blew my mind in the summer of 2005). 

As if it wasn't enough that I had to know all forms of movement and attain zen enlightenment, during my first time at Herrang, I watched the difference between the AdvancedI follows and the AdvancedII follows, and noticed that both groups could follow everything, but the AdvancedI follows made it look good.  I realized that the well-rounded follow has to also be a dancer.  In the words of the wise Amy B, immerepher.  So now, I have to have musicality, good movement quality, awesome embellishments, know all forms of movement, and attain zen enlightenment...

Would you like fries with that?

And an answer to world hunger, for that matter?

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That's going to be all for this installment- you've read a lot for one day.  Go check out a webcomic, relax your brain, and come back tomorrow.  I recommend XKCD.com.

Peace, love, swingouts, and zen,
-m.