What has been the most useful piece of dance advice anyone has ever given you?
For me, this question is fairly easy. My answer isn't something spiritual or inspirational or life changing; it's actually rather simple. It's something I had never been taught before that helped my dancing infinitely. When I was 10 years old, my ballet teacher taught me how to lift up in the core, thereby straightening the back and stabilizing the rest of the body.
So that's my most useful piece of dance advice: Lift your center! What's yours?
"Dance because you love it, dance because you live it, dance because you have nothing to prove, and everything to share." -dancekarl
"Keep dancing, even if a bomb goes off next to you onstage." -Megg Wilson
"When I danced with Judy Jarvis, a modern dancer and choreographer in Canada (now deceased) she told me to dance like my face, or the focus of energy of my presentation, was in the top of my chest. It made everything 'bigger'. It certainly made me feel different dancing." -Diane
These are all really good valid points. Keep 'em coming!
Selly
4 Comments:
When I danced with Judy Jarvis, a modern dancer and choreographer in Canada (now deceased) she told me to dance like my face, or the focus of energy of my presentation, was in the top of my chest. It made everything "bigger". It certainly made me feel different dancing.
Something that has been extremely helpful to me is "keep dancing, even if a bomb goes off next to you ons stage". It sounds very simple but it's a good lesson and I now find myself teaching it to others.
I must admit though, dancing from your core is essential!
"If something doesn't feel right to your body, don't force it." As a swing/Ballroom dancer, this is been so useful to me. Yes there are right steps but just because one way works for your instructor it may not work exactly right for you. This comes in handing for turns for me. Doing turns to the right feels somewhat uncomfortable to me (though I'm working on it), but learning steps one way isn't always the best.
"Mark it." I'm very muscular and my biggest sin in class is tensing up under the guise of "working hard."
I've never been on stage and I have no aspirations to do so, but "marking" is a concept I understand, and when I think of going through a combination at full technique but somewhere between 1/2 or 3/4 effort the difference is amazing.
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