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Nov. 18th, 2008 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressTalking with Kyu has made me realize that I'm really the only person I know who dearly likes both (what I've termed) proper and improper dancing.
The difference is that 'proper' dancing is the stuff I do more often --stuff that has actual steps, patterns, accepted positions for dancing in. SCD, vintage, regency, all ballroom ever, contra ...all proper stuff. Swing too, for the most part, though occasionally I meet someone who doesn't have any idea what the steps are, but still knows how to lead (or let me lead them) and we can just screw around and move.
Improper stuff is what happens at prom, in clubs, at the college dances I go to occasionally, at the Otakon rave. It doesn't have any steps, there are no official positions, and you can't really be any better than anyone else, you can just have more rhythm and less self-consciousness. All it takes is listening to the beat and letting your body move.
In proper dancing, it's about the people. It's about smiling and flirting, light touches, and having two -or four, or six, or eight, or more people work as one glorious well-oiled machine. It's social.
In improper, it's about yourself. It's about closing your eyes and turning the music up so high that you can't have any other thoughts in your brain past just moving. Sure, there are other people around, and at times, you might even be dancing with them. But you're not dancing *with* them, not really, you're just each your own little island, wrapped in music that happen to intersect for a moment.
Proper dancing is for extroverts. Improper is for introverts.
And I dearly love them both.
~Sor
MOOP!
The difference is that 'proper' dancing is the stuff I do more often --stuff that has actual steps, patterns, accepted positions for dancing in. SCD, vintage, regency, all ballroom ever, contra ...all proper stuff. Swing too, for the most part, though occasionally I meet someone who doesn't have any idea what the steps are, but still knows how to lead (or let me lead them) and we can just screw around and move.
Improper stuff is what happens at prom, in clubs, at the college dances I go to occasionally, at the Otakon rave. It doesn't have any steps, there are no official positions, and you can't really be any better than anyone else, you can just have more rhythm and less self-consciousness. All it takes is listening to the beat and letting your body move.
In proper dancing, it's about the people. It's about smiling and flirting, light touches, and having two -or four, or six, or eight, or more people work as one glorious well-oiled machine. It's social.
In improper, it's about yourself. It's about closing your eyes and turning the music up so high that you can't have any other thoughts in your brain past just moving. Sure, there are other people around, and at times, you might even be dancing with them. But you're not dancing *with* them, not really, you're just each your own little island, wrapped in music that happen to intersect for a moment.
Proper dancing is for extroverts. Improper is for introverts.
And I dearly love them both.
~Sor
MOOP!
no subject
on 2008-11-20 08:13 am (UTC)That said, actually, I do like improper dancing too. I just am not as good at it, and am much more self-conscious about it, so I have to be in the right mood to feel like it. It's improvisational, self-centered but totally visible; that takes a lot of extroversion and a bouncy good mood for me.
Whereas with proper dancing, I'm confident that (depending on the type of dance) either I can just get up and do it at any point, or they'll make allowances for a beginner and I can probably trust my partner/teacher/etc to lead me through it and let me know when there's a dance I can't just muddle through and pick up as I go along.