Summer 2014/2015 At JewelLab

So you’ve learnt perfect technique from Vio, you can mark and revel with precision, but you freeze up on the dance floor. Maybe you forget your vocabulary, maybe you struggle to find a shared vocabulary with your partner, or maybe you feel lost or intimidated by the music (be it hip-hop or golden-era!). It’s time to explore musicality!

Improving musicality can pay off in many practical ways. Musicality can remind and inspire you to dance the moves you already know. If you (or your partner!) simply aren’t comfortable with many moves yet, dancing simply but with musicality can rescue the song from being boring and turn it into a delight. And practicing musicality helps you to make sense of and be comfortable dancing the fastest and most challenging songs.

Musicality also gets at what is for me the heart of tango: expression, improvisation, and the unique pleasure of relating to my partner and to my favourite music in an entirely new way.

I want to share with you some of the tools I’ve learned along the way, from some great teachers.

These tools work with any moves and any level – they multiply what you already know. They apply equally well to both nuevo/alternative music and to traditional tango, whichever you prefer (or whichever you want to develop)! And lastly, these tools are important for both marks and revels to experience and understand.

Topics:

• Two ways to slow it down: pauses and slow-motion.
• Finding and dancing the beat.
• Dancing with rhythm and syncopation.
• Matching your moves with the music.
• Dancing with attitude.
• Confidence to experiment and play.

Format: From 7:30-8:00 I’ll introducing the topic, starting and stopping the music to demonstrate ideas, and proposing exercises for the group.

After that, we’ll run the music without interruption…

The notes are here.

* still 50/50 alternative/ traditional music *

Everyone will be free to either continue working on the topic, work on their own thing, or simply dance!

As the night unfurls, we’ll progressively practice less and dance more. We’ll keep the music playing until at least 10:30pm, or later at the DJ’s discretion 😉

More about JewelLab.