Paths to great exellence in dance ... just thinking

Yesterday in the car Mom and I were talking about paths to great excellence in dance.

In some sense, technique is a requirement, and you need a lot of technique, but what makes one dancer much better than another when they both have a lot of technique?

We were speculating that there were different paths ... different ways to become increasingly better:

• By connecting & integrating the body more, more profoundly finding one's center - things can find a breathtaking beauty.
• By becoming an increasingly better choreographer - a clear vision can crystalize movement, story, idea
• By becoming more masterfully clear in one's musicality - adding richness and texture to one's dancing

Just musing.

Can you think of other ways? What do you think?

Best,
David

This Venn diagram was made by Clay Nelson, the dean of Portland tango, to illustrate the beginners challenges. (Portland being your new sister city.)

Hi Steve,

I think most people say those same things ... see the article:
http://learntodancetango.com/videos/resources/articles/6/key-concepts-for-tango/
We have some things labelled differently (His Steps is our Technique, his Form is our Posture & Body Integration).

But, for example, I think that after you become one of the top 100 tango dancers in the world, technique probably won't be what stands between you and being one of the top 5 ever ... it will probably be body connection or musicality or choreography ... but this is just speculation.

Best,
David

Didn’t mean to change the subject, you were talking about excellence. I’m still trying to make it into the top hundred million best tango dancers in the world, hard to imagine making it to the top 5 million. (The numbers are a little different from my perspective.)

Connecting & integrating, choreography, musicality……yes. I’ve noticed something else in the great ones – precision. They put the all the components together, and put it into a groove. Paiva, Copes, Dinzel, for example. They’re all really good at advanced ages. It’s like they have excellence stored in a groove, and they can call on it at will.

This isn’t tango, but look at this film of Fred Astaire. He did this routine in 1952, and was asked to replicate the dance wearing nicer clothes…….forty-two years later. So in 1994 he does this routine. It’s the same GD dance! You can’t do that! It's not possible.