28 February 2014

27 Feb L3: Qabil

Here's a way to work through a song that has long, repetitive phrases like Qabil from The Gathering Season by Solace. We used the concept of aboriginal time; some native people don't mark the passage of distance with numbers; they use song. If you ask "How far to the tree?" The answer is "Sing the xx song." You sing the song the way you've been taught, so that the timing is right, and lo and behold, you arrive at the tree when you finish the song! And you knew how long it would take as you walked.

We did the same thing with dance steps. We counted four phrases of roughly 24 measures each, that's a very long phrase to keep track of. We created a repetitive pattern of horizontal step-fancy turn-vertical step-face your partners and walk in a circle until you hear the break-mark the break with headslides as the new leader takes the lead. It worked! We made it to the tree. See what you think...

27 February 2014

Week 2 and Week 8 on 25 Feb 2014


Audience, Team, Self

I received an email after a private lesson with Jen from Twisted Gypsy. We were discussing the order in which to approach the dance. Thanks Jen for sending this note!

"I was relaying to my students what you had said to me during the private - and this is how I wrote on the board (totally unintentional). And then one of them exclaimed, "Hey! It spells ATS!"
 Had to share! Hugs, Jen"