the cuban salsa blog

Good performers reveal a private truth in a public situation.
- Lorna Marshall, The Body Speaks.

This revealing of “private truth” in a public situation is what both good actors and good dancers do.

In other words, through their dance they express emotions that, on a day-to-day basis, are not normally expressed in public.

I think authenticity is what makes dance deeply satisfying for many people to watch.

Authentic emotion in both actors and dancers can be touched, felt, and absorbed as your own.

When a good dancer or actor expresses the “private truth” of their anger and passion in public, you can FEEL it. You can relate to it so closely, that for that moment you almost become them.

And I think this is what makes great dancing and great movies so incredibly addicting. As human beings, even for brief moments, we love to become someone else.

Real dance allows someone else to become you.

Don’t try to fake the funk.

Authenticity is an inside-out deal. When you are truly connected to the music and your movements are generated by living, breathing emotion, it is in that exact moment that you become real as a dancer.

Ultimately, it’s not your tricks on the dance floor that touch the human soul.

Don’t get me wrong, we love all the crazy turn patterns and tricks, but without an emotional anchor, they are worthless.

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Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.?

- Rumi

Five Minutes of Dance
by Reed Colver

Those who have taken class with me on any sort of a regular basis (as in more than once) are well aware that I seem to be completely unable to make it to class on time. Usually I arrive just about 10 – 15 minutes late. If I’m doing really well, I’m only five minutes late.

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“The fundamental failure of most design is its insistence on serving
the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good
-R. S. Wurman

For the most part, when something works well, it usually looks good. Unfortunately, something that looks good doesn’t always work well.

It seems like Salsa, especially nowadays, tends to focus on making leads and follows look good without really focusing on how the dance feels, or genuinely connecting with music.

Good body movement is movement that stirs the emotions. Martha Graham called these movements “significant”.

Even musicians fall victim to this, writing arrangements that “sound cool”, and forgetting that music doesn’t need to sound cool, it needs to be emotionally stirring. It needs to push, pull, prod and provoke the body and soul into becoming an engaging piece of moving art.

A good lead doesn’t aim to look good. He focuses on feeling great and his lead works. He doesn’t need to share a script with his follow and he could lead a rock through movements.

A good follow doesn’t look sexy. She becomes sexy because her body is intertwined and connected through physical communication with her lead. She doesn’t memorize crap and regurgitate it all over the lead, she molds, adapts…and engages him with playful submission.

An amazing musician doesn’t write to please the ears. She aims to please the soul to reach out and GRAB you with her sound. This is what music was designed to do.

At the most basic level, Salsa music and dance both should engage the emotions PRIMARILY.

Don’t look, be.

All else is vanity.

“I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements . . .I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge.”

–Martha Graham

Often described as impacting dance the way Picasso impacted visual art, Martha Graham was one of the most important cornerstones of contemporary dance.

A pioneer from every angle, she not only was the first dancer to ever perform at the White House, but the first dancer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be given to a civilian in the United States.

The ironic part of it is that despite all the honors bestowed upon her in her life of 96 years, she rarely, if ever, allowed her performances to be photographed or videotaped.

So when talking about things like dancing to express emotion and energy, what better example do we have than the woman who turned the concept of dance upside down and inside out?

Here is quote from Martha by way of her biographer Agnes DeMille:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you…..no artist is pleased…there is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than others”

If there is a better example of a driving philosophy for all of us to follow as dancers, as interpreters and conveyers of emotion through movement, I have yet to find it.