White Space

French composer Claude Debussy said, “Music is the space between the notes.” And if you listen to his music you know exactly what this means. Debussy is the master, in my humble opinion, of this concept. The “unused space” within his music is deliberate without seeming so, beautiful, and haunting. He leaves notes hanging, drifting away like a cloud into nothingness. It leaves me wanting, aching, for that next phrase, balanced on the edge of a cliff, and then…there it is.

I like to think about this concept in dance. When I first started I was concerned about steps, technique, “getting” the leads, and not falling on my butt. As Gary and I have expanded and grown into our own personal style, we've experimented with the concept of white space.

White space isn’t exactly timing differences…although I believe these are interesting too…white space is what Debussy said, the space between. In dance, that would be between steps. It’s hard to explain. For me it could be holding a step until the very last moment, and then making a snap turn. It’s sinking down into a drop…holding it…and oozing back up slowly, again just in time for that next step. Sometimes it’s a full stop with a finger snap. Or a slow sway that ends at my fingertips. Sometimes I do it all by myself. Other times I match what Gary’s doing.

But we don’t often mimic each other, and that’s OK. Feeling those musical spaces is individual. Even Debussy, while creating a stop within a major theme might carry on with a background melody. When Gary and I do stop at the exact same place it’s powerful, but it can’t be forced.

But then, dancing should never be forced.

I know I’m a worn out record on these two, but watch Tess and Miles in this clip. It’s easy to get lost in their fabulous moves, exquisite stylings , and innovative chorography, so watch it twice…or more. Note their white spaces. It’s a beautiful thing.

Dance of Love

About six months ago we met a charming couple at the Indianapolis Roof, Bev and Jack. Over the months we all sat at the same table and in between dances got to know each other. From the way they danced and spoke with one another we assumed they’d been married for years…the fondness for each other was evident in every word, gesture, and dance move.

So we were quite surprised to find their love was fairly recent. After a number of personal and physical hardships, they found one another on the dance floor. We were honored when they asked us to come to their wedding reception.

It was held in a renovated old building in Terre Haute, Indiana, the Ohio Building. Lovely spot. We had a fabulous time. Seeing Jack and Bev dance together was wonderful. Seeing two people in love…even better.

Here they are. This is Bev’s salsa dress. She had a waltz dress too. Exactly what I would have done for my wedding had I danced back then. :-)




"Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart."

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Spice

Gary and I dance in lots of different venues; we like variety in all things: music, dance styles, environment, people, you name it. Some venues we attend specialize in a particular kind of dance and music, such as Latin, swing, or blues.

We experienced this at a new venue we tried this week, Smee’s in Indianapolis. Smee’s is a local restaurant with great food and atmosphere. They have an adjoining room with a nice wood dance floor that they allow one of the west coast swing clubs in town to use for free, hoping dancers will eat and drink at their establishment, which we did.

The music started promptly at 7 o’clock. The selection was good… slow and funky. Perfect for a slower version of WCS. We danced a rumba or two, a cha-cha, and ECS, but really, the music was better suited for bluesy WCS. All of it.

We love WCS and it’s one of our fave dances, but after an hour or so we were jonesing for some real Latin, a snappy ECS number, or faster WCS music. Even our beloved Terry Lee mixes up the ‘billy with different rhythms and tempos.

I’m not saying the Smee group should change…the dancers seemed perfectly happy doing WCS all night and that’s cool. What Gary and I realized is that we will always want variety in our dancing…no matter how much we love a dance we don’t want to do it all night, even if we know a million moves.

The great thing about watching specialty dancers is they know tons of moves in that dance. We picked up a few. There were some really good dancers there, albeit the styles didn't vary that much.

And that is a downside to being free birds; since our dancing doesn't conform to any set of dancing rules or style we tend to stick out. I heard one man say after we did a rumba that ballroom dancing is for old people. Which I found hilarious. Us? Ballroom dancers?

But that's OK. For us, dancing lots of different dances really is the spice that keeps us trying new things and new venues.

And I'm still giggling over the ballroom comment. Too funny.

Just Dance

Gary and I like to keep our dancing blog light and happy, because that’s how we think about dance. We are both happy people and we choose to live our life doing things that that bring us joy.

Saying that, no one lives a pain-free life, no matter how hard you try. Gary has been going through some hard times with his job lately…fortunately he's not there anymore and we can now start to put the unhappy past behind us.

Through it all, we had our dancing. Dancing brings you so close. You are literally in each other’s arms. Dancing together is a safe and loving place to be. We always enjoy that, but during this crisis we needed it.

Also, as Gary has said, when you are doing rapid spins, jumps, and dips, your mind had better be on what you are doing or someone’s going to get hurt. Dancing forces you to be in the moment. You can’t think about anything else. Not won’t…can’t.

Our troubles may have been there as we got ready for the dance. The situation leaked into our brains afterwards. But during…ahhh. Sweet peace and relief.

Dancing. It’s more than fun. It’s therapy.

Get Up Offa That Thing...

I'm not sure how long it's been since I last wrote. Too long, that's certain. I've just walked out on the worst boss I've ever had in my life, bar none. This is a dance blog, so I'm not going into any gory details, I'll just say that it came down to a sanity call - keep my sanity or not.

So, at T+1 days after severing my ties and even with the beginnings of worrying about finding another job, I can say I'm already feeling better than I have in months. Sure, I'm still shell-shocked. If that wasn't true, then the whole thing wouldn't have been a problem because I wouldn't have cared. There have been moments of clarity during the storm, especially in the final weeks. Times when I suddenly found myself saying, "Wait, this is craziness…", but the only times I've felt free were the times I spent on the dance floor. I stand by my mantra, dance takes you somewhere else - somewhere things aren't so bad.

So, in honor of putting the horror behind me, here's a little sentiment from Mr. James Brown.

Waltzing it Up

Gary and I have been moving along with our cross step waltz which we both really love. It is a beautiful dance, and much more delicate than the ballroom variety, if a dance can be delicate.

But sometimes we've found we need to whirl around quickly like the ballroomers do. This need became apparent to get out of the way of said whirlers, but we quickly realized that we also do, in fact, like the ballroom variety of the waltz when we do it our way, e.g. no reverse poise and no mathematical positioning ...that happens naturally believe it or not. So...we now like it.

But could it mix in with our cross step? Why yes it can. We've found it isn't hard to come in and out of each, as long as the follower knows when that is. Gary signals me by squeezing on my right palm. Works perfect.

So now our waltz can be delicate AND whirly. :-)

Blues Dancing

Sometimes I wonder if our dance posts seem like Toady from Wind in the Willows; if you are not familiar with this book by Kenneth Grahame (wonderful), the character of Mr. Toad was known for flitting from one hobby to the next. We do explore many dances and some of them we end up not liking, but most we’ve kept and expanded. So I think we’re more like the adventurous Ratty (in the book). Just so you know.

Yesterday we had our first blues lesson with Mike Legett and Dan Rosenthal. Wow. First, they are a very cute couple…the connection they have is electric and they are fabulous dancers. We’ve experienced teachers who, although good dancers, were not the best instructors. This was not the case with Mike and Dan; they explained blues dancing very clearly and were able to teach something that is organic and mostly improvisational. Quite a trick, teaching something like that. But they did it.

Blues dancing covers a big territory…I had thought it was only a slot dance. I only found the stationary kind in my research. It can be that, but it’s a whole lot more. Mike and Dan demonstrated the slot variety, but also a traveling sort of blues dance.

They did show us some unique steps to the blues which was very cool, but the best part was their understanding of the fierce connection it takes to dance this dance. Gary and I came away with techniques that will help us with every dance. For example, the special blues hold we learned could work with the vintage foxtrot and perhaps the cross step waltz.

As far as the blue steps go, most anything can go into blues dancing, it’s the way it’s done that matters…stuff from the lindy, WCS, and even some Latin moves will work perfectly…as long as it’s done blues-ily.

This dance is hard to explain, but for me dancing the blues means you are connected by your soul to the music which is expressed through your body which is then shared back and forth with your partner if that makes sense. I think that’s true of all dances, but especially this one.

We’ve come a long way as far as how we are able to learn…from the ballroom one, two three put your foot exactly here, to Shayne’s Latin bop bop bop, to Rosie’s demonstrational technique, to Mike and Dan’s body kinetics.

We like knowing we can learn from anyone, but it is especially nice to find instructors like Mike and Dan who truly understand teaching is a different skill from dancing. I have a feeling they can adapt to anyone…if we’d wanted numbers and more structure I believe they would have given us that. Whatever your dance style I think these two would be helpful just for the connection advice. Even, dare I say, for ballroomers.

BTW, blues dancing is SO romantic. Sigh. Oh, and here’s their website:

www.livinghistorydance.com