10-21-10 (Week 6)

For the last class of this series, we did a review of the three Salsa “concept sequences” that we have worked on for the past month.

1. Right Side Pass with overrotation
2. Around the World
3. Hand-Back connection

All of these are based on either Right Side Passes (on the Lead’s Right side), or Cross Body Leads (on the Lead’s Left), and involve some over-rotation of the Follow, or passes behind the back. As you discovered, there are many ways that you can recombine these concepts. Some work better than others, though as long as there’s no blood or broken bones involved, you haven’t done anything wrong!

Remember, some people prefer dance by intuition, and some prefer to dance with logic. Neither are wrong! Find what works for you (and it may not be the method you expect!), and use it.

Then we continued with Rumba. If Salsa is the “club dance,” Rumba is what happens after the club. Be confident with both your leading and following.

Some concepts that we covered:
*Box (with rotation)
*Rumba walks (using Rumba timing to walk straight forward/backward)
*Opening Break (OB) with Under-Arm Turn
*OB to a Cuddle (hand across the face)

This was a really great class! All of you brought incredibly great energy and creativity to class every night, which always makes me happy! I look forward to dancing with you all in our next class, Salsa/Rhythm 103. We’re going to continue to use Salsa as a familiar base to build upon, but will continue to develop Rumba, as well as some Cha Cha, and possibly Bolero…if you’re feeling adventurous! (I throw down the gauntlet!)

Sarah

10-14-10 (Week 5)

We started off with a little review of the sequences we’ve been working on for the past few weeks. After that, we moved on to some Rumba! This is a sensuous, sultry dance that fully takes advantages of the slooow beat to build drama and tension, and then accentuates that slow with a release into quick-quick!

We spent some time getting into a good closed hold, and finding a connection with our partner. We worked on a basic box pattern. Incidentally, Rumba shares the same roots as Salsa…which means that both dances involve moving foward on your left foot, and back on your right, and closing your feet in between that (temporally speaking, not spatially). Forward, side-together, back, side-together.

You can incorporate most of the moves you know from Salsa into Rumba: Cuddle, Hammerlock, Opening Break, Under-arm turn, etc.

We worked on one specific pattern: 1. From Lead’s front half of a box, step to the right and do an Opening Break (both people step back, away from each other). 2. Return back in the way you just came, and Follow does an Under-Arm Turn (pivot turn/6-part turn).

We will continue to work with Rumba next week, incorporating more and more Salsa moves that you already know!

Announcements
Next week is our last week of class! Salsa/Rhythm 103 will be starting immediately after that (10/28), same time slot. We will be working a little more on Rumba, as well as Cha cha…and maybe Bolero, if you’re feeling brave! Salsa/Rhythm 101b also starts on the 28th, still at 6:00 (Salsa and Rumba). Register for either by class next week (10/21) and get a returning student discount!

10-7-10 (Week 4)

We took a breath this week, reviewed the combo from last week, and started taking all of the building blocks we’ve been working with to build new things! The elements we have so far include (though this, of course, is not an exhaustive list):

*Cuddles and Hammerlocks
*Cross-body lead (CBL) (on the Lead’s left/counter-clockwise motion)
*Right side pass (RSP) (on the Lead’s right/clockwise motion)
*Front-to-front connection
*Front-to-back connection

And then found many new ways to recombine these! One possibility is…

*Cross-hand connection (left hand on top)
*Cross-body lead, ending in a front-to-back connection (Follow in front)
*The Lead brings the Follow to the left and behind, ending with the Follow’s left hand on Lead’s left shoulder, in a front-to-back connection, Lead in front
*Lead “shrugs” Follow’s hand off, doing a sneaky hand change to Lead’s right hand
*Lead the Follow back to a front-to-front connection

You, of course, can modify this by replacing the CBL with a RSP. Interesting things will happen! This is the beauty of dance. It is, after all, an artform and not a science. As long as no one gets hurt and all parties leave happy, you did it right!

9-30-10

Tonight we worked on a fun, new, little routine. When danced up to speed, it should feel like the Follow is a moon rocking out in the gravity of the Lead. Don’t panic…next week we’re going to take some time to go back and review all of the concepts we’ve covered up until now.

Start in a Cross-hand position, LEFT hand on top

MEASURE ONE

1. Out of the FOLLOW’S back half out of the basic (i.e. Lead’s front half), do a quick 1 – 2 – CATCH (at Follow’s waist). It helps for the Lead to move forward a bit too.

2. Unwind and overrotate the Follow, keeping both left hands down at the Follow’s waist area (the Follow ends in almost a reverso hammerlock position)

MEASURE TWO

1. Unwrap the Follow GENTLY (no pulling on the hand! Think of how you exit from a hammerlock…same concept), and switch places so that Lead and Follow are facing the same direction, Follow behind the Lead.

2. Leads hold out their right hands, and drop the left hand connection (i.e. switch hands). The Follow moves forward from behind the Lead. Leads can now choose to throw in a bit of a spin while leading the Follow forward.

…and the dance continues!

Notice that we were working with the following concepts: hammerlocks, turns across the Follow’s face, connection at the waist, and switching places. Really great job tonight!

We reviewed the CBL (Cross-Body Lead) that you worked on last week with Darrell, and then added in the Right Side Pass. This, conceptually, is the twin of the CBL. The CBL happens on the left side of the Lead; the Right Side Pass (RSP) happens, well, on the right side of the Lead. Because of directionality and feet, though, Leads must lead the RSP about 2 beats earlier than a CBL (in other words, start leading it on the 2, or when the Follow is as far away from you as possible in the basic).

We put together a little pattern after that:

**Right Side Pass into a Cuddle on the Lead’s right side. (take two full measures to do this)
**Then continue to over-rotate that Cuddle, leading the Follows to be about 90* away from you (Follows are backing the Lead)
**Once the Follows feels this totally wound up end point, they are then free to do some styling. We were playing with some lunges, or step-point.
**Leads, please be aware of where this leaves the Follow! If they are in a precarious position with this styling, make sure to give them enough time to regain footing before taking them out into any spins!

Nice job, everyone! You were finding lots of nice variations on your own, and beginning to own the move!

Hello Dancers,

Sarah was not feeling well this week, so I was your substitute teacher.

We have a lot of energetic enthusiastic dancers in class, and I want to help you unlock all of your potential. The main theme of class tonight was becoming accustomed to leading with and being lead by only contact at the shoulder.

There are three socially-acceptable regions for making contact with your partner while dancing – at the arms, at the shoulders, and at the waist. We use all three of them, and knowing how to use the shoulders and waist as another communication channel for leading and following can help you to become more creative with your moves.

You did a few free-form exercises, ignoring the music or any basic pattern or timing. Follows do not need to pay attention to the Leads, but to their own hands. Follows will go where their own hands go. Leads, you can utilize that fact. Leads cannot control where the Follows go, only the position of the Follow’s hand. Follows do all of the rest. Trained Follows (like all of you) will move their whole bodies at the same speed and in the same direction as their own hands.

Doing nothing more complicated than a regular Cross Body Lead (CBL), you began to add some “arm” moves that use contact at the Follow’s shoulder. During the first CBL, the Lead’s right hand moves to the Follow’s right shoulder and stays there. During the second CBL, the hand at the shoulder comes off, returning you to a normal handhold.

You modified the second CBL to create an alternate ending. Instead of taking the shoulder-hand off, the down-hand (Lead’s left hand, Follow’s right hand) comes up and over the Follow’s head, leaving your hands criss crossed at the end. Lead’s take their right hands up (moving their left hands to the elbow-pit of their own right arm) and doing a face loop, thus taking the Follow’s left hand to the Lead’s right shoulder. This can easily morph into a closed dance position.

Even simple things like a CBL can become interesting and unique when using other regions of contact. This means that dancers of differing skill levels can dance with each other without having to have a pre-determined set of moves in common. If Follows know to go where their own hands go and to respond to contact at the shoulders, and if Leads can be clear about their intentions, everyone can start to be more creative!