Dancing Hard and Soft Accents in west coast swing
Not all musical accents are the same. The notes in “How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong?” demand a sharp, hard movement. Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” calls for a longer, softer, drawn out movements. Learning to dance the same accent in either a hard or a soft way can substantially improve the musicality of your movements.
The Drill: With a partner, dance a move with a throwout: a left side slingshot, a whip with an accelerated throwout on 5, or even a push break that quickly sends the follower all the way to the end of the slot on 5. This is going to be the move that you play with throughout this drill.
After dancing this move a couple of times to get the “normal” feel into your body, dance the hard accent version. On this version, the leader should delay an instant longer than normal before sending the follower, and the follower should stay into the connection in order to match what the leader is giving. This slight delays allows both partners to accelerate the sendout part of the move. Both partners should hit a crisp pose and freeze at the end of the sendout.
The hard accent version creates a forceful accent. The partnership moves from slight delay to rapid movement to frozen in quick succession, which makes the sendout look explosive.
Now, switch to the soft version. In this version, both partners should continue some movement even after they reach the end of the slot in order to settle their energy. Whether than be sinking into a knee, dragging to gather a foot, or letting an arm dissipate the energy in a controlled manner is up to you. This version should go: slight delay, definite but not explosive sendout, controlled settle.
Bonus Variations: Experiment with other moves to see where you can make the same movements either hard or soft. Moves that release compression are generally easier (e.g., whips, push breaks, folds); moves that rely on an away connection like side passes can be done but require solid connection skills in order for the partners to feel the difference.
Accents in the chorus of the music
Dancing to Maroon 5’s song Maps, we’re discovering ways to express the layers of music within a song. Last week, we turned up the energy for the chorus. Now we’re going to dive into the details of the chorus.
Pop music is usually phrased in 32-beat paragraphs, but it’s also common for the chorus of the song to last for two of those paragraphs. Maps does that, so we want a way to change up our dancing within those 64 beats. Listen through the chorus with the goal of picking out some details in the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrP1o6DV5-g
What did you hear? The newest element in the song is the vocals: the rhythm of the words has changed substantially from the verses. So, let’s figure out how to so that layer of music. We are dancing big and loud because the chorus has lots of energy, so we want to find moments of contrast within the vocals. One thing that stands out is that there is a draw on the first beat of each minor phrase:
…but I wonder
Where were you, when I was at my worst, down on my
Knees, and you said you had my back, so I wonder
Where were you, all the roads you took came back to
Me, so I’m following the map that leads to
You
As you are dancing, show off those draws by changing your footwork. Where possible, take out a triple and replace it with a step-drag the free foot in for the first two beats of each minor phrase. If you have a walk walk on those beats, attack the first step and make the second step quieter so the audience can see the emphasis on the vocal inflection.
Practice dancing to the chorus and adapting your footwork to show these draws. As you get comfortable, you can also start to experiment with adding dimensions to the draws. For instance, if you are rotating during those two beats (like in counts 3&4 of a side pass), practice milking that rotation through your draw. If you are traveling linearly, can you use a controlled level change through the entire draw to enhance the gathering action? Find what motions work for you!
Brian & Megan