November 9, 2008

The Dancer’s Body

As a dancer and a bodyworker, I’ve studied the body from various perspectives. There are tons of resources out there with information on human anatomy, kinesiology (the science of human movement), and dance. But the effort it takes to process this information might take you a couple years of schooling.

My aim with The Dancer’s Body is to bring an awareness of your structural anatomy to your dance movement. While I aim most of my writing towards folks who engage in partner dance, particularly pulse-based partner dance, or rhythm partner dance (dances which ask you to interpret the beat with a pulsing motion into or out of the floor) practitioners of smooth styles, such as Waltz, Foxtrot, Latin, American Tango and Argentine Tango will also benefit from this information. If you are a modern or ballet dancer, chances are, many of these concepts are already alive in your classes. But a little review here will awaken your awareness.

For me, this is also a re-learning experience… verbalizing and explaining how the body allows certain movements to happen is often a challenge, and the fact that I studied these things under the pressure of immediate testing many years ago, means that I’m doing a bit of re-learning myself. I’ve done a fair bit of movement since I studied anatomy and physiology back in the mid-90’s, so for me, this is a way to integrate my academic learning with my real-life experience.

I incorporate my experience not only with partner dance, but yoga, martial arts, modern dance, and aerial arts training. When I can, I’ll provide exercises you can do at home to illustrate my points.

Have fun. Learn a little. Dance a lot!