Blues: What is it?

So I keep talking about blues dancing and I find that many people know of the style of music but not the dance. I did a little hunting on YouTube to better show what it is.

I grabbed videos from Ruby Red, Ruth Hoffman (some awesome blues instructors) and events/tutorials to show blues in action as well as some moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7moOd7Or9Gg&list=PLE069AC801587937F&feature=plpp_play_all


A excerpt from : http://www.blues-dance.com/aboutbluesdance/

Blues dance is strongly tied to Blues music, and many aspects of Blues dancing (for example, call and response, emotional intensity, and tension and release) are directly related to the music to which it is danced. There are many types of Blues music (rural, urban, up-tempo, slow, electric, delta, modern), and also many types of Blues dance, all with very different nuances and emotions.

Blues is also an emotion that you bring to your dancing. Blues dance, like most Black vernacular dances, enables intense individuality in expressing the music, emphasizing that the music, not the dancer, leads the dance; the dancer is simply the interpreter. Blues dance demonstrates the passion of the entire range of human emotions – from sadness to joy – not just sensuality. If you don’t have a visceral reaction to the music, your partner, and the environment, then you are missing the true beauty of Blues dance.


A more academic version of blues dancing as offered by Blues Dance New York:

Blues dancing is an umbrella term for a family of historical and modern dances done to blues music. Rooted in African movement, blues dance places a high value on improvisation, rhythm, polyrhythm, and solo movements.

Most partner dance forms have risen from cultural groups during periods of growth and creativity. Over time, the dances developed “basic steps” or “patterns” that come from the rhythmic structures of the music they are danced to, thus providing new dancers with shortcuts into the “feeling” of a dance.

Blues dance has not divorced itself from the improvisational nature of “street” dancing, therefore, it does not give the practitioner just one basic step pattern to rely on, but a multitude of steps, patterns, intricate body movements, and systems of connection. This can make the dance both incredibly exciting, easy to begin, and difficult to get very good at.

Understanding the music and history is a very important element of learning to be a knowledgeable blues dancer. Parallel to blues music, blues dance is based on social dance styles created from African and European roots in America between the 1800’s and mid 1900’s, although it has experienced significant evolution within the last 10-15 years.

While there are a wide range of blues dances, each with unique dynamics, aesthetics, rhythms, attitudes, and step patterns; they share numerous characteristics that allow individuals to stylistically and creatively express the music. 

These include:

  • Asymmetry, bent limbs and torso
  • Polyrhythm, pulse, and dancing behind the beat
  • Everyday found movement
  • Movement radiating through all parts of the body
  • Call and response
  • Lead and follow
  • Emotion

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