How to do seconds in dance

Popular Ballet Turns: Ballet 101

17 December 2020

From pirouettes to fouettés, here is a list of popular ballet turns that will have you spinning with enthusiasm.

Mimi Tompkins in Ballet Arizona’s “The Sleeping Beauty.” Choreography by Ib Andersen. Photo by Alexander Iziliaev.

Chaînés

Chaînés, meaning “chains” in French, is a two-step turn where both feet alternate back and forth to keep moving in a line or circle. Dancers complete a full rotation for every two steps taken.

Piqué Turn

Meaning “to prick,” the term piqué has multiple uses in ballet. In terms of turning, the dancer is traveling across the stage, with one leg stepping en pointe or the ball of the foot and the other leg in the passé position. They also don’t just need to be single turns, a dancer can to a double, triple, etc.

Pirouette

Pirouette means “spin” or “whirl.” They are very common in variations, pas de deux, and in corps de ballet pieces. Pirouettes are done by turning on one leg, with the other off the ground and most likely in passé. There are three types of pirouettes:

Pirouette en dehors – meaning “turning outwards,” the dancer’s body turns towards the raised leg.

Pirouette en dedans – meaning “turning inwards”, the dancer’s body turns towards the supporting leg.

Pirouette à la seconde – This pirouette is commonly seen in men’s variations. What makes this turn unique is that one leg is raised at a 90 degree angle the entire time and finishes with bringing the leg into a passé, resulting in a whirlwind of pirouettes!

Fouetté

In French, fouetté means “whipped.” There are two main types of fouettè turns in ballet, Italian and Russian.

Russian – Russian fouettés are the most well-known! They are commonly performed by women in the coda section of the pas de deux. First, the dancer starts with one full pirouette in passé . Next, the dancer will do a plié on the standing leg, while the other leg extends to the front and “whips” to the side or a la secondé. Lastly, the dancer pops back up en pointe and brings the leg back in, to a passé, to turn again.

Italian – The Italian fouette is not as common but none-the-less just as stunning! It is mainly performed by women and starts with the dancer bringing one leg up into the air while going onto pointe, also known as a relevé développé. Next, the dancer will turn slightly and brush that same leg through the first position, now facing the back diagonally. Lastly, the dancer will do the fouetté by bringing the leg into an attitude and whipping around to the opposite diagonal…now, repeat!

Attitude

An attitude turn is considered to be one of the more difficult turns on this list. To perform this turn, a dancer must stand on one leg with the other lifted (either in the front or back). The lifted leg is slightly bent creating a 145-degree angle.

5 Dance Tips For Picking Up Choreography Fast

Being able to pick up choreography fast is something you can train and get better at.

So even if you feel defeated from not being able to keep up and falling behind in class, don't lose hope!

Use these tips each time you learn a piece and you'll notice how you're able to pick up choreography fast, without trying as hard.

1. DON'T watch the choreographer

Do you have a habit of staring straight at the choreographer when you learn, mirroring their moves every time they demonstrate?

And then, once you dance without them, you probably feel lost and confused.

In order to pick up choreography fast, you have to get your body to get used to the movement.

Learn with your eyes, but practice with your body.

This means studying the choreographer first to properly understand their movement, execution, and timing, but not relying on them to regurgitate the piece.

Push yourself to reduce the amount of times you watch the choreographer before you try it without watching them.

You'll start to pick up choreography fast by taking the training wheels off (not watching the choreographer) earlier in the class.

2. Mess up, then move on

The choreographer is in control and sets the pace of things in a class, but sometimes you can’t keep up.

Maybe there’s that one move or combo that keeps messing you up.

Which makes you keep reviewing it again and again, missing the next move, and then the next...

We have a tendency to be fixated on trying to execute every single move perfectly, but sometimes you have to settle for “close enough” and move on.

You can always come back and improve upon it later.

Go over what you need in between gaps of instruction to make the most of your time, but don’t let it stop you from learning the rest of the piece.

3. Don’t dance and

just watch

This is a little counter-intuitive. .. Don’t dance?? In a dance class?????

However, sometimes there are details your eyes can catch that the choreographer won't explicitly teach.

If they were to explain every single little detail you’re supposed to be executing, then classes would take days.

So catch your breath for a second and really watch what the choreographer is doing.

Not only will you pick up choreography fast, you'll learn to embody the mood, timing, and character much better – which are more important than the exact body placements, anyway.

4. Take multiple classes in a day

When it comes down to it, the ability to pick up choreography fast does require your brain to do some training. Taking multiple classes is a huge strain mentally and physically, and that's the exact how it teaches you to pick up choreography fast.

‍Don't live around any studios? No worries. Here's How To Learn Dance With No Dance Classes In Your Area

5.

Expose yourself to more styles of dance

There are those moments when you get stuck on a move that everyone else seems to get...

Maybe it's a Loose Leg or a Hip Hop groove – but you’re not trained in that style.

In order to pick up choreography fast, it helps to have an expansive range of dance vocabulary.

Being comfortable with moves from different styles will make it much easier to pick up choreography fast because those moves are already ingrained in your muscle memory!

So practice and perfect any moves you come in contact with, because you’ll never know when they’ll come up in another combination.

Clay and Jessie give more tips on how to pick up choreography fast – watch this video!

Did these help you out? Have your own tips to learn choreography faster? Leave a comment below!

types of flexibility and basic stretching exercises

Contents

A flexible body, elastic muscles and mobile joints are the key to beauty and health at any age. Flexibility is not only innate, but also an acquired quality. Without a doubt, every dancer should have it.

What is flexibility

Flexibility is the ability of the body, namely muscles, ligaments and joints, to give maximum amplitude in various movements and physical exercises.

The flexibility of the body depends on genetics, the structure of the joints, the elasticity of the tendons. This indicator is also related:

with age. Children and adolescents tend to be more flexible than adults;
with floor. Women are naturally more flexible than men;
with the level of physical fitness and fitness.

Types of flexibility as it happens

There are several varieties:

Dynamic flexibility is the maximum possible range of motion in a joint without any outside help. For example, standing against a wall, the athlete raises the leg to the highest possible level and holds it for several seconds. Also, the dynamic view is fixed when performing exercises, for example, with swings; nine0015
Passive (static) flexibility always exceeds active dynamic. It is achieved with an external impact on the joint. For example, the athlete or his partner holds the raised leg with the hand in maximum amplitude;
Special refers to the mobility of specific joints. Different sports and dances require different levels of joint mobility;
Anatomical. Habitual daily movements in terms of joint mobility are very limited. Use of the reserve of pledged flexibility up to 95% occurs only during special classes;
Excessive flexibility is dangerous, as the stability of the joint is lost and the maximum stretching of muscles and ligaments is reached. This is fraught with injuries (dislocation, rupture, sprain).

Why flexibility is important for dancers

Good flexibility is the key to beautiful amplitude movements and speed of changing positions

A flexible body is more responsive, plastic and enduring. Good amplitude in the work of all joints gives excellent coordination between all parts of the body. nine0003

These motor indicators are extremely important in dance. Movable joints and stretch-responsive muscles make the body supple, able to quickly perform complex movements and ligaments.

Flexibility can be improved by regular stretching.

What exercises help to develop flexibility

Stretching (from the English "stretching") always begin with a quality warm-up of the whole body. Pulling muscles and ligaments is possible only in a heated state. To do this, it is enough to perform a warm-up of 2-3 dynamic exercises, involving all the main joints. nine0003

Flexibility exercises:

Neck . Grab your head with your right hand and press your ear against your right shoulder, stretching the left side of your neck. Lock the position for 30 seconds. Repeat with your left hand.
Spine, thoracic . Starting position on all fours. Bend your back down and lift your head up, remaining in the position for 10-15 seconds. Arch your back up, lowering your head down. Hold the position for another 15 seconds. Repeat several times at a slow pace. nine0071
Spine, back of thighs . An exercise from the arsenal of yoga "Downward Dog". Place your feet and hands on the floor shoulder-width apart and bring them closer until you reach the body in an inverted V. The foot is completely on the floor, legs are straight. For greater effect in position, you can sway slightly, creating a arch in the back.
Spine, core muscles . Lying on your stomach, bend your knees, bring your feet to your buttocks. Wrap your arms around your feet and pull your legs back and up. The thoracic spine takes the maximum deflection. The position is fixed for 20-30 seconds. nine0071
Hip Extension . Lunge forward with your right foot and shift your weight onto it. Tilt your body forward and lean on your elbows. Maintain the position for up to 30 seconds. Repeat with the other leg.
Lateral Thigh Extension . Sitting on the floor, spread your legs as wide as possible. Place your body and arms on the floor as far as possible. Stay in position for up to 30 seconds.

Tips from experienced choreographers for stretching

Flexibility exercises are performed at a calm pace, the muscles are stretched until a slight tolerable pain appears. In each position, you should stay up to 20-30 seconds, holding the maximum amplitude of the stretch.

For general flexibility development, it is enough to stretch 1-2 sessions per week as a small addition to the main workout. The presented set of flexibility exercises is one of the possible options for this form of training.

If increasing the flexibility of the body is the main task, then it is worth doing stretching in the format of a full-fledged lesson. We recommend starting stretching under the guidance of an experienced instructor. nine0003

Benefits of working with a coach:

safety : no risk of injury;
effectiveness : the coach selects the exercises based on the physical data of the student;
speed : a professional instructor uses techniques to achieve maximum results in the shortest possible time.

The dance studio "La Boca" is open for stretching and stretching. Classes are conducted by a professional ballerina Victoria Krivtsova and an international master of sports in Latin American dances Olga Dubravina. Lessons are held in small groups and with an individual approach to everyone. nine0003

Dancing thinking and its development: ailev — LiveJournal

Immediately summary of this post:
-- we dance not with the body, but with the brain.

The body is just a tool, but the brain works.
- the complexity of dance thinking is that one cannot do without a body at all, and other thinking (with reservations about embodied intelligence) can live purely in the brain. Well, the dancer is both the stakeholder and the material. nine0135 - dance thinking is a specialization of systems thinking, it is engineering in nature, its goal is to create a successful dance (cf. successful system). This move has the traditional benefit of fighting complexity. But here you need to take into account: in dance thinking, work with many different viewpoints can be found! There may be many different "subjections" that serve different concerns.
- before considering dance thinking (patterns of movements to music), you need to deal with bodily psychopractices (which do not pull on thinking, but without which you will dance badly). nine0135 - dance thinking is interesting only in terms of its development.
- the results of modeling and development of dance thinking should be formalized either as some kind of activity standards (body of knowledge), or immediately in the form of some kind of training course.

The easiest way to look for such modeling results today is in the curricula of the best dance schools as "the content of education" (and should not be confused with teaching methods, "how to teach". No, for now we are discussing only "what to teach" in curricula). nine0002 Dance is usually associated with the body, but if you talk to dancers (especially dance teachers who need to quickly teach someone to dance - and preferably to the level of "champions"), it turns out that the brain dances and trains, and the body gradually obeys. Specific thinking takes place in the brain: dance thoughts, like the thoughts of systems thinking, mathematics and everything else, can be conscious or not conscious, this thinking does not live in every individual dancer, but in culture (“between people”, thinking cannot be discussed in Ptolemaic model of man - even if we are talking about a solo dancer). nine0003

To talk about dance thinking, you need to highlight it somehow. And then it turns out that there are many different ways of thinking about dance, it is multi-level and multi-disciplinary. And since thinking is closely connected with communication (including dance communication, for example, paired social dances), talking about dance thinking becomes no less difficult than talking about any other thinking. Even more complex: in systems thinking, of course, you can add a body (embodied intelligence), but in dance thinking you can’t do without a body, or even several bodies. nine0003

Moreover, dance thinking is hardly distinguishable from non-thinking practices-experiences that have no rationality, that "just are", that are simply patterned gestalts of states-positions of the mind and states-positions of the body. See, for example, the texts "my three months of kizomba" http://ailev.livejournal.com/1312598.html and "kizomba, exotelo and basic for dancing intelligence" http://ailev.livejournal.com/1315064.html

If, when discussing systems thinking, engineering thinking, one can somehow abstract from the "bearer of thinking" and discuss the ideal flow of thought and the content of this thought, then in dance thinking it is impossible to abstract from the carrier of thinking by principle. As Anton Klimat (this is his pseudonym, he is actually Anton Klimov, the head of the Breakwater studio, which prepares hip-hop champions - https://vk.com/klimat) said a few days ago at a training session, "the dancer needs to be especially honest [reflexive] - because if the artist immediately sees with his eye that he has smeared in the wrong place, the musician immediately hears with his ear that he played something wrong, then the dancer is deprived of such an opportunity if he is in the course of the dance does not look in the mirror. At any moment, the dancer must understand what is happening with his body, be honest and truthful in his feelings - this dance is different from other arts. " The focus of dance thinking is the dancer himself and what is happening to him, the dance is inalienable from the dancer. As I already wrote about the dance - here the dancer is both the material of the target system, and the stakeholder, who has his own interests. And so it is necessary to discuss separately "thinking of the material" (psychopractices) and "thinking of the stakeholder" (mental patterns taken from culture). nine0003

"Thinking of the material", low-level perceptions and patterns of movement are connected with the body, they make it possible to realize the dancing idea of the dancer-stakeholder - this is "thinking about movements", not even "thinking about dance". This is motor thinking, "about the body and its movements."

The difference between this motor/body and dance thinking is about the same as between rational thinking and its logical foundations (see, for example, http://ailev.livejournal.com/1311261.html) and systems thinking -- the second is not happens without the first, builds on it. An illogical thinker cannot be a systems thinker. Similarly, a poorly moving (or poorly imagining movement) person cannot be a dancer. But rational thinking together with logical thinking is incorporeal in this regard (although there are nuances about embodied intelligence), but voluntary motor thinking (and not already patterned by dance!) thinking is bodily. Well, it should also be noted that along the line of development of rational thinking, you can get a Nobel Prize, and along the line of development of motor thinking, you can only set a Guinness record (becoming a world champion in some kind of dance or martial arts is also about performing in the arena, see below). "psycho-practices of the animal nature", http://openmeta.livejournal.com/236318.html). nine0003

The problem is that a good dancer doesn't think about movement in an arbitrary way, but in a very specific way. And this thinking can also be taught, and taught explicitly. The difference in explicit (through intelligible explanations of the principles and then through specially selected exercises) and implicit ("on the best samples", according to the principle "do as I do", i.e. purely on mirror neurons, "like monkeys") learning is usually five once in time. If you don’t want to learn five times faster, then you don’t need to “learn through awareness”, and then you could not talk about this “thinking of the material”. From motor practices, I mentioned such a transition to intelligible learning, I know in taijiquan (section " learning taijiquan" at http://ailev.livejournal.com/1013825.html), piano (http://ailev.livejournal.com/944960.html), and from the ones I recently met - just Anton Klimat's movement training school.

Boris Mayer just told me that he discovered a "general motor processor" in a person, which is suitable for superimposing any movement patterns on him - even ballroom dancing, even any other dances, even taijiquan, even any other martial arts. But he is personally interested in taijiquan, and therefore he is not particularly involved in explicitly describing and highlighting the practices of teaching motor skills as such, the practices of thinking about your body as a moving body, the psychopractices of bodily movement as such, not yet patterned by kizomba, taijiquan or a waltz from sports dances . Anton Klimat is about the same about this level of motor skills, only in relation to hip-hop in general and wavering in particular: he clearly does not distinguish it, but understands its existence well. This gives both the acceleration of learning for their students five times compared to learning the movements immediately patterned by their movement styles - that is, the gain in speed is obtained by dividing the actual dance (taijiquan is exactly the same dance as any other in my imagination), those. culturally patterned movement and movement as such, not yet affected by patterning, but conscious and developed for the perception of this patterning - prepared for the rapid development of the actual dance (in a specific dance or sports style) movement. nine0003

The leading scheme for me in thinking about this bodily level, borderline between thinking and just psychopractices, is the scheme of the (cyber)psyche (see the report "psychic engineering" http://openmeta.livejournal.com/238030.html, slide 13 https://www.slideshare.net/ailev/ss-58654585), and taking into account the possibility of the emergence of cyber components, http://openmeta.livejournal.com/237056.html (I myself tried to understand how I move smoothly using the graph from the accelerometer in the phone.There are gadgets for athletes like "smart racket", there will certainly be gadgets for dancers). nine0003

A good dancer thus has different points of attention on the body and other ways of controlling the body, other possibilities -- and these possibilities come to the body "through the brain", there are no other ways! Say, where does the beauty of hand movements come from?

1. Some muscles stop interfering with other muscles (isolation as the ability to contract one muscle, not large groups of muscles, which immediately gives you completely different possible trajectories of movement, as well as plasticity - the ability of a muscle not only to contract, but also to stretch, which adds significantly to the range of possible trajectories). Anton Klimat offers here some special training based on three modes of muscle work: tension (pressure sensation), stretching (burning sensation), relaxation (limp sensation). And you need to train conscious control of all three states, and in times less than a second (dancing is fast! And if under tension this “less than a second” looks like a ridiculous requirement, then try to relax some tricky muscles that control the position of the pelvis in less than a second! relax any flexor, the extensor will not be able to fully work, and vice versa). Brain training here is simple, but it takes a significant amount of time: a) to “catch” the right muscle with its “clamp” with attention, and b) learn how to relax and strain it (and other muscles will stretch it, but only when it can be relaxed). nine0003

2. Control points are tied to bones and joints, and not to the usual ordinary coordinates. For example, you can lift and rotate the shoulder, or you can lift and rotate the scapula - of course, the movement of the scapula (i.e., the movement that is perceived in the mind as controlling the scapula, not the shoulder) leads to a rise and torsion of the shoulder. But the style will be significantly different: the movements of the scapula (well, or "from the scapula", as the dancers say) will be softer, smoother, and more varied. The problem here is that it is difficult to even imagine the movement of the scapula, it is difficult to control the different muscles that pull it up. But it is very easy to imagine and control the muscles when it comes to shoulder movement. This is the first task: to retrain the brain. Another example is the movements of the pelvis (try to twist it in different planes, this is a rude "plate" - and you need to be able to somehow turn it, quickly and accurately), movements of the spine in the region of the upper ribs (usually there is nothing at all moves unless you specifically design this place - but if you want to send a wave through the body, you will need this movement). nine0003

The passage "through awareness" in this training of "bodily thinking", thinking "dancer as material", this education of self-perception and self-control through a clear connection "brain-body" takes about five times less time than through unconscious repetitions of some movements. And the practices of this "bodily awareness" are approximately the same in all schools. So, “dance meditation”, work with the brain-without-the-body works well (well, or on micro-movements, when the muscles do not work at full strength, but only twitch a little, imperceptibly to the eye). The climate calls it break meditation, but it is also described for practicing piano playing, and it was also used by Mahmud Esenbaev for his training, and Cameron-Bostick likes to talk about it, who “does ballet” in the hospital. “Dancing inside the head” (or playing a musical instrument “inside the head”) and micromovements is already a common place, but this is a move towards awareness, towards psychopractice, although not yet towards some kind of civilized thinking. But when you "inside your head" pull not with your shoulder, but with a shoulder blade - at this moment culture works, the bodily thinking transferred to you works. nine0003

There are many ways to define/describe dance that are important for conscious thinking about dance. For example, all systems of external recording of movements will not be adequate as "notes" for a dancer - for a dancer moving "inside the head" with a spatula will have to somehow translate a description into another system of motor thinking, in which the movement of the shoulder, which is clearly visible from the outside, will most likely be recorded. ! Here's about these dance notations: http://ailev.livejournal.com/76767.html - there is an emphasis on performance, meaning "outside view". This is a notation for thinking about the dancer, not the movement thinking of the dancer himself. Although both can formally be attributed to dance thinking, but these are completely different manifestations of it! Moreover, this is a recording of "just movements", while the actual dance thinking works in a patterned way. In the same kizomba, all thinking revolves around exits to various sayids, and not around individual movements of the legs. Thus, you need to record patterns, not individual movements! nine0003

Here's another example of this "external", visual thinking about dance -- Optimal asymmetry and other motion parameters that characterize high-quality female dance, http://www.nature.com/articles/srep42435. The article draws a connection between the ability of women to make asymmetrical movements (which shows a high degree of development of the body and brain) and her "femininity", the perception of male as a potential partner and female as a potential competitor. Further, these results can be translated into an engineering plane: to teach dancing in such a way as to "make the right impression" (well, and generally discuss the requirements for dancing). Well, or declare the entire article nonsense: perception in dances depends more on culture, it is artificial, comes from thinking, and not from "instincts" - and if the study carried out in the article is repeated on people from the hinterland of Africa, in the US ballet school and the village urban type in the Far North of Russia, the results will be quite different. nine0003

In any case, from the level of the motor base, the "movement processor", the feeling of the body from the inside and the pattern of body movement from the outside (as well as the relationship between dance and music - working with rhythm at least, phrasing in music, weaving rhythm and form of dance movements into rhythm and form of parts of musical instruments in music - see the initial list of skills in "the most important skills of a dancer" http://ailev.livejournal.com/1324775.html) we can go to the next level of dance thinking - where there are no longer separate movements, and their pattern, i.e. dance. By and large, dance thinking will work with dance, while the body and its control will be considered developed. nine0003

There are also several different levels here, since different people are concerned about different things, everyone has their own concerns (concerns):
-- within the given dance language (patterns of movements of some kind of dance). Thinking is dogma, the canon of some kind of dance or dance family. Here, too, you can set different perspectives, build different methods of description, build a canon in different ways. For example, postulating a dance as inseparable from its music, or deriving a canon from the performance of some particular dance school (and albeit a large one - say, city parties somewhere in Luanda) at some period of time (say, in 80- years of the last century), or deriving the canon from some historical considerations, or simply referring to authorities with their "sense of correctness", or making attempts to formalize some ideas and mercilessly cutting off everything that does not fit under it. For example, discussions of "true kizomba" from this series. But further within the framework of the canon, this thinking also exists, we can talk about the degree of its development, wealth or limitation, productivity or secondary. nine0135 - outside the given dance language, in other words - the development of dance, going beyond the limits of some canon.
-- beyond the boundaries of dance as such, access to broader cultural patterns (for example, along the line of hip-hop culture, where breakdance is only one of the components of a wider culture, and the canon is wider, as well as development is not only breakdance).
-- beyond these broader patterns, out into patterned thinking as such. nine0003

And at each of these levels, one can talk about "perception from within oneself as a dancer", "perception as a dance partner", "perception by observers/spectators/judges/friends" -- and further attempts to satisfy the most diverse interests/concerns of all the most varied interests , realizing that dance as a "successful system" is very difficult to make.

Here it should be noted separately that dancing is clearly not science, but engineering - therefore, systems thinking is quite applicable to dancing. In this regard, in dancing, the task is to create (realization, "bringing into reality") a successful dance (successful dance), which satisfies, if possible, all stakeholders - both the dancer himself from the inside, and his partner / partner (also from the inside, remember about the connection! ), and viewers, and parents, and many, many others. Remember that a successful system is included in the very first phrase of the systems engineering definition - it is a system that satisfies the expectations of the project stakeholders (see the very first phrase in the systems engineering definition: http://www. incose.org/AboutSE/WhatIsSE). Well, those familiar with systems engineering do not need to be told that the dance "here and now" is just a 4D individual (a kind of "worm in space-time"), we even especially analyze this example in the classes of systems thinking. nine0003

So I personally would finally become non-pop, non-humanitarian and non-poetic, and build further reasoning about dance thinking as about engineering thinking, and to the extent that dance implies collective forms of its existence, I would also add managerial thinking. Thus, I would talk about dance thinking and dance practices in much the same way as about the thinking and practices of programmers, or the thinking of machine learning system engineers - what is there with the requirements for the dance, what is there with the architecture, what are the modules in the dance and what components , and even what kind of placements there are in the dance. Everything is not so original, but such an approach certainly allows you to somehow take into account the plurality of stakeholders in the dance and the plurality of their interests. Including interests in poetry, pop, ease of perception, compliance with some cultural canons, etc. material", and as "stakeholders", so that the methods of traditional "iron" and software engineering are unsuitable for creating dances. However, these engineering methods are many and they work. They reduce complexity in dealing with different situations, they provide reproducible results, they enable teamwork. And they leave a huge scope for creativity, no one has yet canceled the work of the head for that same engineering thinking - it does not cancel the engineering approach to dance and the work of the head for the manifestation of creativity in dance thinking. nine0003

Thus, above "body thinking", "motor thinking" there appears a level of patterned dance thinking within the framework of some kind of dance tradition.

In a good way, I would need to develop this idea further and tell what are the modules of the dance, what are the interfaces, which concerns of which stakeholders are made out by which viewpoints - with examples, without "bird language", understandable to dancers and the general public . But I won't do it.

Instead, I note that there are recognized pioneers in engineering - they propose new architectures that respond to new architectural requirements. What was previously considered impossible by a variety of stakeholders is becoming possible with these pioneers. They push the boundaries of the possible, they create the new. The rest are second-moverers, third-moverers and other rearguards and gray masses. This argument about engineering fully applies to dancing. nine0003

The main innovation of this post is a suggestion to take from engineering the methods of dealing with complexity that allow you to create successful engineering systems and apply them to dance. This will allow mass and conscious creation of successful dances. Moreover, it will allow the development of dances, making them more complex and sophisticated, but without going beyond the limits of ordinary human capabilities.

You can get great pleasure dancing the same waltz in its dogmatic version from youth to old age. There are stakeholders who need exactly this, this is an ideal. All their thinking is slowly moving into the unconscious, leaving a pure and uncomplicated trance - either a change of partner or a change of music can bring variety. But I'm not one of those conservatives. Art, including in its social, rather than professional and performative forms, develops and grows with new languages, new styles, new thoughts, and not by carefully preserving and polishing the classics. This discussion about art fully applies to dances, exactly the same as about engineering, which is also valuable for the by no means careful preservation of some kind of bridge building as of the middle of the last century. nine0003

When it comes to dance thinking, development is important to me - creating new dances that will be successful for more and more dancers, spectators, judges, art historians, DJs, friends, families and other people affected by dance.

To do this, dancers must have their own R&D, engineering (and sometimes just scientific) research and development. There should be experiments that go beyond what is already known and tested. There must be passages into new dances, there must be finds of rich and expressive dance languages. nine0003

Six months ago I found the social dance "kizomba" and found that it is largely inexhaustible -- research and development, formulating new requirements and building new kizomba architectures. Or no longer kizomba? It does not matter what words to call and what classification will then be built post factum. But it is important where and how the dance is developing, how the "dance engineers" communicate, how the research is organized. nine0003

The dance industry is like the mass production of dance -- it happens at parties. Thousands and thousands of dances are produced there. Yes, sometimes something new is also produced there, a party at the same time and an "exhibition of the achievements of the dance economy." But more often than not, new things are produced purposefully in the course of research and development, and this happens mainly in dance schools. Of course, schools are different. Most dance schools are just educational institutions: their teachers take master classes in various other schools and then pass on knowledge to students, preserving the canon. But there are dance schools focused on research. An example of such a dance school in Moscow is AfroFusion (http://afrofusion.ru/). For example, here is one of their research products: Kizomba Fusion -- https://youtu.be/whNe6zgPrV0. This is not the only result of the research. AfroFusion teachers lead a community https://vk.com/kizombamoscow, where a lot of materials on Fusion Kizomba have been published over the past few months - and most often today this is the junction of kizomba and dubstep (I myself, by the way, noticed that the frontier of kizomba is creeping towards dubstep back in November -- http://ailev.livejournal.com/1310496.html, http://ailev.livejournal.com/1311543.html. But AfroFusion noticed this earlier - in addition to several kizomba programs (very different: traditional, classical, fusion, urban kiz, tarraxa and even tarrax'osteo) there is also a dubstep group led by the same Anton Klimat. And this group is attended not only by ordinary students like me, but also by teachers. Well, the dubstep itself in this group is tailored to the interests of kizomba, this is also part of the research - but Anton's research in terms of the development of hip-hop in its fusion with other dances, the development of dance thinking of illusory styles. nine0003

AfroFusion teachers also lead the Yu community, where they publish their "projects" on the study of dance novelties (for example, there was a series of publications on urban tarraxa), biographies of figures in the kizomba world and other things that cannot be called "research and development", but what demonstrates some level of reflexivity in work. The same can be said about Thierry Déa's studio in St. Petersburg, they put on a rebit there: https://vk.com/video175030_456239031 - although I wouldn't say that we are talking about some kind of "creating a new one", but it's a disaster Start. Experiments go with movements, with music, the results are laid out on video (here is Dnepropetrovsk - https://youtu. be/lpNcbuIZQ3g, here is Krasnodar - https://youtu.be/fcb0TXThmMU, here is Kaliningrad - https://www .youtube.com/channel/UCCP-WhRAISTmE6ZSsgmkFgw, and this is not the whole list). I would draw attention to the fact that this is not so much about "advertising videos" and demonstrations of various "shows" (which can be extremely negatively perceived by fans of social dances, there is an opinion that "teaching kizomba" and "shows" incompatible with kizomba itself!). I would pay attention to the fact that there is some kind of research activity, some kind of development, some kind of advancement of the boundaries of dance, attempts to take some step in the development of dance thinking. nine0003

GP Shchedrovitsky wrote a book "Pedagogy and Logic", where he clearly showed that if there is no combined research and educational activity, then education cannot be of high quality. This I mean that if we are talking about "research schools", then the education in them will be of high quality, there is a chance to teach dance thinking, to make this thinking conscious. And if it's "just a school" that takes dance thinking in its unreflected form and tries to transfer it unconsciously to its students - I'm sorry, but such a school will only release good dancers into life by chance. nine0003

There is also a real university science of dance, and there is a lot of it on the Internet in a variety of languages. There, higher dance education is close, and even academic degrees in dance and their study. But usually this is far from life, it is a "theory", not life. For life, some Portuguese professor (not a university professor, but just a "teacher"! This is not English, everyone confuses the translation here!) Like mestre Petchu (http://www.mestrepetchukilandu.com/biografia.html, here is an example of him work -- he explains the basic movements of tarraxinha -- https://youtu.be/aHbjn_JQLa0) is often more influential than a major university graduating dancers with a real high school diploma. nine0003

Well, you can’t say in a nutshell about dance thinking itself, volumes have already been written about it (as well as about systems thinking, computational thinking and any other thinking, as well as “just thinking”). But I will repeat the main idea of this post: it is worthless to try to describe it, to develop it, if we are not talking about education. For I adhere to a constructivist interpretation: if you understand what the essence of dance thinking is, then be ready to demonstrate it in the educational process, i.e. take a student (and even yourself) and show how your version gives a successful dance with less effort, in less time than other methods. Well, or with a comparable time, it gives a more successful dance than the dances obtained by other variants of dance thinking, or even "beyond thinking". This applies to all thinking. If you figured out how to think well, then write a textbook and do exercises for it - create a training course for good thinking. Without this, any talk about thinking is meaningless. nine0003

This means that dance thinking can be found in the curricula of the best dance schools. And then you can try to overcome the complexity, relying on systemic and engineering thinking about dance.

UPDATE: Facebook discussion -- https://www.facebook.com/ailevenchuk/posts/10209485959599942
Track concern (wow!) with the text of the first few lines of the post from Valery Veryaskin (https://www.facebook.com /valery.veryaskin) -- https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3av2yybeezx3rj/concerns.mp3?dl=0
Anton Klimat's review -- https://vk.com/wall7236650_5234
Huge discussion of different dancers -- https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.vilvovskaya/posts/10154668226083705 (and a lot of my clarifying comments)
Discussion with emphasis on the "interpretation" of both dances and neural networks and a systematic approach: https://www.facebook.com/alexander.girshon/posts/1640359375980662
Discussion, including about "alchemy and chemistry" in dance, as well as the possibility of an engineering approach https://www.facebook.com/groups/fulldayideokinesis/permalink/1838725396157102/
Discussion in the KIZOMBA community (alas, only a small part of the post was published there - but the discussion about "muscle memory" and dancing did take place): https://vk.