One afternoon I was talking with a friend about dancing and the topic of watching YouTube clips came up. He said that he would watch clips of routines, but he didn't like the idea of watching clips of social dancing. If I understood him right, he didn't like watching them because he thought it took away from your own personal dancing...that in watching social dancing clips, part of the art of dancing is lost. Or that that dance was supposed to happen in that moment and watching a clip of it will never do that moment justice.
I think I feel the opposite, that in watching social dancing clips, it's like dancing at the Savoy and learning new moves from other dancers for your own social dancing. Plus, one of the reasons I love being a follow in the social dance realm is the never really knowing what's coming next. By watching social dance clips, you get to see that excitement and spur of the moment playfulness in someone else's dancing. (Although I will agree that a watching a video of a social dance will never match the moment in which it actually happened.)
What do you think about watching social dance clips?
Here are some of my favorite social dancing clips:
Dax Hock and Sarah Breck:
Thomas Blacharz and Alice Mei: (I've already posted this one, but I really enjoy it)
Nick Williams and Sylvia Sykes (balboa):
My favorite social dance clips from the past two years
ReplyDelete2009 http://jsalmonte.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/favorite-performances-of-2009-social-dances/
2010
http://jsalmonte.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/favorite-videos-2010-social-lindy-hop/
With my absolute favorite social dance clip from 2010 in this post
http://jsalmonte.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/favorite-favorites-2010-we-are-lindy-hop/