this (found here) caught my interest.
It’s dance, captain, but not as we know it.
My first response: oooh, man-dancing. That was just my initial response – how masculine the dance was. The performance was. Shouting, synchronised, ‘fighty’ style. I don’t know anything about Yosakoi(I’ll go read more in a tick).
But then I was interested in the synchronised-ness of it (that always fascinates me, obsessed as I am with the Af-Am lindy where you were ‘synchronised’ in that you all did the same steps, but it was almost mandatory that you add your own, distinct styling).
And then with the music (ooo, contemporary music. Interesting).
And then with the shouting.
I was thinking, last Thursday night as I ran around on the dance floor, mid-way through the Big Apple, completely lost in the steps (ie, I had no clue what I was doing), but really enjoying all the running around – we were doing the spank the baby bit where you run around in a circle… that was the best bit. Crinks had apparently decided that Brian was running too slowly, so she decided to run faster and overtake him. The rest of us, competitive instincts obviously stimulated, responded by running faster as well, and adding a few pushes and shoves. Jazz dance = contact sport. That bit with the spank the baby got kind of washingmachine-like. There was also a lot of shouting during that bit, and also during the “Charleston!” bit, and then, just random shouting bits. Not all of us knew the damn thing. That didn’t seem to bother anyone, though I was (once again), the last one to grab a partner so I ended up on my onw for the partner bit. Again. It’s because I’m a lead-follow and I’m not fast enough to grab someone. There were about… 10? of us doing it on the social dance floor – Sally had stood up, saying “I’m going to do the Big Apple” and then gone straight onto the floor and done it. It was like a siren call – people descended on her from all over the room. I still don’t know any more than the first few phrases, but that didn’t stop me.
Ok, so I was thinking, as I was running around on the dance floor, shouting, about how the shouting is quite important. Some of my favourite songs are the ones where the musicians shout out – to each other, with excitement, just because. If I hear a musician shouting ‘yeah!’ at the end of a solo, or at the excitingest bit of a solo, I’m usually with them. Frida is a big shouter – you can hear her yelling all through that Todd and Naomi clip just before. And when she shouts when she’s performing, people respond.
But not everyone feels comfortable with the shouting. Usually the people who don’t feel comfortable with the not-perfectly-synchronised-routines.
So, watching that yosakoi clip, I was struck by the shouting, and how ordered it was. Nothing like “Charleston!” and the “yaaaah!!” shouting getting around last Thursday night at CBD.
