Fancy Footwork

[Editor's Note: The following post was written by guest blogger and friend, BangBang. Please give her a warm welcome!]

On this perfectly rainy Friday, I decided to accept the offer of writing a short piece as a guest blogger on MindMedley. Little did I know, the task before me would not be as easy as I imagined. It took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to write about until I finally decided to stick with something I am passionate about, DANCE. So let me just give you a quick little glance into the dancing world. I tend to get overly excited when it comes to all things dance so I will do my best to keep it short and sweet for all of you MindMedley 

                                                                                 readers out there. 

There are so many different types of dance practiced all over the world. There’s your classic Ballroom dance, Latin dance, Belly dance, Indian dance, Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Modern, and Hip Hop, just to name a few. I won’t go into all of the gory details of each style but I just wanted to share some of the popular dance styles out there. Now for a fun historical tidbit that you can use to impress that pretty girl sitting at the bar…

The expression “Dancing ‘til you drop” played a big part during the 1930s. Dance marathons were a popular means of forgetting about the daily hardships of the Great Depression and a way of winning some money. Contestants would dance for days at a time with only fifteen minute breaks every hour. At the time, many churches considered dancing sinful and the activity held a somewhat disrespectable place in society. But despite a controversial status, dance marathons were embedded in American culture. They really knew how to have a good time!

 

I think that dance is something incredible. It combines strength and grace in movements you might think would be impossible. And yet, dancers manage to move in such a way that you can’t help but be amazed, and even possibly mesmerized. Dance can take on so many different perspectives. I think part of the beauty is that you can give a choreographer/dancer a theme or piece of music and different choreographers/dancers will envision so many various creative outcomes.

Take the dance company Pilobolus for instance. It explores using the physical interaction of the bodies of the performers and the contortions of the human form to produce astonishing imagery. The dancers have to be so precise in their movements and their interactions with each other in order to construct such strikingly artistic poses. Every time I watch this company I am awestruck at the amount of strength they possess and the agility with which they create incredible masterpieces using only the human form. Pretty impressive, what do you think?

 

Ok, I think I’ve blabbered on enough about dance for now. But before I go, I wanted to share a couple of different dance videos and let you decide for yourself whether or not it’s really as incredible as I, being biased of course, claim it to be. Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks to the veteran blogger on here, KT, for sharing a little blogging space for a new voice ☺ Thanks girl!

Dance vids: Here is a personal favorite of mine. I think it really captures the strength, grace, and seemingly effortless movements of dance.

How does his body do that?!  

I just wanted to include this little video because I love the way that all of these people are brought together by the shared enjoyment of a little dancing. And because I desperately want to be a part of one! Who’s in? Haha