Dance Blog

Our musings on all things Dance!

Archive for the ‘Dance Touch’ Category

Dancer’s touch-Couples

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

What is it about touch in a couples dance?  So exciting to see a couple who really touch in their dance, something about the total pleasure of a signal given and received.  The touch can be gentle or firm, sharp or smooth, a lead or a follow.  There is something too about the anticipation, the inhale by both people just before a delicious encounter.

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Dancer’s touch-shoes or bare feet

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Why do some dancers use shoes and some go barefoot?  The choice has to do with the amount of friction needed and how the dancer wants to feel the floor.  Each dancer has their goal of the kind of feedback they want from the way their feet meet the floor.  And for different styles of dance the goals are different for the same dancer.

With a dance shoe, the entire foot centers its focus on one area of the foot and it is easier to identify that point of contact when there is one unified sole.  A dancer will sometimes want to have the sensation of all the nerve endings touching the floor and for these times, barefoot is best.

The dance shoe is designed to give that feeling of the floor and to move as if it were a part of the foot.  That is the reason that the fitting is usually tighter than a street shoe.  http://www.movineasy.com  The soft leather sole gives the feeling of the floor with the control to be able to move quickly and stop easily.

As dancers work with momentum and gravity, the amount of friction affects the way they want to enter into a  movement whether it is spinning, flying through the air, or rolling on the ground.  Bare feet are often covered with a tape or a lyrical shoe to reduce friction and still give the impression of bare feet.  The dance shoe is designed to respond to the smallest movement for entering a turn or a spin with the added control of being able to stop easily.

Hard leather soles are too slick to give this kind of control and do not allow the dancer to sense the floor as well as the soft leather sole.  Street shoes and athletic shoes are not designed to move in every direction or to give the kind of feedback from the floor that a dancer needs.

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Dancer’s touch-shoes

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Dance shoes are designed to help explore how the feet touch the ground.  The common phrase that dancer’s use is. “I can feel the floor better with this shoe.”

A dancer spends years training their feet to sense the tiniest change of balance to feel every part of the foot as it meets the floor.  For this reason, most dance shoes are designed with thin soft leather soles so that the dancer can feel exactly how their feet are touching the floor. http://www.movineasy.com

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Dancer’s touch the floor

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The dancer is the explorer when it comes to the infinite ways to leave the ground and come back down with ease.  Their study is the principles of gravity and momentum.  Educating their feet is a primary concern, how their feet touch the ground.

Dance is the exploration of touch, the way the feet meet the floor.  Every exercise and movement trains how the feet work and how to build a power stance and how to move the feet on the floor for balance, maximum ease of movement, and powerful springing into leaps and jumps.

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