Lesson 1

The Art of Dance with Bruce: Foundational rhythms and foundation pt.1

TEST:

  • Friday, September 20, 2019 in class
  • Grade 8 retreat leaders only: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 @ 7:30am in the dance studio

Friday, September 6, 2019

Operational definitions:

  • Dance: To move rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps.
  • Rhythm: A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound/ the systematic arrangement of musical sounds, principally according to duration and periodic stress.
  • Foundation/Technique: The underlying principles and movements that make up a dance style.
  • Groove: An established routine or habit/ the product of one or more body parts moving in rhythm
  • Mono rhythmic: A type of groove in which all body party are following one rhythm

With this flushed out it should seem clear that in order to dance, there are TWO key components we must develop and work with.

  1. Rhythm:This comprises all elements of TIME within dance, including but not limited to; timing of steps, timing of pauses, choice of music, breathing, illusions based around time, and pacing.
  2. Foundation/Technique:This comprises all elements of SPACE within dance, including but not limited to; Steps, Grooves, Blow-ups or tricks, angles, formations, choice of costumes, facial expressions, illusions based around space, and use of levels. (We use the word foundation because not all dance styles necessarily have “steps” or even “grooves” however they all MUST have a foundation of technique of some variety in order to be considered a dance STYLE, a funky example of this is animation.)

Introduction to Rhythm

Music will always have a time signature, this will appear as a fraction with the numerator representing the beat as a division of the whole note and the denominator representing the number of beats in each bar. The most common time signature used for most all main stream music is 4/4 meaning the whole note is divided into quarters (aka has four beats) and there are four beats in each bar. 4X4 = 16 which is the standard amount of bars for a rap verse in a song which is where any lingo to do with “spitting a hot 16” comes from. (Choruses generally last 4 or 8 bars). This is one of the key breakdowns freestyle dancers will use to know when the song will change without needing to have ever heard it. This is also key because this is why musicians will count in “4”s, and why as dancers we learn to count in “8”s, it is simply an extended version in order to chunk material together in larger portions.

When composing music producers will layer the sounds in consistent patterns forming different rhythms within the song. As dancers we seek to layer movement in consistent patterns forming different rhythms within our dance.

The first consistent patterns we will be looking at are the quarter bounce (4,8), half bounce (2,4,6,8), single bounce (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8), the double bounce (1,and,2,and,3,and,4and etc), and the octo bounce (1, and, a, 2, and, a ,3, and, a, 4 etc).

Rhythm can be regulated and manipulated in a number of ways, when dancing the easiest place to start is with the three key centres of the body.

  • Hips, the centre of the body
  • Elbows, the centre of the arm
  • Knees, the centre of the leg

From these three parts alone one should be able to feel a cohesive syncopated rhythm, leading to the development of a groove.

From the three key centres one can continue to work on the three key externals, these body parts are crucial for communication and are infamously the first three places anyone will look when you are dancing. These are the Head, Hands, and the Feet.

When we begin to work with more complex movement than simple body part isolation it is IMPERATIVE that you maintain a METRONOME somehow, many dancers like to call this “home base” or “the boss”. Many drummers will actually listen to a metronome while they play live because they understand that they are “home base” for the band and how important it is to stay in rhythm.

There are an infinite number of things that could act as a metronome, many of them in dance will take the form of a GROOVE. Generally speaking with street dance the head should be involved in the groove at ALL TIMES unless it is purposefully not doing so, this contributes not only to the visual but greatly to the feeling you will get while dancing as well as the “nod your head along” sensation the viewer will receive.

All of the grooves I will be going over initially may involve more than one body part but will all be mono rhythmic grooves, meaning all body parts are following the same rhythm. Later on we will touch on polyrhythmic grooves where this is not the case, however this is much more advanced.

Note:

  • When accenting sound, you can’t stop groovin’!
  • The pocket: you are in the zone/song!
    • Staying in rhythm is crucial to hit this level!

Songs used in class demonstrating the 4/4 time signature:

  • The LP by Large Professor
  • Hey Mr. D.J. by Zhané
  • LoveKills!!! by 9th Wonder – Zion II
  • All Night Long (feat. P. Diddy) by Faith Evans
  • Funny Bones by Shash U’ – Battle Anthems
  • JAPAN by Famous Dex