This morning as I was doing my "Dancing With the Stars - Cardio Dance
", I thought of folk dancing. Go figure. :D But it made me realize that many of us dance to music without giving much thoughts to poise and grace of our body. We dance because it is fun! We follow the steps 1-2-and-3, but are we really executing them correctly? Does our body conveys the message of romance or grace or whatever it is the dance is all about?
When I was a member of BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble, I learned many different folk dance steps and performed them well. But what I realized then and now is that if I'm doing it without understanding the actual body motions, I'm not doing the folk dances any justice. For example, when I watched my co-dancers perform the Irish Riverdance, they looked very talented and professional ... but in comparison to the local Irish professional dancers, somehow we are missing something ...
So this morning as I thought of folk dancing, I realized that many of us dance without the "grace and poise" of the locals. My expertise is in Asian dancing, more specifically--Chinese and Filipino folk dancing. I have a non-profit dance organization where I teach Filipino and Chinese folk dances to Asians. The first thing I teach them are the body's fluidity. We can always do the steps of course, they're just skips, waltzes, minces, contra-ganzas, etc. But when not done with grace and poise, Asian folk dancing becomes very long, boring, and monotonous.
Check out the Bayanihan Folk Dancers on YouTube.com. The steps are usually quite easy, but the way their heads, hands, & feet move ... they make these dances look so interesting and beautiful.
Learning the graceful art of folk dancing is not difficult. You just have to be teachable and be very persistent about it.
", I thought of folk dancing. Go figure. :D But it made me realize that many of us dance to music without giving much thoughts to poise and grace of our body. We dance because it is fun! We follow the steps 1-2-and-3, but are we really executing them correctly? Does our body conveys the message of romance or grace or whatever it is the dance is all about?When I was a member of BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble, I learned many different folk dance steps and performed them well. But what I realized then and now is that if I'm doing it without understanding the actual body motions, I'm not doing the folk dances any justice. For example, when I watched my co-dancers perform the Irish Riverdance, they looked very talented and professional ... but in comparison to the local Irish professional dancers, somehow we are missing something ...
So this morning as I thought of folk dancing, I realized that many of us dance without the "grace and poise" of the locals. My expertise is in Asian dancing, more specifically--Chinese and Filipino folk dancing. I have a non-profit dance organization where I teach Filipino and Chinese folk dances to Asians. The first thing I teach them are the body's fluidity. We can always do the steps of course, they're just skips, waltzes, minces, contra-ganzas, etc. But when not done with grace and poise, Asian folk dancing becomes very long, boring, and monotonous.
Check out the Bayanihan Folk Dancers on YouTube.com. The steps are usually quite easy, but the way their heads, hands, & feet move ... they make these dances look so interesting and beautiful.
Learning the graceful art of folk dancing is not difficult. You just have to be teachable and be very persistent about it.
