Keeping it interesting

I'm currently in Maryland, for my winter break, which means I don't have access to quite the same forms of dancing I do back home in Boston. Luckily, I'm friends with a fair number of dancers, one of whom, Larry, hosts a regular dance night at his local community center. It tends to be a mix of couples dances, focusing especially on waltz (vintage and cross-step), swing (east coast), one-step, foxtrot, polka, and blues.

Last night was one of those dance nights, and due to everyone being home from their respective adventures, I managed to bring close to a dozen people, making it one of the biggest nights for that venue in a while. Larry was pleased, and with so many beginner or inexperienced dancers in attendance, the night led off with a couple rounds of teaching.

One of the things I typically do while dancing is to pick whether I dance lead/follow (or in set dancing, gent/lady) by seeing what role is more in demand, and going with that. This is one of the biggest advantages about being ambidancetrous --I can always dance, regardless of the role make-up of the rest of the room. So, when Larry asked people to pick a role for learning swing dance, I paused for a moment, to let everyone else decide, and was quite pleased to find an empty spot on the lead side of the room. For learning one-step, I switched back to follow, and for the open dancing for the rest of the evening, I mostly followed, but made sure to grab some of my stricttly-follow friends to practise leading.

The biggest observation from the night came from analyzing which dances were harder to lead than follow, and why. Certainly, not all couple-dancing is created equal (a one-step has much simpler basic footwork than a waltz) but in my experience, the lead and follow portions of any given couple dance often have very similar basic steps, and role only really starts to matter when it comes to flourishes and step variations. For instance, when it comes to waltz or polka, I feel equally apt at either role, where both one-step and swing I find to be significantly harder to lead than follow.

It took me leading a particularly nice swing with a friend of mine from high school to figure out the difference: Some dances are harder to lead because they are impossibly boring if you just stick to the basic step. See, even the basic step of a good waltz or polka is twirly and fun and involves throwing yourself around the dance floor with your partner in a form of glorious chaos. But the basic step of a one-step? The basic east-coast swing?

Yeah, so not worth spending three minutes doing. And that's where the role disparity occurs, because when it comes to doing things beyond the basic step, the job falls to the lead. Which is largely a good thing, as it keeps the dance floor from turning into a power struggle. But it does mean one needs a few special skills¹ to lead --creativity, improvisation, and, critically, a decent repertoire of flourishes, moves, and steps. So, leading a good swing dance is more than just getting the rhythm and steps right --you really need to throw in some elaboration to make it fun.

So now that I know that, I can concentrate a little more on learning some more interesting things to do while I dance those particular forms. Really though, I mostly just need to be confident in what I'm doing --I can dance swing, and I know at least a half dozen things to do to shake it up, which is enough to keep the follows of my level entertained.

And if all else fails, I can always just ask for the next waltz, instead.

1: This is not to say one doesn't need special skills to follow as well. One needs different skills to be proficient in each.