Stutter Feet

Aiyah

2008-04-17T00:10:00.000+08:00

Aiyah Aiyah!!!

These past few weeks busy with exam prep and dance rehs. No time to really sit down and blog.... Will post my long overdued posts in SGD and here soon.

- GrAHHH -

Dreams

2008-04-04T02:07:00.002+08:00

Awaits me when I wake, a bright spark.
Lights the gravels and stones.
Admist the path that we all take.
One that is there, that we take in the dark
Unblinking darkness. Do we stumble?
Onto the arms of comfort. The light which blinds
That we seek, yet it brings us back to darkness
Pitch darkness. And all we see was what we wanted
As it fades...

Step Up 2

2008-03-18T22:48:00.002+08:00

Just caught Step Up 2 during the weekend. I must say its quite an impressive show. Been caught a few times "Wowing" during the show. Haha... This time the movie focuses on freestyle and individual flavour. Most of the dancers have their own style and when they dance together, the choreo is made to showcase these differences. Pretty good! The mix for the music was awesome as well!! The bad thing was that it sounded a bit jumpy in between songs. Urg..maybe some minor mixing problems..hahha..storyline is damn predictable (as always with these sorta shows) but who cares!!!! Its for the dance aint it??? :P

Go watch it if you haven't. It might inspire you to find your own style and some great ideas in it too :)

-^_^arC

Singapore got Dance!

2008-03-04T23:07:00.002+08:00

Hey guys, we(me and a few friends) will be starting and maintaining a blog for dancers who want to know more about dance, find events, and hopefully to interact! Please give some support and bookmark http://singaporegotdance.blogspot.com ! Please bear with me as we are still in the midst of adding alot of stuff :) so tahan the plain design hehe

"Your body listens to your thoughts. Your thoughts listens to your heart"
-MarC

Me myself and I

2008-03-02T23:25:00.002+08:00

Dancing with a mirror can be useful sometimes, but i think its good to cultivate the habit of understanding your body. Notice how sometimes you feel lost when the instructor suddenly asks you to dance facing the wall? Yeah it seems like sometimes we use our reflection in the mirror as sort of a puppet, subconciously controlling its movement, rather than just dancing. It becomes sort of a reflex action that without the mirror, you dont know how to visualize the movement and thus cant really execute it.

=) so time to dance as yourself rather than dance with yourself

Studio Dancers vs Street Dancers

2008-02-19T00:42:00.002+08:00

This is a post in response/to add in Caleb's post about studio dancers vs street dancers. I personally feel its dancing against the mirror vs dancing against other eyes around you.

As a studio dancer you get the benefit of seeing yourself in the mirror, you are able to see your lines and do checks on yourself. Being a street dancer, all you have are others to comment on you. You have to KNOW or find our your lines and visualize how you look.

Both offer different values that we should all combine. As a studio dancer you may be too dependant on the mirror and the mirror gives you the advantage of contructing complex movements. Whereas street dancers rely more on feel and flow. Feeling confidant of their own movements.

Using the mirror is not all that bad. It helps you correct bad postures and habits and enables u to spot them quicker. It also aids in learning techniques. And studio classes help you build the essential core skills. Street dancers have to go through all the pain of realization and slow realization simply because they cannot see themselves most of the time. Not only that, they may start out with bad habits or the wrong set of core values/skills.

So isnt it wonderful if you could learn about technique + lines in studios but yet dance to the feel, freedom and culture of street dance?

Think about it!

Part 2/2: Vendetta

2008-02-13T01:14:00.000+08:00

Part 2 of my double entry post. Felt like writing alot today..

A walk to remember. I took my first step, a shaky attempt.
Carefully I took another. And another. Oh what would I find?
An eternity of steps each one a potential in any direction.
Where would I go? Ill be brave and just go....

Now a yearly tribute to the emotion that empowers all. Yet capable to destroy even more :

Feelings come as thoughts they go,
Blinds our sight, what we never know
Its like falling, only not knowing
A little light headed, a little queasy
Falling in love, its not just a feeling
What most come to know, its never ever easy

Happy faces line these simple roads,
The melody floats, romance in its notes.
Lines carefully rehearsed, lines foreheads reflect
Clever sweet nothings, poems given birth.
But love never needs, a message that direct
For it is about being love, not about feeling love.

Happy Valentine's Day to all those who are in this state of delightful stupor.

Part 1/2 : 23

2008-02-13T00:51:00.000+08:00

Ive grown to like this song over the years. More and more. Even more special since this year, ill be 23... It has a wonderful orchestral buildup. Take your time to read and listen to the whole song. Close your eyes, plug in your headphones and listen, let it drift you away and engulf in the melody..Ill write some of my own thoughts and words throughout the song as well as the original lyrics when he sings:

Intro music(no singing part):

Dreaming, flying, holding on.
Swimming in my thoughts.
Over the raw tide of emotions
Coming of age
Coming of wisdom
As things around become clearer
I see you
I see you
Only you

It was so real, barely out of grasp
Your sweetest scent. The sweetest escape
A temporary high, but now it leaves me on the ground
Holding to its hurt
Scrambling in desperation
Or is it desolation
I force my eyes shut; these troubled windows
Drawing the blinds for the blinded
I hope nothing leaks through them
It does in the end
drowning
gasping
A sound only echoes in silence

An empty room
It reminds me of its constant presence
A mirror?
Or just a looking glass
Perhaps it was just a passing figure
A reflection that was just a play
On the eyes its burden now gone
Drifting...

Singing Part:

I have felt for sure last night
That once we said goodbye
No one else will know these lonely dreams
No one else will know that part of me

Im still driving away
And im sorry everyday
I won't always love these selfish things
I won't always live not stopping

It was my time to decide
I knew this was our time
No one else will have me like you do
No one else will have me only you

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time. What are you hoping for?
Im here, Im now, Im ready. Holding on tight. Dont give away the end.
The one thing that stays mine.

Amazing still it seems
Ill be 23
I won't always love what Ill never have
I won't always live in my regrets

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time. What are you hoping for?
Im here, Im now, Im ready. Holding on tight. Dont give away the end.
The one thing that stays mine.

------

Freestyle?

2008-01-30T22:33:00.000+08:00

Just today after attending Carol's freestyle class, something hit me.

I felt that the class wasn't called freestyle hiphop just cuz the instructor was free to alter/play with different dance styles during the class. It was really meant to train and showcase personal style, hence freestyle.

Just like group choreo for competitions, when you attend an instructors class, you have to dance like the instructor. You need to learn how the instructor feels the music and catches all the accent. Then you have to execute it as close as possible. This will be the fundamental reason for attending the persons class. Likewise in a group choreo everyone has to look like the choreographer. Whatever accent and lines has to be that of the choreographer's intention, not personal style.

So based on that. I feel that classes that call themselves "freestyle" classes should really be aimed at just going to class, learning choreo as the backbone, but executing it with PERSONAL style. lines, attitude, character, etc. That should really be a freestyle class. Not free dance style but free personal style.

So this should be something to think about. Maybe there should be more of these classes in the future or instructors could variate their classes between normal classes and freestyle classes.

Freestyle definitely brings out a dancer's through flavour and helps build him/her internally. After all, beyond catching choreo is the dance itself....

Happy New Year

2008-01-04T17:50:00.001+08:00

2007 was good, may 2008 be better :)

Time for everyone to stop eating and partying so much and back to work!

To kick start this year will be Funkamania @ end of Jan. Keep a lookout!

One resolution for the year :

Dance to the music instead of dancing to the beat. Its all about the FEEEEL

The shadow

2007-12-13T13:18:00.000+08:00

Choreography is art of putting feelings into visuals.

Learning Choreography is about understanding the choreographer's feelings.

Dancing is about understanding your own feelings and its expression.

Feelings are like colors, global in recognition yet different in every individual's eyes. Therefore they are bound to have similiarities.

A step is just a step. They are restricted by the invisible rules of visual beauty. This then results in steps becoming what is known as "dance vocabulary". Steps/lines that seem to look wrong in jazz but nice in hip-hop, Or vice-versa to name an example. So we are then tied down partially to those rules when we want to express our feelings. Because even though feelings are so free of expression's boundaries, we need a standard language or norm to express them. And what good is expression when the majority cant feel it?

So thats how certain steps or lines are made. BUT the norms today might never be the norms tomorrow. If a step looks ugly or wrong, it is condemned. But if more than 70% changes their mind and accepts it, it becomes good.

So what do you think of when you learn choreography?
Are you just a shadow? A simple copy of its master?
Or are you something more? Something that lives in the music, the feel, the dance.

You should never copy the expression. Expression may have similiarities, but only you yourself know wether it is genuine or a copy. Dance with not just the "vocab" but dance with the feel. Your OWN feel.

A teacher can only teach you what he thought. Not what you are going to think.

Leaving on a jetplane

2007-11-01T14:30:00.000+08:00

Goodbye everyone, wont be back for awhile

Will leave my thoughts behind

Its like being reborn, in a world that doesn't really understand you and speech fails

Gift

2007-10-31T04:21:00.000+08:00

Inspired and written while listening to Elisa-Dancing :

Time never caught my eye,
In the distant sight I see,
Myself yet someone so unfamiliar.
Why can't I bring myself to feel,
To keep my senses in check,
Just to feel alive.

So I dance, my soul it spills,
around and round, a fetish of blur
Around and round, a moment's spur
And my soul it dances, my feet they will

Can you see im here?
Afraid of my shadow leaving yours,
A brief nocturnal solace
That only comfort I find.
One perfect moment,
To see yourself through me
To see meaning through words

Around and round, I put my arms,
Around and round, we turn to dance,
Never looking away, no longer away
Dance with me, I have nothing but silence
Dance with me, silence has everything to say

Animation; The art of unrealism

2007-10-28T22:12:00.000+08:00

A pure animation showcase which could reinvent theatre dance. Perhaps a new breed of dancers may emerge from this trend.

Dancers : Umin
Performance : Uniqlo mixplay commercial

Dancexology

2007-10-26T00:08:00.000+08:00

What Oxford says about dance :

1. to move one's feet or body, or both, rhythmically in a pattern of steps, esp. to the accompaniment of music.

2. to leap, skip, etc., as from excitement or emotion; move nimbly or quickly: to dance with joy.

3. to bob up and down: The toy sailboats danced on the pond. –verb (used with object)

4. to perform or take part in (a dance): to dance a waltz.

5. to cause to dance: He danced her around the ballroom.

6. to cause to be in a specified condition by dancing: She danced her way to stardom. –noun

7. a successive group of rhythmical steps or bodily motions, or both, usually executed to music.

8. an act or round of dancing; set: May I have this dance?

9. the art of dancing: to study dance.

10. a social gathering or party for dancing; ball: Was he invited to the dance?

11. a piece of music suited in rhythm or style to a particular form of dancing: He liked the composer's country dances.

12. Animal Behavior. a stylized pattern of movements performed by an animal, as a bird in courtship display, or an insect, as a honeybee in indicating a source of nectar.

13. the dance, ballet, interpretive dancing, and other dancing of an artistic nature performed by professional dancers before an audience.

What I think :

For points
1. A robot's analysis of dance
2. A robot's intepretation of dance

Well maybe the last part of point one is relevant:
"to move one's feet or body, or both, rhythmically in a pattern of steps, esp. to the accompaniment of music. "
You cant say you are dancing when you are not dancing to any music/sound. So if you think you are dancing to counts, you are just acting.

The rest are not really important. I hope you skimmed past the other points :P

This is what I feel,

1. Dance cannot be explained/contained in just "D-A-N-C-E" Its more than the word can ever contain.

2. Interpretation of dance is ALWAYS subjective and hence cannot be accurately defined, only broadly

3. If you believe you are dancing, you are dancing. Wether it is accepted by the general population is another thing :)

4. Dancing is not about how you are moving, but why you are moving.

5. When the audience claps, you have their attention. When the audience laugh or cry, you know you have their hearts.

6. Dance does not bring people closer together, dancing does.