By Alison Moss 

            2010 welcomes the dancer in all of us! Where has the past decade gone? It’s hard to believe that ten years ago Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance didn’t even exist?   Nerdel wasn’t an internet sensation either to make us aware of our healthy habits and all of the exciting things we can do to keep our bodies thriving. How did we survive without them?

            Have you given any thought to how you can make 2010 a better year for you and your body?  If your house is anything like my house, we still have Halloween candy lurking in the cupboards, but the turkey is finally gone from Thanksgiving.  Our Christmas holiday was full of preparations, both in and out of the kitchen. In fact, with so many preparations and parties, there hasn’t been much time at all devoted to moving around and keeping my own body healthy. I’m certainly paying for it now. I did the best I could by parking as far away as possible in mall parking lots (actually, I tried to do most of my shopping online).  I cranked up my iPod speakers in the kitchen to dance, while I baked, and with nonstop holiday music on one radio station, many passing cars saw me rocking out in my seat at stoplights!  But all of those things were just temporary fixes…what am I going to do to make 2010 more Nerdel-riffic?

            So many people make resolutions that they quickly give up on before January 2^nd. I think the best resolutions are realistic goals.  If any one of us predicted ourselves winning a ballroom competition or dancing a grand pas de deux in The Nutcracker next December, we may end up disappointed. But, if we vowed to sign up for an adult education ballroom dance class or a ballet class and promised ourselves to commit to it for one month, we are guaranteed to see improvement and perhaps a newfound hobby.  What about Zumba, Jazzercise, or flamenco dancing? What about turning off the television for thirty minutes and taking a walk outside or dancing in your living room instead? Okay…if you can’t turn off the television, what about putting on the satellite radio channel and dancing to music that way? That’s a fair compromise!

Hip Hop Holiday!

Hip Hop every day…

Oh, what fun it is to dance

And stay healthy Nerdel’s way…Hey!

 Hip hop dance is a form of street dance. It’s often improvised and representative of a dancer’s style. The words, “hip hop”, bring images of DJs, rap music, graffiti, and battles between two groups. Breakin’ and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo are two movies from the eighties that highlight hip hop dance and ciphers, circles that dancers formed around a soloist showing off his or her stuff. Many people gravitate towards hip hop dance as a deviation from classical styles that dictate who your partner is and rehearse with strict schedules in a dance studio. Hip hop dancers form their own ‘crews’ with friends and rehearse at home or in the street. Hip hop dancers don’t have a union or auditions to be in their groups. It is a “come as you are” philosophy; each person has something unique to bring to the table. Believe it or not, hip hop dance has been around since the seventies. James Brown used drum solos in his songs to strut his stuff. Soul Train was responsible for showcasing so much of this talent. When Don Campbell appeared on Soul Train doing “campbellock”, his stylistic short pauses within movement, our version of “locking” was born. The world was watching, and many more young artists used Campbell’s inspiration to move them into the spotlight. DJs started experimenting with music. Hip hop dancers thrive on the short interludes or breaks in the music, when the vocals cease. These DJs began looping interludes to create longer stretches in each break for the “breakers” to play with liquid movements, perform head spins and other inversions of their body. The two biggest buzz words of hip hop dance are: popping and locking. These words are not one in the same. Popping looks “jerky” when you watch it being performed. It’s a quick contract and release of your muscles. Sometimes, it’s isolated body parts, and other times, it’s isolated body halves. A pop is called a “hit”, and it’s often done on the beat in a rhythmic nature. Popping also involves facial expressions and miming. Contrastingly, it can be both fluid and sharp. Locking is characterized by a sudden freeze after fast motion. The movement “locks” in place for a short while to show off a pose. Locking is full of tricks and acrobatics. Some dancers specialize in either “popping” or “locking”, but the best dancers can perform both. So, move the furniture away…call your friends up to come over and form a circle…put on the holiday music…and make your holiday a HIP HOP HOLIDAY!

For even more information about hip hop dance, visit www.dancehere.com/hip-hop-dance-history/

Written By Alison Moss

Gobble! Gobble! Thanksgiving time is near. Are you prepared to find the moves that groove you on the big day? Think about it…one word comes to mind when I think about Thanksgiving—TURKEY!  And lots of it! But, all turkey and no movement can be a bad thing; so, I’m here to help you create your own movement playground at home on Thanksgiving Day.

I’m sure Mom, Dad, and maybe even Grandma are in the kitchen prepping for the special meal.  There are lots of activities you can do in your own home to keep you busy and moving. My favorite part of the morning is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I love to grab lots of pillows and blankets and hunker down on the couch to watch the balloons and parade floats go through the streets of New York, while an apple pie bakes in the oven. Sometimes, I dance with the singers on the parade floats. Often times, it’s a hit artist playing my favorite song. I’ve even been known to belt out the lyrics too, until someone reminds me that I am not a singer, nor should I ever quit my day job and try to be one. Another thought while watching the parade is making use of the commercial breaks. Those three to four minute breaks are perfect for working on stretches to improve flexibility. Why not stretch your hamstrings, practice a straddle stretch, or reach over to touch your toes and hold that position until the commercial break is finished?  You could even use that commercial break for cardio. Run in place for those extra minutes and see how much better you feel.

If you happen to be assigned the job of “setting the table”, your movement playground might get more interesting.  Consider that table as your racecourse. You could turkey wobble around the perimeter of the table, do the mashed potato dance, or pretend you are a hunter chasing a turkey around the table. If you happen to grab a few napkins, you can make relay races and let the napkins be your markers. Skip to the first one, run to the second one, hop on one foot to the third one, etc… If you also happen to snatch a few cans of cranberry sauce, you can lift them to pump up your muscles (at least until it’s time to open them for dinner).

There comes a point when Mom and Dad may want you to explore outside and play. Take advantage of “no homework” and ride your bike for a bit around your driveway with your parent’s permission of course.  You could even keep the spirit of the day by picking up a jump rope and count your blessings with each jump.  While you are outside, examine the leaves.  Notice their shapes and try to copy those shapes with your body. Or, watch how the wind blows the leaves around, and let the wind blow your body around too. Maybe you might even find yourself kerplunk in a bunch of leaves…of course, then you may be given the job to rake those leaves back into the pile, but who cares? It’s fall, and the weather feels fantastic! Don’t let the turkeys get you down; get up and move, stretch and dance your way to the greatest Thanksgiving Day ever!

            “Come on Babe, why don’t we paint the town?… And all that jazz…” If ballet is the foundation of our house of dance, jazz is the colorful, individualized paint on each wall of your home.  Jazz dance emerged in the late 1800’s tied to African American roots and jazz music. The American Heritage dictionary describes it, “Any of the various dances characterized by the use of improvisation and influenced by rhythms and techniques of jazz music.” Whereas ballet is graceful and predictable, the dancer performs the step to the right side and then repeats it to the left side, jazz dance is syncopated and unexpected. In jazz dance, choreographers play with the downbeat and include moments of improvisation, where the dancers (like jazz musicians) spontaneously create their own movements playing off one another.

            The beauty of jazz dance is that it’s forever changing with musical trends and each choreographer’s personality.  If synthesized music is hot right now, the performances will follow suit, and if slow, sultry voices fill the airwaves, sinuous movement will fill the dance floor. It’s not unusual to see a mix of fast and slow movement inside of one choreographic piece. The footwork in jazz dance is what appeals to me most. When I teach my jazz classes and it’s time to go across the floor, I experiment with different levels and directions. Each student individualizes his or her own “high walk forward” with his or her personality. Some pretend they are famous movie stars, and others pretend they are preying cats in a jungle as they walk. A jazz dance class is also characterized by lots of parallel positions and plenty of leaps and turns. They all begin with a warm up that emphasizes isolations, moving only one body part at a time. For example, we might start moving only our head by looking side-to-side, lifting up and down, and rotating in circles. Each class ends with a cool down to catch your breath after all of those leaps and to return your heart rate back to normal.

            There are many notable individuals who’ve paved the way for jazz dance today: Jack Cole, Katherine Dunham, Jerome Robbins, and Bob Fosse. Jack Cole might be considered the ‘father of jazz dance’.  He was a visionary who encouraged the use of isolations in class and performance. He is mostly responsible for why we include them in a modern warm up today.  Katherine Dunham was a pioneer in the jazz dance movement.   She influenced jazz dance with her African and Caribbean style of movement and was the first to sustain a black dance company, Katherine Dunham Dance Company, in America. When jazz dance spread to Broadway, Jerome Robbins came alive and choreographed many shows for the New York stage that include West Side Story.  Bob Fosse is most known for his turned in knee, shoulder isolations, and simple nuances in his steps. He liked to choreograph pieces with hats and gloves to disguise his own fears of baldness hatred of his hands. His known works were Chicago and Cabaret.  It was because of these individuals that jazz dance is what it is and continues to grow.

            Strengthening for jazz dance is very similar to ballet training. The best jazz dancers have a background in ballet to build their core muscles and maintain flexibility. In a lengthy jazz warm up, you do lots of abdominal work through crunches and isolations. Jazz dance also plays with the concept of suspension, fluidly moving through a step.  In suspension, a long layout of your leg to the front keeps growing past the balance point into a new step.  Versatility is key! You need to be able to transition from very fast movements that are sharp and quick to slower, lyrical dancing that looks more like a modern ballet. Grab your jazz shoes, which lace up like sneakers…unless you have the pull on variety, your baggy jazz pants, and leotard or tank top. Add your own touch of a headband or bandana and crazy socks if you wish.  I’ll see you out on the jazz dance floor ready to strut with your jazz walk!

      Flap-heel-heel…Brush-heel-toe-heel…STOMP! Did you ever get a rhythm stuck in your head and suddenly find yourself tapping it on your legs or moving your whole body to keep the beat? If you answered yes, then perhaps, tap dancing is a new exercise to try for you.  Tap dancing is made possible by shoes that have metal plates nailed into the bottom of them.  You could call tap dancers “percussive musicians”, because they make the music they dance to with their own two feet.

          The best tap dances are those done without musical accompaniment, or a cappella.  The beauty of tap dance is that it plays with the beat, sometimes syncopating music and not making each section sound even, but more interesting and complex for your ears. Lots of times, tap dance is improvised.  The dancer may start with one common rhythm and then experiment with new combinations of sound and return back to the main theme.

          Tap dancing isn’t new to our generation.  It is an extension of Irish step dancing and clogging. Those types of shoes are also specialized in that they have a harder toe and materials to accent sound, when the shoes strike a surface. As shoes have developed and improved over time, dancers from many decades have created and changed tap as we know it today.

          Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers come to mind from the 1940s-1950s. Their ballroom style of tap and partnership graced many classic movies like Top Hat and Swing Time.  Surely you can picture Fred in his tuxedo and Ginger in her long, flowing dresses that continue the lines of each turn that she makes. Watching them make movie magic with their feet adding to the soundtrack still makes me want to get up and dance. 

          Gene Kelley had extensive ballet training that added to his Broadway style of tap.  I think back to Singin’ in the Rain and his famous scene splashing through the puddles. I look forward to the parts, when he doesn’t sing, so I can concentrate on his tap rhythms and watch his feet attack each sound. 

          Steve Condos had a love of jazz music that helped him develop percussion tap. He, too, was a great tap improviser.  Steve Condos influenced Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Does Savion Glover’s name ring a bell to you?  He is a contemporary tapper best known to kids as the guy who choreographed Happy Feet.  I like to credit Savion Glover as “the guy who brought tap dance back to life for young dancers”. My students look at me with blurry eyes as I talk about great tap dancers of days old, but when I mention a more current movie like Happy Feet and Savion Glover, their eyes light up and suddenly dance is alive again.

          One of the secrets to tap dance that I tell students and parents is that it is basically a handful of steps that are shuffled into hundreds of combinations to create new steps. Knowing the basics and perfecting those shuffles, flaps, stomps, and brushes will take you far in this genre.  It’s a tricky style to master the flexion of your ankle, knowing just how much to loosen your hold, and what part of your foot to strike the floor, but its rhythmic possibilities are endless. I love the mathematical aspect of it too. You need to understand time signatures and how to arrange the beats within a measure of music, so even the most cerebral dances that struggle with the performance part can enjoy and thrive on the musical aspect. So, when your feet can’t seem to let go of the beat, shuffle your way into a tap dance class and experience musical bliss and syncopated twists!

Ballet dance is the foundation that all other dance forms build their structures on and incorporate ballet’s elements into their moldings. If you were to look closely at the basics of any jazz movement or tap step, you could find ballet technique hidden within its parts. A Broadway or jazz dance auditioner can tell by watching the casting call candidates who has had ballet training by the strength, flexibility, and finesse of their movement. What is it about ballet that makes heads turn? Where did ballet dance come from? What do you wear for a ballet class, and how do you strengthen your own body to participate in ballet dance?

Ballet is graceful, effortless movement that is full of control. It’s a series of turned out moving shapes that defy gravity and balanced poses that stop time. Ballet dance is often set to classical music. There are no words or dialogue to tell a story, but rather lots of pantomime and facial expression to get the message to the audience. More contemporary ballets of our lifetime have included singing, world music, and even silence as the soundtrack. In the early 1990’s Joffrey Ballet went so modern as to create Billboards, an entire evening of dance set to the music of Prince. It was one of the first modern rock music ballet pieces choreographed.

Ballet dance first started in the late sixteenth century in the courts of Italian city states, and its appearance looked nothing like what we see today on stage. Dancing during this time looked more like a series of poses or a parade of wealthy people emulating Greek gods and goddesses in the privacy of the courts. It was a hobby for the elite. Catherine de Medici was responsible for bringing ballet from the Italian courts to France, and King Louis XIV was one of the largest supporters. The aristocracy would wear elaborate, layered costumes and heeled shoes. Their petite footwork was all for show, and these men would rarely break a sweat. As dance moved to the public realm for viewing, women were not allowed to participate. These dances included poetry, music, and dialogue. It wasn’t until the late 1700s that stories and emotion united the dancing. The Romantic Ballet period morphed movement into story ballets. There was a hero, a princess in peril, and more acting onstage. Ballerinas were considered spirits and other worldly beings. Skirts were above the ankle and the romantic tutu, which looked like a puffy cupcake, was born. Women had a bigger role, and the first pointe shoes emerged into the scene, allowing dancers to stand on their toes and be lifted up “ethereally” into the realms of angels. As ballet dance traveled through Europe, its core qualities remained in tact, but different countries added a special touch of their own. A typical ballet class today may include elements from the Russian, French, and Italian schools.

Preparing for a ballet class today starts with your attire. Traditionally, girls wear a solid, black leotard, pink tights, hair in a bun, and pink ballet shoes. There are leather and canvas ballet shoes, and as a teacher, I prefer my students to wear the leather ballet shoes to strengthen their feet by breaking in the leather. Boys wear a white t-shirt, black men’s tights, white socks, and black ballet shoes. Some dance schools have their youngest levels wear only a leotard, socks, and ballet shoes—no tights! That is mainly for the teacher to observe muscle development in their students’ legs. Only the most developed female dancers graduate to the level of pointe shoes. Once we see our middle school aged students coordinate the actions of their leg and foot muscles, we can confidently train them in pointe work.

Preparing one’s body for the rigorous activity of ballet can be explained in three sections: flexibility, turnout, and repetition. Ballet dancers have to be flexible. Simple toe touches done standing or sitting in the pike position with your legs parallel in front of you will lengthen out your hamstrings. Head rolls and shoulder rolls will loosen joints and relax muscles in tense areas. We need our head loose to “spot” pirouettes and our arms ready to move through a phrase of music and coordinate with our footwork. The “cat stretch” on your hands and knees, while arching your back can also increase mobility. Turn out is the outward rotation of your joints and appendages. When you practice the “frog stretch”, you begin on all fours and change the weight distribution from the front of your knee to the inside section of both knees as your hips open up and your knees slide slowly sideways. You rest your weight on your elbows and forearms, as you come off your hands and get closer to the ground. It’s important to initiate turn out from your hip and not your knee or ankle twisting in odd directions. Repetition of the exercises also increases strength. Foot pedals, which are parallel presses from flat feet to the balls of your feet and back down again, can put your focus on alignment. The straight line between your knee and your toes helps you sense all five toes on the ground while monito ring body control. It’s the small movements that are done with great attention that strengthen your body and muscle memory to do these steps effortlessly.

Ballet dance is the foundation of all kinds of dance. It’s the paradox of a look that is effortless and light with the inner work being full of control and sweat inducing. All movement generates from within, and our arms, legs, and expressions grow from our core. Whenever a ballet dancer is falling out of a pirouette or can’t land a jump on balance, they return to the ballet barre and strengthen the basics. They return to their technique foundation to propel forward with their movement. The dance world is constantly changing, but its roots are deep in ballet dance.