As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, the reason that everyday dance interests me is because it is a democratic dance type. It requires no training, almost everyone has the ability to do it and in fact, being a trained dancer or dance professional can work against you when dancing this way.
I interviewed several dance professionals as part of my research and all of them, bar one agreed that they danced less freely and more self-consciously on a social dance floor as a result of their training. For myself, this is definitely the case and I usually have to overcome self-consciousness before enjoying everyday dance. In the academic paper, I discuss that the self- consciousness and anxiety that many non -trained dancers have to overcome in order to enjoy everyday dancing, is also experienced by many trained dance professionals
In a recent Guardian article, dancer and choreographer, Akram Khan discussed how the formation of his own company put an end to his everyday dancing; that is until the birth of his daughter:
Dancer/choreographer Akram Khan used to do that: he won competitions dancing to Michael Jackson as a child, and would go clubbing as a young man. But since forming his company in 2000, that pretty much stopped. He remembers acutely a moment after a 2005 performance of the duet Zero Degrees, where he was witness to the rare sight of fellow dancer/choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui freestyling at a party. "I was horrified!" remembers Khan, "because he was just so free. And I was so self-conscious that I felt naked – more naked than I would on stage, because there are no rules. Maybe I have a problem with thinking too much about movement." The birth of Khan's daughter last year put some fun and funk back into his feet. "Now I dance with her every morning in my living room," he says. "We put on Japanese nursery music – and Don't Stop Till You Get Enough. She has kind of freed me up. I can let go more because I'm relating to a child. Maybe I wouldn't even mind dancing around in public – as long as she was with me."
It's a common sentiment that children can make all the difference when it comes to self-consciousness in adults when dancing, as discussed in my Monski Mouse post.
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| How professional dancers freestyle at home. Just like everyone else Image courtesy of http://scientific-culture.blogspot.co.uk/ |
During our interview, Gideon Obarzanek discussed why he thought some trained dancers have this self -consciousness when it comes to everyday dance:
They’re very driven and they are very self-conscious and you can see that in their social dances. Because it’s what they do. It’s their instrument. So for them social dancing is never like social dancing on a person who is not a professional dancer because they cannot eliminate, they cannot take away that aspect of their identity and how they value themselves. About being a professional dancer. They are also dancers who do all of that who completely let that go and don’t have that kind of have an issue
Another dancer in the Guardian article, Jen Irons explained that this hurdle experienced by some dance professionals is perhaps because:
For many of us, I think the original attraction to dancing was that if felt good. After years of training and having movement dissected, criticised and analysed, we have less connection to that. In fact, in performance, we are told that it is self-indulgent to do so.
It is striking that many of the dancers juxtapose everyday dance as being pleasurable, fun and letting go in comparison with their professional dancing which is more about analysis and attention to detail.
Just goes to show that everyday dance can be a release for everyone, professional dancers included.
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