What kind of dance most interests you?

I have some rhythm but don’t dance so well. I am, however fascinated by modern, African, and jazz styles. I also love watching tap when performed well.

I saw the Alvin Ailey dancers once. They were AMAZING. If I could afford it, I would see them every time they come to town.

I can’t stand reality television, but I am addicted to So You Think You Can Dance.

Swing.

Lap

bails folklorico

Whirling Dervish are pretty cool

Tango looks so beautiful and passionate.

RAVE!

Hip hop. Such a vibrant underground community.

I’m hopelessly without rhythm or direction of any sort when it comes to dancing so I avoid it not only for my own safety but for the safety of others around me too.

As far as an interesting and appealing type of dancing that I like to watch, I’m pretty impressed with the sounds, athleticism, and art that comes with Tap dancing. (I’m probably in the minority but yes, I did like Riverdance and Lord of the Dance).

Time Warp

I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance Flamenco. I think it is the most beautiful. Tango is a close second.

I would love to take line dancing lessons/classes.

I love Indian dancing. If you’re a Bollywood fan you’ll know what I’m talking about. ;)

Swing.

SAFETY!!

improv – contact improv, butoh, tai chi…

Structured improvisation. (I do it every week)

Tango. (I hear great things about this)

Ballroom. (Good thing for my wife and I to do)

@Tantigirl: I’m on a Naach Indian dance team my school has… and also a big Bollywood fan because my roomate and boyfriend are both from there. :) GA to you!

Daloon,
Isn’t Structured improvisation an oxymoron?

Nope.. structured movement improv is a wonderful art.
Imagine improvising to jazz. you can’t just hit notes randomly on the sax or the piano.
Players have to sense what their partners are up to, and then riff off, build upon then.
So there’s actually technique and structure to improvising.
In the same way, dance improvisation can become “blah blah” if there is no structure to it. So some structure actually allows the improviser to be more free. Say for example, we say – ok, we’re all going to dance with no more than two points of contact on the floor in our trio—which pushes the dancers to explore supports, lifts and aerial work.

Actually, it’s the same when I do free writing. I pick up a dictionary and pick a word at random. That “structure” kicks starts my writing improv.

Sloane2024 – Big lurve for you.

@Judi, yeah, what lifeflame said. I was going to give you almost the same answer, down to the music analogy.

Many people are are not aware that there is underlying structure to much human activity. Conversations have structure (sometimes structure appears as rules), but we hardly ever acknowledge it, and when we do, we refer to it as ettiquette.

If I tell you to focus on your feet, and dance with your feet leading and the rest of your body following, I’ve given you a structure in which to improvise. If I tell you to “speak” to another dancer with your feet, I have added an addictional constraint (structure) within which you must figure out how to move.

By focussing dancers in this way, we help – well, anyone – you don’t have to be a dancer at all. You don’t need any dance experience at all. It’s really a movement workshop, and yet, out of this inexperience arises some incredible dances that no one could ever choreograph!

What happens is that you learn a movement/dance vocabulary over the course of an hour or so, which in the last 45 minutes you use to choreograph your own dance, as you dance it. It’s all done without stopping, and only a few instructions here and there.

There’s also live, improvised music, and one of the cool things is that the musicians structure is the dancers. Essentially, they are the chart for the musicans. We play to support them, and to lead them, and after a while it is unclear as to who is leading whom.

We live in a web of hidden structure, within which we improvise our lives. It is the same thing as a poet choosing to constrain their poem by using the sonnet form, or the sestina.

Ah well, I could go on for days about this, but I shall spare you the inner working of my corporeally-informed philosophy.

The ballet and contemporary ballet. I have spent most of my life studying ballet.