Dancing to Live Music

I dance; and when I see performances of `modern dance' I realise that they're doing professionally what my instincts have taught me to make up, albeit less skillfully, on the fly. I dance to the music: which may seem fatuous, but most folk dance predominantly to the other folk dancing, allowing the music to influence little more than the basic rhythm and style of their dance. Various folk, watching me dance, have accused me of ballet and tai chi; I even took a couple of tai chi classes out of consequent curiosity, but these taught me static slices of movement, where my instincts produce entirely dynamic responses to music.

I would be inclined to describe the way I dance as `involving my entire body in the process of listening'; in some senses, my conscious mind gets out of the way and hands over my body as a puppet whose strings are the music, leaving the band to make the puppet dance while my conscious mind watches - often awed at the feats of agility that result. Getting my conscious mind out of the way takes either a very good band or a moderate amount of cider; but my preferred venues are pubs, so the latter can usually be taken for granted.

I have danced to many styles of music. I don't have to like the music itself to enjoy dancing to it - but liking the music does help. I prefer dancing to live bands, though recorded music is entirely feasible (it's just less fun; I shalln't pretend to be able to explain why). I've enjoyed dancing to musicians using Robot Ringo backing; though musicians who play along to the Ringo (i.e. let the robot lead, rather than playing around it) are a waste of time. I dance to the music I'm about to hear, seemingly knowing what's coming before it does; I suppose my subliminal mind must know more about the natural dynamics of music than I can explain, since this works with bands I've never heard before, playing music I've never head before (and I don't believe in clairvoyance, not even the fraction of a second that'd be needed to explain this effect). The way I dance may well be related to the way I juggle.

Dancing typically leaves me exhausted: but it's therapeutic in ways I can't describe; the exercise does me good; I gain a better appreciation of the music, thereby, than I can by sitting and listening; and it even amuses some of the folk who frequent the pubs in which I most often do it. So I don't intend to give up any time soon.