For the past 4 days, I was attending a blues retreat with Barry and Brenda. Yesterday, I worked with Barry on my solo routine and jazz movement for four hours. This is not my life slowing down. Most of my friends are leaving town this weekend for Blues SHOUT, so I can hopefully relax and take some time to NOT dance.
This was my third retreat with Barry and Brenda, and it was certainly distinctive. I spent much of the time in silence considering the fact that I don't understand the essence of blues. Admittedly, Isadora has left quite an impression on me. She has me seeking what she calls the "quality inherent in each movement." How little do we understand this! Even walking, as simple as it seems, is immensely difficult if one is trying to capture the rhythm of blues or jazz music. There was a moment that brought everything to a head for me. We were practicing a simple touch, step rhythm without any music, and I realized that every person in the room except Barry was stepping early. The rhythm, at its worst, was speeding up. At its best, the hit of the feet hit early in the beat. This is immensely subtle. If you want to try to understand what I'm talking about, listen to Howlin' Wolf or Ella Fitzgerald's singing. As Steven Mitchell says, "listen to Ella: she'll keep you on time."
How we step to the rhythms is the essence of the dance, and I'm becoming convinced that this is the difference between the original Lindy Hop in the 30s-40s and the modern Lindy. When you watch the two dances, there is obviously a difference in the rhythms of the dance. Why this is has eluded me for a few years now. Sometimes I wonder if it's a racial difference. This is not a politically correct thing to muse about, but what are blogs for, but musing? I was reading a book on jazz and the author was talking about what happened when African rhythms were first exposed to a European audience. The Europeans thought it was sheer nonsense. Furthermore, originally, they only heard short clips of hour long performances. As I understand it, the African rhythms function something like runners on a track. They may all start in different positions, but they end in the same place. That is to say that the Europeans could not understand African rhythms interspersed moving on and "off-beat" to form a complicated whole.
I do believe in a cultural heritage. And maybe that knowledge of rhythm filtered down. It does, however, seem silly to reduce it entirely to race. We are talking about timing. There are specific moments that can be hit in the beat. But somehow, I wonder if our young community of dancers will ever do the blues justice. Isadora wanted to discover a dance worthy of the Parthenon. I want to discover one worthy of Howlin' Wolf.
