Posts Tagged ‘spine’
The Flappers’ Legacy
Posted on: June 23, 2012
We post-feminists and latter-day Jazz Babies owe a lot to the New Women of the 1920s. To that intrepid brand of vintage female we owe the right to cut our hair, to show some skin, to wear makeup, and to do anything we damn well please with whomever we like without fear of social ostracism. And most indispensably, the flappers taught us to Charleston.
They achieved momentous things for us, and we should be grateful.
But not every habit bequeathed to us from the Jazz Age generation was beneficial. For example, smoking. The flappers made folks accustomed to seeing women smoking cigarettes in public. Thank you, but no. They also had a disturbing tendency toward giving themselves alcohol poisoning.
Nearly as harmful was what the flapper did to our spines.
Here is what fashionable posture looked like a generation before the flappers:
Here, in contrast, is fashionable flapper posture:
And here is what fashionable posture looks like today:
The visual record is clear. As dancers in a culture that places little value on the spine, we need to be flappers with our attitude, but Victorians with our posture.
Also, don’t smoke.
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So last week’s challenge, about softening your gaze, was amazingly helpful to me! I found that when I was keeping my head up and looking more-or-less at my partner, without staring anywhere in particular, my turns worked better, I felt more grounded, and most importantly, it was a lot easier to smile! Awesome. Did anyone else have a similar or not-similar experience with this challenge?
This week I have a visualization for you to try. We all know we’re supposed to dance with our bodies, not with our separate parts: arms, legs, hands and feet. The famous “body leading” we always nag leaders about applies equally to followers – we need to “body follow” as well. This is the most comfortable, efficient and safe way to dance and also looks way better than steering and stomping.
Now, the deepest, most elemental part of our body is our primitive fish body, or our spinal column. As a way to encourage us to dance with our bodies this week and not with our parts, I suggest the following visualization. Imagine that you and your partner are nothing more than a couple of spinal columns. While you’re dancing, try to feel where your spine and your partner’s spine are in space, and in relation to each other.
Leaders, explore how you can move your partner’s spine by moving your own. Followers, play with feeling what your partner’s spine is leading your spine to do.
And when you’re solo dancing this week, explore generating all your body movements from the movement of your spinal column.
Well, that’s what I’m going to try this week anyway. Let me know what you think!
The Dancing Bug 