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Ayn Rand wrote that tap dancing was her favorite dancing style because of its benevolent nature and projected individualism of the dancer. (Writing from memory.)
Finally, here is a good way to solo dance to night club music. A phenomenon called Shuffle dance is sweeping the younger crowd, who like pop music. Electro Swing is a variant of this dance that works with a wider range of music. I have linked two demonstrations below.
Both men and women can dance it, but it appears to be more popular with women. Also, women do not need to wear heels to look good. The dance is also recommended as an aerobic exercise.
Here are two TikTok videos with demonstrations of Shuffle dancing.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSmM79QJ/
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSm2SDF9//sb
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Re: Boris Reitman’s post 102096 of 9/22/20
I’d be very interested to learn why you regard it as individualistic and benevolent.
What facts are you observing? What is your inference process?
Are you talking about the dance aside from the music? Or is it the dance as danced to certain music that you find good in said respects?
/sb
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Re: Joe Naughton’s post 132682 of 9/22/20
If you go into a regular nightclub and see how people dance, it’s not a pretty sight. It’s a competition in who can dull his mind the most. This is also the reason that alcohol is a prerequisite, and this is evidenced by lineups at the bar. Without the alcohol the pretense is obvious and one can’t do it with a straight face.
What does solo dancing look like? It’s passive, waiting to be liked by someone, asking for a favour “please dance with me.” And how do couples dance? It’s “grinding,” overtly sexual and not in a pretty, sophisticated way.
Contrast this with a Salsa, Swing, or Argentine Tango nightclub. Hardly anyone there drinks. For one, that level of dancing requires focus, since otherwise one may fall and drag his partner with him. Second, the dancing is so enjoyable that it makes alcohol superfluous. Also, watching people dance is a pleasure by itself. The dancers honestly interact and smile at each other, and the dance embellishes their bodies. There is a saying that a salsa dance is a three-minute relationship.
In these better dancing styles, the couples split-up mid-dance to show off a solo dance (called “styling”), in order to introduce a variety. I find Shuffle, Break Dance, and other solo dances to be similar in spirit. But, in contrast to intermittent solo moments, Shuffle makes it a focus.
When you see people dancing Shuffle, they are smiling and happy. They enjoy being in control of their bodies, and in showing it off in a tasteful way. They also enjoy matching the beat of the background music. The dance is presented as an embellishment and visualization of the music.
The basic moves in Shuffle are simple to explain. Amateur dancers show them in slow motion at the beginning of every TikTok video. This shows a logical, methodical, reason-based approach that people use to learn this dance. Speeding up these methodical movements looks effective and beautiful. This is a concrete example of the moral is the practical.
/sb
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Re: Boris Reitman’s post 132690 of 9/23/20
Thank you, Mr. Reitman, for posting this, I had never heard of the shuffle dance. I agree it is a step up from normal “why dance.” It seems to be similar to the line dances that were popular a while back, since they both have some choreography.
re In these better dancing styles, the couples split-up mid-dance to do show off a solo dance (called “styling”), in order to introduce a variety.
Imho, the splitting up for solos is degradation of the pure form. What really makes partner dancing so joyful is the contact. I admit once I danced away from a partner who cared more to dance with himself than me!
re it appears to be more popular with women.
It is fairly universal that dancing is more popular with women in general.
/sb
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Re: Boris Reitman’s post 102096 of 9/22/20
Shuffle dance style is individualistic and projects a benevolent sense-of-life.
All dance (just like all walking) is individualistic, and almost all dance routines exhibit benevolence. It is spirited, expressive art that usually requires a person being in a good (dance) mood to perform.
Now, if by “individualistic,” you mean, creative improvisation, then the shuffle’s formulaic “pattern shape” routines do allow large room for interpretation that accentuates the individual’s personality. My daughter and nearly all of her friends regularly performed the shuffle for many years, and it was truly fascinating to watch how their different personalities interpreted the “shaped” routines — even using humorous arm movements.
But the shuffle is not completely free-form, like, say, disco dancing — in which the non-formulaic nature of the dance allows for total expression, ranging from absolutely wretched to positively divine movement. I danced in honky-tonks from the age of 17 to 23 (rock, pop, disco, country, Motown) and saw my fair share of free form. Of all of these, disco is the only one that scared the hell out of me at first, because it is utterly unconfined by formula, thereby putting all emphasis on expression. It can also be, IMO, the most exhilarating once you become comfortable with your own free expression.
Like line-dancing or square dancing or tap dancing or swing, the shuffle provides a formulaic base that makes most dancers a little more comfortable, because of the known moves and confines. But even in, say, line dancing, no two people perform the same way. Their individual styles still shine through. Some men tip their hat at the turn of a line dance, and some women kick their knees higher at the turn, etc.
All of that said, I really do enjoy the energy of the shuffle and its complexity. It’s a joy to watch people who are really good at it — and the smiles on their faces, like in the two TikTok videos.
/sb
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Re: David Elmore’s post 132703 of 9/23/20
David Elmore writes that Shuffle limits the dancer to a set of moves, and then states that it’s a disadvantage. Furthermore, he says that Disco is a more versatile dance since it doesn’t impose such limitations.
[T]he shuffle is not completely free-form, like, say, disco dancing — in which the non-formulaic nature of the dance allows for total expression, ranging from absolutely wretched to positively divine movement. … Like line-dancing or square dancing or tap dancing or swing, the shuffle provides a formulaic base that makes most dancers a little more comfortable, because of the known moves and confines.
I find constraints of a dance style to be an advantage for creativity, rather than a disadvantage. All forms of art use a particular medium, which is a constraint. A novel uses text, but it doesn’t have audio or video. A sculpture uses a stone (or metal), but not cloth. And within each form of art, an artist chooses a particular style that he holds consistently for the whole artistic product. This is also true for Disco, since no matter how much freedom it gives the dancer, it doesn’t give enough freedom to dance outside of the “genre.”
I see artistic creativity as a setting of boundaries, and then staying within them, and perhaps stretching them. But there can’t be art without boundaries. This generalizes to other forms of man’s activity in math, science and engineering. Each subject is broken down into specialization domains, and specialists rarely work cross-domain. Why does this happen? I think the philosophical principle is to break things down into things that the mind can differentiate and integrate into patterns.
/sb
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This ‘shuffle’ reminds me of much of the Hollywood/MTV approach that goes way back before Michael Jackson. It lends itself to presentation on a stage (note the dancer’s professional smiles and orientation to the camera as opposed to each other) as well as not requiring a partner. I don’t necessarily mean it’s bad, just that it’s a limited-duty form of expression. Reminds me of how Rosie Perez choreographed The Fly Girls dancers on the old “In Living Color” sketch comedy show (1990 or so). Now, things like sambas, rumbas and cha-cha steps (latin steps) presume a partner but can be adapted for single persons across from each other, or used to travel around a dance floor (as with country or skating-rink-style organized approaches). These latter approaches I prefer due to their variability for different situations; you can travel if you need to but you can make a circle or box out of the step if there’s no room on the floor to travel.
Most contemporary dance is, as mentioned by several, hard to take seriously. One of my favorite parodies of such is in the 1981 video by Kirsty MacColl for the single “Terry.” The beginning and ending of the skit involves the character played by comedian Adrian Edmondson flinging himself unpredictably around, with all other dancers doing a comparatively sane, mild version of The Twist.
/sb
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Re: Boris Reitman’s post 132690 of 9/23/20
In “Art and Cognition” (RM, 57) Ayn Rand has a tantalizing discussion about the task of dance.
In it, she discusses ballet, saying (among other things):
A gracefully effortless floating, flowing, and flying are the essentials of the ballet’s image of man. (58)
And then says of the hindu dance:
This is the image of man as infinitely pliable, man adapting himself to an incomprehensible universe, pleading with unknowable powers, reserving nothing, not even his identity. (59)
I’d be interested to know what image of man you think the Shuffle Dance presents.
/sb
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Re: Joe Naughton’s post 132740 of 9/26/20
Joe Naughton asks what image of Man does the Shuffle dance present to me? Ayn Rand writes in the Romantic Manifesto this about tap dancing,Tap dancing is completely synchronized with, responsive and obedient to the music–by means of a common element crucial to music and man’s body: rhythm. … The keynote [of tap dancing] is: precision. It conveys a sense of purpose, discipline, clarity–a mathematical kind of clarity–combined with an unlimited freedom of movement and an inexhaustible inventiveness that dares the sudden, the unexpected, yet never loses the central, integrating line: the music’s rhythm. … [It expresses] gaiety and every shade of emotion pertaining to the joy of living.
Rhythm is the most basic element of music, more basic than melody. As Harry Binswanger mentioned once, if you change the lengths of notes of a song then the song becomes unrecognizable. Young children under four years-old immediately respond to rhythm, but not nearly as strongly do so to a melody. Classical music, with all of its melodic and harmonic expressiveness, was displaced by later genres since it didn’t have enough exploration into rhythm. It lost to the early jazz on syncopation alone, even though jazz often used children’s melodies. For another example, take modern jazz which few people listen to due to its abstract nature, yet when when the same abstract solos are infused into Salsa dances, they are easily consumed.
(Fifteen years ago a friend of mine wrote a program that recognizes one song out of thousands based only on taping its rhythm on a computer keyboard. His website was called SongTapper.com which he sold when it reached 20,000 daily views.)
I saw two street tap dancers in New York, and found them entertaining to watch. However, I wasn’t hooked. I felt that I’m watching a trick in which a “leg-drummer” complements music with taps, rather than a dancer dancing. Yet, both dancers communicated pure first-handedness of expression. It was like a Jazz saxophone solo, but in dance; they were making their own statement. When I read the Romantic Manifesto earlier I couldn’t understand why Ayn Rand liked tap dancing so much, but I understood once I saw the dancers.
The Shuffle seems to me to have all the benefits of tap dancing without the downsides. When I saw a few Shuffle dance videos, I didn’t remember Ayn Rand’s quote in detail, but I have immediately recalled the artistic vision she communicated. Now, that I have reread it, I see how closely it matches. The Shuffle is precise in movement and it’s in a one-to-one relationship with the rhythm. It can express only gaiety, as is evidenced by the ear-to-ear smile most dancers have. It is mathematical in the most elegant way: a simple, precise movement appears surprisingly artistic when sped up. A variety of expression is added by the upper body (hands, shoulders, and thrust) as well as in turning.
The upper body thrust is precisely why the Shuffle is much better than the Irish stepdance, which has the same elaborate leg movements. In that dance, there is virtually no upper body movement and the dance is folky and collectivist. Usually several people are dancing in a line, like horses in a circus, and a lone dancer would look out of place. It communicates being rigid and unbending in adherence to tradition, and a dependence on a group. In contrast, the Shuffle works best for a lone dancer, and still looks fine when many dancers dance in synch.
Pete Jamison critiques the Shuffle as being solely a camera dance, since it’s not a partner dance. Partner dances have a romantic, sexual tacit motive. This is also true of other solo dance style, such as Belly dancing and Flamenco. That is not a bad thing, but comparing those with the Shuffle (or tap dancing) is like comparing apples to oranges. The Shuffle doesn’t have the romantic motive — it’s pure dance for the sake of gaiety. In this connection, here is the part of Ayn Rand’s quote about tap dancing that I have omitted,
No, the emotional range of tap dancing is not unlimited: it cannot express tragedy or pain or fear or guilt; all it can express is gaiety and every shade of emotion pertaining to the joy of living.
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When I see the Shuffle Girls, it makes me wish I were 18 again. I don’t think many are interested in 53-year-old guy who can’t dance.
/sb
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