Differences in English theory/technique and Italian theory/technique in Standard Ball

Let’s set the ballroom book aside for a bit and talk about something interesting. The book is a general guide to get everyone started, and make sure there is uniformity in the dance community. However the book is never enough to answer every dance question.

In order for to people to move as one unit, there has to be some “system” in order for it to appear “organized”. And our friend the book offers a very simple, systematic ( but nearly impossible) model.

Dancing evolves very quickly, and nearly everything in the book has an alternate way of being done. What matters in the competitive dance world (as well as social) is
1 Does it work better?
2 Does it make it easier/more natural?
3 Does is look good?

Remember the way people danced when the book was written is not how we see dancing today. Look as some photos of world champions from the 60’s. They even referred to some competitors who dance “small top” and some who dance “big top”. Nobody these days would even think of competing with a small top...

Now for the good stuff.

I always hear there are drastic difference in English systems, and Italian systems. Of course there are Italians who dance English style, and English who dance Italian… but other than style ( presence, attitude, feeling appearance) what are some differences in SYSTEMS?

I understand in general, most English teach for a couple to have a very strong shared center, with varying degrees of weight connection in movement, and sometimes static with an idea of being one unit. With emphasis in allowing the frame to relax as much as possible…
In opposition, the Italians believe in a strong frame connection, with little or no weight connection ( or even sometimes contact)… as if we just dance independently in front of each other holding on with the frame..

Interesting - I would have classed the connection issues the opposite way you did. At least in terms of what I've been exposed to, the Italian/Italian trained couples tend to use more body shape to connect there, wheras the English are more frame oriented, to the point where you can often see gaps between their bodies.

But I think a lot of the difference is also in the dynamics - I'm used to seeing Italian style couples dance with what are essentially damped movements, such that they have to input power from their muscles to keep going - this gives them a certain immunity to physics with the freedom to make arbitrary movements they feel would be artistically interesting by simply changing the direction or rate at which they use their muscles. In contrast the English couples I've seen tend to carry more energy in flight between positions, utilizing the physics of motion such that they can use smaller inputs, at the cost of restricting themselves to inflecting their path at opportune moments rather than arbitrarily changing it.

To pick an example I've seen often, some dancers want to delay the rise in a natural turn to between steps 2 and 3 - arrive on step 2 and then muscularly lift. In contrast, I've been taught to commence the rise at the end of 1 and then drift up into position throughout the figure. This has a risk of popping up too high if the travel gets cut short of the planned amount for which the rise was started, a failure to which the wait then purposefully lift method is more immune - but when it works it produces a lighter, more floating look as a result of its physical efficiency.

The problem we're going to run into in this one it, that there are different systems even in english style... so a lot of the time ( italian technique) is actually something from and older english teacher...

So sometimes well have to refer to which teacher's school of thought..

Yes - I need to see more to be sure, but I think there's some similarity between what someone like John Wood did (at least in contrast to the Hiltons) with what a lot of the Italians are doing today. Constrastingly, Domenico and Goia seem to be showing more elements of what I think of as English style than a number of people with UK passports.

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I do have to dispute the claim of the written technique being impractical. There are a few areas where I think it might be, but in the general sense I've seen oustanding dancing that includes the vast majority of what's in the book to be willing to call it impractical. What I would say is that there's a lot of information missing. The good dancers seem to fill in the gaps while keeping what's in the book - the merely average ones tend replace the entire technique with something different but perhaps conceptually simpler.

A good example would be footwork - I've seen a lot of competitions won with pretty questionable footwork, reason being that today you need the kind of movement that requires large scale leg swings. A lot of dancers get the leg swings (because those are easy to see as necessary), but take them off feet pointing in useless directions. Simply having the feet pointing the right way won't win a competition - but there's no reason not to get the few inches of travel granted by using the feet, on top of the large amount that comes from the legs. Especially when it turns out that the few inches of travel from the feet often have the special property of creating space for the partner's leg swing - they may be only a few inches, but they are the most critical few inches to the efficient flow of the dance. If you look at the written technique, it's all about the footwork with precious little about the legs - if you teach the written technique you get fairly boring, but extremely efficient dancing. The traditionalist argument around which I was trained is that it's better to get this fundamental basis and then scale up the dancing by more fully utilizing the legs, than to go for the obvious legs with all of the discomfort of the incompleteness of that movement, and consider adding in the older details only when grasping at straws that might give a slight edge over the rest of the pack of rising stars.

The discussion about Italian vs English style dancing seems to be so frequent.. I hope someone will be able to provide more information here. Usually the discussions fail to define the differences... Generally it comes down to good dancing, and use of whatever techniques available to express whatever is desired... but I'm curious.

Just curious--from what I've seen, Mirko and Alessia carry extremely much energy in flight, no? So are they English style dancers?

And what couples are actually Italian style? Pino/Bucciarelli (?) and...?

It seems like in general couples can't really be divided clearly between the two styles though.

Anna said:

Just curious--from what I've seen, Mirko and Alessia carry extremely much energy in flight, no? So are they English style dancers?

And what couples are actually Italian style? Pino/Bucciarelli (?) and...?

It seems like in general couples can't really be divided clearly between the two styles though.

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I think Mirko/Alessia have successfully blended both styles. Italians used mostly body, but Mirko got his frame from English (I think he trained w/ Irvines a bit, but Fabio is his Italian coach, at least that's what I've heard). I believe that's why you could see very dynamic dancing from them but still w/ a pretty quiet & breathing frame & very natural headline from Alessia w/o too much distortion.

Pino/Bucciarelli, Massimo/Alessia definitely would be Italian style, while the Barrichis have a stronger influence from the English style.

Something to keep in mind when consider the whole who-studied-with-who is that there are two levels of studying with a teacher. At one level, you take their dancing recommendations and apply them using your own existing technical habits. At another, you start by studying their technical habits and then build up towards what that suggest about the actual dancing. Every teachers seems to have both types of students - but only the second category will come to resemble the teacher's style.

Chris Stratton said:

But I think a lot of the difference is also in the dynamics - I'm used to seeing Italian style couples dance with what are essentially damped movements, such that they have to input power from their muscles to keep going - this gives them a certain immunity to physics with the freedom to make arbitrary movements they feel would be artistically interesting by simply changing the direction or rate at which they use their muscles.

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Well, I'm nowhere near to dancing at this level, but...

I've gotten to hate, hate, hate doing smooth dancing in a style where I have to put lots of power into every single step. It's exhausting, jerky, doesn't feel good, and in general is just no fun. If, for example, I'm stuck with a partner who insists on taking little bitty steps, then I can't develop any momentum. In effect, I'm taking every step from a standing start. If there are couples being taught to dance this way, I don't see how they can stand it.

Competitors who succesfully employ the more driven style are extremely (I mean extremely) strong compared to the average social dancer. And even if one style is not as efficient as it could be, it's still orders of magnitude more efficient than what is done in non-championship settings. The decision seems to be to trade having to do a little bit more work for having greater freedom of expression in all three dimensions.

A lot of what you are suffering from is probably a result of dancing with social partners who are not strong enough to sustain the movements you want to create. Another common factor is not being willing to put weight into the heel, due to lack of ankle/shoe stability. Dancing only from ball of foot to ball of foot is going to be comparatively choppy compared to an equal size step rolled through the foot. Another issue may be that you aren't yet using the body weight positions and movement directions yourself that would make things easy for a partner, because you may not have had a chance to practice a lot in a situation where both sides of the couple are fully doing their jobs. Sometimes the things we do to compensate for partners actually make the situation worse.

champions are those who can blend both and evolve it into their own style

I've had this discussion so many times...

And it has never come to any profitable conclusion because,
all too often there would be one or two "Fundamentalist Technique Extremists"
(you know the type: Massively-UNFunny super-smart superlatively-hyper-anal-book-bound-fundamentalist-snarky-geeks
that cannot see past why legs or toe mechanics should give way in these discussions in favor of the driving philosophical and aesthetic issues. YOU know, THAT kind.)

THEN the discussion bogs down to heated and argumentative details of having to use the toe ONLY this way or this foot being pointed that way because the prophet Alexander Moore said so... and darn it, you should be EXCOMMUNICATED for even thinking of such blasphemy!

That is not to say THAT will happen in this thread...but even so, I still hope...

WELL, Having gotten that out of my system...,

Ask 10 coaches what the English, Italian, and Eastern European systems are and you'll get 12 different answers.
I think classifying "manners of dancing" (are they REALLY styles? I don't know...) in this manner is impossible.
Simply because the names themselves do not mean anything nor are there really standardized, authoritative, or accepted definitions around them.

What I do see in terms of these distinctive "Styles" are Power Dancers, Finesse Dancers, and In-Between Dancers (for lack of better terms, sorry).
If you really have to, you can ascribe to them your ethnic group or nation of choice--English, Italians, Polynesians... etc...

Every day drills for Eight years with an old-school-world-top-six mentor, an Englishwoman, will give one appreciation for the finer points of Technique, Accuracy, Finesse and Subtlety.
Four years with an Eastern European champion--and painfully paid for what is extreme power dancing and what it can be.
Another four years--studying with, observing, and listening to an Irvine and Eggleton-trained coach who danced with an Italian-trained partner for a while has given me appreciation for the beauty of the individual styles.

Over this many years, the differences I've observed (while not limited to) are deeply philosophical in nature--which in turn drive the fundamental shifts from the codified standards.
They are in the nature of the application of force, the use of gravity, and the harnessing of momentum in the creation of the overall IMPRESSION one wants to make--which, arguably, is fundamentally how each style is defined.

Power dancers are content with using force to create a movement.
Finesse dancers use gravity, sway, accuracy--shunning any unnecessary expenditure of effort.

While one creates a movement by forcing it into existence--utterly forcing it into submission, the other creates it as the inevitable and sole result of precise placement of preceding movement--resulting in a seamless, effortless, and flowing transition.

One relishes the physicality of the sport, while the other seemingly relishes the absence of it.

There's more of course, but that's my take on it.



m

I really enjoyed your response M

Katarzyna said:

I really enjoyed your response M

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Well... they ARE UnFunny...




m

Ahh... here we go... more interesting..
Power dancers, finess, and inbetweeners...
I like this.. This is more the aim of my original post.. some of the different theorys out there, and how they vary.. not nessisarly italian vs english..

I have an old training tape from the 60's with Bill and Bobbie dancing through all the basics as well as a few avanced figurers... and to tell you the truth, even if they were technically perfect... I don't want to look anything like that..
no sway WHATSOEVER.. weird looking by today's standards..

Not to metion other than Alex Moore's technique book... there are OTHER technique books that were considered BETTER during the same time.. however his book was the one the Imperial took up, and the others just aren't around anymore ( curious what they have to say)

Also there is a interesting book by Len Schivner that has a lot of interesting DANCING ideas.. some tech.. but more theory stuff...good read..

A true master has studies all the styles, is far more than proficient in each, and then chooses what he or she wants to put into their own dancing..

The other day, Mirko did a show in New Jersy... and during the show he made a short speech half english and half in Italian...
Anyway during his speech he quoted Markus Hilton as being his main choach through the years... interesting.
I'm sure to be where he is now, he's had lesson with EVERYBODY.. and knows quite a bit... to say the least..

I would say for most competitiors out there the focus shold be Power Dancing.. to fit in with the pcak you have to be strong, with bold actions stamina and movement.. a good ten years of that and it's time to move on once you master that.. of course, if your dancing waltz and everything is power powers attack.. it's just not going to fit the charecter of the dance..
Not to mention foxtrot.....
Finess come after lot's of experience, and a good partnership.. another ten years of that.. and it's time to mix and match..