Breaking the Rules
- Thread starter Subliminal
- Start date
Dave Bailey
Active Member
Yes, the whole "Pirates' Code" thing, there was a running joke throughout about how these were "laws" or "guidelines".
Ironic, really..
So I recently went to a group class from a visiting teacher on waltz, and of course the subject of Tete came up. The teacher showed us one of the sequences that Tete had taught him, but gave it to us with a grain of salt... we would never get the sequence quite the same way, and we should work on it so that it works for our own style. He said for years people tried to be Tete by watching him, watching videos of him, and trying to mimic what they saw. But... we can't be Tete, because so much of his dance had to do with his own understanding of his body and his own creativity with manipulating axis, momentum, musicality, and knowing when to break the "rules". The "rules" being the common skills learned by most beginning students. Collecting, balance, controlling your axis, etc.
So I was pondering this while working on the sequence, and it got me to thinking... do you have to know the rules to break them? When do you start working on your own style? From the beginning? Or do you have to have some foundation? How much of your style is just the way that your own body works? Is now too soon to start playing with the "rules" and making up my own techniques?
Just throwing this out there, wondering what you guys think.
If they're not rules, they're no fun to break.
You need to learn using some sort of frame of reference. That is what normally people call rules. They're not really.