How do you count Paso Doble?
- Thread starter Twilight_Elena
- Start date
This starts with Paso, goes in Rumba and ends with Samba.
Anyway, of course its possible and beautiful to dance Paso Doble to another kind of music. Espana Cani (Spanish Gypsy Dance) is simple the most popular Paso Doble cause of it's highlights.
Just look at Riccardo and Yulia 2008-2010 on World Super Stars Dance Festival Japan. The most beautiful Paso is done on Malaguena by Placido Domingo (2009). Very unusual!!!
youtube: /watch?v=PjzkG1MgsQQ&feature=related
I think danceronice meant another problem.
The dancers get a choreography for Paso Doble which is choreographed for Espana Cani. Most of them just dance their Espana Cani choreography to all kind of music! THIS looks silly, cause it doesnt match.
danceronice
Forum Master
There's Espana Cani, and a couple other pieces that have the same breakdown.
You can do a showcase to whatever you want and time it however you want--if you're doing a competition, with something that's as formula as paso, everyone needs to be on the same page (or measure, as it were) about where the highlights are. Since the majority of dancers are only going to do paso on a comp floor and not as part of a solo routine, they have to make a routine that fits a known parameter if they're going to have big highlights.
You can do a showcase to whatever you want and time it however you want--if you're doing a competition, with something that's as formula as paso, everyone needs to be on the same page (or measure, as it were) about where the highlights are. Since the majority of dancers are only going to do paso on a comp floor and not as part of a solo routine, they have to make a routine that fits a known parameter if they're going to have big highlights.
DanceLightly
New Member
My two cents - if you're dancing syllabus, it really isn't important to match highlights, since the figures that you can dance are limited. You can dance straight 8 count phrases all the way through. For open competitors, 9 times out of 10 you will encounter "normal" paso phrasing with highlights as someone listed earlier in the thread. There are a few competitions which don't use this, such as Blackpool, and really it just takes a few times of practicing to non-"normal" phrasing in order to adjust, which is good to do anyway in your every day practicing. If you're competing in open anyways, you have enough experience to deal with it. It's not a big problem. 
Most routines match up to Espana Cani, but when you dance to non phrased pasos (like those they play at Blackpool), you simply dance your routine to the music like any other dance...all routines have highlights which aren't choreographed to a particular song, and paso is no different. You just keep dancing through. In the weeks leading up to blackpool my studio played only blackpool music during runthroughs, including Paso. You just dance your routine.
Well Benjy,
you are dancing to
8 8 8 8 4
8 8 8 8 8 8 4 (1st highlight)
8 10 8 6 8 8 8 8 6 (2nd highlight)
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 5 8 (3rd highlight)
your routine.
And you are out of phrase after the first 4 counts for six eights. Maybe doing an appell on 5? Isn't it possible to dance your routine without the 4 steps?
Thats the thing i called doesnt match.
Well Benjy,
you are dancing to
8 8 8 8 4
8 8 8 8 8 8 4 (1st highlight)
8 10 8 6 8 8 8 8 6 (2nd highlight)
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 5 8 (3rd highlight)
your routine.
And you are out of phrase after the first 4 counts for six eights. Maybe doing an appell on 5? Isn't it possible to dance your routine without the 4 steps?
Thats the thing i called doesnt match.
No, of course it isn't possible... there are steps there. And how do you know if the song is going to be phrased or not? Just like in any other dance, sometimes the phrasing changes, and obviously you don't change what you're doing to put your routine back on phrase, you dance with your counts as they should be and maybe change the emphasis. Everyone at Blackpool dances routines phrases to Espana Cani to songs with completely different phrasing which is impossible to predict unless you know and have studied the song. They don't just change their routines
And I am not quite clear what you are referring to with the appelle on 5 question.
DanceLightly
New Member
Well Benjy,
you are dancing to
8 8 8 8 4
8 8 8 8 8 8 4 (1st highlight)
8 10 8 6 8 8 8 8 6 (2nd highlight)
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 5 8 (3rd highlight)
your routine.
And you are out of phrase after the first 4 counts for six eights. Maybe doing an appell on 5? Isn't it possible to dance your routine without the 4 steps?
Thats the thing i called doesnt match.
I'm confused as well as to what you mean you are out of phrase... Can you clarify a bit and maybe we can be better help
As I told before, you can listen to Espana Cani and you can hear the 4 cool down counts, its like a mini highlight:
You should know, which steps you are doing on this 4 counts. And than you can try out home how to get them out, if needed.
If you dance your Espana Cani
8 8 8 8 4 8 8 8 8 8 8 4 steps ... to music, which is just counted
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 ...
Thats not the same. Routine should match to music.
Does this help?
Right, and what happens when the music uses other phrasing? Maybe it will use 6 8 6 14 or something strange like that. Do you make up steps to just fill in the extra time? You can't predict phrasing... it's our bad luck that we are so used to dancing paso to one song that we forget that it's just like the other 4 dances... you have a routine, and you don't change your routine to match the music, you change the dynamic with which you dance it.
I hate to pull the my coach is better than yours line, but who is it that taught you how to dance paso to Blackpool music? In the weeks leading up to Blackpool we danced our run throughs to Blackpool music, and you should have heard my coaches screaming about people trying to change their routines. You can't know what the phrasing will be... just dance your steps. It really doesn't look bad... highlights have counts too and are choreography that can be danced on other counts within a phrase just as well.
Dancing to unphrased Paso is very liberating because it forces you to really dance your steps with the music instead of just struggling to line up with a highlight. Obviously you change your dynamic, but it ends up being much more musical in my opinion then when you dance it with the mindset of lining up to highlights and doing your highlights like isolated tricks instead of steps that have counts and a relationship to the music, not just stagnant over rehearsed acrobatics.
DanceLightly
New Member
:kissme:
