My, how Smooth has changed

[opendoor]

..don't know how AT competition works..

In both categories, partners are not changed. "Pista" (social tango) evaluates the interpretation of previously unknown pieces. The list of figures is limited. With "escenario" (show tango) there are no restrictions and the couples choose the music themselves.

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

But this thread is toxic.

the thread moved from a potential good conversation about the evolution of the style to toxicity.

I agree that the thread has included far too many personal barbed comments, and I wish we would avoid those in future and stay focused on the topic. This is not personal, and no one should be attacked or verbally abused or insulted for expressing their opinions.

But I see a lot of good in this thread, nonetheless. Art is supposed to inspire passionate discussion. The fact that we all have such strong feelings reinforces the idea that dance is definitely an art - it’s so much more than just a form of exercise. Smooth style is Art. Whether it’s danced the old-fashioned way, the relatively recent way, or the new push-the-envelope way, it is still Art. And Art is supposed to speak to people in different ways. It would be really boring if everyone listened to the same piece of music and all felt the same way about it. It would also be really boring if music had never progressed beyond Bach’s Goldberg Variations (no matter how amazing the performance of that is).

The explanations offered by @Arun Garg, @joy, @fiesta0618, & @singndance about why they like the new, progressive direction Smooth is taking, are immensely helpful to me. A lot of those things never occurred to me. As I’ve noted before elsewhere (many times, in fact), the journey of learning to dance includes development as a person as well as a dancer. This learning process - for me, certainly; and hopefully for others too - is enhanced by discussions like the one in this thread (preferably minus the unnecessary and unhelpful antagonism).

And please believe me when I say that my comments about not liking certain dresses or certain hairstyles are not meant to sound like I’m passing judgment on the dancers themselves. I’m simply expressing my personal taste in dresses and hairstyles! Similarly, when I say things like the dancing feels like it’s disconnected from the music or that I don’t feel any true emotions being expressed, that’s just my opinion based on watching some 2D videos. I’m not accusing these incredibly talented, dedicated professionals of having no emotions. By sharing what I see, I’m eliciting responses from other people who see it differently. And that broadens my view, which I appreciate.

So I hope we will continue to discuss the evolution of Smooth, without anyone becoming offensive with - or offended by - any comments.

 

[Arun Garg]

It would also be really boring if music had never progressed beyond Bach’s Goldberg Variations

See now this is how I know I am old fashioned. The Goldbergs were my capstone in undergrad and still a staple of my repertoire, and I would be happy to be stranded on an island with just that score and nothing else lolol.

 

[bry_dancer]

Art is supposed to inspire passionate discussion. The fact that we all have such strong feelings reinforces the idea that dance is definitely an art - it’s so much more than just a form of exercise. Smooth style is Art.

I think this is the crux of this discussion. Dance is art. Do you prefer Rembrandt or modern art? Do you prefer the Goldberg Variations or Lady Gaga? Similarly we are kind of asking do you prefer Standard or Smooth -- one holds more to the traditions and tries to do the fundamentals really well while the other tries to push boundaries and create something new and different.

And people's taste evolve over time. Just like all music and art evolves over time. Each person is entitled to have an opinion of the art whether they've studied in art school or not. I personally have studied in art school and with some of the pros shown and mentioned in this thread but I'm not sure that makes my opinion any more valid.

 

[fiesta0618]

I really like your analysis (as always), but I'm less convinced of this. I think exaggeration that fits the environment makes art accessible. I'm not sure about exaggeration that is counter to expectations. Like with music -- a little bit of surprise is good, but music that is entirely surprise is not for the faint of heart. Not that many people will take to free jazz or to Schoenberg without a grounding in the musical traditions that preceded them.

Some of the exaggeration that goes on in those later videos to me (very little ballroom experience) looks like it's a thing they choreographed a priori and music-be-d**ned. It may very well be that someone with a more sophisticated eye (or ear) can see a musical reason for it, carefully fit to work with the music being played, but I feel like you might need that sophistication to appreciate it.

Agree completely. I do not actually want to make a full-throated endorsement of everything in the latest videos. I've taken an over-strong stance on their behalf for the sake of the conversation in a context where few others were willing to.

I like the elements that the new style uses and the old style eschews...but I agree that there is often too much of them. All-accent, no-steady-state is not a good balance, because then the accents lose their contrastive power and just become noise. In addition, all-accent strains credulity for believing the expression, which is how I interpret your second quoted paragraph. This happens all the time in the newer style, and is why I said before that fully 1/3 of the elite dancers are doing things I don't enjoy watching.

Stated another way. I love the new-style ingredients, but if/when I am that skilled, I'll design my recipes a bit differently. A little bit more travel, fewer accents that are more carefully deployed, that sort of thing.

Granted, part of the reason the elites are doing this is that you want the judges to see your accent but can't predict when they are watching. And another reason is that you have limited time to show "all the good stuff," and so need to force the issue musically. And they all really, really, really want to win.

But I'm ok not winning, so I'm happily free from some of that pressure.

 

[IndyLady]

If Smooth is nearly as popular as some in this thread are saying, we can hope that dressmakers will catch on. Then we'll be able to see more of the top pro ladies wearing professionally made dresses designed with the tastes of their ultimate customers in the competition audiences in mind.

I am highly dubious it will every play out this way. There's this widely accepted economic theory that demand drives supply, which I find to be more of a myth. Especially speaking as a woman who purchases clothing. No one is asking me (or most women, I'm pretty sure) what I want, the supply side just makes what they want and put it in the store and that's what we get to pick from. I'm not clamoring for skinny jeans, pants with no pockets, tent-like tops with the shoulders cut out, crop tops, etc etc. But that's what's in the stores, and I don't sew. If you've ever eye-rolled about how women dress these days, it's because that's what's for sale, not because we came up with that ourselves. Some of us are still able to wear more flattering and classic things we bought years ago, but frankly modern clothes shopping is often a miserable crapshoot if you're not into young cheap fashion and your body type does not conform.

Which brings me to ballroom costuming. The pros are going to influence the pro-ams, not the other way around. People aspire up, not down. So whatever trends the pros and the designers they work with decide to pursue, that is what the rest of us will have available to us. I am not holding my breath too hard for sleeves and covered backs and covered midriffs (though I would be thrilled to find more of those).

There is a scene in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" where Miranda (Meryl Streep) is explaining to Andrea (Anne Hathaway) that the blue sweater she (Andrea) is wearing was not really her free choice like she thinks, its design/color/availability was influenced and determined in multiple steps up the fashion industry supply chain before it made its way downstream to her. When a movie describes real life.

 

[Misspendragon]

When a seasoned professional, former multi time world and US finalist, North American Champion, literally hundreds of Open Pro Smooth titles etc (my former coach) tells you (me), as an amateur with a few years in an isolated learning environment to shut up listen, it's a good indicator that you should do just that. And it's advice I am still grateful for and live by. I am by no means saying that Pros are void of scrutiny, and that people cannot form opinions about what they like about the style; but it is telling when the presumed justifications for choices are just assumptions based on nothing. And yes it is a fine line to toe.

And certainly, it's not advice for anyone in a learning situation that is an active Smooth dancer pushing the style when one is discussing how to expand the artistic output of the dances. And you have to realize that the top coaches that were active in the late 90s and early 00s are still the very same coaches that are training the top pros today (see the current champions and one of their main coaches, David Hamilton). And those coaches disagree with each other, with their students, with their own previous opinions all the time. That is not the situation here, where the discussion has evolved into making assumptions about the integrity of dancer's artistic intentions, their financial abilities to afford enough fabric to cover their whole body, and making large sweeping professional decisions based on result chasing and industry game playing. Again this is my opinion, but the thread moved from a potential good conversation about the evolution of the style to toxicity.

Experimentation is good for art and should be encouraged. Which means, as we all know from our own dancing, that at the earlier stages of s routine some movements won't be fully realized because it takes time to (1) find what we really want to say with a movement and (2) fully own the movement. When I looked at that 2021 video and heard Smooth people's comments on it showing a new dancing style, that was my interpretation of what I personally perceived as "trying too hard" and I over-the-top efforts. I might be dead wrong of course, but the point is, I had no negative affective associations with my observations and certainly meant no disrespect. Whether I like the overall result or not, I always admire people who are willing to try new things and risk looking like a fool. And, as someone mentioned already, a fool is still a whole lot more interesting to watch than someone playing it safe.

 

[Misspendragon]

Agree completely. I do not actually want to make a full-throated endorsement of everything in the latest videos. I've taken an over-strong stance on their behalf for the sake of the conversation in a context where few others were willing to.

I like the elements that the new style uses and the old style eschews...but I agree that there is often too much of them. All-accent, no-steady-state is not a good balance, because then the accents lose their contrastive power and just become noise. In addition, all-accent strains credulity for believing the expression, which is how I interpret your second quoted paragraph. This happens all the time in the newer style, and is why I said before that fully 1/3 of the elite dancers are doing things I don't enjoy watching.

Stated another way. I love the new-style ingredients, but if/when I am that skilled, I'll design my recipes a bit differently. A little bit more travel, fewer accents that are more carefully deployed, that sort of thing.

Granted, part of the reason the elites are doing this is that you want the judges to see your accent but can't predict when they are watching. And another reason is that you have limited time to show "all the good stuff," and so need to force the issue musically. And they all really, really, really want to win.

But I'm ok not winning, so I'm happily free from some of that pressure.

I know I will be unpopular with this sentiment, but I don't dance for the judges or even the audience. I focus entirely - yes, entirely - on my partner and my own sensations. The only exception is when we walk onto the floor and take a bow after a dance. Then, I focus on the audience. But the second I start dancing, I shut everything but my body and partner out. Now, if I was a leader I wouldn't be able to do that if course, and even as a follower I must be aware of others in my proximity spatially, but I only do that to the extent that I must.

Whenever I fail to own a movement that's a result of lack of experience with it or a failure of concentration, a concentration that again, is directed at my own kinesthetic sensations and my partner.

 

[Requiem]

I still refer to this as a "style" because "matching the music" is often merely a matter of taste. In the context of art and aesthetic appeal, the term objectively worse isn't especially meaningful.

I don't have any specific knowledge of smooth, but I strongly agree with this statement in a general sense. Musicality is inherently subjective. Even something as seemingly objective as 'dancing on beat' actually can have a lot of variation and interpretability. Some steps might be slightly ahead of the beat or slightly behind for musical reasons, such as making Slow steps longer and Fast steps quicker. You can add syncopation to some steps for contrast or to match something specific in the music. A pro and a newcomer couple might dance the same amount off the beat, but while the newcomers are making mistakes, the pros look good by doing so musically and with purpose!

In fact, I would philosophically argue that if art makes me respond strongly enough to feel dislike, it has at least partially succeeded (arguably). Art is only an unequivocal failure (IMO) if it I am so unmoved by it that I don't even bother to form an opinion.

I also agree with this sentiment. A lot of art in other mediums break strongly from norms, e.g. minimalist paintings and atonal music. I may not particularly find them enjoyable myself, but there's no question that such things were memorable and made an impact. And the more recent smooth dancers in the videos are far from deviating so strongly from previous practice as those movements.

And people's taste evolve over time. Just like all music and art evolves over time.

Yes, agreed! In addition to tastes, I think something that is new and provocative when first introduced can become expected and boring after being replicated over and over for a long time. And after some time, going back and incorporating previous styles can even become the new new

 

[opendoor]

..mumbo-jumbo, in the end, and plenty subjective..

And yet we will both immediately recognize performances with high musicality, although we never met and our dance careers were different.