Musicality is an essential component to being a dancer. They go hand and hand. A dancer without musicality is like a scientist who doesn’t know the elements. It just doesn’t work. While some dance students have an instinctual, keen sensibility towards musicality, others may not. Wherever they are at in their musical journey, we as dance teachers can help develop this skill over time.
Below are three super easy how-to’s to work on musicality with your dancers. You may find that some of these exercises work better with certain students and that’s OK! Every learner is different, so don’t be afraid to try new things and see how their sensibility, musicality and the rhythmic sense begins to grow overtime!
Use Counts- Yes. How obvious, right? Sometimes- not entirely. How often do we really slow down to make sure dancers know what each count is? Do we painstakingly and tediously work through each phrase with and without music so dancers can find that musicality and timing? Frequently, I go back and work on short phrases at a time and really hone in on the counts. I have found something eventually really clicks with the dancers, not only on the literal level but on a musical level. So, yes, use counts but more importantly make sure you dancers really know what they are inside and out.
Don’t Count- Once a dancer has counts, they need to forget them and feel the music. Sometimes you may opt to not even use counts at first and let them find their way with it. This works better for some genres than others for sure. But, the beauty of that improvisation, in finding the legato and staccato of movement, when it’s feels good to pause or speed up can often times be met with improvisation exercises that help dancers to feel different kinds of music with different rhythms, multicultural influences, textures, sounds and tempos.
Don’t dance. Listen- Have dancers sit, preferably with headphones on and close their eyes. Have them listen to their music over and over and over, visualizing choreography. They may get sick to death of the song but that’s usually when they will start to find the musical nuances and really, “hear” their accompaniment. Have dancers progress to tapping out rhythms on their laps or drawing stream of consciousness as they listen. Anything that allows them to hyper focus on the actual milks and crannies of the music.
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