The Nature of Dance | Hacker News Reader

The Nature of Dance

vester.si

35 pointswonger_46 comments

I have been seeing many videos on aging and how dance is a good option to delay dementia as it uses both the mind and body (assuming you try new dance moves as the old ones become automatic). What is the best way to get into dance if you are above 40 and have heavy feet? For me this is purely for mind-body benefits and not to get 'good' at a particular style. I guess same can be said for picking up a musical instrument although the physical aspect seems less involved (unless you are drumming). Some sort of weekly progression chart.

if you avoid the ideological capture of "getting good at [dance style]" then what you dance means is "playing with the physical energy stored in the body"

muscles store physical energy in the form of tension, if you can create a bit of tension [here] then smoothly transfer it [there] you are "dancing".

how it looks to an observer is irrelevant. stretch this game enough on every dimension and it will eventually start to look [positive valence] to observers

If you're male (or want to dance as a leader), there are universally not enough of you to go around in partner dancing (with occasional exceptions), so any partner dance you pick you should be well received if you aren't a creep and just do the work to improve. Some of these dances are easier to get into than others. So your area might have salsa classes. Salsa is nice because it's easy to get into, but you can keep getting better at it forever. Bachata is similar but it's a bit more intimate in my view, so depends what you're after.

Some places just have "social dancing" classes, which is a different thing each week, but they might require you bring a partner, so look into it.

If you're from the US, or less commonly outside of the US, line dancing is a non-partner dance, so a group dance. One of my best friends does it and he loves it. Again don't need to be good to start.

Even if for most areas and most partner dances, there are less leaders than followers, this is not universally true. For instance in Turkey and Buenos Aires, there are many tourists of both sexes, while local women are culturally biased not to participate while local men are culturally biased to participate, hence creating a different gender balance.

Why are there less leaders generally? That is not intuitive to me since it feels like men generally want to fill that role in any context. Are there just less male dancers?

Yes, there are generally fewer male dancers.

When the balance gets skewed too hard one way or another, lead/follow becomes less sex-discriminated. Which usually means that women lead too. But in the past few years it's become much more acceptable for men to follow as well, at least in some contexts.

My 2 cents on this question – it's easier to learn the follower part: you get some basics and then go to social dances events and practice with a good leaders. But to learn the leader part you can't just go to dance events and practice with good followers. It takes more deliberate practice in classes to get the leading part.

There are just fewer male dancers. I've gone to events with insane ratios either way (3x more leaders/followers) but it's rare. Usually there are more leaders at the beginner level and decreasing amounts as you go up (but more followers who can also lead to mitigate).

Every group thing where men play a big part alongside women or kids have a shortage of men. Men are simply way less social than women in today’s world.

To address all of the peer comments at the same time: I don't know.

There are places where men dancing is gay-ish and that deters them. That's an easy answer, but it's not enough because very progressive countries don't do much better on this, by my experience.

I would agree learning to follow in the very beginning can be easier, so that sounds like maybe men don't remain because their job is harder, but I wouldn't agree with this explanation because I observe fewer men showing up for beginner classes, when they don't know their job might is harder (whether or not it actually is).

Maybe men are more asocial on average? I'd be willing to believe that, especially in these times.

A comment above yours comments that this isn't true in Turkey, Buenos Aires, and I would add Paris to this list from experience, and then there's the entire continent of Africa we haven't mentioned and I can't really comment on, but what those places have in common is a cultural presence of dance, often a deep connection to dance where families dance together, maybe mom dances when she's cooking, dance isn't something you pick up as an exotic hobby, it's just that thing everyone does, and maybe you decide to do it a bit more than others.

Every culture with a lot of cultural dance presence would have a different view on this, I suspect.

Salsa is definitely not easy to get into, at least as lead. Salsa music itself is quite complicated for beginners and to keep time and lead moves all while having to improv on the spot. its a really tough partner dance imo. but the rewards are that much more satisfying once you get out of the beginners hell.

Would 100% recommend any kind of partner dancing. my personal favorite is salsa. Granted I love the music, but there is so much to learn in salsa you will never get bored. The connection to music and your partner whilst dancing is some of the best feeling i have ever had. and its a great way to socialise and meet new people.

The writer appears to touch one important point. Many of us are mind-oriented, have lost touch with our emotional and physical side. For us, body is just for moving brain around.

While we all have all of the sides, for such a person, other sides are atrophied from under-utilization, while mind is hyper-trophied from overuse for for things it is not so good at. The primary obstacle for a person like that is to start developing the atrophied sides.

If this is the case, the best way to start is with the simplest possible partner dance, because mind-oriented people naturally approach learning complex body movements through mind, which is exactly the opposite you need to be doing.

So something where steps are one step per beat, like Swedish bugg.

Just go to any beginner class for social dancing (salsa, bachata, etc etc). They'll have had older/less co-ordinated, trust me. It's fantastic physical, mental exercise and a great way to meet people/be part of a community. I don't regret any of the time I spent dancing.

Dance is such a nuanced thing. Really I think it is more like a language than anything else.

My favorite example of this is at somewhere like a rave or Phish show etc where you can see people form their own little conversations and groups and move on as the night goes.

And of course you have people just enjoying having a nice talk with themselves and the music.

In more professional settings you see people try to fit dance into little boxes and say what it is or is not... it predates spoken language. It is something very primal, not even uniquely human.

Dancing in large groups with other humans truly is primal, and something special. It's akin to the experience I think people get when going to church and similar things, weirdly enough.

Everything is so artificial online today as well, that maybe it's the contrast between what we see all day vs when we're at events, that make it all seem extra special nowadays.

Before I went to my first Phish show I always heard people refer to it as their church; it didn't make sense to me until I went. Even being sober, it was a very powerful experience, and the sense of connection and community was very enlightening.

Never went to a Phish show, but now you got my interest up :) I'm mostly coming from the electronic music scene, in various capacities, and pretty much the same feeling and senses exposed in those, even in more "artificial" music styles.

I feel like a lot of the "AI-doomerism" could be solved if people go out where large groups listen to music, and dance together with strangers. I even wrote about one recent experience in more detail some weeks ago: https://emsh.cat/en/the-people-are-still-there/

Going to church, you say? :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ltoAcZrjBw

(Faithless : 'God Is A DJ', Live at Alexandra Palace)

Heh, fitting! Personally, at 4 in the morning in a warehouse, I'd probably claim DJ is a God rather than the opposite :)

I’ve always felt so awkward and uncomfortable the whole time in these situations. It’s a huge shame because I’m very social orally :/

The first follower makes the lone nut a leader

Source: https://youtu.be/fW8amMCVAJQ?si=h6ZYND15Am0ao3aq

When I think about dance, it's about the algebraic structure in it. E.g. translating moves between different levels, transitions between moves, and so on. That, and the movement options that increased physical capabilities unlock. So nothing like what OP thinks about. Not a criticism of what they've written; just a different perspective.

Once again, I’m not at all surprised that tech people can’t simply enjoy the activity for its own sake, but instead impose their calculating, utility-driven mindset on something that is truly beautiful and brings people together. An absolutely bleak perspective.

Don't tell me how I should enjoy my hobby.

I wouldn't knock neuroatypical people's attempt to overcome their faulty wiring and do something that could socially benefit them, even if the perspective they are doing it from is strange. RMS has spoken about how getting into Bulgarian folk dance was good for him.

> tech people can’t simply enjoy the activity for its own sake

How is this possibly your take away from someone describing how they see something? You know nothing about this person, yet conclude they have a bleak perspective, yet you're the one who is criticizing someone for merely thinking and talking about an activity.

Let people enjoy activities in the way they want. If they want to endlessly analyze and discuss the mechanical details about it, or if they just want to stand on the top of a roof in the rain and dance, who cares? They're both "enjoying" the activity, just in different ways.

The OP's ridicule does make sense. Think about how in Star Trek TNG, Data's description of everyday hobbies and pursuits in logic-speak was used to lend humor to episodes, "Haha, he's so weird". And people often say now that character was a better depiction of an autist than a far-future android.

It would make sense if they actually had seen GP being distracted from the activity itself because they overthink about it.

Here though, we're on a forum, explicitly designed for conversing and discussing things, and they're assuming GP has a bleak perspective because they're actively engaging in the conversation.

That in my mind doesn't make any sense and I'd say is (inadvertently maybe) trying to shut down the conversation instead of curiously engaging with it.

Algebra is beautiful. Dance is beautiful. The two together?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49694659

It's most obvious in very formalized dance, but even in street dance, which emphasises freestyling, you can still find this kind of structure. There are videos of bboys talking how they come up with moves, and they'll talk about applying transforms (reverse, invert, change level, etc.) to existing moves, or combining parts of existing moves together. It's very far from everything in the dance, but it's a useful lens to guide exploration.

An example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCpXbHpy9LY

I found quite interesting the apps the author created for dancing: https://vester.si/blog/dance-tools/

However I could not figure out which partner dances he focuses on, I would be curious to know.

"Dance clip" seems to do exactly 0 things I can't already do with the video editor/folder system on my phone.

And dropbox is merely SCP/FTP, yet there they stand.

Looks like he's into Urban Kiz (I suspect a kind of Kizomba, which is quite popular in Europe).

Note: the author is also on HN. He made this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49649789

I did not expect my weekend and week to be spent on the first page of HN, let me tell you.

Several, but as the other comment pointed out, Urban Kiz is my main focus, as well as Tarraxo and Zouk.

https://divisbyzero.com/2009/05/04/the-maypole-braid-group/

Of maypole dance and the algebra of braids

>Learning styles aren't a thing*. It was an idea popularized many years ago - that some people learn by seeing, some by hearing, others by thinking about things , etc... - and has been so thorougly proven not to replicate that when teachers use it to promote their methodology I practice my breathing exercises to not let it get to me.

What???

Ppl definitely learn by various means.

Im reading it wrong or what?

Means != styles.

https://onlineteaching.umich.edu/articles/the-myth-of-learni...

In my day job I am an instructor. It has become fashionable of late to shit on the idea of learning styles for various reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism

I agree, and actually I put that asterisk there all that time ago when I wrote that article intending to put a footnote at the end, and clearly forgot. I meant to say that yes certainly people don't learn in the same way, but the thing I'm averse to is someone saying "I learn by seeing", and leaving it at that. It's simplistic, and I've found that individuals can also be wrong about their own opinion if their learning style.

The way I read some of the literature is that these may more often map to preferences, so the individual may prefer to see things, when learning, but it might not actually lead to more learning happening.

In dance I would yield that some people can repeat a movement just by seeing it, and others can't, but again I would say that's a learning style, I'd say there's a capacity inside them that is less strong/developed, translating movement seen to movement done. And it can be improved.

I found occasionally dancing after a long time invigorating. But afterwards, dancing for many days contiguously, my experience is that I get bored and stop until the cycle repeats.

> I practice my breathing exercises to not let it get to me

This turns on the bullshit detection alarm in my head. Breathing bullshitters exist everywhere these days.

But otherwise simple and entertaining content.

> bullshit detection

This doesn't sound like anything that's not accepted by mainstream medicine to me. If they'd started bringing pseudoscientific ideas in then sure, but breathing exercises are a well-known way to regulate your nervous system aren't they?

Breathing bullshitters in my experience goes hand in hand with people who ask to "calm down and take a deep breath" in the midst of a discussion due to their inability to match the speed of the discussion or because they want to save face. Usually a honest "can you slow down, I am not following" or "I was wrong" would be a respectful approach. But alas, honesty is alien for breathing bullshitters.

This doesn't apply to everyone. But its so numerous, that the moment someone mentions breathing bullshit, the skeptic in me turns on the bullshit detector.

The pseudoscience that often comes afterwards is just icing on the cake.

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