(via jardy)

I first stumbled on Liquid Dance Conference videos a year or two back. I watched a few, was amazed, and in my ADD-ness hurried on again. Recently, learning some waacking from Lockeroo reminded me of one video I had seen, and decided to go poking back.

Perhaps only now can I really appreciate them, but this conference had the kinds of conversations about dance that I love. No one was teaching moves in this conference, everyone was teaching concepts, ideas behind their dance, variations and how to create them, and taking time to explain their secrets. Oh, and they’re nerds, so their approach to dance appealed to me as well.

There’s a few videos I’d like to call out specifically, though. For waacking, this video on “levers” was what I was reminded of. What’s he’s doing with these levers, is essentially some of the same concepts that is utilized in waacking. Lockeroo talks about how most of her dance comes from playing with circles of various forms, large and small, same and alternating directions, in different planes, etc. And in this “levers” video, Kai mentions he drew his inspiration from Poi (the fire stick dance), and talks about creating circles in these spatial grid planes, of different sizes and directions, and “pushing” his levers around. As one friend I showed it to remarked, “He looks just like Princess Lockeroo”.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP3MDCC-F2M

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T87hU8X607Q

But having found these, I started watching the rest of the videos to find more inspiration. Some of the other great ones included:

The Mental Behind the Physical, where hgltch talks about “what crazy stories people think about when they dance”.  It reminded me of some great conversations with Lil’ B in the parking lot, where he talked about drawing pictures in space with his chest (though ask him if you want to hear exactly how he’s drawing. :P)

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0kHJ-ns6cw (examples from a bunch of different lecturers at the event)

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYHz0eD6Ysg (hgltch showing off his inspiring liquid, as well as individuality, life experience, goals in dance, and other ideas so much deeper than the technique of the dance itself.)

Another video has Houdoken talking about the various concepts and images and illusions he creates with his concept of “2 point flow”. Beautiful to watch, and amazing to see how much depth there is in this dance for him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XQrlIEYFPg

Finally, a slightly rambling talk by Distortion, making great points about layers in dance. Learning the mechanics of a dance so well that you can focus on higher layers. I’d like to talk about this more in another post at some point, how much dance is layers upon layers, from using lines, to using moves, to using movements, to using concepts, to using stories, etc. And your mind can only focus on one layer at a time, so each layer must be made so ingrained that it doesn’t require any mental energy. But until I write that post, you got this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnaEs_uG-uU

movementlifestyle:

~ Dedicated to Tracy Seiler, Bianca Vallar, Jay Vaughn, and Keone Madrid for having countless and endless conversations about this very important subject. ~

I’m sure nobody believes me, but one of the first dance moves I ever learned was a top rock. Not a double turn, not an eight count of…

originaltruism:

…

I’ll admit, perhaps to the distaste of my exchange friends, that I did not like the format of being on Exchange out in Singapore. Going to a school where I was barely interested and had work to do, and traveling on the weekends for 3 or 4 days to local destinations didn’t give me the freedom I usually have when backpacking

Nah, I very much agree with and understand this one. And I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who felt like this. When I told folks I was headed to Paris with work, everyone was excited and jealous about my options. It was a great opportunity to be sure, and perhaps not one to be passed up, however not necessarily with the freedom I wanted. It tied me to Paris every day, leaving me only a couple days on the weekends to travel Europe. I usually tried travelling to jams in nearby countries (I managed to hit up Dublin, London x2, Munich, and Stuttgart), but a full day jam and afterparty and sleep didn’t leave me much time to really explore the city or culture before I had to head back to work on Monday. I longed for the ability to chill…to go to a jam, and spend a week afterwards exploring and getting to know the city and scene before moving on again, very much like what I assume A-Game probably did while backpacking. I think this, combined with self-imposed long hours at work (due to timezone issues with everyone in Cali coming online as I was about to end my day in Paris), led me to not enjoy Paris nearly as much as I should have. Yes, I may sound ungrateful for the opportunities I had, but it’s a mixed bag of opportunity and prison. :)

Really, I wanted to embrace the culture and language (hard when you work all day in an American English environment), get to know the local dance scene at an intimate level like I did when I was in NYC. But at least I learned enough to know that I want to go back again next year, fully embracing the language and culture this time (without an american job), and doing it with more freedom than I did this time around. It’ll be a lot more costly (and necessarily creative) without a proper source of income, but I’m sure I’ll manage something out with proper savings and cheap living.

So I’ve been off on an adventure in NYC dancing, and there’s some lessons I’ve learned, things I’ve discovered about myself, and hopefully deeper understandings of this thing called “dance”. Hopefully I can show this all off in my dancing, but for those I’m not near to, or who can’t be here to share in the stuff I’m learning but would still be interested in anyway, I thought this tumblr might help…