TURNING WALKING INTO DANCING -- RISE & FALL

Sometimes, dancing is described as "walking set to music." but good dancing goes beyond simple walking. Here are six features of styling that turn walking into rich and luscious dancing.

• Frame
• Floating
• Dancing On the Diagonal
• Side Lead
• Rise and Fall
• Body Sway

The fifth example of dance styling that takes us beyond simply walking down the hall is rise and fall. In the section on floating, we said that bounce is awkward and unattractive, and here we're saying that rise and fall is graceful and pretty, so we want to be sure to define our terms. A bounce is rise and fall that occurs over a single beat of music. You rise as you step off and fall as you land on the next foot. Bounce is jerky. Our good "rise and fall" occurs over a whole measure of music; it is not jerky but gentle. Rise and fall gives a whole, new layer, a third dimension if you will, of natural flow and movement to our dancing. Where dancing on the diagonal produces graceful wave-like patterns in the two dimensions of the dance floor, rise and fall adds the same kind of richness in the third, vertical dimension.

The general rule is that you lower at the beginning of the measure. Lowering accomplishes two things. It allows you to take a long and graceful first step. Try it. Lower just a little into your supporting leg and extend you free foot. How far can you reach without shoving your partner? Just a little way. Lower more. Can you reach farther with the free foot? Yes, the more you lower before a step, the longer the step can be. If you try to take a long step without lowering first, you will shove; you will come over onto your partner. Again, lowering helps you greatly to progress smoothly.

Of course, the second thing that lowering does is to set you up for graceful rise and fall. Lower as you begin to do a waltz open telemark, for instance. Soften the trail knee to lower and then drive forward onto the lead foot. She feels the lowering and is ready to go before you really start to progress. At the end of beat one, begin to rise. Continue to rise through beat two and into beat three. Lower again at the end of the measure. Over the whole measure, this movement is graceful and gentle, not bouncy at all.

Being up is not just an extended knee (never locked). It is being on the balls of your feet, and it is being erect and stretched in your torso: lungs full perhaps and back a bit arched, head up. But don't lift or shrug your shoulders in an effort to be "up." Rise and fall must not disturb your toned frame. You can distinguish between "foot rise" and rise in the rest of the body. Often, you will rise only through the leg and torso. Sometimes, you will add that little extra with foot-rise.

Rise and fall is used differently in the different smooth rhythms. It is most conspicuous in waltz, where we spend about the same amount of time dancing "down" as in dancing "up." In foxtrot and even in quickstep, we get up more quickly and we stay up longer. There is rise and fall in foxtrot, but the overall look of the dance is flatter, more up and floating. Waltz has been compared to mountains and valleys and foxtrot to rolling hills. Tango is flat; there is no rise and fall.

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

"On with the dance, let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether there's any dance to dance or any joy to unconfine."

"Aspire, break bounds. Endeavor to be good, and better still, best."