Dance
Musicality in dance: What it means to be a true dancer
There are many elements that dance encompasses to bring both musical and movement-based stories to life.
There's just something about a dancer with musicality that's just amazing to watch. Dancers who embrace the emotion in the music they dance to rather than just executing the steps in the choreography are what makes a dance performance become an emotional story.
So what is it that makes musicality so essential to a poignant performance? It's the dancer's ability to take the mood and the emotive progression of each chord and note within a score and play it out in physical form in a performance. That's not all there is to musicality in dance, though.
Why Is Musicality in Dance So Important?
Musicality is essential to feeling the music and portraying that through your movements. It also helps inspire new and fresh movements that you might not have thought of as being part of the routine. When you tune in to your musicality and feel the music, you'll start to find your own way of phrasing and your own unique dynamic in the context of the choreography you create.
When you embrace more musicality in your dance steps, the movements you flow through stop being mechanical and take on the fluidity of the different moods and tones of the score. This ultimately shows in the way you connect each movement you incorporate into your dance.
How To Develop Your Musicality in Dance
Even if you've never played an instrument or learned how to read music, you can still hone your musicality. It just takes some practice. One of the most important elements to embrace as you develop your ability to flow within the music is your identity within your dance. Embracing a song's emotion as your own, creating your own identity through the musical score, can be one of the most crucial elements to developing your musicality.
B-Girl Fabgirl
© Fabio Piva/Red Bull Content Pool
Fabgirl says, "One of the first things I got from dancing was the identity, you know?" Even though she refers to her love of dance rather than the musicality specifically, it's still one of those things you need to create within your relationship with the music to bring it out in your dance moves. Create this identity within yourself by studying different types of music to get a feel for the whole mood of it. You'll start to notice that the more you do this, the more you'll find yourself wanting to express what the music makes you feel.
Experiment With the Phrasing in the Music
Aside from finding the emotion in the music you want to dance to, you'll need to experiment with the accents, syncopation, and strong and weak beats in a song. This is the phrasing of the music. In other words, it's the way each measure of a song is crafted. Experimenting with each mechanical element within a song with different moves can also be an excellent way to bring out your unique take on musicality in dance.
Listen to the music for accents within the rhythm of it, syncopated or short-and-long sounding notes, and major and minor key tones (happy and sad, respectively). As you get into the score, you can start moving your body to what each of these elements makes you feel. Try different moves to musical elements like short and quick notes, long-held notes, and different mood-driven tones like deeply emotive bittersweet melodies or light-hearted chord progressions.
Develop Your Musical Ear
You can most definitely develop your ear for music whether you're a musician or not. If you have the passion for it, take up learning an instrument that moves you with its sound, like guitar, piano, or bass. If that's not your thing, you can still train your ear for the entirety of the music by going to live concerts, studying recordings of performances, and listening to symphonies. Each instrument has its own unique appeal and sound, and when you experiment with many types of music, you can find deep connections to different songs and styles that bring out the dance spirit you have naturally.
When you're listening to the music, listen for the way different instruments in songs rise and fall, grow louder or softer, or take on different moods throughout the score. Use this as a foundation for letting yourself get lost in the feel of it. Listen for bright tones and deeper resonance, and let your ear guide your dance steps as you focus on these diverse sounds.
It really just takes practice and dedication to develop your musicality. If you're coming from a dance background with more of a mechanical approach to choreography, try taking out some of that formality when choosing new music for developing a dance. Let the music tell you what the dance will look like, and you'll be that much closer to true musicality in your dancing.