Catch the rhythm of different music styles. Know your tango from your rhumba
4th of 20 reasons why dancing is great for your well-being. Here's the full list.
We have an emotional response to music. We all know what impact certain songs have on our emotional memory. As soon as a particularly meaningful song is played we are right back into that emotional experience. Am I alone in finding that the emotional experiences that songs trigger are usually positive ones, even if sometimes somewhat melancholic? Is this another paradox? With distance, even a sad event, say music played at a funeral, can evoke pleasant memories of the person who has died and the music helps keep us connected to them in a tangible way. As a social dancer, as soon as I hear tango or rhumba music or any other style that I can dance to, I feel the emotional connection and recall a wonderful occasion when I danced to that rhythm. Alternatively I dance in my head to that song in the moment. (See reason #5 coming up soon).
Just one day ago I was asked by a non-dancer what the difference is between salsa and tango. Just hear the tune and the dancer knows the rhythm and responds. It feels great!
DJ Toti (Jorge Perez-Yanez) translated by Michael Hoechsmann captures the emotional dimension in his comments here:
http://www.equalitytoday.org/edition8/salsa.html
A quote from a compilation of Tom Parsons, used with permission http://www.dancer.com/tom-parsons/quotes.html
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
--Maya Angelou
Chris Mitchell
www.dancetours.co.nz
