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Welcome to Episode 55 of the Salsa Kings LIVE podcast
After a tumultuous set of months, Andres is back hoping that you are safe and wants to continue sharing his love of dance with you. This week’s topic is ‘Less is more’. Specifically in regards to dance and turn patterns, sometimes it is better or more powerful to focus on the basics. Practically, focus on the complex aspects can prevent you from connecting with both your partner and the music if you are focused on technical excellence. By freeing up space in your brain and your soul to let the music take you over and sync more fully with your partner. The feel of the dance is more important than technical excellence.
Sometimes dances do have more complex parts or more energy, but that doesn’t mean you automatically need to be more complex. You can find other, more simple ways to communicate those feelings and ones that your partner is feeling as well. Andres invites his listeners to look into their dance moves and use their simplicity to connect more.
What does that simplicity add? It’s another of the intangibles that allow you to connect more easily and more strongly, which gives you more than any complexity can actually give you.
Often people mistake the idea of complexity for being a more impressive or evocative dance. However a mature dancer understands the beauty of simplicity and that sometimes it is better to let emotions move through basic, easy-to-read patterns. Sometimes it’s better to be a paperback than a college thesis. This time can be used for us to further understand what it is that we do and don’t need, and this applies to dance as much as it applies to real-world situations.
Fulfillment can be found by avoiding distractions, in life, and in dance. While there is something impressive in being able to seamlessly transition between twenty spins and floor slides, sometimes the most impressive thing is simplicity, passion, and connection. If you are so obsessed with looking impressive you can put yourself at odds with the dance itself. To truly be a great dancer, a mature dancer, you should throw away the obsession with complexity and see how simple you can make a dance and how well you can connect with the music and your partners.
“We try to make everything count. Everything that’s happening to us, everything that happens around us in dance to maximize everything that we can learn from it and I think in my humble opinion ‘less is more’ is super applicable to one’s dance.”