In partner dancing we commit to gathering our senses around the music and moving together. This is the beauty of our art. But with the goal of a shared dance, the ability to groove solo is often overlooked in favor of partnering skills and movement technique. Of course these are essential, but to find a […] Read more…
In my recent article, Groovology 201: Groove as the Life Force of Music and Dance, I wrote that “Just as playing a groove – a repeating set of rhythms – doesn’t guarantee that the music will groove, executing a particular set of steps does not guarantee that a dance will emerge.” It is groove – the […] Read more…
“Jazz musicians have dance in them, and jazz dancers have music in them, or jazz doesn’t happen.” – Sidney Bechet A groove makes listeners want to move, but in order to create this effect the musicians themselves must be moved, and they describe this as a bodily experience rather than something that comes from head […] Read more…
Groove is widely used among musicians to talk about the personal, social, artistic, and even spiritual qualities of music: the way people feel the music in their bodies, the way musicians play in unison, the way music transcends notes and comes to life, and the way music brings people into modified states of being. Although […] Read more…
The word groove is widely entrenched in our culture. Although we may not be able to come up with a precise definition, we tend to intuitively sense what it is. When things are going well, almost as if happening on their own, we say we’re “in a groove.” When we hear a song that makes […] Read more…