An Old Cajun Waltz ~ Enjoy this at home alone or with a friend... скачать в хорошем качестве

An Old Cajun Waltz ~ Enjoy this at home alone or with a friend...

Home we are, n'est pas? Found a small video worth sharing. Not a performance nor a tutorial (but close), and because of the unique nature of this particular waltz, you'll find some pleasure and interest in giving it a try 'round the place you live. Needs very little room. Wooden floor would be nice too. Partner? Well, you may be lucky enough to have someone with you interested in giving it a try. It came to me during Hurricane Andrew, August of '92, stranded in Lafayette, with mostly those other artists who showed up to Festival Acadien, as it was called in those days. Dance with live music is possible, within an hour of Lafayette, any hour of the day or night, any day of the week! Really enjoyed one elderly couple who also showed up at various venues we visited. I could not talk the gent into letting me dance with his wife nor would he discuss the particular waltz they did - in a place in the world where every other dance is a waltz! So I just watched, intently, when they showed up, till I finally understood what I was seeing. He called it "The Lover's Waltz". Said as far as he knew only married couples, friends of his mostly, did this step. ~ Waltz ~ As early as the 17th century, waltzes were played and danced both rurally as well as in the ballrooms of Austria. Its basic steps could be learned easily, as opposed to other complicated dances like the minuet, which took a fair amount of time to learn and master. Waltz was once named the "Forbidden dance" due to its close-hold and quick rotations. Before the Waltz, people danced around each other with little or no contact at all. Waltz is 3/4 musical time, 3 Beats or counts to each measure of Music. Most waltz uses 3 steps per measure, each step, on the Beat. This one uses the Beat and the Off Beat - then two more Beats! That's 5 beats but only four steps. Thinking of the steps and the melody beginning at the same time: The first two steps fit in one three beat measure of Waltz time counted thus - "ONE and two AND three and". Musically, it’s “2 against 3” in the first measure: 2 steps / 3 beats. 2 steps follow on the next 2 Beats, totaling 5 beats in the whole cycle. The 4 steps in 5 beats may be thought of as "Slow Slow Quick, Quick”! The pattern of steps then repeats, starting on the next beat (in this case, the 3rd beat of the 2nd measure) and repeats every 5 beats. While the sequence is in perfect rhythm with itself, it is perhaps useful to remember that 3 of the 4 steps use a single beat, from some part of the melody, though that is constantly changing! Try to internalize the “feel” rather than count the beats. Learning "2 against 3" is a real challenge for those who don't play music already. Here's some help, I hope, for use in Waltz. Counting - 1 & 2 & 3 & is 6 counts in one 3 beat measure or bar of waltz time, using the Beat and the half-way place between Beats – the Off Beat! 2 steps per measure divides any measure in half using this method. Example: “1 &” uses the “1” beat then “&” between the 2nd and 3rd beat. (1 & 2) (& 3 &) = two equally even steps per measure! Try listening to your favorite waltz and just step, small steps, while finding your way to honor the beat then the off-beat of any measure. Could you slowly just try turning, alone, while doing this? Then the other way? (This also happens to be a waltz dance step by itself called waltz pivot!) After you've practiced this a bit, sit and watch the video again using your feet in place, while sitting, to "find" the rhythm of the four steps in five beats. When you find a partner sometime. Begin with the Gent’s Left and the Lady’s Right. Dance the “slow slow” steps side to side. The “quick, quick” steps travel in “line of dance” (ballroom direction, counterclockwise). The Lady is moving back. Her Partner moves forward. Be aware that the model above, using the first measure of dance WITH the first measure of music, is immediately lost after the pattern starts repeating. The pattern of the waltz will return and become synchronous with the 1st Beat of a single measure of music only after three cycles of the steps. But the beginning of the waltz step is not back with the beginning of the melody for a long time! As a mantra may lift one out of their usual sensibilities to another plane as it were, so too, these steps ask the dancers to join, as a musician would, and become part of the fabric of the whole. Make sense? Hope so. _____________________________________________ Lastly, I'd like to credit my friend Carol Clark, for helping me determine some of the language necessary to share this waltz more widely. She partnered with me at the Monday Club in St. Louis, to work out the details of this dance, "The Lover's Waltz". Keep you fingers crossed that the Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, scheduled for Oct. 2020, will happen. If ever you get the chance, go. Lafayette LA is a welcoming community and dance music and dance abound in every little nook and cranny!