Sweatin' The Technique

A few years ago, I was watching an episode of one of the few TV shows I religiously watch, America's Best Dance Crew.  This particular season, Omarion was one of the judges, along with JC Chasez and Lil' Mama (what qualifies her to be a dance judge is beyond me, but anyway).  Above is a clip of a particular exchange between Omarion and JC that still sticks out to me to this day.  In it, Omarion criticizes the crew that had just performed for not having enough feeling and edge, looking as if they were "trained" to do what they did.  JC disagreed, saying he felt that the dancers indeed performed from their hearts and that there was nothing wrong with being trained.

It's quite possible that JC may have misunderstood Omarion's statement (Omarion interjected that  he "loves training" during JC's rebuttal), but either way, it reminded me of an ongoing battle in the dance world; one that's been raging for generations, most likely.  It's the battle of "Street" dancers vs "Trained" dancers.  Some (not all, but some) so-called street dancers criticize trained dancers for not having enough edge, soul or "flava".  Likewise, some (again, not all) trained dancers look down on street dancers for being sloppy or not having proper technique.

I hate this argument with a fiery passion find these trains of thought to be flawed because they assume that these concepts are polar opposites; mutually exclusive terms with no grey area.  I, for one, refuse to believe that dancing has to be sloppy and unrefined in order to be raw and powerful.  I also can't bring myself to believe that it's impossible for dancing that is polished and refined to truly be "from the heart".  I personally think that these stereotypes are fueled by the fact that there are too many people who embrace one and shun the other.  I would like to believe that I'm a decent mix of both; that I've blended my formal training (what little of it I have, I was two years removed from high school before I ever took a legit dance class) with my own personal style and flava to the point where I don't come across as being an extreme of either.  Even if I'm off in my self-assessment, I've seen plenty of dancers who definitely are a combination of the two.

"Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for--liberation." - Martha Graham.

A few years ago, I was at a local hip hop jam when the DJ played a song that was salsa-able.  One of my friends who was there participating (she would end up being on ABDC herself) had been out salsa dancing with  me before, so I quickly grabbed her for a dance.  As we were dancing, she blurted out "don't be doin' all that technical stuff, I'm a street dancer!!!  I didn't take time out in the heat of dancing to debate her about it, and I didn't show it on the outside, but I was more than a little irked at that comment.  I didn't like that she felt a need to make a distinction between the two.  It also annoys me when people automatically label something as "technical" when that something is simply something they aren't accustomed to doing.  I had the same thing happen when I was dancing salsa with a beginner one night and was teaching her on the fly at her request.  She eventually became frustrated and said "This is too technical for me.  I don't do well with 'technical'.  Go dance with my friend, she does 'technical'".

My biggest frustration, however, was the fact that yet again, there was the assumption that "street" and "technique" don't mix.  What many people don't realize is, everyone who does anything consistently has technique.  Most don't think of it that way because technique is considered something that is formally taught.  However, according to the dictionary (not like anyone uses that to define anything anymore...), technique is simply the way you go about doing something.  So while it may or may not be considered "proper" technique, every dancer has technique or is, dare I say it... "technical".

Whatever it is that we do, we train in it, not necessarily to adhere to some sort of rules for doing what we do, but so that we can be free.  This might seem backwards, because we normally associate technique with rigidness and rules.  And freedom is the last thing that usually comes to mind when we're learning how to do something or being trained in some kind of art or skill.  For example, I have been dancing salsa since 2002, but it wasn't until I joined a dance team in 2008 that my bad posture was pointed out to me.  My posture affected my appearance while dancing (I used to hate how I looked when I watched videos of myself, but never knew why) and also my ability to lead the ladies I danced with.  Of course, I didn't see the bigger picture initially, and all I could think of was the fact that I hated having to think about what I was doing again.  I had to do that back when I was a beginner, and I didn't want to be taken back to that place again.

I eventually embraced it (partially because I got tired of being reprimanded about it, but anyway), working on my posture during and outside of practice.  Eventually, it got to the point where I didn't have to think about it; my improved posture was now ingrained in me.  I was free to just dance again, because I had written the technique into the source code of my actions (sorry, I geeked out there a bit).  That's what training and solidifying a technique does.  It gets you to a point where you no longer have to think, you can just do.  We go from something not being natural for us (For the record, nothing ever is, we all learned what we do at some point.  Whether or not we recall when and how we did so is a different story) to looking like we were born knowing how to do that something.

“Technical knowledge is not enough.  One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.”  - Daisetsu Suzuki

Here's another way that technique ironically gives us freedom.  Consider all the things you see that are manufactured (clothes, cars, buildings, etc).  They all have the same basic structure to them, but depending on which person or company made them, they all have one thing or another that sets them apart from the rest.  The creators all knew the basic foundation of those things, and because they knew the structure and how things work, they were able to "push the envelope", if you will; learning which rules the could bend or break, and when they could do so without compromising their product.  It's the same with anything we're trained in: we learn the rules so that we can break them, but there are --as I tell my salsa students-- rules to breaking the rules.  Rules must be broken with a purpose; you can't just break them because you feel like it.  You can only break so many rules of structure before what you're doing ceases to be what it's supposed to be.

"If you don't master the structure, you have no freedom." - Frankie Martinez 

I say all this to say that I firmly believe in technique and training.  Completely disregarding training and technique would be foolish.  Some scoff at it for the sake of creativity, but I feel that, if anything, training opens the the door much wider for innovation and inspiration, if you allow it to.  It's those who cling solely to their training and never venture out from it that give it a bad name, adding to the stereotype that being trained is synonymous with being boring and lacking feeling.  Some may disagree with me on that, but I, for one, choose to sweat the technique.