Dance and Communication

"Dance and Communication","

The engaged couple were not going to dance the traditional bridal waltz, but instead were dancing a slow romantic dance that had been skilfully choreographed to their favourite love song.



This slow romantic dance was immediately followed by a very lively Mambo.


I have taught tertiary courses on communication, and have used the following scenarios to demonstrate to students that communication is not just about verbalisations and the written word.


We would then discuss this scenario as a class and generally the consensus would be that the eyes are very important in the communication process.


A second scenario I sometimes used was to get one of the students to walk outside the classroom and to then come in and be very careful not to even fleetingly give eye contact to anyone in the room.


Of course, it can not be done.


But, some forms of communication are more powerful than others.


My friend and Flamenco Dance expert Tomás Dietz sent me an article he had written last week on Flamenco.


His introduction reads:Flamenco is a complex art form firmly woven into the fabric of Spain's Andalucian culture, expressed through passionate singing, driving guitar accompaniment and intensely emotional percussive dancing that involves arching bitter sweet body movements and shotgun footwork.


Modern Jive, Swing, Rock 'N' Roll, and several other dances have their roots in the dances danced by Afro-Americans back in the 1920's and 1930's.
  To these dancers at the time, DANCE, was probably more important as a communication tool than language itself.
 But if I was to give more exemplification here, this would become an epic and not just an article on dance and communication.
 And, the more the dancers of the dance feel those emotions, generally the more convincing the dance performance will be.
 As a professional working in the area of communication, education and training, and also someone who is passionate about dance, I have published a suite of fifteen web sites covering all styles and all aspects of dance.





click and learn