| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Porthos |
Hip Hop or Latin?I'm joining a dance studio. I think my friend and I will be one of the few straight guys there, so that should be interesting.
Anyway, I was trying to decide if I should do Latin dance, or hip-hop dance. What do you guys think? |
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| Elaine |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
I think you should take ballroom so you can be one of those hunky guys on "Dancing with the Stars". 
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
I think you should do American country dancing, because I did that when I was in Germany a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. | ||||||
| Sander |
Ha! That's even worse than clog dancing!  Why would they dance like that in Germany? Don't they have their own folk dances 
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Well, about half the people doing it were actually Americans anyway, whilst the other half were mainly Germans plus me. My partner was a 60-year-old German woman (whom I subsequently got to know reasonably well) who kept getting confused because she 'usually dances as a man', or so she said. She apparently does American country dancing quite regularly, so maybe they do do that in German even when Americans are not present. Likewise, I'd imagine that American country dancing would be more popular than English country dancing in England — and you know how self-loathing the English and the Germans often are, lol.
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| fab |
What is that "latin dance" ?!
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| Deborah |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
Depends on what you want to get out of it. Does "Latin dance" refer to salsa, merengue, cumbia, and such? If what you want is to dance with women, that would be a great choice. Benjamin, by "American country dancing" do you mean "contradancing"? If so, that's great stuff. I was involved in it for years. My first trip to Russia was with a contradance group. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
Yes, I think so. Ladies to the centre, you make that little ring, And gents come around, you make that bigger ring, Weave the little basket, and circle to the left and sing: Oh it's a hot time in the old town tonight! |
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| Deborah |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
Well, this would indicate that it's square dancing. The contradancing formation is 2 lines of people facing each other. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
Oh, we did that as well. It went rather badly though because it was it a bit too complicated. A small group of us came back later and did square dancing. |
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| Porthos |
It would be dancing styles from "Latin-America", like salsa, merengue, cumbia, mambo, etc. Hip hop is just very valuable at parties and occassions of that nature. To be honest, the only real experience I have in party dancing, is the so-called "Freak dancing". Dancing like that with a true "lady" would not be appropriate. |
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| Uriel |
(Gag!) You MUST be joking! Line dancing is the sixth circle of hell (the seventh being Walmart, and the fifth being any layover at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport). Personally I hate hip hop, Porth. Go south of the border, man. |
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| Deborah |
Uriel and I are (I think) talking about two different types of dance, and I don't know which Benjamin is referring to. I think Uriel is talking about Country Western line dancing, where everyone forms rows and does the steps in unison, without any partners, to Country Western music. In contradancing, you dance with a partner and form figures with another couple, to music that's akin to bluegrass (but isn't bluegrass). |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
That's the one. We did contradancing (this involved 'corners' and 'casting off' — reminds me of how I sit in boring business meetings at the Unitarian General Assembly doing knitting as it keeps me awake) and square-dancing, I'm sure. |
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| Walker |
You knit? As in "I'm knitting a scarf"? Porthos, I think that if you're really looking for a challange, Latin dance would be the kind of dance to go for. Unless of course you'd prefer Swedish folk dance; from what I've read those costumes aren't very comfortable! 
I've tried salsa a couple of times but no success was to be found. Latin music tends to have a little more interesting rhythms than hip-hop, don't you think? |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Yes, I do. |
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| Deborah |
[quote="Benjamin"]
Yes, I always thought about knitting when the caller would say "Cast off". I used to do a lot of hand-knitting. I found that while it kept me awake, it was also very calming. And it was the perfect justification for watching a lot of TV! Josh, I highly recommend the Latin stuff for you. Dancing with a partner is really fun and can be very stimulating with the right person. And the music is great. |
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| Porthos |
Yeah, but I don't wish to offend anybody, but the Latin dance instructor where I live is pretty flaming if you know what I mean, and I would feel a little uncomfortable with him touching me and stuff. That's why I'm leaning more toward the hip hop. | ||||||
| Walker |
Oh, cool! I was just a little surprised, but I guess I shouldn't have been since it's you. Keep knitting, not too many people do that anymore!
Are you worried that he'd hit on you, or something? I assume the guy's a professional so the only thing you'd have to worry about is getting the steps right and stuff. |
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| Deborah |
It occurred to me that maybe you should do hip-hop while you're still young and agile. You can still do latin when you get old.
As for your teacher touching you, in the partner dance classes I've gone to, you pretty much only get touched by your partners. |
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| Uriel |
Well, actually, there's a lot of Spanish hip-hop that sort of combines both.
Riiiiight .... and he would probably read this and think, Dude, please don't flatter yourself.... Honestly, Porthos. First of all, I concur with everyone else here who says that a dance instructor probably sees and touches so many bodies of either sex that no matter what his orientation, he's probably pretty immune to them when he's in dance-instructor mode. I don't think you'll really have to worry about him correcting your posture and becoming so inflamed with lust that he suddenly throws you to the floor ass-up and starts grinding on you. (Let me give you a moment to have that visual, come to terms with it, realize just how silly that is, and move on.) Secondly, I know you're young, but you need to grow up and get over this hang-up you have about homosexuals. They're just people. And just because you're male and a gay man is male doesn't mean that he's going to be the slightest bit interested in you sexually -- just as heterosexuals see people of the opposite sex all day long without feeling any particular stirring in their underpants at the sight of 99% of them. Maybe you've been hit on by the odd gay guy before -- oh well. The vast majority of them aren't going to waste their time pursuing an obviously hetero man -- they're going to use their gaydar and scope out some REAL action. |
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| Deborah |
I just found out that there's a hip hop festival going on this weekend in San Francisco, so I'm going to see it tomorrow (later today). My brother went to it today and said he was amazed by the variety of styles there are.
Today I discovered a style I didn't know about, called house dance, that I really like: http://youtube.com/results?search_query=babson+hugson |
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| Deborah |
Josh, after seeing the hip-hop dance festifal yesterday, I think you should go for hip-hop. If I were about 30 years younger, I'd do it.
This festival didn't feature any improvisation; everything seemed completely choreographed. That being the case, then, my favorite groups were the ones that had the most interesting choreography. One of those groups was Sanrancune, from Paris, which had 3 excellent dancers. Another of my favorites was from Boulder, Colorado, directed by a Latino former hip-hop dancer from San Francisco. They did a somewhat theatrical piece in that the dancers had different characters. What I really loved is that the three women did a lot of stuff on their hands. I also really liked the opening group, from San Francisco, with members ranging from 7-20 years old. I love seeing little kids who can dance, and these performed very well. The group was ethnically very mixed, too. The Bay Area groups seemed to be predominantly Filipino. There were a couple of Japanese solo performers from New York who had amazing control. They both used the technique of hip-hop to create theatrical characters. One of them did a comic piece in which he seems to be in a dream and the music keeps changing. At one point the music changed to "These are a few of my favorite things" from The Sound of Music", and somehow he manages to do hip-hop to it. |
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| Elaine |
I think you should take up hip-hop dancing so that you can learn how to Krump properly. But on the other hand, Latin dance lessons with that "flaming" instructor might expose you to a world based on reality rather than just on stereotypes. |
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| Deborah |
Talk about flaming...the final hip-hop group on the program was very diverse, and not just ethnically. Several of the men were quite campy, and one was -- somehow -- doing hip-hop wearing hot pink stiletto heels. Ah, San Francisco! | ||||||
| Porthos |
I'm thinking about taking hip-hop because I have no experience in it, while I do have some experience in Latin dancing. If I was trained in hip-hop, I might not stick out like a sore thumb the way I do at black parties, lol!![/quote] | ||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
So I can't tempt you with American-style square and contra dancing then?
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| Porthos |
I sincerely hope you don't think most Americans follow this style of dance. |
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| Deborah |
If you're the only non-black person at a party, I expect you'll stick out like a sore thumb regardless of how you dance. |
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| Porthos |
HAHAHA! True, very true. I did always feel very much like the odd man out at such parties. |
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| Elaine |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
So what did you eventually decide on (Latin or hip-hop), and how is that going? |
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| Deborah |
Re: Hip Hop or Latin?
Or have you taken up square dancing? |
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