What Is The Difference Between Freestyle and Choreography Dancers?

[@anthonyorafferty5632]

The statement around 8:35 about "tapping in & being free in the moment" 🔥♥ To meet a dance partner there while playing in the expanding space with discovery & connection.

[@DanceWithRasa]

That's right 😇

[@christiancrespo9138]

I loved this, I was always super shy and never went out to dance in public, but I would dance at home by myself daily, it always excites me to express myself and get in tune with my body. Lately, I have been feeling more confident and going out and enjoying myself dancing and I have gotten many compliments about my freestyle. Fear is powerful but art helps us break free in so many ways and express ourselves. So yeah, dance, who cares what people think, its about your connection with the music.

[@DanceWithRasa]

Love this 💗. It's so nice that you are finally getting the courage to show your freestyle to others 😉.

[@lgbtq_aldm]

Great video, Rasa! I agree with your criticisms of routine-based teaching, but I think you can take it even further. Routines are the obvious way to teach choreography, but are completely unsuited to teaching social dancing. Rather than a fixed sequence of 6 moves, a class could be based around 3 ways to get into a particular position and 3 ways to get out. This will give the students the building blocks to improvise when social dancing, rather than repeating a fixed sequence of moves that they have memorised.

[@DanceWithRasa]

@@lgbtq_aldm absolutely 💯

[@TJ-yr5yd]

Hi could you share some resources in where I can see how I can connect and enjoy and also being enjoyable to dance with please . I do my best to express myself but many time I feel like I miss the tools(mouvements) to do it so. I am a leader Thanks in advance

[@myronblack8197]

Thanks for pointing out the difference because the difference is HUGE 👍🏾

[@DanceWithRasa]

I'm glad you found it useful 😊

[@AsgeirSaem]

Let's not forget that If we are comparing Free vs Choreo we must also think about how often a dancer has danced to a song. If you have danced the song 1000 times but always in free style it would look like a choreography to so many. This is a great point from you, because 99.9% of all we see from teachers on KZbin is Choreo.

[@DanceWithRasa]

@AsgeirSaem I can dance many times to a song and it will always look different 😇

[@AsgeirSaem]

@@DanceWithRasa Absolutely, and you will get so good at dancing to the song that beginner / intermediate would think it's a Choreography

[@hdc1236]

Great and informative video as always

[@DanceWithRasa]

@@hdc1236 🤗🤗🤗

[@juratepetrikauskiene9908]

Thank you Rasa❤❤❤

[@DanceWithRasa]

@@juratepetrikauskiene9908 😊

[@empathyloww]

Omg I needed that video! Thank you so much! Resently Ive been trying to start filming more, socials and my solo improv and I was kind of discouraged at first, because it doesnt look as good as for example my friend, who is a big fan of learning and filming choreos... at the same time Im told by people on the dancefloor that I have great musicality and even the pros in my city complemented me from the beginning. So yeah, I guess it depends on a person and Im def an improv dancer, I just feel so much more free and real and just...like a dancer with freestyle. Choreos... anyone can do them and I personally find it very limiting for brain and boring And another point - as a future teacher I want to focus on teaching my students improv more - I think we really need it in social dance scene and in general its good for anyone I believe

[@DanceWithRasa]

I agree with everything you just said 😉

[@laboucher]

omg, I really resonate with what you are saying. I have been dancing salsa for a decade and am currently on an on2 performance team and the training has been very beneficial, perhaps because my skills fall more strongly into the "improvisational" freestyle category. Music is what informs and inspires me to move the most I find and I can express myself enthusiastically. I also love learning choreo and perfecting that as well and believe that both choreo and improv can feed into each other in a constructive way.

[@DanceWithRasa]

Both are good, just 2 different skills 👌

[@victoriawong893]

I often forget about the choreography and I like people who improvise well. I’m trying to improve my choreography skills but I do think the ability to improvise is a good indicator of being a good dancer as it takes a lot to listen, understand the music and able to express it beautifully. 😊

[@DanceWithRasa]

@@victoriawong893 absolutely 💯

[@spoonman1039]

I never liked doing choreographies on classes. sometimes learning new moves can be challenging enough, so adding bunch of moves for memorizing is unnecesairy load for my brain. combining well known moves is easier, but doing this as a routine can be boring and also make you dancing always the similar way. I do believe people can be creative, but it's a long learning process. doing different styles, maybe different types of dances, enough moves to learn similarities and differences between them, trying to combine all to figure out what goes well and what doesn't etc.. it's the same as learning a musical instrument for example - these people really become creative with time with the right attitude. but I do agree it needs a bit of bravery and willing to experiment, because it's all about giving 'a part of yourself' while performing

[@DanceWithRasa]

Love this comment ❤️

[@gloriamunday8029]

Great video Rasa, interesting. I love the dress you’re wearing, just gorgeous! 😍😘

[@DanceWithRasa]

Thank you so much 🤗

[@MusicAndParkour]

I think freestyling is quite underrated. When you´re at the party (in my case, a leader in bachata), it´s an opportunity to play with lots of different moves that you divide into small pieces and then you put them together in a different order. And I find this a really fun way to learn, contrary to a structured class where they tell you 10 "do this like that" and 10 "don´t do this like that" in one hour and after the lesson you just know that you didn´t even nail half the points and you´re just annoyed lol.

[@DanceWithRasa]

I agree 👍

[@bigcirkus306]

The problem we talk here about is the same in jazz improvisation, public speaking, cookery and some other activities. There exist some genial people (as Django Reinhardt) who never had a single lesson and still performed brilliantly, but those are one in a million if not even less. There exist natural dancers too. I am not one of them, but I am old enough to make a fool of myself without being embarrassed. Still, I will not make a fool of eventual partner and for that reason I choose to dance single. It is clear that my version is not for an audience but strictly for myself. To dance with an unknown partner is a big question mark. One has to be a very experienced leader or follower to have the situation under control. I ask myself if it is possible to have both the joy and control at the same time.

[@DanceWithRasa]

Absolutely, the more you practice, the more control you have, so you can be more free but more skilful when you are free. You just more things to tap into. 😇

[@Mr39knuck]

Some people have rhythm in their bodies, and some people have to work at it. Some people will never get it. I had a difficult choreography routine that I danced hundreds of times with my partner and because it was so difficult It challenged our abilities and it was always fun to dance that Routine even after 100 times. We could always throw in freestyle stuff in the middle of the routine when we felt like it. The better you are the more choreography you learn the more fun it becomes. I was laughing with my teacher the other night about LOF people. Those are people who say they learn on the floor. Generally, they make horrible dance partners. 😢

[@DanceWithRasa]

Well, it really depends. Most teachers learned from dancing on the floor. But those where different times 🤣

[@TJ-yr5yd]

Also i did started as an adult

[@DanceWithRasa]

Fair enough 👌

[@gogokizomba6903]

I often compare choreo dancers and freestyle dancer to Teachers and artists. Anyone can do a course get qualification, anyone can gather students who know nothing and give lessons. ANYONE can be a teacher, a good teacher is subjective but it's just time and learning. That's why we have so many teachers popping up like gremlins in the rain. Weher they are good, popular or the opposite they are still teachers. Artist however is about creation, and qualities that can't really be learnt. It's innate, so not everyone can be artists. However alot of teachers want be artist 🎨 but lack the qualities and energy to be so. Example# Teachers go into a party or festival where they are not known, they become invisible and no one notices them really , they are seen just as another dancer. Artist goes to party or festival with same scenario, they room.can change, they can influence who goes and doe not go sometimes, ppl always looking at them, wanting to be close or touch them. They are not invisible even, if they try to be. When both are on dancefloor, artist steal attention away from teachers. Same with choreo and good freestylers ( Bob funk mc) ppl do choreo/performance groups often are invisible or lower level then the good freestyle dancers but does not mean better or worse just different dance experience.

[@DanceWithRasa]

Very interesting observations 😉

[@Mr39knuck]

‘

[@TJ-yr5yd]

Hi could you share some resources in where i can emprouve my connection and enjoy and be enjoyable to dance with i am a salsa leader, i would also like to find out how i can exspress myself , sometime i feel like i miss the tools(mouves)to do it so.

[@DanceWithRasa]

Absolutely, I'll make some videos for connection soon 😉

[@mambocollective]

Great video as always. Question, at what point in a students progession do you introduce the concept of interpretation/free-style/imporvisation. Second question, how do you start to introduce it? I think, and I say I think, because I'm struggling in my own head with it at the moment, I believe you need a good technical grounding first and foremost. I've danced with loads of great solo free-style dancers but they're rubbish to dance with as a partner because they lack either technique or connection or usually both. I've danced with some amazing, technical dancers but the element of imporvisation just wasn't there. I watch in amazement at the West Coast swing dancers on KZbin and how amazing they appear to be at improv with random partners. Admittedly, I think they're teachers and professionals and I've never seen lower level WCS dancers dance. I'm struggling to come up with how they learn/teach this skill. I've never had the opportunity to discuss with a good WSC teacher this part of the dance. So many questions and points for discussion on this video andsubject, especially with where my head is at the moment.

[@akanksha9958]

So in my experience, we first start with the technicals and once we have those down pat, we move on to "freestyle dancing" where we can have multiple sequences of the moves we have learned. This also gets better as you increase your library of moves and explore multiple variations in the same moves. It takes years to build your personal style and loads of practice to create muscle memory to the point where you can truly freestyle using the library of moves you created over time. Hope this helps

[@mambocollective]

​@akanksha9958 I'm looking to sort cut years of practice for my students. Or perhaps there isn't any sort cut? Perhaps that's the struggle I'm having in my own head at the moment. Perhaps there is no shortcut other than learn the technique well, make it subconscious and then go from there. The issue I find, especially over the last 5 or 10 years students just don't seem willing to drill the technique and spend the time conditioning the body and mind to be be able to reproduce movements without thought. If peeps can't get it within a few weeks they lose interest. I watch the WCS dancers freestyle to random music and random partners without flaw. Is this because the vids are all top dollar dancers and teachers that have paid their dues and actually the average WCS dancer is just like the average salsa dancer?

[@DanceWithRasa]

I think you can start very early but not obvious. For example, in the beginners, what I do, I teach, I practice I count and when the song starts I count once and then I stop. Last song I always say ok now I won't do it with you, you need to do it yourself, don't have to remember all but whatever you can. If you start with small things from the beginning, you can be more intense later 😉.

[@DanceWithRasa]

That's definitely a good thing to do too as part of education 😉.

[@DanceWithRasa]

I will make a video for you about this topic, it will come out next week, ok ? Let me know if its helpful 😌