adiemus
New member
As someone who has danced ballet, and played a couple of musical instruments, I think there is certainly a place for 'drills', whatever you call them!
If a pianist can't execute a series of notes without stumbling over them, it doesn't matter how much musicality he or she has, the melody won't 'sing'. Likewise with dancing, you do need to execute the movements with a certain degree of automatic muscle memory so that you can then focus on shaping the *way* you move - or in your words, the musicality or 'essence' of the dance.
In terms of how we learn, there are some brain mechanisms that are brought in to play when movements are repeated so that less conscious thought is needed to perform those movements - this frees up more brain space to be able to do any other aspect of the performance at that time. So it's essential not to have to 'think' too hard about how to do movements in order to put other parts of yourself into the dance.
I agree however that practice needs to be perfect practice - practice makes perfect, but only perfect practice makes perfect movements! If you're practicing poor technique, you're learning poor technique! But that's why regular feedback is so important (from a 'live' teacher) - a week of poor practice is correctable, while months of poor practice is incredibly difficult to do.
Dancing isn't just about the movements, it's also about the other elements of spirit and joy and emotion - these things also need to be 'practiced', so soul-less 'drilling' alone won't give you a dancer, just a driller! so you need to combine them both to get the best of both worlds. IMHO of course...
If a pianist can't execute a series of notes without stumbling over them, it doesn't matter how much musicality he or she has, the melody won't 'sing'. Likewise with dancing, you do need to execute the movements with a certain degree of automatic muscle memory so that you can then focus on shaping the *way* you move - or in your words, the musicality or 'essence' of the dance.
In terms of how we learn, there are some brain mechanisms that are brought in to play when movements are repeated so that less conscious thought is needed to perform those movements - this frees up more brain space to be able to do any other aspect of the performance at that time. So it's essential not to have to 'think' too hard about how to do movements in order to put other parts of yourself into the dance.
I agree however that practice needs to be perfect practice - practice makes perfect, but only perfect practice makes perfect movements! If you're practicing poor technique, you're learning poor technique! But that's why regular feedback is so important (from a 'live' teacher) - a week of poor practice is correctable, while months of poor practice is incredibly difficult to do.
Dancing isn't just about the movements, it's also about the other elements of spirit and joy and emotion - these things also need to be 'practiced', so soul-less 'drilling' alone won't give you a dancer, just a driller! so you need to combine them both to get the best of both worlds. IMHO of course...