What is 'play'?

[coastswing]

I’ve seen my share of dances where follows break off and ‘play’ while the leader is standing there going “okay, I didn’t lead that, I have no idea what’s going on here but hopefully you’ll come back to me soon”. In the opposite case, I’ve seen leaders doing some ‘play’ themselves (fancy footwork, maybe watching themselves in the mirror) and the follower is waiting for what it is that the leader is expecting….still waiting…..shaking booty while waiting….oh, he’s back…and a 1.

On the other side I’ve also seen some of what I would call good ‘play’ where both the leader and follower seem to read each other’s minds and it looks like the whole thing was ‘discussed’…..I can only assume it was…by ways of connection and proper leading and follow techniques. Those to me are the magical moments in a dance that accentuate the ability to ‘play’ and keep it within the beauty of partnering. Some times it can be visual, but there is always something that occurs that gets both leader/follower to ‘listen’ (which is often what I see in J&J where a break is hit and both do a mirror (insert booty shake move here) step).

So my 2 questions to both leaders and followers are:
1 – How do you define “play”?
2 – For those that do like to play, how do you do it successfully to ensure that the partnership is also successful?

[Jeanette]

I've had a related experience. Sometimes if I switch my footwork on my anchor triple in any way, even if my connection is still an anchor and I am ready to go, my leader will not lead. He will stand there and wait. So I will continue doing footwork, not knowing what his plan is or what he wants. And he will still wait, just standing there and watching me. I try to be very clear that that I am done. Sometimes I just stop altogether, and then he will (sometimes after a few beats) start again.

=Jeanette

[notfromchicago]

i understand completely what you mean, both jeanette and CS, i have before(though really only when i first started) just stopped and watched while my partner does "fancy footwork" and then try and restart. though i think i'm better at it now that i will keep my footwork and also try and let my partner play. As for your questions CS? i guess i would define play as any interaction between dance partners on the floor that is improv and outside the 'regular' footwork of the dance/move. also i haven't yet progressed to the point were i am able to play a lot without disrupting my partner so i kind of shy away from it("kind of" because i do goof around with people that i feel comfortable with and that also play back in a similar way), but i have had it explained to me that asking and giving play has to do with connection (i.e. how much leverage/compression) and also the connection in the sense that it is static on 3 dimensions(not to much "noise" in the connection/ having a steady connection point or a "posted" connection where the connection doesnt move in space it is at one point so that your partner knows where you are and also has something to work off of). but i've not yet mastered any of this to anywhere near its full extent so...take my comment and do with it as you will.:tonguesmilie:

[Kelly]

What a great topic...As a follower I define "play" as anything added to the basic lead/follow dance I'm having with my partner that he does not initiate. But, I think there is a fine line between "playing" and "hijacking"! I see so many girls both new and seasoned in this dance throwing themselves all over the place because they want to look like some of the pro's out there. Or they are accenting EVERY side pass and sugar push with fancy footwork. In my opinion this is overkill! And not enjoyable to watch. Personally, i'm not a huge "Player" ....lol....but I was taught that playing is first initiated through connection, ie. becoming heavier, then you do your thing. But, as I got more advanced I kind of stayed away from your "playing" 101 because like Michael said is more of a disscussion between two dancers. If your listening you have the best dance ever....there is nothing like explaining the music to the people watching when you are listening to your partner. :shades:

[bethany]

Personally, i'm not a huge "Player" ....lol.... :shades:

Hehehehe, you heard it here, folks! :p

[CALI DOLL]

I've had a related experience. Sometimes if I switch my footwork on my anchor triple in any way, even if my connection is still an anchor and I am ready to go, my leader will not lead. He will stand there and wait. So I will continue doing footwork, not knowing what his plan is or what he wants. And he will still wait, just standing there and watching me. I try to be very clear that that I am done. Sometimes I just stop altogether, and then he will (sometimes after a few beats) start again.

=Jeanette


LOL! Jeanette, that's so funny. I'm still so new that I'm just now learning how to hang back (without just standing there) and letting the guy know that I'm done "playing". I try to anchor clearly, but sometimes it's not clear, I guess. I might do a variation and tap on the "6" and the "and 1" counts (which is still an anchor), but the occasional guy will stand there and watch. I try to switch my weight (rock step, I guess) until he pulls me forward. :p

Having said that:

1 – How do you define “play”? Well, I define play as, for example, hijacking a tuck (or a similar move); doing my own thing down the slot (when it's encouraged by the leader); variations or syncopations on standard moves.
2 – For those that do like to play, how do you do it successfully to ensure that the partnership is also successful? I didn't say it's always "successful". LOL! I just try my best to stay on beat and let my partner know when I'm done.

[Jerry Wang]

So my 2 questions to both leaders and followers are:
1 – How do you define “play”?
2 – For those that do like to play, how do you do it successfully to ensure that the partnership is also successful?

Hmmmm. Currently I define "play" as a brief variation or accent (footwork, change in direction, etc) done by either the leader or follower in order to emphasize unique parts of a song while also maintaining a mutual connection/ communication with your partner.

I agree with Kelly, over playing aka "slush" is overkill and not enjoyable to watch since it also tends to take away the basic essence of West Coast Swing and becomes as someone termed it "Hip Hop with a partner". Its also a challenge to lead and connect at times especially since alot of the overplaying done tends to feel disconnected with no clear indication of it ending.

I do consider myself a "player" :p to a degree but I feel enjoying the dance with your partner is more important. For me, the magic moments of play just tends to happen and at varying degrees. Some partners, we'll only play a little while others we'll play alot. Playing is still something I'm exploring and figuring out but so far, I find play successful when it doesn't disrupt either my lead or my partner's natural movement and anchor. I try to keep a quiet and semi relaxed connection so that I can hear my partner when they inititate play as well as create an inviation for them to play through an extending a pattern. If they don't no big deal. Not everyone is a player. Tongue Out

[Dima]

1 – How do you define “play”?
2 – For those that do like to play, how do you do it successfully to ensure that the partnership is also successful?

1. Anything that deviates from the standard 6 and 8 count patterns (if you accent stuff w/in the pattern w/o disrupting the flow of the dance, that's more of an embelishment).

2. It depends on the partner. If my partner likes to play, I just play off of them, so it's a back and forth thing. Sometimes it's hitting everything in the music, sometimes it's acting out lyrics, and a lot of times, it's just pure silliness (CrazyKate and Tessa come to mind). If my partner doesn't like to play, well, I'll do it a few times in a song to see if they take the bait.

Lack of mirrors is why I like dancing in bars and at events and not dance studios. It's an aversion left over from my ballroom days. I end up watching myself.

[WestieTash]

I think of "playing" as the "embellishment" Dima described. If my leader leaves all the choices open to me, I can play while still following. For example, if my leader clearly sets up an underarm turn, but stops leading it midway through the pattern, I'll finish the pattern he began, but will play with the ending. In my (short) experience, guys give me this time to play because the music is doing something cool.

If I take over the pattern being led, or turn it into something else, in my mind I've hijacked the pattern. I may have done something super cool, but it was still a hijack.

If I know there's something cool coming up in the music, and my leader has set-up a pattern that won't hit the cool part, I can ASK for extra time to play. But I've had to come to terms with the fact that my leader doesn't have to give me that time.

In terms of how often I do it...depends on the guy and the song.

[Scott S.]

This is where being fairly new can sometimes work to my advantage. I haven't been around long enough to set my mind that I'm supposed to be leading and I still think of the dance as a partnership, where both partners can make decisions... a lot of decisions.

Dima said it best here : "If my partner likes to play, I just play off of them, so it's a back and forth thing. Sometimes it's hitting everything in the music, sometimes it's acting out lyrics, and a lot of times, it's just pure silliness"

I recently had a dance with a stranger that really went off this way and it prompted my question about great dances with strangers in another thread. In that dance, we started out normally but worked our way into something where I'd lead the basic direction of the next pattern, then she'd get creative with it by count 3 and I'd read where she was going with it... so I'd play back in a way that complimented whatever she was doing.

That was the most fun I've had dancing in many years and an out-of-town pro grabbed me in the hotel lobby about ten minutes later to say what a great dance it was and that she loved watching it. Considering I've only been back dancing for about four months after many years away, you can imagine why I was speechless in the face of her compliment.

CS made this statement in the OP: "On the other side I’ve also seen some of what I would call good ‘play’ where both the leader and follower seem to read each other’s minds and it looks like the whole thing was ‘discussed’…..I can only assume it was…by ways of connection and proper leading and follow techniques."

I can't speak for anyone but myself... but, as for me, the answer is actually no, there isn't any agreed upon anything. In my personal experience in country and now WCS, what makes it all work is actually more simple than that. It's simply that both partners are willing to go out on a limb and experiment combined with a willingness to ad-lib off of each other's play (similar to the comedy show "Who's Line is it Anyway?" where they have to think fast and play off of each other).

This can lead to great dances or train wrecks... and from what I've personally noticed, the differences seemed to be that it works like magic when both partners interperet the music in nearly the same way but it blows up in your face if the partners are hearing very different things in the music.

Most of my experience comes from the country world where I was often out 6 nights per week for months on end... but I'm noticing that the general idea seems to be even more true for WCS because it's more creative by it's very nature.

But one key factor is that the leader needs to be willing to sight follow the follow and play back off of whatever she does... but if the leader is stuck on the idea that the lead is leading on every count, then this kind of experimentation can't even begin to get off the ground.

[Cooley]

So my 2 questions to both leaders and followers are:
1 – How do you define “play”?
2 – For those that do like to play, how do you do it successfully to ensure that the partnership is also successful?

I would say that I LOVE to play. What got me interested in this dance was the 'play' in it (especially from what I was doing). The musicality in it. I love to dance to the music-not just the beats-but sometimes the words. and I LOVE hitting breaks. It's just fun to me and I do this for fun! But it's only fun when you and your partner are on the same page. I know many think of all this play as something that takes away from the dance or that it's becoming to hip hop (just call me the hip hop dancer then! lol), but we all came to this dance for various reasons and we all have our own styles and what we like to do. I may not be typical or even majority, but that's ok-I'm still having fun! Having said that, I do not play with every partner. I think you have to know who and when you can do those types of things, or as Kelly mentioned, it becomes a whole different thang!

[Eric]

jl: play is dancing. communication is important. ;)

A lot of what people are talking about here as "play" sounds a lot to me like "dancing." So I guess I define play as a broader term including any variation on a pattern, whether it be a syncopation, a rhythm change, an extension, or an alteration of the basic movement.

Oftentimes we just dance the move/movement as it was taught, with straight timing and simple lead/follow. Other times we embellish/syncopate/whatever within the pattern, keeping the same rhythm structure and movement but styling it. Sometimes we extend a pattern, and sometimes we downright change the movement of a pattern. I think that in all cases it's important to be aware of the lead/follow, but I think it's important for the development of any dancer to be able to separate the lead/follow part from the dancing part, so that you can do one with or without affecting the other (depending on what you are trying to achieve).

As for the second question, about successful play, I think it's all about communication. As a leader, if I am going to play in a way that won't affect the movement I'm leading (eg keeping the rhythm structure, keeping the timing of the pattern, playing within the pattern, etc) then I make sure to do my thing without affecting my connection, so as not to interfere with my partner's movement. If I'm going to extend the pattern, or change the movement of the pattern, or if I'm playing within the pattern but want to involve my partner, then I need to communicate that to my partner, so she can participate with me, or else simply be aware of what I'm thinking/leading.

The same is true for followers, and I think this is where a lot of play is unsuccessful on their part. There are ways for followers to communicate to the leader, to let us know what's going on, but a lot of the time followers don't use these cues, or don't use them properly. Just as followers want leaders to tell them what's going on, we want it too!

Playing, to me, is when the follower picks up my lead and keeps the general movement while styling or making alterations along the way - but ultimately keeping the basic structure of the movement. For instance, she may play with a tuck turn, so long as it's still a tuck turn in the end, even if it's an extended or stylized tuck turn.

On the other hand, hijacking to me is when a follower ignores the lead or ignores the movement that was lead. I personally don't like hijacking - after all, no one says, "My flight was great - we were hijacked!" If dance is a conversation, then our responses to one another should correspond. If I say, "Hi how are you?" and she responds with "I love chocolate!" then she's hijacking, ignoring my question and taking the conversation where she wants. There's one exception to my statement about disliking hijacking: when she communicates the hijack to me very well *and* when it matches the music. Then it's totally cool - I don't mind the follower coming up with something to express the music that I didn't think of, and so long as she tells me about it just before and during the movement, it can be awesome!

I love when a follower plays while we're dancing, because - as others have noted already - it gives me something to work off of. If dance is a conversation, and I keep asking questions and all she has is monosyllabic responses, the conversation becomes stagnant. But if she comes up with an interesting response, then I can come up with another response, maybe a follow up question, and the cycle continues, creating a much more dynamic conversation. One of the best things about WCS is the participation (or opportunity for participation) by the follower, and the back and forth between the partners. Achieving that is simply a matter of communication.

[Arjay]

One of the major elements that people are missing in regards to discussing play is whether the dance partnership is based off of a leader dominant or a follower dominant philosophy.
I will soon be writing an online blog article based on this but to explain play a bit more.

Play based off of a leader dominant dance is usually an embellishment or decorative element based on topic in relationship to what the leader has established as the structure of the pattern. Example: Lead:here is a left side pass of 6/8 counts... Follower: apply within the left side pass presented an embellishment to enhance the framework.

Play based off of a follower dominant dance is usually what people to assume as "hijacking" But the main element differentiating hijacking and play is if what the follower or even the leader impedes the other to properly stabilize themselves as well as something that allows the partner to be "inclusive"

So it is very possible that the leader can end up doing something consider "hijacking" but is not usually looked down upon because again most people relate to a leader dominant dance.

We continue this thought of play based on a follower dominant relationship and begin to understand that play now is not based on a framework or pattern structure established primarily with lead and the follower "left" to embellish the pattern. What we know begin to realize is that play is now more of the follower and leader finding a creative way to express a "pattern" together rather than a preset and pre-established cued lead.

I like to describe this to my students like so....
(Wearing a blue shirt) I ask my students, "what is the color of my shirt?" The response is the same,"blue!" I simply ask, "was that the answer I wanted to hear or was that response your interpretation of how you'd like to describe my shirt color." couldn't they have said "it's a clear midday sky color" "it's a cool ice color" "it's a baby boy's blanket"

Dancing is similar if you follow more of what I teach being a follower dominant dance. I ask a question similar to the shirt question like...."would you like to do a left side pass?" This presentation of the left side pass is now an open element that I am leading but now she has the option of expressing in such a way that is still following what I inferred but now has freedom to also develop the framework of it... manipulating count, rhythmical patterning, manipulating direction slightly as long as the essence of a left side pass is still achieved.
Again, if she deviates too much, she's no longer answering the question or she's excluding me rather than including me.

The last is feeding into play. The best way to encourage play is not again based on what the leader establishes but how the follower "speaks" to the lead. I teach an element called "influence by natural tendency" this is where the follower's body position, weight distribution, and connection all play a part in telling my what pattern genre she would like to be introduced next. One of the worst situations is when a follower resets herself constantly or a leader forces the follower to constantly reset. Why start a new topic of discussion every time a new pattern begins? Example: Leader is a good interviewer and the follower is a rockstar celebrity(which they all are) Although I am asking the questions as the interviewer and directing it where I think I'd like it to go...she is the one truly speaking for the both of us. She is also inferring indirectly what she'd like to be asked next. Although the interviewer may have a predetermined line of questioning he should be very tuned into the interviewee and adapt the questioning to follow the path they are presenting themselves.

This is why when an interview goes well, the follower/interviewee isn't surprised with random questions, isn't forced to feel "challenged", isn't forced to randomly make up an answer irrelevant to their skills or abilities, isn't influenced to speak off topic, is encouraged to stay calm and not be agitated because they're more confused about the line of questioning. The interviewer feels satisfied that the questions were answered expressively and given the way the interviewee wanted to answer not the what the interviewer wanted to hear.

Hope this helps...and I will hopefully have the article out soon regarding leader dominant versus follower dominant dancing!!!

[KelKel]

Dancing is similar if you follow more of what I teach being a follower dominant dance. I ask a question similar to the shirt question like...."would you like to do a left side pass?" This presentation of the left side pass is now an open element that I am leading but now she has the option of expressing in such a way that is still following what I inferred but now has freedom to also develop the framework of it... manipulating count, rhythmical patterning, manipulating direction slightly as long as the essence of a left side pass is still achieved.
Again, if she deviates too much, she's no longer answering the question or she's excluding me rather than including me.

The last is feeding into play. The best way to encourage play is not again based on what the leader establishes but how the follower "speaks" to the lead. I teach an element called "influence by natural tendency" this is where the follower's body position, weight distribution, and connection all play a part in telling my what pattern genre she would like to be introduced next. One of the worst situations is when a follower resets herself constantly or a leader forces the follower to constantly reset. Why start a new topic of discussion every time a new pattern begins? Example: Leader is a good interviewer and the follower is a rockstar celebrity(which they all are) Although I am asking the questions as the interviewer and directing it where I think I'd like it to go...she is the one truly speaking for the both of us. She is also inferring indirectly what she'd like to be asked next. Although the interviewer may have a predetermined line of questioning he should be very tuned into the interviewee and adapt the questioning to follow the path they are presenting themselves.

This is why when an interview goes well, the follower/interviewee isn't surprised with random questions, isn't forced to feel "challenged", isn't forced to randomly make up an answer irrelevant to their skills or abilities, isn't influenced to speak off topic, is encouraged to stay calm and not be agitated because they're more confused about the line of questioning. The interviewer feels satisfied that the questions were answered expressively and given the way the interviewee wanted to answer not the what the interviewer wanted to hear.

Hope this helps...and I will hopefully have the article out soon regarding leader dominant versus follower dominant dancing!!!

THANK YOU!!! This whole discussion of "play" vs. "hijacking" and what is acceptable and what isn't has been confusing to someone new. I enjoy "play" defined as emblishments on what is given but I'm often unsure of where the "lines" are and if I'm crossing them at times. I like the way you describe this and it really paints a picture of what I've experienced but maybe didn't know how to articulate. I've dance with several leads that invite me to interpret the dance with them and others who make it clear that they are dictating the dance and I'm to stay with in the confines they present. I like Dani said tend to adapt to what I'm presented with. This helps put more meaning to what I've experienced.

[whipkitten]

The last is feeding into play. The best way to encourage play is not again based on what the leader establishes but how the follower "speaks" to the lead. I teach an element called "influence by natural tendency" this is where the follower's body position, weight distribution, and connection all play a part in telling my what pattern genre she would like to be introduced next. One of the worst situations is when a follower resets herself constantly or a leader forces the follower to constantly reset. Why start a new topic of discussion every time a new pattern begins? Example: Leader is a good interviewer and the follower is a rockstar celebrity(which they all are) Although I am asking the questions as the interviewer and directing it where I think I'd like it to go...she is the one truly speaking for the both of us. She is also inferring indirectly what she'd like to be asked next. Although the interviewer may have a predetermined line of questioning he should be very tuned into the interviewee and adapt the questioning to follow the path they are presenting themselves.

This is why when an interview goes well, the follower/interviewee isn't surprised with random questions, isn't forced to feel "challenged", isn't forced to randomly make up an answer irrelevant to their skills or abilities, isn't influenced to speak off topic, is encouraged to stay calm and not be agitated because they're more confused about the line of questioning. The interviewer feels satisfied that the questions were answered expressively and given the way the interviewee wanted to answer not the what the interviewer wanted to hear.


Arjay, this is one of the BEST analogies I have ever seen regarding this subject. AWESOME. Thank you so much for taking the time to post this!

and I like that I can be the Rock Star. :tonguesmilie: