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btscandanceonmygrave · 6 years ago

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Lines, lines and more lines!!

What do we mean when we talk about lines in dance terms and what makes good lines?

Lines in dance terms are literally the shapes and lines that your body makes when dancing. All dancers are generally aiming for elongated, beautiful lines in all their moves, but not all good lines are pretty ones or even elongated ones. It greatly depends on the particular dance you're doing and what it's trying to say or express. Some dances are trying to express something ugly or something withdrawn. Part of your job as a dancer is to express all types of emotions with your body. Having good lines means having lines that fit whichever emotion your are being asked to express. A lot of dancers are good at one or two "tyoes" of lines - a dancer that does long, pretty lines well, but struggles with angular, withdrawn lines will never make a dance expressing emotions like eg: self hatred or grief well, they'll make it look too soft, too pretty. To reiterate, good lines are not only pretty lines.

Here are some photos of great lines, some beautiful and elongated, somemore inward looking, more angular, not pretty or beautiful, but still great lines.

Now if you are a lucky dancer and won in the genes department and have long limbs relative to your body, and even beyyer if those limbs are lithe and elegant, you will automatically have an easier time producing good lines than a fellow dancer with shorter or chunkier limbs. Fred Astaire had wonderful dancer proportions, long lithe limbs. His lines were magnificent. But as much as it is helpful to have that gene advantage without the ability to control your limbs and body, without the innate ability to know when you are producing good lines that are appropriate for the choreography, without the technique and talent and hours and hours of hard work, you still won't have good lines. Having the right proportions doesn't mean you automatically have good lines.

Within the bts context, Hoseok has the best lines, with Jimin a close second.

Jungkook also has very good lines, and he would possibly be challenging Jimin for that second place if he starts to continue them through his hands and feet. Though to be fair to him, his feet aren't bad. His hands though are one his biggest weaknesses. If you've ever been in a dance class wuth a teacher who is even half decent you will have heard the phrase, "dance to your finger tips and beyond", or an equivalent one. Jungkook has a bad habit of stopping at his knuckles. At best he stops at his fingertips. He rarely if ever goes through and beyond them. Now I know some people reading this, if anyone ever does, will say what does that even mean. Its not something that can be easily explained. It sounds nonsensical to go through and beyond your fingertips, but all dancers will know it when they see it. Kooks needs to start doing it. His body lines can be very good though, but he is naturally bulky which doesn't help him. And he doesn't have quite the range of lines that Hoseok and Jimin have. He's very good at expressing certain emotions with his body, but that list is a bit limited. It means he sometimes ends up giving too strong a line or too forceful a line than is needed for the choreo.

Jimin is also hampered by his body, he has short limbs relative to his body especially his arms. The fact that he gets such good lines as he does and even occasionally has better ones than Hoseok for certain moves is testament to his incredible talent. Jimin needs to also expand his range a bit, and he needs to stop relying on his contemporary training and use his hip hop background a bit more. An example of what I mean is MIC Drop. It requires hard, funky, almost dirty lines. He smoothes his lines too much in that choreo for it too work. That smoothness comes from his contemporary background, such as it was (he only did contemporary for 2 years), but it doesn't fit that choreo. It needs sharper, harder lines, not soft and smooth ones. Now you cant say his lines are soft or smooth in that, but they are softer and smoother than is needed. I think he is very capable of giving that choreo more dirty, harder and sharper lines than he does, but he has a tendacy to fall back on his contemporary training too much. I want to see him out of his comfort zone, where he has to challange himself beyond that silky flair. It's lovely and he does it very well, but it's limited and he can do more, be more as a dancer. Sadly I think in a great way his fans and general kpop fans inhibit him in that respect. They always go on about contemporary style and his way of doing it. It's road blocked him from developing other styles and even that style more. I hope he starts to push himself over the next few years.

Hoseok, ah Hoseok. He was lucky, got those long lithe limbs in the gene lottery. But he has also got the natural talent and has put in the hard work to have control of those limbs. He has excellent awareness of what his body is doing and how it looks. And his range of line styles is huge. He can do the whole spectrum of styles it seems. I say seems because like Jimin he hasn't been allowed to explore fully all sorts of other styles of dance and hence lines and emotions needed to be expressed. Unlike Jimin we have seen glimpses mostly through his constant dancing and movement in backstage/behind the scenes videos etc. And you can see the potential for e.g. Latin American dances. He used to have a tendacy to fall back to his street background, like Jimin does for contemporary. He'd hitch his back or have his focus too much towards the ground. Street is very ground orientated unlike e.g. ballet which is very much about being upright and if you like in the air. Street is hunchy and relaxed posture. He doesn't do that anymore unless the choreo calls for it. He has obviously worked hard on his posture and does upright when it is required as well everything between the two extremes. This results in his lines being even better than they were in the beginning. This does not mean he always has the best lines for a particular move. An example is in Blood,Sweat and Tears when they have their leg to the side in the chorus - Jimin does that better. Sometimes Kooks has the best lines out of the three of them, but overall Hoseok has the best. Even when he is not the best he will inevitable be second best and not far off the best. He dances through his fingertips and beyond, if you ever need to understand what us meant by that watch Hoseok dance paying attention to his hands. His movements don't stop where his body does. And he never has anything less than an excellent line no matter the style.

As for the rest, it's much of a richness. The other four all have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to good lines. Yoongi is bad at soft lines, but very good at messy, dirty lines and relaxed lines. Taehyung is not good at precise lines and also suffered from not dancing through his fingertips. He does well at relaxed lines though, and cute lines, lines where the choreo needs you to be cute. He can hit sensual lines, but not always, the consistency isn't there or the control. Namjoon has struggled with getting good lines despite his long limbs. If anything his limbs are too long, he doesn't have the control over them. But he has improved hugely. He does well at sensual lines which I have to say surprises me as he is not the smoothest of dancers, but he really does do sensual lines well. Jin, like Namjoon, has struggled and like Namjoon improved hugely. He is actually very clean with his lines. Jin is not a natural dancer, none if the others are apart from 3J. They can dance, but that doesn't make them dancers. Jin is a very clinical dancer, you can see he dances exactly what he is taught. If he were a painter you'd be able to say he paints by numbers. But that is not necceasirly a bad thing. It makes his lines clean and precise. What he now needs to do is learn to relax into the dancing a bit more. I hope he's gaining more and more confidence to realise that thoigh he may not be a dancer he can really dance and well so that he can start to trust his body a bit more and to start to put his own touch to his dancing, his own unique flavour. He manages it fine when he's going wild on stage with a bomb at concerts, obviously you don't want him to go that wild, but to start to flavour his dancing a bit more with Jinness if you like. Namjoon has started to do that. There are touches coming through for Jin, hopefully it will get more and more.

Note: None of them produce bad lines, not anymore. They all produce good lines. But some produce very good lines and two exceptionally good lines. Anyone who thinks any of these boys can't dance is an idiot. But anyone who thinks they're all dancers is an idiot too. Sayingnsomeone isn't a dancer is not the same as saying rhey can't dance. If anything someone who is not a dancer but can dance as well as Jin, Suga, Namjoon and Tae can, deserves extra applause because it shows the hard work, dedication and commitment they have. And they can all dance better than us.

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btscandanceonmygrave · 6 years ago

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The Gwara Gwara and BTS - a love story.

The Gwara Gwara. Not an easy step to get right. Easy to get wrong. Easy to disguise that you are. It's a non-dancer public friendly step because of this.

You should be putting the majority of your weight on the leg that is moving, the straight, stationary leg acting like a balance point. The movement is actually supposed to come from the hips in a rotation movement. It's the foot and shoulders that move to the naked eye though so most people create the movement there. It can still work, but it won't be as good as it could be if done correctly. The shoulder movement is intersting. There are no real fixed rules as such for them, but the best way to get a handle on the step is to start with having the arm opposite to the moving and weight bearing leg still while moving the same side arm. The movement is a rotation one again and is from the shoulders. But that is just one version. Generally speaking your arms can do just about anything you want as long as the movements are in tune with the rest of the step. To sum up: weight on moving leg, movement driven by the hips in rotation manner, shoulders and arms relatively free to play with.

Let's look at each member (in dance line order):

J-Hope: He is unquestionably doing it the best technically out of the boys. His weight is clearly on the moving leg. And you can see how the entire movement is originating from his hips which are rotating perfectly. His arms are doing what the IDOL choreo calls for show casing his extraordinary skills at isolation and control, his shoulders are driving the arm movement with rotations, he even throws in some popping. It's a clean, crisp gwara gwara. He possibly could loosen up a tad bit more in the shoulder movement, but I don't think that is the way their choreogrphaer has choreographed it possibly so as to enable all members to execute the step and also to enable fans too. Also, you have to bear in mind this a group choreo, having 7 members being too loose and free for this step in the placement of the dance it is in would look very messy and not be pleasing as a whole. To sum up: a technically perfect, clean and crisp gwara gwara, very impressive.

Jimin: I actually would have said on paper he'd be marginally better at it than Hobi, however he's struggling a wee bit with this step. His biggest issue is where he's placing his weight. It should be mostly on the moving leg, but he's actually placing the on the stationary leg a lot of the time. At best, he's got his weight in the centre. This makes it difficult for him to produce the movement from his hip rotation. More of his movement is being driven from his mid back and shoulders, particularly his shoulders. His upper body is actually moving quite well, nearly better than Hobi, but his lower body is hampering his ability to execute the step overall well. If he spreads his legs a bit more and changes where he places his weight, it will help him and he could possibly have a gwara gwara as good as Hobi's. However, looking at the group perspective he would possibly stand out too much because he would be doing it in a freer manner if what he is currently doing is any indication. And though that would create an individually good gwara gwara, it would not aid the group dance. To sum up: he needs to put his weight on his moving leg, he needs to clean and crisp up his upper body movements, has the potential for an really good one if he does.

Jungkook: He is also struggling a bit like Jimin and like Jimin he is disguising it well, actually he's disguising it better than Jimin. This is possibly because his issue is one he has a lot so he has learned a lot of tricks. Tricks in dance are not a bad thing, far from it. The only bad that can come from tricks is if you become too dependent on them and stop trying to solve or at least lessen the problem. But I digress. Kooks is also putting too little of his weight on the moving leg. The majority of his movement is driven by his mid to upper back and shoulders, not his hips as it should be. Kooks lower back is not the most flexible, he's learnt ways of compensating for it over the years and often does a very good job of it. He's very good at disguising it. Here he is doing a pretty good job of doing that, but it still looks off balance. If he adjusted his weight with his ability to disguise his lack of flexibility in his hips and particularly his lower back it would end up being a pretty good gwara gwara. To sum up: he's putting his weight in the middle too much, he is doing an adequate job of disguising his movement being driven by his mid back and shoulders, but it could be a much better gwara gwara if he shifted his weight, fitting quite well into overall group look despite all this.

4. Yoongi: his gwara gwara is an odd one in that it is both good and bad. Technically it's a bit of a mess, but stylistically he's doing a pretty good job. Yoongi always is a bit unfinished in his dancing, loose, and that suits the gwara gwara. However his struggle with the stance and technique with the hips makes the overall effect look messy, rushed almost. He is also not fitting with the group overall look because of his looseness/messy style. His issue isn't with his weight thoigh, he has that quite well distributed. His issue is with his hips. His movement is being driven by is leg not his hips or shoulders so there is little to no rotation going on. This makes it look even messier. To sum up: despite his good weight distribution, his movement is driven mostly by his leg instead of hips so he has little rotation. He needs to rotate his hips and tighten up his overall movement to fit more into the group look.

5. Tae: his weight distribution is better than both Jimin and Jungkook, but like Jungkook, Tae's lower back is not The most flexible. In fact his entire back is not very flexible. To be honest, Tae is very inflexible apart from his natural turnout. But he lacks control of that turnout which also affects his control over his hips which isn't that great. However, here, though he isn't producing a huge amount of hip rotation, he is producing some. He is substituting it with shoulder movement though which then makes the step less well executed. If he lessens his shoulder involvement he will have a better gwara gwara. To sum up: his weight distribution isn't great but not bad, a bit more weight on his moving leg and less shoulder involvement in his hip movement and it will be pretty good gwara gwara. He needs to tighten up the step a bit from a group overall look point of view.

6. Jin: Jin has good hip and back movement. His control has been an issue over the years, but he now has pretty good control of his spine and hips. He can still struggle with control over his limbs, but here he doesn't have that problem. His weight is correctly placed, he is driving the majority of his movement from his hips not his shoulders, you can tell he's had instruction from Hoseok and is following them to the letter. He is being safe within the step though. He needs to relax into it a bit more, but he is actually doing a better job technically than either Jimin or Kooks. To sum up: his basic technique is good, he is driving the movement from his hips, he is keeping well within the choreo so keeping well within the group overall look. If he relaxes more into it it will be a good gwara gwara.

7. Namjoon: Much like Jin you can tell he has had direct instruction from Hoseok and has taken it all on board. He has his weight correctly distributed, his movement is being driven more by his hips than his shoulders-those Pilates classes must be working since his back is looking a lot looser these days. He is a bit more relaxed in the step than Jin, but like Jin he is still playing it pretty safe. A bit more trust in himself and it will improve greatly. To sum up: he has his weight well distributed, most of his movement is coming from his hips, he is keeping well within the group overall look, he needs to trust himself a bit more and he will have a good gwara gwara.

So, Hoseok has the best, then Jin and Namjoon with Kooks, then Tae and Jimin and Yoongi marginally last. Overall as a group pretty good gwara gwara. Room for improvement which will certainly come for all of them as the tour progresses.

#bts #dance #dance analysis #opinion #armchair expert #gwara gwara #idol

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