From: hage@netcom.com (Carl Hage)
Subject: Re: What dance to what music...(more)
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 20:16:40 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

esper@cs35b.cs.umn.edu (Dave Sherohman) writes:
: In article <1992Sep25.002559.25976@cirrus.com> dhesi@cirrus.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
: >Compare this with cha-cha, where there is an accepted right way (side
: >step on the strong beat) and a wrong though popular way (rock step on the
: >weak beat).
: 
: Am I missing something here, or is that just two ways of saying the same
: thing?  (i.e., if you go to the side on the strong beat, you'll be doing the
: break on the weak beat)


Rather than thinking of strong beats vs. weak, the change from fast to
slow is where the "accent" occurs. The look and feel of a dance can be
improved by emphasizing the change in speed, wheras a poor style will
look "mushy" where the speed between slow and quick is evened out.

In a technique lecture at BYU this summer, Ron Montez made some comments
which struck me as the best explanation of the "feel" of american Cha-Cha
(and I think also applies to International).  He basically said that the
1-2-3 (the side and break) in Cha-Cha was like a Rumba, done with slow
movement and Cuban motion in the hips. The 4-& was a fast action which
does not have all the Rumba movement.

As Alan and Jay mentioned, Cha-Cha has the 4& and sometimes 2& beats added
to the usual 4, and so you hear a strong & 1, where the 1 is a change from
fast to slow, and is accented. Breaking on 1 would have the feel strong-
strong-weak-weak-weak, or slow-slow-quick-quick-quick. However, to get the
Rumba action in the break, you want slow-slow-slow-quick-quick matching
the 1-2-3-4-& and the transition from quick to slow accents the 1 beat
at the start of a measure.

When you do the break, you want to stop your motion before the break
typically by taking a slightly larger step on the side, forward, or back
on count 1. Almost all rank beginners in Cha-Cha have a similar style
which makes the dance more difficult. Notice they move fast into the
break, taking a large step in the break and trying to stop and reverse
direction with the opposite foot flying up high in the air and the body
leaning forward or back. With the moderatly fast rhythm of Cha-Cha, they
don't have enough time to change directions and build up speed in the
opposite direction. Then the cha-cha-cha steps are rushed to catch up and
high speed is built up going into the next break step. When going forward
and backward, most of the motion occurs in the break steps and sometimes
the cha-cha-cha is done in place. A good style has the opposite, with
little body movement and small steps in the breaks, allowing plenty of
time for a nice Rumba action during the break.

Note that Mambo/Salsa has an analogous transition from fast to slow on the
1 beat. Depending on the music, sometimes the 1 beat is accented by a dead
or silent beat and the music starts on 2. If 1 is not dead it usually has
a single (no &) beat with a different percussion sound than the other
beats. The dead beat is accented in the authentic Mambo/Salsa dance
by a pause on 1.

By the way. I have heard some music that has a 1-2-3-&-4 ryhthm with 1 and
2 accented rather than the usual 1-2-3-4-& with 1 accented or 1-2-&-3-4-&
with 1 and 3 accented. This would be labelled Cha-Cha, but this is not the
authentic Latin ryhthm which is one of the latter. I suppose it would be
best to break on 1 with the 1-2-3-&-4 rhythm, although I admit that I dance
these wrong by breaking on 2 out of habit.