Day 4: How to Learn From Your Favorite Artist
Today I'm going to show you how to learn from a favorite artist of your choosing. Read on to find out how.
David Romero says that we learn from all of the people we study (or work) with. That we hold onto the best bits from each person, that which we like,
Llega un momento en que naturalmente salen cosas en que tú dices, uy, esto por qué? Porque tú ya lo has vivido o la has visto o te lo han explicado.
“A time comes when things start happening naturally. You start doing things, and you say, “How did this happen?”
The process happens over time, David says. After a lot of dancing, a lot of studying, a lot of practicing, your body begins to change.
"And this is good.” he says. “It should change. Because if someone doesn’t change when dancing . . . What are we going to do? There has to be an evolution. And that comes from learning from all of the people who you study with, or all of the people who you work with, and all of the people who you admire.
You can hear David speak about this directly at 8 minutes into his video interview.
He touches on a few very important things there:
- We learn from people we admire.
- We must devote time to practice and study.
- It takes time time to process the information we learn.
- Style is developed over time.
For today, we’ll focus on learning from the dancers we look up to, respecting that we will develop our own style over time by practicing and dancing a lot!
And now,
Onto today’s activity
Step One
Think of a dancer you admire. This could be someone you’ve studied with or just someone you’ve seen perform either live or on video.
(If nobody comes to mind, why not learn from our imaginary teacher of the week, David Romero? You can watch him dance here and here and here. Or, why not learn from Mercedes Ruíz? You can watch her dance here.)
Step Two
Get a good picture of that person in your mind, and imagine him (or her) dancing.
You may want to take a detour to YouTube to help. (If your person is not on You Tube, no biggie, just close your eyes for a moment and see if you can picture them in your mind.)
Step Three
Choose a flamenco move or part of a dance to focus on.
(This could be a move you’ve been working with this week or something new. Perhaps you’d like to do a move your admired dancer does.)
Step Four
Now do your move keeping the image of that person in your mind.
If it’s a struggle to keep the image in your mind while dancing, that’s okay, just try holding onto the essence of this person.
That's it for today.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the final day of the Mini-Challenge and a very different (and perhaps very challenging but also perhaps very fun) activity.
Comments
Who is the dancer you imagined today? Why do you admire this person? How did it feel to dance while imagining him or her? What have you learned from the artists you admire? Let me know in the comments below.
What better way to get images of dancers you admire to stick in your mind than to study with them directly?
Join me this fall for one of the Flamenco Tours to Spain.