Partnered Swing Dancing (361-0-20)
Instructors
William Lewis Siegenfeld
847/491-3147
10 Arts Circle Drive
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, noon-2:00pm and by appointment
Meeting Info
Wirtz Center SOUTH: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:50PM
Wirtz Center BERGEN: Wed 11:00AM - 12:50PM
Overview of class
The movement we do in this class can be described as follows: two of you couple up and join hands, look in each other's eyes, and sing the rhythms that you're also moving to using a form of vocalizing called "scat-singing." More, you do all of this by honoring a fundamental law of nature, Newton's 3rd Law of Motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." That is, what is particular about the way we swing-dance with each other in this class is that we work together to create an equal-and-opposite partnership with each other, both physically and emotionally. We work at this by becoming aware of 3 sensations: --how gravity's force - when we give in to it - relaxes our body-weight down into the floor and, therefore, frees our bones to move more loosely at their bony connections called joints (e.g., the neck, elbows, lower back, and knees); --how the floor, in application of Newton's law, meets our thrusting-downward, falling body-weight by equally and oppositely counter-thrusting up into it; --how you and your partner use your hands, eyes, and voices to share your emotioninfused, rhythmic movement with each other in equal and opposite pushes and pulls while bouncing downward onto the beat of the great American folk music called swing. Partnering in this equal-and-opposite way can also explain the phrase in the second half of the course title: "Equal Give-and-Take Collaborations."
Class Attributes
No Freshmen