Understanding Dance Musicality

When you watch dancers' dancing, you might say 'they are musical' or 'they are not musical', I guess that you say the former when you like it and feel it fit the music, and you don't really buy it if you say the second and find the dance not quite suitable to that particular music. But when either you say music or not musical, you don't tell anything about the quality of the dance. Do you mean they dance ob beat or keep missing the beats? Do you mean their rhythm of the feet match or do not match with the song rhythm? Do you mean they move smoothly or clumsily? Do you mean they choreograph to echo the particular accents in the selected section? Do you mean they get a nice balance on responding to the melody and the underlying beat? Do you mean they have a choreography which is perfectly amalgamated to this specific song? Or, maybe actually you don't what did you mean to say?

Musicality is a vague term with which you may have an intuitive sense. However, a vague talent does not inspire you in which specific area to improve in order to become a better dancer. You are frustrated as you know you have a weak idea of what musicality should have been, but you feel even more frustrated when you realized that whether your musicality is appreciated or not by any one of the audience, who may not be a musician or a dancer but just normal who simply likes to move with music, is absolutely subjective. It can not be quantified or testified, because people do not have a commonly agreed meaning of it. It can mean that you understand music intellectually, or you express music-related ideas in dancing, or it sheerly means a descriptor for dancing you like, or a combined feeling of all the above. Even if we know people define musicality by these different meanings, it still does not tell you about anything specific. If you mean to say a dancer understand and express the music very well, what do you mean by this 'very well'? Why is it very well? You only know that it is some quality relates to music, but still it is hopelessly unhelpful.

To be a more 'musical' dancer, the most fundamental knowledge you need to know is music. Acquiring the basic music structure and articulation will be very helpful. As a dancer and a dance teacher, I would like to talk about the music-related quality about dancing in terms of :
  • The ability to identify different dance styles
  • The ability to tell the song structures
  • The ability to explain music terminology
  • The ability to count the beats, bars, phrases, and choruses
  • The ability to tell the song rhythm and dance rhythm, as well as to match the two to give a dance
  • The ability to anticipate breaks, bridges, accents, repetitions etc
  • The ability to express different emotions with your body
  • The ability to recognize the major genres of music and dance, Lindy hop, Harry Fox, Mambo that has influenced today's dance deeply
  • The ability to create new and own dance rhythms
  • The ability to listen to the music and dance simultaneously
  • The ability to improvise when a new song is given
  • The ability to combine good improvisation and partnering
  • The ability to choreograph which fit the tempo, structure, articulation and give unique style at the same time
When you talk about musicality, you are in fact referring to all these concepts. If you don't know specifically what is included in this term 'musicality', it is impossible to work on 'musicality' and be a more 'musical dancer'. If you know which aspect of musicality you want to improve, it is easier to get relevant drills to enhance you dancing quality. Now good luck with your practice about musicality!