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Gerinski 
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5093
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 Posted: August 22 2014 at 07:46 |
 Blacksword wrote:
Dancing seems to be mostly about attracting the opposite sex. |
and listening to Prog is an ideal female repellent, so Prog lover and not dancer = worst possible combination if what you want is chasing ladies
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: January 22 2009
Location: Magic Theatre
Status: Offline
Points: 23098
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 07:48 |
Dean wrote:
If jumping around shaking your hair in response to some rhythmic aural simulation (ie "the freak-out") is considered dancing, then I am aware of the phenomenon and there may be some people still living who may have witnessed me in the throws of such an activity at various gigs at sometime in the past. The modern equivalent of this would be called the head-bang, a method of musically stimulated unrestrained upper body movement that probably derives from this archaic hippy-dance.
Probably. |
Now we're talking!
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams
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HolyMoly
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: April 01 2009
Location: Atlanta
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Points: 26133
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 07:55 |
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As for Gerard's astute observation about how prog fans often have a well developed sense of rhythm, that may be true, but that just means that the classic 4/4 dancing meter just leaves us wanting.
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My other avatar is a Porsche
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.
-Kehlog Albran
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HolyMoly
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: April 01 2009
Location: Atlanta
Status: Offline
Points: 26133
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 07:58 |
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I once did kind of like the punk concert crashing-into-each-other style of dancing, but at my age, I have to seriously worry about getting injured nowadays.
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My other avatar is a Porsche
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.
-Kehlog Albran
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 07:59 |
Guldbamsen wrote:
Dean wrote:
If jumping around shaking your hair in response to some rhythmic aural simulation (ie "the freak-out") is considered dancing, then I am aware of the phenomenon and there may be some people still living who may have witnessed me in the throws of such an activity at various gigs at sometime in the past. The modern equivalent of this would be called the head-bang, a method of musically stimulated unrestrained upper body movement that probably derives from this archaic hippy-dance.
Probably. |
Now we're talking! |
Of course the embodiment (I use the word selectively) of this is Stacia dancing to Hawkwind, but with more clothes on... Mostly.
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What?
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 08:01 |
HolyMoly wrote:
I once did kind of like the punk concert crashing-into-each-other style of dancing, but at my age, I have to seriously worry about getting injured nowadays.
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With my bulk and lack of coordinating I worry more about causing injury. 
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What?
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HolyMoly
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: April 01 2009
Location: Atlanta
Status: Offline
Points: 26133
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 08:02 |
Guldbamsen wrote:
From seeing your moves on stage (YouTube thingy), I can vividly imagine you going about such a dance. I am myself a great patron of swimdancing. |
That concert on Youtube had me on an extremely small stage, such that if I'd tried to do a lot of moving, I would have probably trampled the poor bass player (who had to use the sound bouncing off my back as a monitor).
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My other avatar is a Porsche
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.
-Kehlog Albran
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: January 22 2009
Location: Magic Theatre
Status: Offline
Points: 23098
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 08:03 |
Dean wrote:
Guldbamsen wrote:
Dean wrote:
If jumping around shaking your hair in response to some rhythmic aural simulation (ie "the freak-out") is considered dancing, then I am aware of the phenomenon and there may be some people still living who may have witnessed me in the throws of such an activity at various gigs at sometime in the past. The modern equivalent of this would be called the head-bang, a method of musically stimulated unrestrained upper body movement that probably derives from this archaic hippy-dance.
Probably. |
Now we're talking! |
Of course the embodiment (I use the word selectively) of this is Stacia dancing to Hawkwind, but with more clothes on... Mostly. |
The ol' shower dance eh? Fun times.
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: January 22 2009
Location: Magic Theatre
Status: Offline
Points: 23098
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 08:05 |
I'm not suggesting that you were wild, but there was potential for some moves had the stage been a little more vivacious, yes indeed.
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5093
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 08:09 |
Sometimes the argument that 'Prog is for listening to with attention, not for dancing to it' is used.
David is it true that if you dance to the music you loose ability to listen to it? perhaps that's why danceable music is necessarily simple or repetitive, because you can not focus on it anyway?
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
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Joined: January 22 2009
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 08:18 |
Gerinski wrote:
Sometimes the argument that 'Prog is for listening to with attention, not for dancing to it' is used.
David is it true that if you dance to the music you loose ability to listen to it? perhaps that's why danceable music is necessarily simple or repetitive, because you can not focus on it anyway? |
Nah it's not like that at all. When you really get into it, the beat starts to implement itself inside you like a natural heartbeat. This makes dancing almost superfluous because it's your body doing the talking without having to check things with upstairs all the time. The upstairs though is able to pick out everything in the music and similarly dance to it without ever feeling that something gets lost. I know what you mean by that btw - sometimes when you're at gigs people sing along so loudly, that they're incapable of hearing what the singer is on about. I've done this too at Metallica shows  The electronic get-togethers I'm talking about though are an entirely different thing. In one way it's all about the music.....but it's also about the dance and the secret unspoken lingo.
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 09:19 |
Being serious for a moment (yeah, right).
The difference between "prog dancing" and real dancing is that you cannot be rhythmic in irrational meters and obviously attempting such to poly-rhythms (if it were physically possible) would be injurious to ones health. If your left foot was stepping out to 13/8 time while the right is attempting 7/16 then it wouldn't take many bars before your feet were on opposite sides of the dance floor. Feet are better suited to simple time signatures like the waltz (left-right-together and repeat) and the march (left-right-repeat ad infinitum). In Prog dancing the feet remain rooted to the spot, perambulation is neither required nor is it desirable and any notion of keeping time with the rhythm is formally dispensed with. If you must move your feet then it is necessary to create a polymeter rhythm between your feet and whatever time signature the band decides to play in, i.e. stick to 3/4 or 2/4 time and let the musicians worry about the difficult stuff (follow that simple rule and you can dance to anything). Even us gifted with feet in matching pairs can give a passable impression of someone with two left feet if we attempt an irrational meter.
You can also put aside any notion of "swing" or other such gyrations that begin from the hips, such provocative gestures are unwelcome and frowned upon - if you wouldn't attempt such motion in front of an elderly female relative then no one will want to see it performed in time to Starship Trooper or Mysterious Semblance in the Strand of Nightmares (however appropriate it may seem at the time). The same is true of the modern practice known as twerking to the beat, any one attempting that to a Prog epic is likely to require the professional expertise of a chiropractor to remedy any resulting spinal injury.Like the feet, the lower body movement is ill-advised and all thoughts of rhythmic movement to the beat is unnecessary and impractical, we can extend this to upper-body movement too. The fundamental tenet of Prog dancing is to ignore the beat and any rhythm you may feel inclined to move too because sure as eggs are eggs you will either get it wrong, or the music will change meter without warning and you will end up looking foolish. The only part of your anatomy that is permitted to move in any relationship to the rhythm is your hair, and only then if it is of sufficient length to create a display worthy of a peacock. If you want to impress the ladies, be a peacock not a jitter-bug.
This just leaves the melody and that is the core of all Prog dancing. Melody is good, we like melody. Moving to the melody is expressive and cerebral, you can do this while listening to the music instead of that emotional thing of just feeling it. Here we can use our hands to gesticulate the notes, it's air-guitar without the imaginary guitar, air-keyboards without having to get the chord-shapes right or worry about left-right coordination. The result is drawing patterns in the air, it is an expression of the music and can be an emphasis to the lyric (admit it, you are singing along at this stage, you are Peter Gabriel/Jon Anderson/Steven Wilson/etc, the guy on stage is just a projection of what's going on in your head). In a nutshell,
Prog dancing is like doing ballet while sitting down.
With practice the rest of your body will follow the lead set by the hands, just as a Prog singer moves his body to the music ours will do the same. Even a Prog concert can have a mosh pit, albeit more sedate and dignified than at your typical Slipknot gig.
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What?
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5093
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 09:56 |
While sitting on my desk chair, I have attempted to air-play the feet of the drumming (in that style sometimes used by some drummers where you do not keep your heels leaning on the pedal but lift the whole foot instead) while air-playing the hands of the keyboards and banging my head to a mix of the rhythm and the melody. I guess if I filmed it and photoshopped to erase the chair, I would look like a puppet genuinely dancing to Prog being pulled by the Prog Masters' strings
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin
Joined: January 22 2009
Location: Magic Theatre
Status: Offline
Points: 23098
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 10:00 |
It's also something to do with one's surroundings methinks. I mean, this doesn't exactly invite dancing in me: 
While this ....on the other hand does. The bottom one is incidentally also a pretty fair representation of the parties I attend  |
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams
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The T
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: October 16 2006
Location: FL, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17493
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 11:19 |
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I abhor dancing.
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The Doctor
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: June 23 2005
Location: The Tardis
Status: Offline
Points: 8543
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 11:28 |
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I can't dance. I can't talk. The only thing about me is the way I walk.
Someone had to say it.
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I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 19 2007
Location: Penal Colony
Status: Offline
Points: 11415
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 11:29 |
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Dancing is the reaction of those clueless enough to interpret 'repeating yourself' to be worthy of interpretation.
Edited by ExittheLemming - August 22 2014 at 11:32
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Nogbad_The_Bad
Forum & Site Admin Group
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl & Eclectic Team
Joined: March 16 2007
Location: Boston
Status: Offline
Points: 20204
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 11:43 |
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I was at an Ozric Tentacles gig recently and there was a lot of groovy swaying going on, though as Dean said not much foot movement. More like hippy dippy peace & love swaying.
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Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/
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Barbu
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 09 2005
Location: infinity
Status: Offline
Points: 30845
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 11:43 |
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Why not?
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Polymorphia
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 06 2012
Location: here
Status: Offline
Points: 8856
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Posted: August 22 2014 at 11:56 |
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I dance behind instruments mostly.
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Dancing?
