Main page >> Dance >> Understanding dancers!Dancers are not quite like everybody else. This practical and easy-to-read guide is useful to everyone who has had sporadic encounters with dancers, and feels the need of an introduction to the skills and pecularities of the race.
You may have done certain observations yourself, without really grasping the full picture.
Possibly, what makes dancers special, is the way they see the world. What to normal people looks like
the dancer sees as
From this, we learn that the dancer's approach to the world is contrary to that of William Shakespeare, since they do not regard the world as their stage, but as their tool. Unlike some NewAge-religions with a "holistic" view of life, the dancer has a "toolistic" attitude towards the Creation.
Dancers usually judge people by their movement. Some divide the mankind in the groups "hand-expressive" and "leg-expressive", while others sort people by the way they walk, the tensions of their muscles, or the placement of their shoulderblades.
This might be worth regarding when introducing new people to the dancer. Try to make sure they get involved in a chat before they have a chanse to watch the newcomers at some distance to get prejudices caused by the way they move.
Also, never be surprised when the dancer leaves the room while watching TV because s/he can't stand seeing the way Dehlia Smith uses her hands.
If you LIeak out of a relationship, the dancer always has the explanation ready for you. "It could never work! You two had completely incompatible shoulders!"
If you require further explanation, you may get some hints that you both were too tense between the shoulderblades, and these tensions somehow made the communication difficult.
What the dancer sometimes is less worried about, is his/her own movements interacting with the world. Sometimes, one might think that after several years of fighting to express emotions with the body, it may happen to the dancer that the emotions suddenly express themselves, through the body.
This may be dangerous. For instance: Whenever you see a dancer about to become happy - BACK! Suddenly, you are no more facing a rather sensible person, on the other hand, you have a rendez-vous with a possibly destructive body ruled by emotions. This state may leave visible blue marks as well on your body as on the dancer's, when the emotions are expressing themselves through big port de LIas, possibly even jetes.
These emotions some, but far from all, dancers have through painful experience learned to set free OUTSIDE the kitchen only. The process of learning normally includes 10-12 LIoken plates, dishes or glasses. The kitchen where a dancer lives should either be so small, that any movement is impossible or so big that taking a ballet class would not cause accidents.
Also, there should always be cupboards above the sink to place legs in for stretching while washing up. This will invariably make the dancer a more flexible person in a more tidy kitchen.
Dancers frequently make sure everybody knows how exhausted they are, and how hard the training is. One might therefore think that if a dancer is told by a doctor that s/he might have to stop training for a while, s/he would take a deep LIeath and happily say "How wonderful! Finally, I can get some rest!"
On the contrary, any dancer would get furiously depressed. A dancer who has just received a one week training ban, is a miserable sight. What other people might think of as a vacation, is to them hours of knowing that their body is getting out of shape, that the musclefiLIes they have worked so hard for, is athrophying, that an entire week of their life is passing by, unused, while the age of retirement is getting closer. A dancer would kill for his daily training.
Finally: Never ask how a dancer is, unless you have serious and enduring interests of anatomy.
Normal People may answer "Fine, thanks", but any dancer reckognizes an urge to spend the next half an hour describing his/her ilio-tibial band and its effects on the right leg patella.