| Shall we dance? Uh... On1? On2? |
| Written by Carlos Leon | |||||||
Page 1 of 2 A word about Salsa Dance StylesL.A. style (On1) and New York style (On2) are two of the most popular Salsa dance styles around the world. In the L.A style, the leader breaks forward with his left foot on the first beat of the measure while the follower breaks back with her right foot. In the New York style, the follower breaks forward with her left foot on the second beat of the measure while the leader breaks back with his right foot. Should I dance On1 or On2, I hear you ask?This can be answered by another question: What do you listen to in a Salsa song? Allow me to elaborate. The melody (including the lead singer, the chorus and the melodic instruments) tends to accentuate the first beat of the measure (i.e. beats one and five for the dancer). Thus, when we pay attention to the melody, it feels good to dance On1 because our strongest body movement, which is when changing directions (a.k.a. breaking), is precisely on beats one and five, matching the strongest accents of the melody. Similarly, the percussive instruments have strong accents on the second beat of the measure, and thus, if a dancer is paying attention to the percussion, it feels great to dance On2. To sum up, when dancing On1, we are mostly dancing to the melody, while when dancing On2, we are mostly dancing to the percussive rhythms. Although we could dance on any style to any Salsa song, there are some songs that make more emphasis on either the melody or the percussion, and therefore it's more appealing to dance to them in a particular style. The more advanced dancers are capable of perceiving the subtleties in each song, allowing them to be more playful with the music. Thus, it's common that such dancers develop a personal preference for certain type of songs, the ones that allow them to express themselves better while dancing. This is why most avid On2 dancers prefer to dance to "Salsa Dura" for example, where the percussive rhythms are highly emphasized. If you are interested in developing this ability to easily identify each rhythm being played in a Salsa song and become more musical, we recommend using Salsa Grooves, a visual and interactive software tool specifically designed to help you quickly fine-tune your ears and better understand the common rhythms played in all Salsa songs. To read more about it, visit: http://www.SalsaGrooves.com
|
