A/N: This is a sequel to Twoset Dancers (Chapter 51) of this book.
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The next item on the workshop program was for each group of dancers to come up with thier own choreography and teach the other 2 groups how to dance their style and genre of dance. Each group had 30 minutes to put together their dance routine.
When the alarm set by John the facilitator went off after 30 minutes, he asked all the dancers to sit on one side of the dance hall and asked each dance style group to present their choreography to the rest of the dancers.
The classical ballet team, with Eddy as their group leader taking the centre, showcased their beautiful synchronisation, graceful movements, beautiful lines from head to toe and expressions by their hands.
The freaky movements of the hip-hop team, delivered by Brett and the other members of their group taking the centre in turns for their solos, were very entertaining, though Eddy thought he would never be able to learn to move like that. It was as if Brett and his team members were able to command their body parts to individually move in various directions against any sort of flow. For a ballet dancer, such a way of moving was terribly confusing.
The contemporary team also showed beautiful contrast between their strength and softness with their movements. The movements looked more "familiar" to Eddy compared to hip-hop, yet it had a much more "raw" and "edgy" power to it.
"Okay, so now I would like you all to make a group of 3, 1 from each genre so that you can teach each other your dance group's routine. Let's do the ballet routine first, we'll have a performance by each dance style group in 30 minutes."
Eddy from ballet, Brett from hip-hop and a girl who introduced herself as Brettany was a contemporary dancer who got together in a group.
"Hi, I'm Eddy. Brettany is it? Nice to meet you. This is Brett. Okay, so our ballet choreography starts from arms in 2nd position... Brett, we're starting with arms opened wide, parallel to the floor."
Brett found the movements were relatively straight forward but he felt like there was not a shred of grace in his movements. When dancing in his own genre, there'd be numerous moments when he would add some graceful movements as an embellishment – but these were for only for a few beats to emphasise the next "sick" movement that would follow just before where the "drop" of the music occurred and thus such poses were never "held" for a long duration of time. So comparing himself with Eddy in the studio mirror, Brett could not believe they were dancing the same routine.
"Eddy... why do I look like a cockroach scuttling across the floor, rather than someone dancing ballet ?"
Eddy looked absolutely mortified with Brett's question.
"Aaaagh, Brett, please don't say that!!"
Brett raised an eyebrow.
"Why..??"
"I just can't stand... those insects. Anyway, look, we're bound to look different when we dance simply because you're not a ballet dancer.. But that's okay, I saw your dance routine and it looked amazing. I'm scared of learning it."
"Hmm"
"Okay, so some tips. I do think you can make your movements bigger with larger steps, plus, show me your arms in 2nd position again? Yeah, spread out like that. Can you make them wider? Can you push out your chest as you hold your arms out so that your arms look longer? "
"Um...like this ??"
Brett popped out his chest and jerked his shoulders backwards which allowed an arm extension that made Eddy's eyes almost water.
"What the frick..!?!? What did you just do !?!?"
"I just popped my chest and locked my shoulders, I don't usually leave it like this but I think this is kinda close to what you ballet dancers do to make your arms look longer."
"Yeah... but hang on, wait, what do you mean by you don't leave them out?"
"Well, we pop it in and out or lock it to the beat when we dance."
Brett demonstrated and Eddy cringed.
"Okay.. so let's just keep them popped? locked? out when you expand your arms, they look really good when you give them length like that. And straighter posture... more.. your best, Brett. Yep, the neck kept long.. good. And hands.. no fists, let's keep the hands open, not like the paper in scissors-paper-rock but fingers closer, almost together... not quite a karate chop, no we don't want a claw either..focus on keeping your middle fingers straight, that should take care of the rest. You should also take larger and fewer steps when you move around the stage so that we are all covering the same ground with the same number of steps... no Brett, we don't ever improv our own number of steps in ballet..!! We gotta keep in sync when the 3 of us dance together. I'll take slightly smaller steps to keep it in sync better. Now, can you point your toes ..and when you take steps we're gonna land on your toes first... what's wrong Brett? Oh sh*t, are you cramping up !?!?!?"
Eddy had very little to say to Brettany as her early dance training was ballet. She went over the choreography once with Brett and Eddy and spent most of the time practising on her own and had 1 final check by Eddy before John's alarm went off.
Brett was flustered, brain-fried and had cramps in both feet.
When the 4 contemporary dancers showed their classical ballet routine in front of the rest of the dancers, Brett was immediately able to see the synchronisation that Eddy was emphasising.
"Excuse me, sorry, John, may the B-boys have a 10-second meeting before we start ?"
"Again Brett? I'm intrigued as to what you can achieve in 10 seconds this time. Of course. "
Just as before, Brett only huddled up with the other B-boys for 10 seconds before he declared they were ready.
And the B-boys' ballet routine began.
So there wasn't a whole lot of "grace" – not when B-boys aren't even trained to point their toes –suddenly being told to dance with pointed toes resulted in Brett keeling over with continuous cramps so Eddy just gave up.
However, Eddy noticed Brett must have taught the rest of the B-boys how to pop and lock their shoulders and arms as they all showed fabulous arm extensions. He was impressed with the adaptability of the B-boys.
It was the last group work session when the 3 groups – classically trained, contemporary and hip-hop dancers were all mixed together to try out the hip-hop routine. Eddy was very nervous as he knew he would look like a complete klutz. He suspected his years and years of classical training wasn't going t help him at all for hip hop.
Boy, was he right.
Brett called out.
"Guys.. let's take a quick water break for a second.."
He stepped over to his phone and killed the music, then stepped over to Eddy for a discreet chat.
"Dude, do you even listen to the lyrics?"
Eddy with sweat dripping down his face more from nerves than tiredness looked puzzled.
"Brett, I don't normally dance to songs with lyrics... so no.. who listens to lyrics?"
Brett face palmed himself.
"Eddy, if you don't listen to the lyrics, how would you understand how the tempo changes? Like if you're expressing a heartbeat, as it goes fast or slow..."
"How could a heartbeat change tempo?"
Brett pulls back his fist and pretended to take a swing at Eddy.
Eddy screamed.
"Oh my f*cking god!!!!!"
Brett flashed a cheeky grin.
"Is that heart of yours beating faster now? That's how. If you listen to the lyrics and it tells you the heartbeat is fastening, you instinctively know that the choreography goes at double speed."
"Oh my god."
"You looked like you were trying to learn all the choreography in your head."
"...um.. Yes, cos that's what we normally do..!"
Brett grinned again.
"I mean don't get me wrong, we do learn the choreo. But a lot of it is based on the lyrics and parts of it can be quite intuitive in hip-hop."
"Oh geez, nothing feels intuitive when I dance your style, Brett."
Brett burst out laughing as he threw his head back.
"Says the classical dancer with the most graceful moves..."
"Brett, I was meant to ask you, the bit when you guys do your solos..."
"Yes..?"
"I thought your choreo looked different from when you first showed us...."
"Yeah, cos it's an improv solo."
'WHAT!?!?!??!"
Eddy recoiled in horror.
Brett raised an eyebrow as if to say "What's the big deal?"
"... I take it you don't do those in ballet?"
"Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
Eddy groaned.
"...No Brett, not in a million years. And I'm just gonna look like a deer in headlights when I stand in the centre of the stage.."
Brett smirked.
"But it's the best part of the routine, Eddy - to take centre stage and do sick stuff."
"....Brett, you're not helping."
"Well... at least deers are cuter than cockroaches."
"Brett, you're really not helping. Oh my god. I am so dead."
A/N: That concludes the duology of Twoset Dancers, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story...!