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| Sunday, 17 July 2005 |
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Put on your dancing shoes! by Umangi de Mel
"Dancing is a bit like being in love," says Kanthi Ranchigoda, dance teacher. She says that the feeling cannot be explained if you haven't had the experience," but explained or not, dancing today sweeps on through every generations. Having had many years of experience as a dance teacher Kanthi Ranchigoda gets down to talking about 'modern dancing' which is quite popular among all age groups.
Modern dance was pioneered by US women seeking individual freedom but it's from Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's. Denis own school of dancing and related Arts in Los Angeles (1915) that the first generation of modern dance emerged. Evolving from ballet, modern dance throws away the ballet shows and the aesthetics of the form. According to research, it is more grounded, focusing on the articulation of the upper body balance and shifting of weight to work off-balance.
It's a combination of mind, body and soul, "It exercises every part of the body, toning up muscles, stimulating the nervous system and putting the whole physical mechanism through its paces. It's lively and healthy," says the dance expert. According to her, it helps people lose weight, gain weight and even take one's mind off certain things. "It keeps you trim as it's possible to burn off as much as 300 calories in a dancing season.
She says that dance has a wonderful extra dimension that it can be watched as well as performed, with equal delight. Modern dance is sometimes a guide pointing to lines and curves from which you must create, opening up hidden feelings to dance. "I use the latest music like rap and modern during the lessons. Actually it's based on the dance. You get ballet music for ballet, samba for samba and rap music for hip hop." Talking about overdoing certain dance movements to incorporate sensuous and suggestive movements Kanthi says that she always advices her students to keep to the music, "Your movements must suit the music. You should make the movements subtle and keep to the correct technique but not overdo it.""Kanthi doesn't incorporate other dance movements in modern dance. "I might use positions and technique but not the dance steps. It's the basic technique but dancing is different." Dancing can be fun from the first step, she says. According to her, it brings out what's beautiful and shows you the way, so you want to dance, "Put sunshine in your shoes," she advices all the passionate dancers out there. |
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It involves a lot of twisting and turning,
but could work wonders on your shape. Wanna be Miss Body beautiful? Learn
to dance with some of the experts in the field. 
"It's developed on a ballet technique. For any type of dancing, the
basic is ballet. If you've got the basic of ballet and perfect technique
you can branch out into any kind of dancing." Modern dance has the ability
to afford great experience especially to the young. Despite its benefits
many have never really been fully introduced to modern dance, when and how
it evolved and what defines its basic concepts. 
"Modern dancing is all about free and agile movements. Both modern and
hip hop dancing has a lot to do with the hip, shoulders and the full body
unlike ballet which is more sustained and polished," Kanthi comments.
Modern Dance has become a major attraction as a lot of people from the
ages of between 8-25, run to it. 
Nothing surprises the urge to get out there and dance," she says. The
requirements for training, she says will be learnt during the lessons. "It
depends on the individual, you'll realise for yourself once you come and
dance. Once you know what is required for you as a dancer, you'll start
developing from there onwards. It's a process of developing both mind and
body." 
