fandomhigh | Intro to Dance, Wednesday Period 1

Verity wasn't hung over anymore but being up and ready to teach a dance class at 8am made her feel like she was. It was possible that she was going to go and kick the moose in the face when class was finished. Still, if she could come out screaming with excitement at seven in the morning to tape the opening of Dance or Die!, she could at least fake some pleasantries.

"Morning," she said, welcoming the class into the dance studio. There was a wall of mirrors with a barre mounted in front of them. Verity was standing in front of it, doing stretches. She'd sent out a ~~handwavy~~ email to students, requesting that they come to class in comfortable clothing they could move in, with either sneakers or, should they have them, ballet flats. Later in the semester, Verity might try to transition them to ballroom heels or jazz shoes, but not until they were comfortable moving around. "Welcome to Intro to Dance. I'm Verity Price, a semi-professional Argentinian tango dancer, and we're going to be focusing on ballroom dance this semester. Ballroom dance is excellent for helping improve your balance, flexibility, and strength. But perhaps the two most important aspects of ballroom are what we're going to be focusing on today: rhythm and the ability to work with a partner."

Or, as Verity liked to think of it: nobody learns dips until she knows they won't be dropped.

"The first part of every class is going to be devoted to warmups and stretches," she explained, gesturing for everybody to sit on the floor. "It's really easy to pull a muscle or get cramps while dancing and stretching first helps prevent those." She ran through about ten minutes of easy stretches with the class. The first and last set of exercises were the same, so they could see if they were able to reach farther and stretch deeper than before.

Once they had finished stretching, Verity turned on the music. "All right, let's start working on that rhythm and teamwork, shall we?"

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Once the music started playing, Verity began snapping her fingers on the beat. 1, 2, 3, 4.

"This is the beat," she explained. "Normally, if you're listening to music, you'd snap or clap or tap your foot every other beat." Preferably the second and fourth, but that was a conversation for a later class. "What I want you to do is pair off and practice walking to the beat. But we're going to vary it up. Every time I call "Change!" ~~which can be modded in your threads~~, you have to switch to a new tempo. There's lento, or slowly. You're gonna take a step on one beat and then pause - or rest, as they say in music - for the next three. Next is andante, or walking speed. One step per every two beats. Third is moderato, moderate speed, where you'll take one step on each individual beat. And the last, allegro, means fast and lively, and that's taking two steps for each beat. One step on beat, one step off."

She demonstrated what she meant, going through each of the speeds to show what she meant.

"The trick is, you and your partner have to move at the same time and at the same tempo--but without talking. You have to find a way to communicate how you're going to move and when, possibly even correct each other to get you moving with the right rhythm, but all without saying a word."

Did that make sense? She paused to see if anyone had questions and then, "Now, take a minute, find a partner, introduce yourselves if you want to, then begin."

This should be too bad. Astrid definitely didn't have any formal training or anything like that, but there had been galas her mother had brought her to that involved some dancing, and plenty of play-waltzes across the sandy beaches in Mexico. She liked to think she could at least keep a rhythm well enough by herself....it was finding one with a partner that seemed a little up in the air, but she looked around the room a little to see who might make a good match.

Tip had a decent natural sense for rhythm. She could find a beat and clap on two and four.

She had never danced with a partner for more than goofing off around the kitchen with her mom, so that part was going to be interesting.

"Hey Astrid," she greeted. "Can I have this dance?"

Astrid grinned faintly in response, nodding. "Sure," she said and she shrugged. "I think maybe with this one, we might be able to avoid each other's feet well enough, too."

"Here's hoping. I'd hate to break your toes."

That wasn't super likely even if Tip stepped on them -- she was not that large -- but still.

"I'd hate to have them broken."

But it would probably be her luck, really.

"So, I guess...do we just...start? Should we count out a beat and then zip it after that and see how it goes?"

"Sounds like a plan to me. Which I guess means you're going to lead."

Kagura put on a fake smile because this was going to be awful.

"You better be tough if you're going to dance with me," she declared. Because she was just a teensy bit worried she might accidentally hurt them given her super strength.

"Meep meep meep meep meep," Beaker assured her incomprehensibly.

"...I'm going to take that as an agreement," Kagura said. "I'm no longer responsible if I step on you or fling you across the room. Though I guess we're not really dancing dancing today."

More sort of simul-stepping?

"And it looks like we can't talk to each other anyway."

"Meep meep meep," Beaker said agreeably, keeping time rather well.

"Meep meep meep," Kagura replied, just going with it. She was doing fine herself, but goodness knew what would happen when the teacher yelled 'change'. "I'm not sorry if I just said something rude."

Intro to Dance, Wednesday Period 1

Find a Partner and the Rhythm

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