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Parallel with the musical genre rock and roll, suitable dances have been developed.
From swing, which came into being around 1920, in the USA very soon emerged
Lindy Hop, the first partner dance ever to feature acrobatic elements. Lindy
Hop again was being modified around 1940 to suit faster music: boogie woogie
was born. With rock and roll music coming into fashion around 1955, the protest
driven youth movement converted boogie woogie to the even more sporty rock
and roll dance.
Technique and basics
The most obvious feature of rock and roll are its kicks (into thin air) and
its acrobatical elements like lifts, jumps, throws and flips. Today's rock
and roll is a mere show and competition dance and - with the exception of
its name - has nearly nothing in common with the former rock and roll movement.
It is being danced in pairs or as formation dancing. Over the years rock and
roll has experienced several important changes, e. g. the former 6-basic step
being converted into the modern tournament's 9-basic step with its typical
kick ball change. Other characteristics are basic techniques such as the gentleman's
body wave movement, that he uses to fling his lady from a sitting position
upwards, and the throwing basic movement, where she steps onto his hands and
is being catapulted upwards into neck breaking jumps. Because of its demanding
technique, high speed and strength consuming acrobatics rock and roll is a
straining high-performance sport and therefore is being performed mostly by
young dancers.
The name of the basic comes from the number of separate actions. With the 6-basic one counts (1)step (2)step (3)kick (4)settle (5)kick (6)settle or (1)kick (2)settle (3)kick (4)settle (5)kick (6)settle, with the 9-basic it is (1)kick (2)ball (3)change (4)kick (5)settle (6)settle (7)kick (8)settle (9)settle. That means during a kick the technical correctness is achieved when the supporting foot settles on the floor a tiny moment before the kicking foot settles on the the floor.
Dance moves
Because rock and roll is a mere show dance and each pair features its own
special movement combinations, mainly acrobatic moves have individual names,
while only some standard dance moves such as change of places, sliding door,
??? (Joch), spin, lady's spin, promenade, change of hands and places, curl,
half spin, half whip and pretzel have standardized names. Today's tournaments
acrobatic movements, ordered by classes, are:
Youth: Bocksprung, Durchzieher, Handstand, Rad, Schieber, Texas, Tote Frau,
Tote Frau vorwärts, Zugrolle
D class and juniors: Bombe, Doppelgrätsche, Eis (D Klasse), Fisch, Grätsche,
Hochzeitssitz, Kniesitz, Lasso, Liegepirouette, Lift, Münchner, Oberschenkelstand,
Schaukel, Schleuder, Schwan, Shalom, Teller
C class: Eis (C Klasse), Schulterkugel (C Klasse), Flieger, Italiener, Münchner
rückwärts, Sagi, Schlange
B class: Berliner, Bettarini, Einsteiger, Käskehre, Kerze, Landshut,
Rückenwurf, Schocksalto, flacher Todessprung, seitlicher Todessprung,
Valentino, Winterthur
A class: Einsteiger Rückwärtssalto (auch doppelt und dreifach),
Schulterkugel (A Klasse), Propeller, Taucher, Todessturz
Some pictures and descriptions (in German) can be found in the external links
section.
Rhythm and music
Rock and roll bases on the 4/4 measure. One basic comprises six beats and
therefore one and a half measures. In contrary to the offbeat of rock adn
roll music, the dance puts stress on the beats one and three of each measure.
The music is very fast, at 176 to 208 bpm. Due to non-offbeat stressing and
speed traditional rock and roll music has been replaced by modern disco and
pop music.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.