Avatar

nothin' but ink, bone, and stardust

@melthedestroyer / melthedestroyer.tumblr.com

I'm Mel. Basically I have no idea what I'm doing.
Avatar

i cannot be the first person to post this here but i am going so fucking insane about the gaia music collective's one day choir singing wait for me. the opening harmonies are you KIDDING me

Avatar
Avatar
dancecinema

GREGORY HINES & MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV White Nights (1985) dir. Taylor Hackford

Masters of their craft.

My favorite thing about this sequence is that if you don’t know who Hines and Baryshnikov are, and I tell you one is a ballet dancer and one taps, you should be able to figure out who’s who based on their specific movements, even though the choreography is the same.

Avatar
elljayvee

ABSOLUTELY. It’s so obvious in the way they move, and things like the positioning of the hips as they do the same step. Where the weight is in the leg. All those things. It’s one of the things that makes the sequence such a pleasure to watch – you can see that both of them are amazing dancers and you can also learn a lot about their specific disciplines and the differences between them watching it.

OK OK I am actually going to go through those gifs one by one to talk about the things that really strike me in each one as demonstrating the two styles of dance. I’m sure I am missing some things, this is just what is obvious to me.

1. Look how they lead the movement as they step back. Baryshnikov moves his leg following a hip/torso movement. Hines comes very close to leading with his knee. You’ll see that knee-leading motion in a later step, too. You can probably do this yourself: stand with your feet and hips square to the front, then turn your hips towards the left and use the pull of it to lead your leg into the step. Then go back to square, and take a step back by letting your knee open to the side and go backwards. You should be able to feel the muscles working pretty differently – the first movement engages a lot more of your core, the second relies more on your various thigh muscles.

2. The leg extension in the air – that perfect straight leg is ballet to the core – and look at how differently their hips and feet are when they land! Baryshnikov’s hips are squared to the side and his feet are aligned; Hines’s hips are angled and his back foot faces the front and is flat. If a ballet dancer had his foot like that – and he might – his hips wouldn’t be doing that angle.

3. This is a tap sequence and it’s where that knee-lead comes in again. Hines’s hips are loose and his knees seem to be leading the movement – almost like they are pulling both his hips and his ankles along for the ride. You can see where his feet will strike by watching the knees. Baryshnikov is not a tap dancer and it really shows here! Once again you can see that he moves his hips in order to shift his knees and weight.

4. There are a few things here but the biggest to me is how they land out of that jump. Hines lands…well, like a tap dancer. He comes down hard and flat – you can see the little jolt as he hits – like he’s slammin’ that tap shoe down to make a big ol’ noise. Baryshnikov’s landing foot isn’t as easy to see, but he comes down toe-first, as is correct for ballet.

5. Again there are a few, but what I find most striking is the looseness/rigidness of posture. Both of them have immense body control, but Hines is letting his joints flex more in the air. It looks to me like again he brings his heel down harder, as well, on both back and front legs – in fact I kind of wonder if the heeled boots Baryshnikov has on are to make it easier for him to match Hines’s foot movements in certain sequences, since he won’t have to bring his foot down as far. (They’re both in shoes with some degree of heel, but Hines’s are much less so.)

6. Aaah both of these are lovely spins. Again with the rigidity vs looseness in the joints, but also, Hines traces MUCH more of his foot on the ground, which is common in tap spins but uncommon in ballet. His weight is slightly less centered over the support leg, and you also can see the knee-lead vs hip-lead here as well – look how Baryshnikov shifts his weight, then look how Hines does it. And as they come out of it, Baryshnikov has his toe pointed and his heel up, while Hines snaps his heel down against the floor.

Avatar
Avatar
typekast

My friend’s little brother (non-verbal) used to hide people’s shoes if he liked the person, because it meant they had to stay longer. The more difficult it was to find your shoes, the more he liked you.

One day my cousin came over, and she was a bitch. When it was time to leave, my friend’s brother handed her shoes directly to her and she went on and on about how he must have a crush on her because he only “helped” her.

Avatar
rubykgrant
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.