"When you hear the music, your improv has begun": Why is there no 5-10 second grace period in the improv round?
TDA and Radix Nationals all approaching, and year after year I find myself still trying to make sense of that opening statement we hear each year. Does anyone else feel like whoever the dancer on the far left is gets stitched up so badly?
The whole point of the improv round is to see how well the dancers can improvise and connect to new music as opposed to performing choreography they've learnt and gone over numerous times. So with that logic in mind, how on earth do the conveners at TDA and Radix expect the unlucky kid who has to go first to start dancing as the music starts playing and somehow find their rhythm with it. Like the song has barely started and they're expected to somehow dance in time with the music before hearing a single lyric?!
To this day, it still makes no sense to me. All I hear is:
"Ok, [insert name of sacrificial lamb, the unlucky kid on the far left, I know you haven't heard shit yet, let alone had time to grasp any sort of rhythm or 'vibe' of this song, but] once you hear the music your improv has begun!"
Why don't they wait literally just like 10 seconds, allow all the dancers on the stage take in just a tiny bit of the song, and then have the (un)Lucky #1 start improving?? Going first at the very start of an unknown song is just nuts to me...
