The Lesson in the Spaces: Finding Flow in Jazz Dance
The chipped Formica of the diner booth felt cool under my elbows. Rain lashed against the window, mirroring the grey static in my head. Iâd just bombed a social dance. Not a catastrophic wipeout, mind you, but a felt wipeout. A Balboa that feltâŠwrong. Stilted. Like trying to speak a language youâd memorized the grammar of but hadnât lived in.
I was obsessing, naturally. Obsessing is a core competency for anyone whoâs spent more than five minutes seriously considering the physics of partnered improvisation. And the soundtrack to my self-flagellation? Lester Youngâs âLady Be Good.â Specifically, the 1936 recording with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Now, âLady Be Goodâ is a Balboa staple. Itâs got that insistent, driving pulse, the perfect tempo for those quick, elegant steps. But tonight, it wasnât helping. It was mocking me. Every perfectly placed note felt like a tiny, pointed accusation of my rhythmic ineptitude.
See, Iâd been approaching Balboa â and honestly, a lot of jazz dance â with a kind of architectural precision. Counting bars, meticulously planning variations, striving for âcorrectâ technique. Iâd been building a structure, a beautiful, theoretically sound edificeâŠbut it lacked a soul. It lacked breath.
And thatâs when Lester Young, the Prez, started whispering to me through the speakers.
It wasnât the melody, though thatâs gorgeous, of course. It was the space between the notes. The way Youngâs tenor saxophone doesnât just play the notes, it inhales and exhales around them. He doesnât fill every millisecond with sound; he lets the silence breathe, letting the rhythm simmer. Heâs not afraid of emptiness. In fact, he creates it.
Iâd always understood Young intellectually. The cool, understated elegance, the rejection of the flamboyant showmanship of Coleman Hawkins, the influence on Miles Davis⊠all textbook stuff. But I hadnât felt it. I hadnât understood that his restraint wasnât a lack of energy, but a different kind of energy. A deeply internal, almost conversational energy.
Suddenly, I realized what was missing from my Balboa. I was so focused on doing the steps, on executing the technique, that Iâd forgotten to listen. Truly listen. Not just to the beat, but to the conversation happening within the music. The call and response between instruments, the subtle shifts in dynamics, the way the bass walks, creating a foundation for everything else.
Youngâs playing isnât about hitting every beat; itâs about responding to it. Itâs about anticipating where the music is going and subtly nudging it in that direction. Itâs about creating a dialogue.
And Balboa, at its best, is exactly the same. Itâs not about leading or following, itâs about a conversation. A constant exchange of weight, momentum, and intention. A negotiation of space and time.
I started thinking about Youngâs embouchure, the way he shaped the sound with his mouth, his breath control. Itâs not a rigid, forceful technique. Itâs fluid, adaptable, almostâŠrelaxed. Heâs not forcing the sound out; heâs letting it flow through him.
Thatâs what I needed to do with my body. Stop forcing the steps and start letting the music flow through me. Stop thinking about what I should be doing and start responding to what my partner was offering. Stop building a structure and start improvising.
The next time I hit the dance floor, I didnât try to âfixâ my Balboa. I didnât consciously think about technique. I just closed my eyes, listened to the music â a blistering rendition of Benny Goodmanâs âSing, Sing, Singâ â and tried to breathe like Lester Young.
I focused on the spaces between the beats, on the subtle shifts in the rhythm. I let my weight shift organically, responding to my partnerâs lead without anticipating it. I stopped trying to control everything and started trusting the music to guide me.
And something shifted. The stiltedness disappeared. The steps felt lighter, more fluid, more connected. It wasnât a perfect dance, not by a long shot. But it feltâŠalive. It felt like a conversation. It felt like I was finally starting to understand what Balboa â and jazz, in all its forms â is really about.
Itâs about vulnerability. Itâs about trust. Itâs about letting go of control and embracing the unexpected. Itâs about finding the ghost in the groove, the breath that animates the music, and letting it move you.
I finished my coffee, the rain still drumming against the window. âLady Be Goodâ was still playing, but it didnât feel like a reprimand anymore. It felt like a lesson. A reminder that sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is simplyâŠlisten. And breathe. And let the music take you where it wants to go. Because in the end, thatâs all any of us are doing, arenât we? Trying to find our own rhythm in the chaos, our own breath in the groove.