What is Association:
Association is a spectrum of how much muscle engagement is available (from completely relaxed to fully tense) between a dancer’s center of gravity and the connection point(s) with their partner, (or internally between different body parts).
The Purpose of Association:
Association gives each dancer agency over their own center while maintaining a variable amount of connection with their partner.
High association with your partner is established by either using full muscle engagement/maximum tone, or by creating a shared center via compression or weight sharing. High association means your center is highly associated with your partner’s center and you effectively move together as one.
Low association with your partner is created by completely relaxing muscles in between the connection and your center, disassociating your connection from your center with no tone giving you complete autonomy over your own center.
Why Association Matters:
Association matters because it determines the amount of communication you have with your partner. Association will directly affect your ability to communicate where you are, what you are offering through the connection to your partner, and precisely how much energy is needed to initiate specific movements.
To give an example, association is highly variable in Ocho’s in Argentine Tango and in one footed turns in West Coast Swing, where the follow chooses how much to connect their center to the connection point in order to modulate how much movement they take from the connection.
Tone is created as a result of maintaining an association between one’s center and one’s connection point(s). Tone is a function of association, tether length, frame, and momentum. The type of frame and tether length you are using in whatever style of dance you’re doing will affect the level of tone needed to maintain an association with your partner.
Tone is created by engaging one side of an antagonistic muscle pair where the other side can stay relaxed because there is an externally provided contra-balance. Tone is primarily contra-balanced with a partner’s opposite antagonistic muscle but may also be contra to gravity (counter-balanced to the floor), and other forces (counter-balanced to a pole, wall, chair, etc).
By applying dynamic association and the resulting variation in tone dancers can communicate the potential change in initiation energy that may be sent through the connection. By pre-communicating the potential energy to be sent through the connection, you’ll enable your partner to connect their movements to the precise amount of energy that is ultimately sent through the connection. This minimizes energy loss as it is transmitted from one dancer to another and increases precision of movement. In order to initiate, send, and incorporate energy with precision, tone should be matched between partners.
The purpose of tone within a partnership is to maintain frame and association through varying tether lengths, momentum changes, and other factors. Concepts for further exploration within Association include:
- Dynamic tone
- Tether and Tether Length
- Tension - Oppositional muscle groups both engaged counter to each other locking that part of the body in place. (or with imbalanced or oscillating muscular engagement, causing shaking or tremors.)
- Tone matching (Proprioception)
- Tone mismatching
- Steps with highly variable association such as Ochos, and Additive Turns (aka Crank Turns or One Footed Spins).
- Emergency Bakes