Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Holodeck 1- Lessons

(snip)

Hannah smiled, “Cori you don’t have to enjoy it for the same reasons I do. You don’t even have to enjoy it. If you don’t, we can find something else. If there is no physical challenge for you, think of it as a puzzle. You have to find the right combination of hand and foot holds to get to the top. Now what about this dancing thing, I have no experience with it at all.”
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

“Well… I haven’t taken lessons since I was a teenager, and I’ve never taught anyone. And while some people have a natural rhythm, you can learn to find the beat. Once you have the beat, you can figure out how to move yourself from one beat to the other.” Cori realized that might not sound very convincing and shrugged. “We’ll wing it,” she said with a chuckle.

~Corinne Dalton

“I love music with a deep bass. Even before I got my implants I could feel it. But I don’t know if you can really dance to that.” Hannah put her bag and water down and walked over. “So where do we start?”
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

“You can dance to anything,” Cori said with a grin. “It just changes how you dance. But a deep bass beat makes sense. We can work with that. Why don’t you pick the music and I can teach you how to find the undercurrent that you can move your body to?”

~Corinne Dalton

Hannah looked a little unsure. She reached up taking off her implants. For her with the on the bass could get lost in the other sounds. “Computer, play Sad But True cover by The Hu” (ooc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpxA_ZxGX_M). She ordered the computer to adjust the music imput to increase the bass output of the music. The music started and it took a few measures before the bass kicked in, but when it did, Hannah couldn’t help but smile, feeling the rythm pulse around her as a feeling rather than a series of melodies and notes.
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

It wasn’t exactly typical ‘dance music’ but all music could be danced to. Watching Hannaha nd standing in front of her, Cori made sure the doctor could see her directly. She signed, Do you feel the rhythm in the bass beat? That’s the thing you can match your movement to. Watch me for a moment.

Stepping back, Cori simply rocked side-to-side on her feet but used her hips to push the motion in each direction. After a few beats of this she then began to lift and set down each foot in time with the bass beat. After a moment of that she began to sway her body in the direction she was stepping so she was stepping back and forth in a fluid almost undulating motion.

~Corinne Dalton

Hannah nodded and watched, her head already bobbing to the bass beat moving through her. She freely admitted that she was totally impressed by Cori as she created, from scratch, the graceful movements of a dance. Hannah was athletic, but she never thought of herself as graceful. Of course, she’d never tried to do anything graceful, like dance, either. She watched Cori for a few more beats and then began to copy her, starting with swaying and then stepping, almost like a round, where she was one complexity behind Cori. She was able to follow the beat and steps easily though her movements had none of the fluidity of Cori’s movements, but looked rather like she was trying to repeat the choreography in her head than simply dance, which she was.
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

Nodding in approval, Dalton smiled. Good, she signed. But don’t lose the feeling. Maybe it can be helpful, since you can’t hear the lyrics, to imagine your own story this song is telling. That will tell you the kind of feelings it might bring up. From there you can match your movements to the feeling. Try to keep it lose, but don’t overthink it. She hoped that didn’t seem contradictory, as it could be a lot to do at once, but in her experience, with some practice, one could find their own way to express themselves through movement. After all, there was no right or wrong way to dance (though some might disagree).

~Corinne Dalton

My story? She considered that as the beat moved through her. Her story was struggle, and in strange ways. Hannah had never seen the struggle as a bad thing, but as more challenges to over come and enjoy the process. She had had challenges that set her back and she’d kept going to find new ways to over come them. The music, the bass beat deep, vibrating and resonating felt like that heart pounding adrenaline rush when something went wrong on a climb. She moved back and forward trying to imitate the idea of over coming challenges to also be pushed back when you failed to get up and keep going. It didn’t look good or anything resembling the dance Cori was making, but Hannah was having fun anyway.
Lt. jg Asimina, Doctor