geisterbahnhof
spart (sport/art)
anna: «is it artful?». it is art or sport depending on how you play. lets recap a little. dance dance revolution (ddr) is played on a four button pad consisting of up & down, left & right arrow buttons.
when playing a game, you select a music track and each track has a several difficulty options. the higher the level of difficulty the more complex the button pressing order. you can look at the different step-charts on the fan websites.
each track is choreographed, the step order does not change each time the game is played. the game defines the choreography, you define the composition. how is that?
it does not matter how you press the button, only that it is pressed at the right time. so, lets say both right and left arrows must be pressed at the same time twice in a row. using lf (left foot) rf (right foot) all the following patterns are valid:
(lf) - (rf)
(lf) - (rf)
(lf) - (rf)
(rf) - (lf)
(rf) - (lf)
(lf) - (rf)
and so on, or we can add our hands (rh, lh) into the mix, e.g.:
(lf) - (rh)
(lh) - (lf)
as i have already shown, you can download and learn the step charts. if you goto an arcade you may see someone playing on the A-pad while someone else is practicing on the B-pad (the b-pad screen will not be active). just like dance, if you want to be good at ddr you have to practice.
classic or freestyle?
playing classic style, you (generally) just use your feet. some of the tracks can get very fast, so foot tapping is the only way to get perfect scores. as perfect scores are the primary goal (rather than aesthetics) playing classic can be considered sport.
freestyle is about aesthetics and scores. the players push their compositional artistry (within the choreography) as far as possible. look at the last video anna linked to: «korea ddr». notice that they do not look at the screen.
the players / dancers know the step-chart choreography. what they have added is their own artistic composition. here the dancers use the music to keep in time and make sure the button presses are correct. straight forward choreography and composition, that is art.
so classic: sport, freestyle: art.
you can improvise in both classic and freestyle, but most people i have spoken to stick to choreography for precision and the wow factor. good ddr players do not forget their audience.
step notation
danceforms (was lifeforms) is a pose based, rather than step based notation technology. ddr is closer to «beauchamp–feuillet notation» (only the feet are notated) and «labanotation» (the feet are central on the stave).
i haz skillz
most ddr players i know (knew) could dance before they played ddr. tap dancers were especially good, followed by the street & hip-hop dancers. i’ve yet to see ddr used in a fitness context myself, but the tracks only last a few minutes. i guess that the health benefits are mainly in learning the dances to play, rather than the playing itself.
eiplogue
i was going to write a post on maya deren, but i got distracted by arcade games … sorry.
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