The Positive Side of Anticipation: Play, Humor, and the Breaking of Expectations
We’re all taught that anticipation is a negative in the dance, especially when it comes to following. But once you have learned how not to, it can be fun (and funny) to consciously choose to anticipate. The other night I had a wonderful dance with a gentleman that was all about me anticipating, and enjoying the glorious feeling of jumping in and out of synchronicity with my partner. At times, we would be perfectly matched up in where we saw ourselves going. In other moments I would giggle at the difference in where our minds and bodies were moving and would find a creative way to jump back into his flow. I can’t remember the last time I felt so giddy in a dance. Playing with the natural expectations we form as movers, thinkers, and feelers is extraordinary, and I was lucky to be dancing with a partner who was able and willing (and skilled and flexible and fun enough) to play that game with me.
Although we constantly tells ourselves and others not to anticipate (with good intentions), this can be a bit misleading. Of course we don’t want to predict, guess, preempt, or force. But we can’t not anticipate; it is part of how we’re wired. Relaxed anticipation – which comes from expectations we have developed through experience – is a healthy and essential part of our normal functioning and is actually part of the joy of dancing; it allows us to laugh, to be surprised, and to experience the sudden rush of having expectations satisfied. I would even say that dancing would not exist without expectations and anticipation; these are the building blocks of a language we create in order to communicate, connect, and make art with each other.
A good example comes from the world of humor. Take, for example, the above video of a comedic gymnastics routine (courtesy of Unlikely Salsero from his new Facebook page). This video is fun and humorous because it plays with what we are used to seeing – what we expect – from a gymnast performing a balance beam routine. And the more familiar you are with gymnastics the funnier it is, because you have stronger expectations wired into your brain and your body. The same is true in dance: The more experienced we are the greater our expectations, and the greater our opportunities to challenge and play with those expectations if we are open to them.
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein talk about the role of expectations in making and getting jokes in their book, Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People:
Of course, there would be no such things as jokes if human beings weren’t inclined to recognize patterns in the first place… Our ability to recognize patterns is the basis for our ability to make predictions and form expectations…
The surprise in these instances [jokes] comes from the breaking of the pattern you have come to expect for answers to crossing riddles. All jokes in face depend upon setting up the expectation of one pattern and then substituting another, a kind of bait and switch. As comedian (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer, who sets his droll lines to popular forms of music, explains, “Clearly it has something to do with expectancy. A well-known tune sets up a challenge. There’s a template. Now, can he do it? The trick is to avoid what the listener has provisionally guessed. You have to satisfy the task but avoid predictability. That’s what is creative, the surprise.” If the comedian fails to create the necessary expectation in the audience (pattern number one), or if the audience fails to perceive the apt nature of the joke’s resolution (pattern number two), the joke falls flat. No expectancy, no surprise; no surprise, no fun.
According to Arthur Koestler in The Act of Creation (1976), the same patterns that are characteristic of jokes turn out to be characteristic of all creative endeavors, including science and art. We derive from patterns that we recognize general principles of perception and action and base our expectations on those patterns. Then we try to fit new observations and experiences into these expectations. Discovery occurs when, willy-nilly, something about our observations and experiences forces us to make another pattern.
This is part of what makes music so engaging and pleasurable. Why shouldn’t this be true in our dancing also? So often we get so focused on doing the right thing and the expected thing, but sometimes doing the wrong or the unexpected opens up wonderful possibilities for connection and creativity.
When was the last time you laughed or giggled during a dance? Do you remember what caused it?
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