Redundancy
The word redundancy by definition sounds negative: the state of being not, or no longer needed or useful. It sounds discarded and a disregard. Repetition, a synonym for redundancy means: the recurrence of and action or event. Many times, there are situations, words said, or written, and actions that occur that follow this “redundant” pattern. Instead of disregarding, or assuming they are not needed, they can reiterate what is trying to be conveyed.
Pattern recognition, something I often refer to, is assisted by this repetition, and redundancy. The routine and habits created by this, trains us, human beings to pick up on these signatures to catch a pattern.
The breaking community has a thing about not repeating moves. The repetition of the same set or move evokes the idea that the dancer has ran out of moves or is falling into their defaults. I argue sometimes those defaults are signatures of a person’s style. Defining and showing your style as a dancer is what can distinguish you from the sea of others.
So there is a line that a dancer can balance repetition in their dance to showcase their style. So to be able to distinguish the difference I will refer to this as the redundant method, or redundancy. People are drawn to finding patterns in everything, so when we create a redundancy in our dance, we call back viewers to catch and gravitate to that pattern. Obviously just doing one move over and over can become dull or boring, but weaving and integrating a pattern in our dance can subconsciously draw their attention.
What draws that attention is the concept of telling a story that people can see. Creating that story with a timeline and parts in your dance keeps people interested in the movements you perform. If you think about parts of a story, there is a beginning, middle and end. This is a bit of a simplified version but easier to explain this concept.
In the beginning, you establish yourself, create a routine that viewers begin to follow. The middle progresses to raise tension and action. This is a good place to start building up to blow up move, or climax move that shakes everyones attention. Finally, the end is the resolution of your dance. During this time your audience attention is engaged and you can call back to the patterns you established in the beginning. Even during any part of your story if you integrate patterns for people to pick up, it keeps them attentive. For those who are absorbed by the movements feel part of the dance as if they are in on a secret, picking up the hidden patterns.
Redundancy gives us that playback, that reference point, which is the string that connects and offers cohesiveness.
