Why is this and what’s the point? Why not just start at 1, 2, 3, 4?
P.S. I’m a ballerina
In: 468
Dancers often choreograph in chunks that are large enough to be useful, but still easy to memorize. Musicians, who think in terms of measures (or “bars”), which (in the most common time signatures, don’t worry about what that means) have 4 beats, do use “1, 2, 3, 4” to count in. But dancers who are used to thinking in chunks that are two measures long will often count to 8 and then start over. So, they think of the music as consisting of phrases that are 8 beats long.
For example, in salsa, there’s a measure where the leader starts on the left foot, and then a measure where the leader starts on the right foot. These two measures together are the smallest unit of a salsa choreography that can loop back on itself to be repeated, or link up with another two-measure chunk where the leader starts on the left foot. (You can’t step with the foot you’re standing on, so these measures have to alternate.) So it doesn’t make sense to think of it as four beats repeating, since it matters which of those two measures you’re in. Counting in “1, 2, 3, 4” in this context means “we’re starting with the second half of this phrase, and the leader steps with the right foot.” Which you almost never do.
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