"Without music there is no way that a person or persons would know if you have taken too long on any step. It even gets better performing a group."

That is tantamount to saying that without other musicians, there is no way to tell if a soloist has played too long a note.

Which is of course outrageously rediculous!

A note or a step is too long if it puts the musician or the dancer into a position from which they cannot continue in a manner that makes musical sense. If you hold a note out and kill the music and don't have a plan for resuming, you held it too long. If you outstep your body flight and get stuck and kill the motion such that you have to muscle your way through, you have stepped to long to create music in your dancing.

Musicality is not about being a slave to the metronome, it is about creating a whole that has self-consistency as a piece of art. Each note, each step, must make sense in terms of what is around it - certainly the other notes and steps, and also the other instruments or dancers if they are involved. If no one else is involved, what you play or dance must simply make sense in the context of what you were playing or dancing an instant ago, and what you will play or dance next.

As I said . Without music there is no dance. You have never seen , or done it yourself.That is dancing before the music starts.Can you tell me why. Have you ever seen a competition. I mean a real competition, they very often let several bars go by before starting. Would you like to tell me why it is not a good idea to even start in the four bar introduction.

"As I said . Without music there is no dance."

You are extremely narrowminded to assume that music must include sound

Dancing can be its own music; if the dancers is any good. If the dancer is not any good, it doesn't matter what music is playing in the background!

Anonymous. So. It doesn't matter what music is being played in the background Are you one of those that can do a Tango to a Polka.

"Anonymous. So. It doesn't matter what music is being played in the background Are you one of those that can do a Tango to a Polka."

If nice music is being played it makes sense to incoprorate that as part of your dancing.

But if no music is being played, good dancing would be its own music.

Dancing to or in ignorance of incompatible music is a reality skill for anyone who practices on a shared floor. It is rarely done by choice, but it is possible for some combinations to reflect the music while also doing the chosen dance. And if one did not have preconcieved ideas about the dance (in other words if you were just fooling around) some quite inventive combinations may be possible.

Anonymous. Untill the music plays you have no idea if you would be in time to music that isn't playing. You obviously do not dance the Rumba.

"Anonymous. Untill the music plays you have no idea if you would be in time to music that isn't playing. You obviously do not dance the Rumba."

If there is no sound in the room, then there is the music in your head. Be in time to that - if you are a good dancer, the music in your head will be at a good and steady tempo.

As for rumba... one of my teachers likes to turn the music off in the middle of a drill and let you keep going, then turn it back on...

Anonymous. I you had a class and they all did a Waltz or a Foxtrot routine without music. Do you think they would all be exactly on the same step. If you say yes you are not in the real world, but in a world of your own imagination.

"Anonymous. I you had a class and they all did a Waltz or a Foxtrot routine without music. Do you think they would all be exactly on the same step. If you say yes you are not in the real world, but in a world of your own imagination."

Actually it is likely that they would match each other to a suprising degree, because there are a lot of incidental cues to pick up on.

But let's assume that each couple did it's own thing. Would they be off time? Well, some would be off time because there movement was too erratic - nothing resembling what we think of as a waltz or a foxtrot could fit it. But others would be on time - you could easily compose a piece of characteristic music in response to their dancing.

One thing that this whole argument brings out is the two ways or relating to music. I'm going to borrow some engineering methods for these: sythensise of movement by discretely clocked samples, vs. phase locking.

The method you and some others here are advocating is the former - synthesis by samples. Because you lack an internal feel for the movements, your only recourse is to excute them piece by piece, as a discrete set of actions clocked out by the fractions of musical beats. In the case where you have nothing else to go on, this is not a bad way to start out approaching the problem. But it is crude and mechanical - and as was the case for the waltz rise, if you don't pay carefull attention to the exact meanings of the terms in your textbook, you can fill your table of what to do on what beat fraction with mistaken entries.

So advancing dancers get to the more sophisticated way of relating to the music: phase locking. Here the dancer/couple must already have a very good idea of what a unit of the dance feels like and be able to dance it with quite nicely "musical" timing without any external music. Add the music, and they do not listen to the beats. Instead, they listen to the trend of progession - approximately the measure level. Instead of worrying about the beats, what they do is match the trend of their dancing - the rise and fall cycle for example - to the trend of the music, as represented by measures. To put it crudely, they adjust until their drive is precisly in phase with that of the music - because that, and not lockstep robotocisms - is what the eye appreciates as flowing, musical movement.

Anonymous. I can tell you without fear of contadiction that a dancer does listen to the beats. If they don't they should and that goes for the lady as well.
Did your write all of that to try to prove that you don't need music to dance to. Again . Without music there is no dance spoken by Gene Kelly.