Often when I'm dancing I feel that I'm just outputting a random sequence of moves. Even in the best cases when the movements seem to fit the music and I can follow and complement the lines of the instruments and harmonize with the rhythm section, I still feel a blatant lack of overall structure. For instance, maybe a song repeats a phrase twice and then repeats it later: would it not make sense to use similar or even identical sequences of moves each time it repeats in the music? Maybe there is a particular break that reoccurs throughout the song: would it not make sense to use similar dance breaks at every occurrence instead of treating each one individually?

I think of the dancers as another musical instrument: dancers should share in the music the same way musicians do. When a musician solos, he still has to follow the structure of the song, but I feel that when I dance I dance in total disregard for the concept of structure. I think that a dance should follow the structure of the song instead of simply relying on what the instruments are playing at a single given point in the music.

But how does musical structure translate to dance structure? Given a phrase of music, how do you determine what an appropriate phrase of dancing would be? And given an entire song, what tricks or techniques do you need to improvise a dance that reflects the song's structure?

I suppose that just like an individual move or the way that a specific move is executed can have a feeling to it, a sequence of moves or the way that a series of moves is transitioned can also have a certain feeling. So my next goal is to start becoming aware of what those "phrase feelings" are.