Para bailar tango tanto la mujer como el hombre deben sentir y pensar en quién los acompaña. Hoy hay mucho odio tapado, se reprime la relación, hay miedo. Las personas se acercan al tango por el abra- zo, vienen en busca de él, pero cuando llegan a la clase prefieren una posición más abierta, donde cada uno esté en su eje, sintiéndose independiente. Quieren bailar juntos, se mueren por estar abrazados, se necesi- tan, pero no lo demuestran ni lo aceptan. Finalmente se cansan y se largan a la pista, pero han pasado por un prólogo demasiado largo.
English translation:
To dance tango men and women need to feel and think about the partner they dance with. Today there is a lot of hidden resentment, repressed relationships and there is fear. People are attracted by tango because of its embrace, they search for it, but once they come to class, they prefer a more open posi- tion where each dancer is in his own axis, maintaining his feeling of independence. They want to dance with each other, they are dying to be embraced, they need each other, but they neither show nor accept it. In the end they get tired of it and they throw themselves on the dance floor, but prior to that too much time has passed.
From El TangautaNº 184 (FEB 2010). Read the entire interview, it’s very interesting.
I have been eagerly awaiting for a breakthrough in the past months. I’m addicted to change and committed to re-visiting my views of things and my own personal paradigms.
Tango has immense potential for that but it hasn’t happened in months now. I wonder after a couple of years what is a normal rate if that happening.
Is having privates the only way to go? That is a route I can’t really afford.
There’s something grandiose about a follower that truly follows, committing themselves to the moment and lead. It seems you only get that in blank slate beginners and extremely advanced dancers.
Too bad 90% of a follower’s tango life is spent between those two stages.
Practicing with beginners is great at many levels. It pushes my technique to boundaries that I normally don’t emphasize so much. For example, it’s challenging not to use my arms to overcome their insensitivity to the lead, thus leading me to be even more clear and powerful.
They feel raw, rough edges accompanied by an enjoyable naïvety.
Some beginners believe I’m a good dancer just because I was trying some acrobatics with someone before. I don’t like that. More often than not, those acrobatic moves didn’t feel good to any of the involved parties. Stumbling in their difficulties, they don’t (yet) realize that I am working on the same exact concepts they are.
Recently, while practicing with someone new to the dance, I tried to dance in close embrace. I had never danced in close embrace with her before. In fact, the only dances I had with her before were the two previous ones, in the same tanda. I immediately realized that she was used to using the arms instead of focusing on my chest to understand the lead. She did not realize what really having and nurturing a connection meant.
I proposed to practice without arms for a couple of songs. Soon we both realized how she was not matching my step size and rotation, causing her to come short of my new position almost every time. I encouraged her not to be shy in her movements and move with more courage and determination. Two songs later she had changed her attitude and was now becoming an active follower, powering her own steps. Before we parted, I tried to convey how the chest can have very subtle leads and how becoming more sensitive to it would open up possibilities in her dance. We both smiled and felt nourished with our short interaction.
Yes, she did not learn how to follow in close embrace in just 20 minutes. How could anyone anyway? I’m not a professional teacher and my experience in helping others has been rather limited too. I was just a guy that acceded to someone’s wishes to share some of my experience and ideas about the dance. What motivated me to write this romanticized version of the events was the end of the conversation: “You have totally changed the way I see and understand the dance. Thank you!”.
Sometimes people start asking me about Tango, what it is, why I dance it, etc, etc. They normally ask me to show them videos, of what it is like to dance Tango. It happened today and this video of Tomas Howlin dancing with Shorey Myers was what came up immediately into my mind. I then proceeded to explain that this video is not trivial to understand and I just want to show a part of tango that I profoundly enjoy, further explaining him that the most beautiful aspect of this video is how it tells a story and focuses on connection while being playful.
¡Araca la cana!
Ya estoy engriyao…
Un par de ojos negros me han engayolao.
Ojazos profundos, oscuros y bravos,
tajantes y fieros hieren al mirar,
con brillos de acero que van a matar.
De miedo al mirarlos el cuor me ha fayao.
¡Araca la cana! ya estoy engriyao.
Yo que anduve entreverao
en mil y una ocasión
y en todas he guapeao
yo que al bardo me he jugao
entero el corazón
sin asco ni cuidao.
Como un gil vengo a ensartarme
en esta daga que va a matarme
si es pa’ creer que es cosa’e Dios
que al guapo más capaz
le faye el corazón.
The lyrics are heavy on the lunfardo and a scholar (Nicolas Poppe) has roughly translated the first part to:
Watch out for cops!
I’m imprisoned
A pair of black eyes have arrested me
Big, profound eyes, dark and fierce
sharp and ferocious they hurt at a look
with sparkles of steel that will kill
from fear of looking at them my heart has failed me
watch out for prison! I’m imprisoned!
I danced slightly different on one or two songs yesterday. Somehow, my milonga was not anymore based on a more typical/canonical phrasing that normally starts and ends on the beat, albeit syncopated, but it was now spanning measures in a less obvious way. I realized it at a point – boy, my face must have look really apprehensive – but just as it appeared in my dance it somehow disappeared soon after.
This is interesting to me because it means my dance is not dying but somehow evolving. It made me very happy, indeed, made my night. Well, that and also the fact that those tandas were danced with someone that I haven’t danced with in a long time. She was amazing to dance with.
On the other hand, and making it even more interesting, is that it captivates my inquisitive mind of how novelty in musical interpretation appears and develops. A lot of people learn other’s musicality or learn the basics of developing musicality, but this is a bit different. This is the real-time observation of how one’s mind develops over time. Fascinating.
I believe some people don’t understand some of my actions. I have been fortunate to get dances from what are generally perceived to be (among US tangueros that is) top-notch followers. I am grateful for it, believe me, I am. And that is all good.
Most people expect me to be dancing much more with the best dancers from my city, namely, with the younger crowd that have worked really hard. They are – in all honesty – technically formidable to dance with. And I like dancing with them. Alas, not as much as they would like to. All this would be fine if this didn’t have any social backlash. However, as my fellow readers know, this is after all, first and foremost, a human affair. An interaction of sorts. I have never discussed these matters with anyone except my closest friends in tango world. They’re not that many and not very prone to talking it seems, as I still feel misunderstood by a lot of people.
What most people don’t get is that I don’t want to always dance with a great follower. I don’t always want to show her and myself how far we’ve come along in our tango journey, padding ourselves in the back and holding each other as if we were the answer to humanity’s tango (wait, what?) if a war were to kill every tango dancer in the world except us. What I want is to have meaningful dances with people that I believe are nurturing a mutual respect and passion at that precise moment, to dance that tanda. I want it to move us both forward, either in our friendship or in providing us a new insight into what tango is all about, or even, life.
I cannot repeat over and over on this blog how much I love dancing with people that are truly happy to be dancing. At all. Some have had so many misfortunes in their lives that they feel the luckiest person in the world to even be able to walk, let alone dance. You feel it. You feel that thirst for the dance and how meaningful and fulfilling it is to quench it with your heart, with your humanity. You better be at that precise moment the best human being you can be because the whole interaction is raw. The dance becomes raw and real; it may hurt and mutual trust reigns for lack of better way to handle the whole thing.
Javier Rodriguez says at a point in a interview for some tango movie/documentary I can’t remember now that dancing with an old milonguera is special. It’s not a simple dance. You’re really just not dancing with a friend casually, you’re dancing with “80kg of tango!” (free translation). And this is my message. Don’t just dance with someone’s technique. Dance with someone’s 20 years of sadness due to a lost son. Dance with someone celebrating their cancer survival every day of their life. Dance, dance a lot. But with them, for them and by who they truly are.
And just like that, spinning alternative music at the last tanda, he screwed up the energy of the practica. Everyone will go home thinking about how dancing to his lame, slow and overplayed cheesy songs sucked. Thanks DJ, you rock.