Maybe I Should Call This MIKE'S BLOG

Mike sends me these little finds in emails when he can't sleep at night.
    From a Gavito quote:                             
"The essence of tango isn't in the steps, but in the pauses."

      Dragan finds information everywhere!

Actually, Gavito was a cultivated man, and he loved music. I think that he may have adapted this from a well-known quotation from a famous pianist…I don’t recall his name, but I think you can find it online. (A quick “Google” search proved Dragan correct. The classical pianist was the Viennese maestro Artur Schnabel, and the quotation,
      “The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses
        between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides,”
according to Wikipedia, quoted from the Chicago Daily News, June 11, 1958). It is really about musicality. Musicality resides both in the mind, and in the body. But where do we find this musicality in the dance? For me, I dance to the woman first, and not the music. People shouldn’t need the music. You step, you make a pause. The pause can be 1/100th of a second, a 10th of a second, or 10 seconds, but there is a pause, and it should be felt by the woman. This pause gives time for the woman to feel what you have done, and lets the leader feel what she would like next. The woman can influence this pause. She can ask for this pause by altering the intensity of the embrace, or by beginning an embellishment, depending on the level of her skill. My preference is when they suggest the change by using the length of the step or intensity of the movement, sometimes by changing the intensity of the rotation around the man, with more spiraling.

Now, back from our 11th trip to Buenos Aires I am dancing to the music only and into the floor.  Putting the technique AWAY. This should give me a summer of happiness in the dance for our 5th "tango tent" season.

A Dancer's Ear- GAVITO- Posted by Mike Lucey

Saber escuchar la musica... The legendary dancer Carlos Gavito, recognized milonguero and Zen philosopher of the tango dance said: The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible: to dance silence.

Carlos Gavito: The important thing is to know why we want to dance. We dance a solitude that we have inside us and cannot occupy with anything. This gap, that emptiness to which we put movement is the TANGO.

Dancing in the "AND"

Finally I understand the beauty of the "and". The "and" is the center of the dance and the 1, 2, 3, 4 just get us to the "and". The "and" is the place where Mike can pause and I might put in a tiny adorno. If there's no adorno, I might only stand there (slightly moving somewhere) with the concentrated anticipation I watch on the face of Marcela Duran during her Gavito days. The last adorno I learned from Jesus is a gentle circle of the foot only- no movement of the leg or ankle. This one is hard to accomplish- especially trying to keep the movement soft and continuous. More pause. Feel the music. I here this over and over in my head. When Mike and I had our last chance to practice at the Escuela on Florida on Tuesday before we left, "Malena" came on a D'Arienzo cd that we had never heard. ?Los Cantores de D'Arienzo? Mike was so taken by the emotion of the music and tango he said, "I'll never dance like that again." Yes, you will I think. Yes, you will, because now you understand the "and".
And one more thing.
Mike found this Gavito quote that he remembered from our year of Gavito infatuation. "The secret of tango is in this impossible moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible, to dance silence...A good dancer is one who listens to the music...We dance the music not the steps." Carlos Gavito