Another Find From "Tango and Chaos"

From the chapter section: "Cracking the Code"

I finally decided it’s because tango dancers outside of Argentina just aren’t connected to the music. (The milongueros would say they don’t have the music “inside”.) We found that while some of the best foreigners may be dancing to the cadences of tango, they don’t really use the cadences creatively. And more importantly, they tend to do random sequences of patterns and figures. It's as if they're pulling them off the shelf one after another, instead of responding to the music.
The result is that they aren’t really “expressing” the music—at least not in the way of the best Argentines. This poor link between the movement and the music, especially when it’s combined with imprecise technique, makes milongas outside of BsAs feel out of focus. So, ironically, while people outside of Argentina tend to do a lot of big movements and expend a lot of physical energy, their selection of steps has a randomness that tends to cancel out the energy of the milonga. And the result feels chato.


    ME:   So what can we do? Load them is a bus and drive the 5,000 miles?

FOR PABLO - ONLY PABLO Lesson 2

I CLIMBED THE MOUNTAIN

My lungs opened and closed like Baffa’s bandoneon  -close to my heart in a rhythmical circle
     In and out - in and out.
Ever so slightly my eyes lifted-  slowly focusing on the space around me.
      With a straight forward gaze I became aware of the expanse away from me and the expanse above.
 I watched the tempo of the clouds with my chest high - at last my weight settled into the pleasure of the  peak.
     After the forever climb, both ankles relaxed and both heels held firmly into the solid ground.
Me, older, but there I stood, in my freedom
      breathing softly into the comfort of silence          
My hand  reached  quietly for the shoulder of my partner, my leader.
      No need to pull him to me as we communicated with little contact.
Only once a strong breeze turned my torso and my hip into the sky.
     Every muscle felt the sound of the wind- sweet music in the air.
In determined steps, one foot in front of the other, I conquered the mountain.
      It was if I were dancing a, perhaps, tango.

         Karen Lucey     April 29, 2013

Patience- TAKE YOUR TIME MR. MIKE

Augusto shows gentle patience at every lesson. The mix of learners makes me wonder how he manages all the levels of dance, or a class with many many more men than women or at times the opposite. Today the couples were fairly evenly mixed, though a new older man was there for his first lesson and a very aggressive woman was there telling  the men how to lead.  What he always emphasizes for me is this:
     Every step is a tango. Come to your axis before the next step. Feel the music and the beat. "TAKE YOUR TIME MR. MIKE."
     Every step has a communication between the man and woman before the next step.  This can be a breath, a lift to signal time for an adorno, a deeper relax of the knee to signal a longer step, or more disassociation to start the woman moving before the step. I write all this down to remember the things to take back to PA for our weekly milongas and newly added practicas on Wednesdays. As always, hooked on the tango.

Mystery Teacher Stares at my Ankles

Freedom in the dance has come my way.  A wonderful dancer and teacher here in Buenos Aires has given us a private lesson in a little studio with mirrored walls and a smiling assistant. He ends up on the floor with his eyes at ankle level. "What do I think about the way I move my ankles?", he asks.
My ankles? Well, they talk about my posture, my head, my knees/legs/hips/shoulders/chest and on and on but NOT my ankles.
The wonderful teacher has me roll around on my feet and relax my ankles in place and then in the steps. I feel my whole body changing- feeling more relaxed and balanced.
Next I work on keeping my axis at all moments when I move. This only works if I use more weight on my heel when I walk. It takes a little practice, but I feel the vertical axis at every point in my step. Mike loves what this gives him as MY LEADER. We move around so freely. Now I work on keeping my head level. Yes it does organize my body. I train my eyes to always look above my eye level to look out at the space where I am dancing.
           "Be aware of the space", he suggests gently.
 Again the wonderful teacher has given me another way to find the freedom I crave  and need in the dance. The mysteries of tango unravel. We only walk forward with an added rock step, 2 more forward steps and a side step if it fits the mood and the music I can't wait to return for Tango Lesson 2.

From Susana Miller on her Facebook Page

Susana Miller Tango

March 30 near Buenos Aires

    A dancer’s steps are stories that the man tells the woman’s body. They
  are stories that become autobiographical, maturing over time as the
  man’s technique develops.
 
     As in art, tango always speaks to the soul of those that dance it, and
  like all art, it transforms everyday life into an extraordinary
...  creative work.

     The diversity of one’s steps increases the richness of these stories,
  provided they are told with the energy, emotion and mystery required of
  any good story. A comfortable embrace and a fluid walk will make for an
  enjoyable dance. However, there is added value to an enriched
  repertoire. A varied menu of steps is a dancer’s hidden treasure. Each
  step is a story in itself, much like those of “A Thousand and One
  Nights,” unfolding one by one, night after night, into the other’s body
  in a conversation that is profoundly intimate.

                                - Susana Miller

WATCH GAYLE and TIOMA on YOUTUBE

This was a cut and paste endeavor- first by Mike and then by me.
I didn't ask Tioma's permission to post it, but I need to study and think about this excerpt about MUSICALITY from his thoroughly researched tango site.
From Tioma Maloratsky  -El Ruso
tangoprinciples.org
Tango dancing has a unique freedom of musical interpretation. Unlike all other partner dances, tango does not have a set basic rhythmical pattern.

To begin with, it is best to keep one’s musicality as simple as possible. The most fundamental way to dance tango is to step on the 1 and the 3 in the four-count measure of the music.

The next degree of freedom to explore is syncopation. For example, one can put an extra step in between the “walking” beats - the 1’s and the 3’s - making either a 1-2-3 or a 3-4-1 pattern.

In addition to speeding up with such syncopation, one can also slow down the basic rhythm. The basic way of doing that is stopping to skip one or more of the slow beats (the 1’s and the 3’s). This is the most basic form of the pause, which is very important for advanced tango dancing.

One can see dancers who make one slow step over several counts of the music, or step slightly before, or slightly after the beat. That is when, in my opinion, the dance becomes truly worthy of the best of tango music. A tango dancer then becomes akin to a jazz musician, who syncopates and phrases his lines in ever more spontaneous and sophisticated ways. But an immediate problem with opening up such musical freedom is that it becomes difficult to maintain criteria of good musicality. It can sometimes be hard to tell someone who hears the music in a very advanced way from someone who does not hear it at all.

It demands a high degree of balance and stillness. It also requires a sense of rhythmical phrasing.  But in spite of these difficulties, to me the rhythmical freedom constitutes probably the most profound expressive aspect of tango dancing. Once I began touching it, there was no going back. It feels like the ultimate boon of all the work that I put into it – when suddenly unprecedented but perfectly sensible rhythmical patterns are coming out spontaneously, as though on their own accord, through my body, in harmony with my partner and the music at once. Such perfect moments are still rare, but more frequent than before. In my experience, choreographic freedom of this dance is nothing compared to its freedom of musicality.

The main doorway to musical freedom in this dance is the pause.

It means creating a pause in the midst of movement, as often as possible.

But ultimately, the whole dance can proceed in the state of balanced stillness, so that there is a pause or a near-pause in every step. This may be hard to imagine, but I attest that it is possible, and that it opens up unprecedented levels of freedom in all aspects of the dance, particularly musicality. This way, nothing is ever preprogrammed, nothing is contrived intellectually.

 When I started to find some stillness in every step, simple in-line walking suddenly became very exciting. That was also when I started stepping slightly off the beat in ways which somehow made sense to both myself and my partners. By waiting, both partners can enter into a freer musical dialogue, in which the timing of each step is never predetermined.

For a larger part of a tango song, both partners should try to pause and wait inside each step, whether in the process of a weight shift, at the beginning, or at the end of it. This way, unprecedented sequences and rhythmical patterns keep emerging.

It probably takes anyone years of dancing before the pause begins to make sense. I have been at it for 12 years and only in the last year or two began to experience its power with any regularity. In the first several years, I believe it is best to stick with the three fundamental rhythmical patterns which I described above. When trying to pause, an inexperienced male dancer is likely to lose connection with the partner, or rob her of her balance. It is better to first get into some rhythmical pattern, and feel an unbroken connection – both with the partner and with the music - through it. At the same time, it is good to be aware of the possibility of a freer musicality, so that when one is ready, one can begin taking advantage of it.

MYSTERY CARD SHOWS UP WITH LOVE

ON FEBRUARY 14th
A note from a man who calls himself Lorenzo arrived at our home with red and white flowers.
With a little phrasing it becomes a poem from his heart.

        I am surrounded
            By beauty
        Our home
        Our dance
        And so many other things
        BUT
        I want to concentrate
            on the beauty
            in front of me
        AND
        Not be distracted by the
            TRIVIA of the world
                         -LORENZO
hmmmmmmmmm????????