Tango Concepts

There have been several break through concepts, in workshops throughout this year. These have been described in different ways from more than one source. These have been the things that have provoked the biggest changes in my dance.

Here is my top list for 2009.

Horizontal Separation
The complete isolation of the top half the body from the bottom.

Apart from knowing which foot you are on little other information should be passed above the waist. Pushing your weight into the floor should not push your whole body mass to go northwards. Achieving this requires soft knees and ankles and being able to walk in the floor. If you can move your weight around your foot without being unbalanced you are doing well. You ought to be able to direct your own and follows free leg by moving your center and staying balanced. The more toes you can feel on the floor the more grounded. There should be no tension in the foot.

The top half of the leader is used to provide information to the follower only. The follower should not look for information elsewhere. This enables each to walk at separate paces and in separate lines. As long as disassociation is maintained we can continue to walk in parallel on the outside until a change is initiated. You can disassociate at the waist towards each other without the need to turn the hips from the initial forward direction.

The lower half has a free leg. This contrasts to the top with an energetic rigidity like a garden hose. The energy is moving up and out the chest toward each other. The top half does have flexibility and movement and is not rigid as a plank. Present but not stiff muscles.

Torsion winding and unwinding
Generate torsion in the followers body. Create a horizontal break at the follows waist. The shoulders are facing in a different direction to the hips. Look to see the point where the followers lower half must turn to catch up with the direction of the top.

For enrosques the lead turns the top half generating torsion within themselves. Release the torsion in the hips and the legs will come round beyond the chest direction, with no extra effort.

The hip direction of the lead in enrosques will be ahead or behind the follower location. In a 360 turn the partners hips will criss cross in opposing direction to each other twice.

Free Leg
It is not just for the follow but the lead also requires a free leg. Moving the leg to do side false steps, or circling of the feet is governed by weight/center movement. It is not moved from the hip. The standing leg and ankle are creating the movement. Feel the foot contact with the floor of this foot.

When you walk the free foot should fall under you. It is not placing it forward and stepping onto it. Moving your body mass moves the foot to be placed where it should be to keep you. On the newly weighted leg bending the knee pulls the now free leg to it. The legs are switching from being free to weight bearing and back.

Follower rotation within the embrace
The closed side of the embrace must flex. The leads arm must slide across the back from far to near when appropriate. A backward ocho to the leads left, hand on the follows left ribcage as embrace opens. Follow should be facing across leads body to leads right. When follower is side on the lead must move their arm out and away from their centre, as followers are wider than they are deep. Careful of moving arm out and to the side, moving arm without the chest.

A backward ocho to the leads right, hand on the follows right ribcage as embrace closes. Follow should be facing across leads body to leads left.

A forward ocho to the leads left means the leads right hip must go back to suck the follower to face across lead.

Diamond
For the giro think of a diamond shape. A side step is not square to the lead but to the point beyond the leads hip. A forward step requires lead to split his chest to allow a forward step as close as possible under the shoulder. The backward step requires as much pivot as possible using the flexible embrace, torsion separation at the waist to be able reach 270 degrees. The hips need to be facing the exact opposite of where the follow steps back to. Follower delaying the step to the last moment will help this.

You step in the direction your hips are pointed at.

Who Follows who?
The lead governs direction and energy level. The follower uses the energy to move themselves and determines when. The lead should take the follows time. i.e. follow the follower. Once the lead knows where the follows arrived, can determine where to be if wanted to be positioned at an offset shorter or longer step.

Giro
Leads head should not have a lot of movement. Head should point forward in the torsos direction not to the side. The torso turning motion will move the head. Keep an eye on your follow so you stay together and not move ahead of.

For giro or ochos lead should think less of opening as the going around and embracing their partner. This way the following arm keeps enclosing the partner and not going through them. The leads arms should not open or narrow the angle between them but move as one shape.

Changing places
If aiming to be where the follower is now in a giro, lead their step the distance of your embrace apart. If their step is shorter the lead will put them off axis if lead steps where intended. If the follow steps long the embrace will break if lead steps where intended. Lead should think less of where they want to go but where they want the follower to go to.

Simplicity
How much more life can you get from a weight change? Make it an equal feature of your dance as moving from one spot in the room, to another. Think which method of weight change you want. Assuming switching systems there are two. Switch the followers or switch the leads weight only. Both involve one person making a very tiny rotation around the other. The rotation is moving the axis from under one shoulder in the partner to under the other. Be fluent in both.

TJ

Tango Influences

I just wanted to record who have been the biggest influencers on my Dance by year:

2005
Steve y Debbie
Eduardo B.

2006
Eduardo B.
Issie K.
Sophie M.

2007
Eduardo B.
Leroy
El Gaucho

2008
Eduardo B.
Leroy
Mike Lavocah
Damian y Nancy
Pablo V y Dana
Pablo R y Noelia
Joe y Lucila
Tara y Fernando

2009
Steve y Debbie
Jenny y Ricardo
Andreas Wichter
Anne-Sophie y Joshua
Pablo y Noelia
Joe y Lucila
Melina y Detlef
Komala y Stefan
Graciela y Osvaldo

As you can see 2009 has been a good year. A much more wider and encompassing dance experience. Much of what has been worked on has been the small things. The movements that happen all the time in every step. I am trying to relearn them with an eye for precision, greater body awareness and natural body mechanics. When asked what steps did you do in that 90 minute class? The answer is generally we took three or five steps.

I had five private lessons with different people this year. All had positives and negatives to come away with. An amazing thing was how common the pointers were. I am still working on the two biggest revelations. In 2010 I hope to be deeper in the onion of learning.

Working more in depth I am seeing a common end goal from all of them. An image I can hold up and say that is a good walk and stance. I see now, different views with spotlights on specific areas of the end idea. Each teacher may have a primary focus to the group but little is contradictory of another's teaching. It is great to be able to spot that something said by X relates to what Y was trying to describe. I see this as one of the biggest steps in the year. After all you cannot do something if you have no goal of what it is.

TJ

Tango Elements

What are the building blocks of tango? There are several ways to approach that question. I am sure it is what teachers get asked all the time.

To me there are three parts.

The what? The How? The When?

The What?
This is a bit like asking how long a piece of string is. Your asking how many things there are. Can you write the names of all the steps? In one sense yes, there are only 3 steps plus a couple of components.

Step forward, side and back.
Step to close feet together from open.
Change weight - This is a side step of zero length, well the distance between one foot and the other (shoulder width).
Pivot on the ball of the foot to give direction change.
Rock from foot to foot without the full weight change.

All moves are built from the above components. Even a volcada could be described as a step foward, pivot and step closed. The missing aspect is in the 'how' part. That is the taking out of axis (of balance) toward the lead and returning to the axis.

There are several step concepts built from those parts above, here is a list of some.

barrida, colgada, enganche, gancho, giro, montesinos, mordida, ocho, parada, sacada, soltada, volcada

I put the enrosques in the How. It is a pivot with added qualites from just pivoting or shuffling round.

The How?
This is the real quality aspect of the dance. This is all the variations of how to move your weight from point A to B. Move quickly like a dart then pause. Move slow and let one step move into the next. Aspects of posture, presence, balance are in the How and effect all parts of the dance irrespective of the patterns danced. The same basic 8 can be done to look and feel differently even though the step (What) is the same.

The When?
To me this is governed by the music. When should you step to a new location. The music also governs the how. The more staccato the music the more darting the movement. Perhaps a waltz means being more fluid with less complete stops. The when can be constrained by the current dance conditions though. You may want to do a long step to match a long note or chain a lot of little steps with a musical trill. If they take more room than you current have, you have to bend it or omit it. Bending the move in a circle to do in a tight space can be rewarding or frustrating depending on your outlook.

TJ

Carlos Gavito

Carlos Gavito (1942 - 2005)
He was a great tango dancer who I know has had a great influence on some of my tango teachers who were fortunate enough to have met him. For some a very moving experience. The biggest impact he had was bringing the power of simplicity to the dance. How doing one step with the utmost care and detail was more rewarding then any high kicks or other. Personally, I find this a little ironic since Carlos was equally a creature of the stage as well as the milonga. I don't want to belittle any achievements, afterall it shows greater flexibility and understanding than many could ever hope to reach.

For me, what I get out of the videos of his teaching on the net is questions. The questions are not of what should I do, or what sequences are good. It is questions of why I do what I do. What quality of movement am I bringing to the floor? What is the music saying? The realisation is, you have far more time to do something than you think. One step can have lots of qualities and lots of timings.

Here are some videos of the two sides of him.











Finally, a question every argentine dancer should answer, proposed by the maesto himself: "Do you listen to the music?"



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

“A good dancer is one who listens to the music…We dance the music not the steps. Anyone who aspires to dance never thinks about what he is going to do. What he cares about is that he follows the music. You see, we are painters. We paint the music with our feet..”
~Carlos Gavito

TJ

Tango Axis

I discovered this tango manual a few months ago and wanted to share it.

http://www.eleje.org/

Just simply walking has been my main pre occupation in the last year. In the beginning was the struggle to move. Then learning to lead your partner. Looking after your partner and getting comfortable with manouvering. Then learning basic and combination movements. Now I have gone back to the start to do it in a correct, relaxed and confident way.

I hope you get a lot out of the book like I did.

Finally, I would love to hear of other interesting works and articles.

Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. ~Author Unknown

TJ