Ballroom style

[Polynomial]

The title of this thread I believe is 'Ballroom style' Tango, and the original poster implictly suggested that is was superior to normal tango.

So you, and everyone else, basically, accepts that Ballroom shapes the way people do Argentine Tango and that this this may be a good thing.

That's a pretty sweeping statement (and implicit condemnation) -- probably unsupportably general, I would guess

I take you've told the orignal poster that they were making a sweeping statement condemnatory of normal Argentine Tango styling.

Your condemnatory post is clearly unsupportable generally I guess. . . . .

 

[DL]

The title of this thread I believe is 'Ballroom style' Tango, and the original poster implictly suggested that is was superior to normal tango.

So you, and everyone else, basically, accepts that Ballroom shapes the way people do Argentine Tango and that this this may be a good thing.

Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not shy about giving my $0.02: if I thought all that I would have said it myself.

I take you've told the orignal poster that they were making a sweeping statement condemnatory of normal Argentine Tango styling.

Your condemnatory post is clearly unsupportable generally I guess. . . . .

All I'm saying is that it makes about as much sense to lump all ballroom dancers in the same bucket as it does to lump all AT dancers in the same bucket (and whisper 'nuevo' into it).

The old saw that ballroom dancers don't interpret nor follow the music is both false and tiresome.

ETA
I should soften that a bit. I'm not trying to jump down your throat. I would also agree that applying ballroom technique to AT makes about as much sense as applying AT technique to ballroom. Whichever dance one undertakes, one would be well-advised to adhere to the spirit of that dance, not impose the spirit of a different dance.

 

[pygmalion]

Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not shy about giving my $0.02: if I thought all that I would have said it myself.

Amen and hallelujah, DL. My biggest pet peeve about online forums is people (wrongly) telling me what I've said, then telling me I was wrong to have said it. *grumble*

All I'm saying is that it makes about as much sense to lump all ballroom dancers in the same bucket as it does to lump all AT dancers in the same bucket.

The old saw that ballroom dancers don't interpret nor follow the music is both false and tiresome.
...

I would also agree that applying ballroom technique to AT makes about as much sense as applying AT technique to ballroom. Whichever dance one undertakes, one would be well-advised to adhere to the spirit of that dance, not impose the spirit of a different dance.

Totally agreed. Two different dances. Two different styles. Completely different music. Completely different technique. And I think it's silly to try to impose one on the other.

 

[dchester]

Amen and hallelujah, DL. My biggest pet peeve about online forums is people (wrongly) telling me what I've said, then telling me I was wrong to have said it. *grumble*

FWIW, if a poster tells someone else that that their long, thought out post is wrong, don't be surprised if they point of the flaws in what the poster has said (and conclude they were wrong, as well).

 

[DL]

FWIW, if a poster tells someone else that that their long, thought out post is wrong, don't be surprised if they point of the flaws in what the poster has said (and conclude they were wrong, as well).

If you mean me, that's not what I did. I quoted a particular statement and said that it was too general. That's all.

 

[pygmalion]

As for the intent of the OP, they are newbie dancer who is exploring all sorts of styles of dance and happens to see the BEAUTY of mixing styles, with no intent to insult the purists. Perhaps we could all use OPs goggle to view the dance world ... and feel happy when we see something that combines all of the different things we love.

I don't assume anything about the OP's intent, L. And you know me. I'll (attempt to) dance anything with anybody anytime anywhere with joy. And, if I can't dance it, I will watch. As long as there's dancing involved, I'm there.

And saying, "Here's how other people do your dance better than you" is a pretty incendiary way to start a thread, newbie or no. Still. I get your point. Dialing down the rhetoric a bit probably wouldn't go amiss.

 

[pruthe]

What I got out of OP's 1st post was he/she was stating their personal opinion about the kids' dance. Doesn't mean this is best way to do dance or other ways are bad.

 

[salthepal]

The tradgedy with this is of course that the observers think this is Argentine Tango, and that if only they learned 'the right steps' they could do it.

It doesn't work that way.

Thank you sir! This can't be emphasized enough. AT is not about the steps, but about the general feeling or flow.

 

[Dave Bailey]

The difficulty with ballroom dancers doing any kind of non-ballroom dance is that they try to 'shape it' into ballroom form.

I think that's an extreme statement, but I think there's a grain of truth in it.

All of us try to "shape" our dance experience depending on what we know, what we're familiar with, and what works for us.

So yes, if you're familiar with an environment based on structured learning and precise movements, you're likely to think that environment is a good way to learn dancing.

And you know, that's not necessarily wrong. AT could do with a bit more structure, it could do with a bit more standardisation, and hey, yes, maybe even a (decent) syllabus wouldn't kill us either.

While the AT or Swing dancer seeks overall fluidity of movement the Ballroom dancer wants sharply defined steps and actions - and it comes out in both the video's.

I'm not sure that's correct, in either instance.

One set of people think that with ever more precision and control you inevitablly become a better dancer, another group that the closer you are to the music the better dancer you are, and control is a means to achieve that, not an end in itself.

In other words, it's two extreme ends of a spectrum. And like most extremes, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

That's not to say one is better than the other or that one is wrong and the other is right - just that they are trying to achieve completely different things.

Indeed.

 

[AndaBien]

... AT could do with a bit more structure, it could do with a bit more standardisation, and hey, yes, maybe even a (decent) syllabus wouldn't kill us either.
...

AT also could do with less of the things you mentioned. Are you actually implying "should"?

Sure, AT has a form, as does every dance, but one of the defining characteristics of AT is its individuality. I don't think standardization would nurture individuality.

 

[UKDancer]

AT could do with a bit more structure, it could do with a bit more standardisation, and hey, yes, maybe even a (decent) syllabus wouldn't kill us either.

I would agree, but there is no obvious body competent to take responsibility for the necessary standardisation. A couple of organisations have had a go, but their efforts are fundamentally flawed, and perhaps there is an inherent problem that the very body of people with the technical competence to write such a technique (the senior practitioners within the leading teaching societies who take responsibility for the content of other techniques) are 'outside' the tango community, while the people within it with who have the necessary dance competence are very unlikely to get involved.

We need to be careful about what we mean by syllabus too. I would mean not just the 'list' of subjects to be included, but the substantive content. If it were to be generally (and genuinely) useful, both as a teaching aid for teachers (and for the training of teachers) and as a learning aid for students, then much care would have to be taken over the content. I would say that although it would be difficult, it is not impossible to determine what the fundamental concepts of the dance are, and to define and then explain the most commonly danced actions:

• Embrace & connection
• Musical interpretation
• Walks
• Pivots
• Turns
• etc.

There are numerous more advanced actions that could usefully be described properly: not in the prescriptive sense that there is only a 'standardised' way to dance them, but in the terms of being illustrative of their appropriate use in a variety of situations. How is a voleo led and danced? How do colgadas work?

The 'set' of included actions would probably be wider than the range of actions that any one dancer would wish to use in any one 'style' of tango, and there should be non-partisan suggestions regarding the history and development of the dance that would put the range of actions being covered into context in an even-handed way. Everyone could take what they wished from such a syllabus/technique, or be free to ignore it completely.

If you knew that a teacher held a qualification based on such a syllabus/technique, you could be confident (as a beginner) that what was being taught was basic, sound, tango, and that the teaching ability of the teacher had been assessed, at least to some basic standard. At the moment, it is very difficult indeed for a beginner to assess what is being presented: anyone can call themselves a tango teacher, and I can think of more than one who shouldn't be let anywhere near a room of naive students...

 

[Dave Bailey]

AT also could do with less of the things you mentioned. Are you actually implying "should"?

Yes, I think it should have some more of that kind of thing.

There's too much "Ooh, I'm too creative, don't hem me in" attitude in AT, which, frankly, I translate as "I can't be bothered to do the boring bits".

Definition. Discussion. Documentation. Those sort of things.

Sure, AT has a form, as does every dance, but one of the defining characteristics of AT is its individuality.

Well, that's also the defining characteristic of every other dance, when you think about it.

I don't think standardization would nurture individuality.

It depends on how it's done. My belief is that a "light touch" would help encourage people.

And if people in the scene don't do this, then people outside of the scene will - and you'll end up with rubbish like the IDTA syllabus.

 

[AndaBien]

...There's too much "Ooh, I'm too creative, don't hem me in" attitude in AT, which, frankly, I translate as "I can't be bothered to do the boring bits"...

That is a problem with the student, not the teaching. A standardized presentation would have little effect on an attitude like that.

Does every dance form emphasize individuality? Not in my experience. I would say that ballroom dancing judges ones dancing as good if it adheres to the rules, and bad to the degree that it doesn't.

 

[Steve Pastor]

that's also the defining characteristic of every other dance, when you think about it.

Just a note that there are people who have thought about it, and one concluded that

"Although social ballroom dancers do not employ extensive improvisation in their practice, social dance forms such as salsa and West Coast swing foreground spontaneious reaction to the music and one's partner," adding Argentine tango in a footnote "and that it "shares with these social dances many of the structures that invite improvisation and creativity, encouraging social dancers to interpret the timing of each step differently, according to how they hear the music."

Glamour Addiction by Juliet McMains page 97 footnote 60

 

[DL]

Glamour Addiction by Juliet McMains page 97 footnote 60

This book has its own thread on DF. Consensus, from what I could tell, did not seem to be -- although it was acknowledged as making some good points -- that it is an authoritative source that provides a broad and accurate description of ballroom dancing.