Ballroom style

[samina]

What is the historic form of something is a lot less interesting than what is a form grounded upon a base conception of being an un-choreographed partner dance.

hurts my head to sort out what you're meaning to say here... and why.

All of these dances have some people who do them in that sort of manner, and others who do more scripted or performance-image approximations to them.

Relative proportions of one method vs. the other seem to depend a lot on the degree of technical challenge in what are stylistically considered to be basic actions. If the basic actions are physically simple, informal learning works well and standardization is not likely to be a dominant distraction. But if the basic actions require a lot of physical precision to be comfortable, then standardization is a useful learning tool, but one that can easily be perverted into a distraction from the essentials of the dance rather than a tool for gaining initial access to them.

and above as well.

seriously... i don't care enough about this subject to try to figure out what point you are trying to make, and even less to argue it, so i shall release you back into the pool where you are happily swimming...with others who seem to enjoy the sport.

 

[samina]

Point made.. but I think the poster was making refernce to something that has similar context to todays version and WHEN they were codified ( originals seldom are )

ah... now that i get.

 

[UKDancer]

Ballroom tango as danced by experts in the subject for their own purposes, rather than for the benefit of someone outside the couple.

Are you suggesting that the champions of today dance 'marketed' tango in order to win competitions and gain public approval, and then go and dance something else 'for their own purposes'.

What is this something else, and who says that this is the 'real' ballroom tango?

I would say that the 'real' ballroom tango is that codified by the leading teaching societies, always allowing that their techniques have never codified the whole dance, as known by its advanced pracitioners. But the advanced practitions dance the same dance, not a different one.

 

[Steve Pastor]

in recent readings about the origins of these dances, i learned that the FT came out of the jazz/african-american (then called "negro") communities. and that it was associated with the one-step and the rag

Can you tell me where you read this?

Lloyd Shaw wrote in the 1950 "Round Dance Book" "Even the oldest books say "Some introduce the Deux Temps step into the circular part." The Deux Temps you will remember is simple a two-step. That is.. the dancer does a step-close-step in place, leading alternately on each foot..." page 271

 

[nottomention]

hurts my head to sort out what you're meaning to say here... and why.

Actually it's not very complicated: put simply, the motivations behind what someone does in their dancing matter a lot more than the specifics of what actions they are doing.

All of the mentioned dance forms can be done with a focus on the partner's comfort, or done to appeal to some abstract standardized concept, or done to impress an audience or judges.

What really varies between them is the relative prevalence of each approach, and the likely reasons why that is the case.

 

[samina]

Can you tell me where you read this?

in victor silvester's "modern ballroom dancing" and phillip (P.J.S.) richardson's "a history of english ballroom dancing".

 

[nottomention]

Are you suggesting that the champions of today dance 'marketed' tango in order to win competitions and gain public approval, and then go and dance something else 'for their own purposes'.

I'm saying that if you go to one of the champions of yesteryear, and study the essentials of a dance with them, you'll have perhaps a fifty percent chance of ending up with something that may look a bit like the standardized form, but has very different core motivations than the impressions people commonly take from marketed approximations of ballroom.

What is this something else, and who says that this is the 'real' ballroom tango?

It is ballroom tango built upon the principle of enabling the partner's comfort, rather than ballroom tango adapted to sacrifice that for some other goal.

I would say that the 'real' ballroom tango is that codified by the leading teaching societies, always allowing that their techniques have never codified the whole dance, as known by its advanced pracitioners. But the advanced practitions dance the same dance, not a different one.

What has been codified by the teaching societies is an approximation to the essentials of the dance. But the problem is that it's a lot easier to look at the page and see that a foot is supposed to be placed at such and such an angle and assume that is what is important, than it is to realize that a particular means of moving the body which would result in the foot arriving there could potential feel very good to a partner, and then take that insight and apply it elsewhere.

(In reality, most capable ballroom dancers pay relatively little attention to what the teaching societies recommend - until you get to the level of expertise where the subject is the reason why that was recommend, rather than the fact that it has been)

 

[samina]

Actually it's not very complicated: put simply, the motivations behind what someone does in their dancing matter a lot more than the specifics of what actions they are doing.

All of the mentioned dance forms can be done with a focus on the partner's comfort, or done to appeal to some abstract standardized concept, or done to impress an audience or judges.

What really varies between them is the relative prevalence of each approach, and the likely reasons why that is the case.

IOW... will it make me a better social dancer, will it make me more competitive on the dance floor, will it allow me to enjoy dancing more? those are my own motivations, and which are pretty much the only things i ultimately care about WRT dance discussions.

debating superiority as somehow related to...well, whichever criteria is being used by those that debate it... it just doesn't appeal to me. unless it's related to how to achieve a specific result.

 

[nottomention]

IOW... will it make me a better social dancer, will it make me more competitive on the dance floor, will it allow me to enjoy dancing more? those are my own motivations, and which are pretty much the only things i ultimately care about WRT dance discussions.

In the long term, all of those things should be compatible. In the short term, there can be at least the appearance of conflict between the goals - at least if one goes by the efforts of those who are making short term progress towards any given one of those goals with disregard for the others.

debating superiority as somehow related to...well, whichever criteria is being used by those that debate it... it just doesn't appeal to me. unless it's related to how to achieve a specific result.

Has anyone actually been debating superiority?

 

[pygmalion]

IOW... will it make me a better social dancer, will it make me more competitive on the dance floor, will it allow me to enjoy dancing more? those are my own motivations, and which are pretty much the only things i ultimately care about WRT dance discussions.

debating superiority as somehow related to...well, whichever criteria is being used by those that debate it... it just doesn't appeal to me. unless it's related to how to achieve a specific result.

This.

If I were to summarize for myself the last few pages, I'd come up with something like this. At some point in the past, foxtrot and tango origins converge. We're not sure when and maybe not where. At some point after that, foxtrot began to evolve in one direction and tango in another. At some point after that Tango Argentino and "ballroom" tango split off again. All along the way, all three dances were influenced by other dances and traditions. Somewhere in there, people wrote stuff down, but not everybody likes what got written down. :lol:

While it certainly makes for fascinating dance-related discussions, what has it all done for my dancing lately? :lol:

 

[samina]

Has anyone actually been debating superiority?

to whatever extent "the real/official/original" version is debated, there's an element of superiority in that... just to prove one's case or support one's bias. the tango & salsa threads tend to be rich in that dynamic, so i mostly stay away...

 

[Steve Pastor]

Thanks, samina. I would certainly consider the source of those statements about the origins of foxtrot.

 

[samina]

This.

If I were to summarize for myself the last few pages, I'd come up with something like this. At some point in the past, foxtrot and tango origins converge. We're not sure when and maybe not where. At some point after that, foxtrot began to evolve in one direction and tango in another. At some point after that Tango Argentino and "ballroom" tango split off again. All along the way, all three dances were influenced by other dances and traditions. Somewhere in there, people wrote stuff down, but not everybody likes what got written down. :lol:

While it certainly makes for fascinating dance-related discussions, what has it all done for my dancing lately? :lol:

haha... you caught my quote before i took out the last sentence. you're so fast...

 

[pygmalion]

the tango & salsa threads tend to be rich in that dynamic, so i mostly stay away...

This. Again.

 

[pygmalion]

haha... you caught my quote before i took out the last sentence. you're so fast...

Not a problem. The quote fairy will go and edit appropriately. :wink: