Except stage is almost always choreographed and don’t have to deal with floorcraft/navigation.
Embrace...open or close?
- Thread starter Elian
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opendoor
Forum Master
However, you cannot acquire floorcraft just by dancing socially, as the situation in our milongas clearly shows.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
For sure!
I come from a part of Canada that's more relaxed about interpersonal contact than most of Canada, much more relaxed than any region of the U.S.A. I've visited (much of New England and the Midwest, as well as Florida, Texas, Nevada, and others), and scandalously relaxed by the standards of my friends from the U.K. However, it's still uptight by non-Anglo standards, as I learned upon moving to Québec. Yet when I visited Brazil, I discovered that Québec is downright prudish by local standards . . . and by "local" I mean São Paulo, which the Cariocas I met quietly told me is an uptight town. I almost got in a fight with the boyfriend of a scantily clad girl from Rio for not touching her rear end in a photograph: "What? She's not sexy enough for you? What does that say about me?"
So, culture has to have something to do with it.
At the same time, tango is its own language and culture in many ways. Sooner or later, I think that contact with it either renders people more open to hugs and touching, or sends them packing. I'm not sure it's a sustainable state of affairs to remain in tango for years or decades while being standoffish about physical contact.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
I think you're both right, in a way.
The more I dance at actual milongas around real dancers, the more I'm convinced that "the embrace, posture, vocabulary, etc. of tango style X is innately bad for floorcraft" is garbage.
A local performing couple that mainly dances stage tango comes to our milongas and dances exactly the way they do on stage . . . and they bother no one, because they have amazing control and proprioception (you would too, if you always danced one misstep away from an unplanned, career-ending stage dive!). A local who spends half his year in BsAs and who dances nothing but tiny little shuffling steps right out of 1930 routinely blocks the line of dance and annoys pretty much everyone. An all-nuevo, all-the-time couple here has simply adapted their big, elastic movements to small spaces – I hardly notice them. The Mundial-style salon dancers here are far more annoying, with their big, walking steps and high-radius on-axis turns.
Good stage dancers can do it all, and with enough control not to disrupt a social dance floor. It's the variety as much as the size and intensity of their movements that enchants viewers, after all. I'm not at all against stage tango at the milonga – I'm against inconsiderate tango at the milonga. While I have only a decade of experience to draw on, I find that the most inconsiderate tanguer@s aren't the stage and "nuevo" dancers, who are generally smart and skilled enough to know that they must adapt to dance in small spaces, but rather the "salon" and "milonguero" dancers who feel their way is the One True Way and believe that they're always in the right solely because their preferred style is, in their imagination, the correct one for the milonga . . . even if they're making no personal effort to dance respectfully.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
When we get into style, as we seem to be (again), it's crucial to distinguish "What is objectively dangerous on the dance floor?" – which is always bad and the problem of those doing it – from "What am I afraid of on the dance floor?" and/or "What do I dislike seeing on the dance floor?", which is your problem and not the other dancers'. Stage and "nuevo" movements are fine in themselves, when adjusted to size and danced with skill. It's just that less experienced or more uptight dancers get skittish around them . . . meaning they need to chill.
An anecdote:
Early in my tango journey, I went to a new milonga with a group of equally inexperienced friends. There, I was dancing away when a tango ended and a leader used a portée (lift) as a finale. I was shocked! I felt it was incredibly dangerous to have two body weights on one set of legs, and to have high heels up in the air where they could stab someone. I had to stop for the evening after that.
Then I learned how to do that myself, as part of a class.
Looking back on the moment with my current knowledge, I realize I was being skittish. The lift was well done . . . and, knowing what I now know about lifts, stable and probably close to effortless (the follower was tiny). The couple's posture was compact. The heels were directed away from other people. The couple had close to 100cm of clearance on all sides. At no point was anyone in danger.
The learning needed in that situation wasn't on the part of the couple who did the lift (e.g., "That guy needs a lesson in floorcraft!"). The learning needed in that situation was on my part. I had to learn what a lift is, how to do it, how it feels from the inside, etc.; I needed to learn that 1m of clearance is like dancing in an empty room; I had to develop more chill.
An anecdote:
Early in my tango journey, I went to a new milonga with a group of equally inexperienced friends. There, I was dancing away when a tango ended and a leader used a portée (lift) as a finale. I was shocked! I felt it was incredibly dangerous to have two body weights on one set of legs, and to have high heels up in the air where they could stab someone. I had to stop for the evening after that.
Then I learned how to do that myself, as part of a class.
Looking back on the moment with my current knowledge, I realize I was being skittish. The lift was well done . . . and, knowing what I now know about lifts, stable and probably close to effortless (the follower was tiny). The couple's posture was compact. The heels were directed away from other people. The couple had close to 100cm of clearance on all sides. At no point was anyone in danger.
The learning needed in that situation wasn't on the part of the couple who did the lift (e.g., "That guy needs a lesson in floorcraft!"). The learning needed in that situation was on my part. I had to learn what a lift is, how to do it, how it feels from the inside, etc.; I needed to learn that 1m of clearance is like dancing in an empty room; I had to develop more chill.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
It cuts the other way, too.
I've had shuffling, slow, line-of-dance-blocking dancers shoot me evil glares for breathing down their necks as they execute their 15th consecutive parada while 5m of space opens up in front of them. There, the learning needed isn't chill or floorcraft on my part, but on the other dancers' part. They need to learn to move at the speed of the floor – whatever they might prefer to be doing – and to deal with being crowded from behind if they stubbornly refuse to do so. No, their slow pace and low-profile steps aren't innately risky, but they are disrespectful. This is a case where "traditional steps for the milonga" are in the wrong; maybe they suit some milonga in 1930s BsAs, I don't know, but they're not reasonable for a faster-moving modern event with vast amounts of space.
I've had shuffling, slow, line-of-dance-blocking dancers shoot me evil glares for breathing down their necks as they execute their 15th consecutive parada while 5m of space opens up in front of them. There, the learning needed isn't chill or floorcraft on my part, but on the other dancers' part. They need to learn to move at the speed of the floor – whatever they might prefer to be doing – and to deal with being crowded from behind if they stubbornly refuse to do so. No, their slow pace and low-profile steps aren't innately risky, but they are disrespectful. This is a case where "traditional steps for the milonga" are in the wrong; maybe they suit some milonga in 1930s BsAs, I don't know, but they're not reasonable for a faster-moving modern event with vast amounts of space.
pianistamediano
Forum Master
Very true. At milongas I am most irritated by people who constantly move in and out of people's way, and by people who take up more space than everyone else (I want more space too!). Boleos and whatnot are fine if they're facing outwards away from other dancers, people who dance in the open embrace can just move to the middle so that they won't inconvenience other people on the outermost Ronda.
An unfortunate truth - I think one needs to have an attitude of not wanting to bother other couples on the pista in order for that to work.
I very much prefer compact steps, but at 6' (tall?) I also relish the opportunity for being able to walk more expansively, especially during a vals tanda. At my local milongas, when the floor gets beyond a certain density, the only people who do that actively and aggressively take up a lot of space, sometimes moving into couples' personal spaces to force them to move. I confess to a certain amount of envy that they can do so willy-nilly, while I try to stay away from the couples around me and protect my follower. It doesn't help that they tend to be more popular and more experienced leaders. :shrug:
pianistamediano
Forum Master
Floorcraft learning addendum: It would also help to make them consciously aware of things like moving at the same average speed of the ronda, or that it is okay to move around a couple who have been standing there for a long time (if there is sufficient space and you're not getting in someone's way) just to keep the ronda circulating! Also, when entering the ronda for the first time, catching the eye of the leader behind you and nodding/smiling to ask him for permission and to make sure he's aware of your entrance.
Some things are never obvious and can't really be learned unless we point them out.
Why not just overtake them? Isn't it just common traffic sense in that case? I will also proactively undertake in the reverse situation where someone insists on tailgating when there is 5m of space behind them.
The problem with lifts is actually a general deficit of instruction on how to do moves safely. IE: random leader who doesn't know how to do the lift properly but is unaware of that sees some other couple doing a lift, and decides to try it on a random follower who doesn't know how to do the lift properly either, risking a potential injury. Unless this issue is addressed, I am going to continue to disapprove in general of lifts on the social floor.
opendoor
Forum Master
Of course, many traditional and untalented dancers now will cry, but I always overtake when the ronda gets stuck. Of course, overtaking requires floorcraft, because the leader has to keep an eye on the dynamics of several lanes. Dancing has to be fun, stop and go is no fun.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
Everybody teaches tango.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
Depends who you study with. ;-) But I'd say it's more common (milonguero).
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
That's a no-no, no matter how great the urge.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
Where else are you going to acquire it?
As in learning to drive a car, or any vehicle, or fly a plane, or control a ship, or perform surgery, or teach, or provide electrical or plumbing services, etc, you take instruction first. Maybe you even use a simulator (e.g. practica), or put in a lot of (supervised) practice. At least, in most places (jurisdictions) you're not let loose to wreak havoc in your selected field without first proving some capability.
I know some jurisdictions have suggested that you can be anything you want without qualifications, and even have some politicians 'enhancing' their resumé, but some instruction is a good starting point rather than raw experience.