Is It Real or Is It Memorex?

[Heather2007]

I'll be honest. I'm trying to wrap my head around what seems a very competitive concept of I *MUST* be totally different from absolutely everyone else to the point of having to change absolutely everything I learn as soon as I learn it. How can anyone learn to dance with that sort of pressure? I don't care if I look like X or Y or a combination of them when I dance. I dance because I like to and try to do things that make the dancing work and be comfortable and if that means I need to do something like I learned it in a class because it works best, well, fine and dandy. I'm ok with that.

If one's own personal creativity is (as you say) considered a MUST then yes, no wonder you're struggling to get your head wrapped round the concept and feeling "pressured" by my post. There is no "must" in one's own personal design for that would be a rule and where's the freedom of expression in that. Remember IT IS a choice thing. You either do or you don't. Those that do were invited to comment. And they did. And that's all good.

 

[kieronneedscake]

It seems to me that instructing students to discover their own tango is a direct reaction to a certain personality type - the idolater. It is also an antidote to particularly dogmatic teachers.

Contrarian and independent people like myself have never come up against this problem, because my dance is mine to create. I like to experiment and to play as a matter of course, and I am wise enough to realise that I can never completely reproduce another's dance even if I wanted to. I am physically and mentally different.

Case in point: "Bring your knees together." sayeth the teacher unto me, eyeing the large gap between my knees. I can't bring them any closer together. My feet are already touching and I'm not saddle-sore. That's how my legs are shaped. (Note to women, you can bring your knees together more easily. The female adult pelvis width gives rise to different knee angles.)

The unthinking devotee would sacrifice anything to fulfill that directive, by standing pigeon-toed and knock-kneed, producing no end of bad habits for later.

I think some people need to be shown that they can and should disobey and deviate unless they can be shown really good reasons not to. I think it important that all tango teachers should plant a little seed of irreverence and fallibility in their students and it should happen early. This fosters collaborative and interactive learning, rather than monkey see, monkey do.

NERD ALERT
As an aside, chemistry (and most science for that matter) is a poster-child for "lies to children". Several lectures I remember began with "Forget everything you think you know about...". Science education is all about being up front and telling people that you are presenting them with a more accurate and complex model for the world around them. I don't need to know about space-time and general relativity to do chemistry. My more simple 3d Newtonian model is adequate to my needs, but I know that model is wrong/incomplete. I only know the model is wrong because I was told and shown that it was false. It is easier to think in Newtonian terms, and I needed a lot of training before I was ready to use a more refined quantum model.

Dancing is the same. Simplified understandings of dance are necessary in order that dancers learn the underlying skills that make them ready to understand more subtleties. I personally believe that the majority of ego and self-perception problems in tango arise because people are not aware that they have only learned part-truths. They do not know what lies beyond the pale, and they assume by default that there is nothing more. How can they appreciate what they have never experienced?

 

[bastet]

:nope: - and if one hefty comet hits the planet, keeping us in darkness for years and thus wiping out all signs of vegetation? (Wait!!! Stop!!! I think I saw a supermarket over there)

well- i could can all my own foods, or they could come out with more low sodium foods...but it's too bad... i used to like beans on toast, a great quick fix...I wonder if I couild make a reasonable tasting rendition of baked beans on my own?

hmmmm....

 

[bastet]

If one's own personal creativity is (as you say) considered a MUST then yes, no wonder you're struggling to get your head wrapped round the concept and feeling "pressured" by my post. There is no "must" in one's own personal design for that would be a rule and where's the freedom of expression in that. Remember IT IS a choice thing. You either do or you don't. Those that do were invited to comment. And they did. And that's all good.

well- that's nice.

I feel I make up plenty of stuff and change thigns around that I learn. I just also happen to think you go to a class to learn a concept, and that there's a reason the teacher teaches a concept. I tend to avoid classes that teach patterns to memorize and go to classes that teach concepts with a few simple elements to play with that I can explore.

I have also learned sometiems the things people think feel nice and are so creative becasue they "made them up" to express themselves, don't feel so good from the other side. So my general caution is that people should be encouraged to have a good understanding of mechanics and teachnique, at the sacrifice of learning fancy stuff, and to explore without sacrificing comfort or your partner. Expressing just to express doesn't always make a good dance. So in a class I try to understand before I change things, or even decide if it is a good idea to change what I learned because the way it was done really is the best way to do something.

And I'm not talking about things like always taking forward step after a crusada because that's what you learned. I mean changing things in the lead or follow of something that may not make sense, or be comfortable.

As one of my teachers said once, just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should.

I don't encourage copycatting. But I also don't understand how a person who goes to a class to learn something is going to learn anything at all if you've put the imperetive on them at the start to change something when they may barely understand what they have learned. How will this help their dance, besides satisfying some urge to not look like anyone else? I guess what I glean from what you have been saying that it is more important that people not look like anyone else in their dancing at the expense of learning to be a comfortable and competent dancer or just blowing off technical details because it interfere's with "expression"? And I don't mean structural isues like- I'm bowlegged and can't close my legs, I'm talking about just disregarding something because X does it this way so I have to do it different.

 

[AndaBien]

To me, styling and technique are two different things, although technique will definitely influence style. There is conventional styling in any dance, but I encourage students to find their own, and to choose it if it differs from the conventional. Technique, on the other hand, is dictated by the laws of physics and anatomy: no person can argue with those. Good technique must be adhered to, if one is going to dance well.

As a teacher, I think my job is not to create a dancer, but to reveal the dancer that already exists.

"The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not stand in the way of the soul's expression."
— La Meri

 

[bastet]

To me, styling and technique are two different things, although technique will definitely influence style. There is conventional styling in any dance, but I encourage students to find their own, and to choose it if it differs from the conventional. Technique, on the other hand, is dictated by the laws of physics and anatomy: no person can argue with those. Good technique must be adhered to, if one is going to dance well.

As a teacher, I think my job is not to create a dancer, but to reveal the dancer that already exists.

"The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not stand in the way of the soul's expression."
— La Meri

exactly- but if styling compromises technique- which do you you encourage? After all, it's a partner experience.

 

[AndaBien]

exactly- but if styling compromises technique- which do you you encourage? After all, it's a partner experience.

I don't think styling ever compromises good technique. Maybe if the style is crummy technique. Technique is the foundation and permits whatever styling a person wants to add on top of the technique. In ballroom dancing a style is to look off to the side of ones partner. That can be done with good technique (head on the axis) or poor technique (head off the axis).

 

[AndaBien]

The distinction is: technique is governed by the laws of physics and anatomy. Dancers are affected by those laws, like it or not. Ignoring those laws limits ones ability to dance creatively.

 

[bordertangoman]

i think there is something to be said for dancing " authentically" but as far as I'm aware Biljana seems to be the only person including this in her teaching of tango..

"We were encouraged not to escape from who we are and what we were feeling as this makes the person. Biljana explained that all those thoughts which we hoped were elsewhere and become passe, were actually present and we needed to bring them back to our 'core'. Okay, these were not her words, but it's what I made of what she said." Disputanda

(hope you dont mind me nicking your stuff DB)

 

[bastet]

I don't think styling ever compromises good technique. Maybe if the style is crummy technique. Technique is the foundation and permits whatever styling a person wants to add on top of the technique. In ballroom dancing a style is to look off to the side of ones partner. That can be done with good technique (head on the axis) or poor technique (head off the axis).

I would agree with you, but that implies a person learns and knows good technique before as you said..applying the icing on the cake.

I'm not quite sure (still) if that is what the OP is really about. I can learn to dance, learn steps, learn to tear them apart and make up new ones based on what I know, and still not do it with any amount of "style" in the sense that I think you may mean.

From what I have understood of the OP (in my appparently limited way) was that if you go to a class and learn something, then use it as is, you are copying and not developing your own "style".

Whereas, I think a teacher usually (unless they really are teaching a pattern) has a concept they want to get across in a class, usually related to a technique they are trying to get the students to understand, so it behooves the student to actually try to understand the point of the lesson first, before moving past it.

If the lesson was just a pattern on the other hand, and full knowledge of the technique behind it is already assumed, then I am in full agreement that someone shouldn't just take it and reuse it ad nauseum without exploration or change...but like I said, I tend to avoid classes like that anyway.

 

[AndaBien]

deleted

 

[AndaBien]

... if you go to a class and learn something, then use it as is, you are copying and not developing your own "style".

I think we are discussing teaching free creativity versus adhering to technique. I believe both should be taught. Also mentioned was authenticity. I think if a person dances creatively it will be authentic, and I encourage that. Dancers should bring their own dance to the floor: leaders and followers. There are women whom I would like to dance with, but their style is not coherent with my own, so we don't dance together.

I think change for the sake of change is artificial, therefore not authentic. If my authentic dance is exactly like someone else's, so be it.

 

[AndaBien]

Perhaps another semantic distinction should be drawn. There are dancers who authentically do not have a creative bone in their body, on the dance floor nor off. In those situations, I think they should create an uncreative dance. They actually don't have much choice in the matter.

 

[Zoopsia59]

I'll be honest. I'm trying to wrap my head around what seems a very competitive concept of I *MUST* be totally different from absolutely everyone else to the point of having to change absolutely everything I learn as soon as I learn it. How can anyone learn to dance with that sort of pressure? I don't care if I look like X or Y or a combination of them when I dance. I dance because I like to and try to do things that make the dancing work and be comfortable and if that means I need to do something like I learned it in a class because it works best, well, fine and dandy. I'm ok with that.

I agree

I think, in any art form, you can't WORK at developing your own style.

You play, you do derivative work, you copy the Masters, you create a piece "in the style of" to gain flexibility of techniques, you practice, you get experience, you experiment, you push the established boundaries, did I mention you PLAY?... and eventually your own style EMERGES over time.

You don't pick it or choose it... it finds YOU by tapping into somthing deeper inside you. In fact, early on it may be more obvious to observers than it is to the artist. Your style develops, but you don't consciously develop your style.

Maybe later when it becomes obvious what direction your art is going naturally, you deliberately develop in that direction to experiment with how far to take it. But the great artists always stay open to something new and unexpected coming out of themselves beyond (or in place of) what they were trying to do.

I think this is true of writing, dancing, painting, designing... you name it. Most artists will tell you that the work has, to some extent, a life and mind of its own. Only by allowing "your style" to happen naturally over time does it ever happen at all. You can't force it or "work on" creating your style, especially by using an intellectual process. If you do, it's too contrived and artificial. If you have to think about how to execute "your style", it ISN"T your own style.

The work of art is your partner in the creative process, not a product of it.

If one relates to the artwork only as their product, then they are simply a manufacturer, not a designer/ creator.

 

[hbboogie1]

This is something that I'm digging up from an earlier/earlier comment of mine and I'm going to largely aim it at the teachers (as there're a few here) - BUT - feel free non-teachers to join in and comment etc. and plus I'm forever reading about "such and such doing it that way" or "such and such doing it this way" etc. etc. And so...this topic.

Teachers: At what point in your student's life (after say, a couple of years) do you encourage them to STOP being a watcher to start becoming a creator (that is making their dance their own - I do it from Day One).
Beans on toast is simple right? No. For my mother makes it different to what I do (better as she's a maniac for seasonings) as does my sister as does my friend and I daresay the lady next door, the man around the block. You learn the (universal) basics and then at what point do you, say, add a tomato, a bit of garlic, maybe some onions, drain off some of the bean juice, swap brown for white, margarine for butter etc. etc. And to finally present that plate of beans and toast as your own creation.

Have mentioned in an earlier thread (plus it continues on from "Ugly Feet"...which is a great title by the way for a book or movie) my dancing was, has been, and is described as "ugly". But it's all good. Why? For there is nobody that I can elsewhere see - dancing like me. And so, my dancing is my mine/own.

“Teachers: At what point in your student's life (after say, a couple of years) do you encourage them to STOP being a watcher to start becoming a creator (that is making their dance their own - I do it from Day One).”


Do you mean after a couple of years of private lessons or group lessons?
I think there would be differences in the two. The student with a couple of years of private lessons would already have learned the style, technique and yes the patterns from his teacher. Once proficient it’s easy to change patterns however there’s no need to sacrifice technique. That’s being creative and still dancing well.

The student that’s in-group classes for a couple of years would be at a disadvantage. He would not have received the one on one technique and styling you get in private lessons. What I’ve seen over the years is that group student come out of an hour class not really grasping what was taught and going directly to the social floor and making that move his own. Bravo for him he’s being creative from day one but at what cost to others? Consider the poor girl he asked to dance that’s being drug around the floor and manhandled because of his creative genius.

So I guess my answer to the question would be STOP being creative until you have become a proficient dancer.