Name this dance

[bordertangoman]

btm is playing with us. This dance is tango.

true....I'm playing with you

but i'm jusy pointing out that a) tango isnt cool
and b) it doesnt have a monoply on close embrace ( given the impression some posters have given ( frottagers I suspect)
c) kizomba is appealing to the salsa crowd

 

[v22TTC]

but i'm jusy pointing out that a) tango isnt cool

Of course not: it has merit....

and b) it doesnt have a monoply on close embrace ( given the impression some posters have given ( frottagers I suspect)

Well, I'm sure we've all been out with our paper and charcoal to do a brass-rubbing at some time or another....

c) kizomba is appealing to the salsa crowd

And I hope they enjoy it... though it'll probably die out in places that have only Latin nights?...

 

[Light Sleeper]

true....I'm playing with you

but i'm jusy pointing out that a) tango isnt cool
and b) it doesnt have a monoply on close embrace ( given the impression some posters have given ( frottagers I suspect)
c) kizomba is appealing to the salsa crowd

Does that mean the photo was of tango, not kizomba?

a) If you ask me, no partner dance is cool. But then it depends on what your definition of cool is in this instance.

b) Well duh, like, obv!! Those damned frottagers!

c) I get your point but tango is pretty unique in any event. I'm not so sure that any social club dance will overtake salsa or jive variants. Jive - music is cool, at the lowest level (Ceroc) it is easy to pick up. Salsa - odd one as it's only easy to learn at a very low level - HOWEVER, the etiquette of dancing just one dance with a partner makes is more accessible and I think I'm correct in saying it is easier to learn than Lambada, say, or Kizomba.

 

[bordertangoman]

Does that mean the photo was of tango, not kizomba?

a) If you ask me, no partner dance is cool. But then it depends on what your definition of cool is in this instance.

b) Well duh, like, obv!! Those damned frottagers!

c) I get your point but tango is pretty unique in any event. I'm not so sure that any social club dance will overtake salsa or jive variants. Jive - music is cool, at the lowest level (Ceroc) it is easy to pick up. Salsa - odd one as it's only easy to learn at a very low level - HOWEVER, the etiquette of dancing just one dance with a partner makes is more accessible and I think I'm correct in saying it is easier to learn than Lambada, say, or Kizomba.

interstingly enough i gave the impression I could dance salsa last night...mil-sals-onga; milonga steps to salsa music and my partener followed like glue; she only had a few tango lessons but had some very nice dances; i let her back lead me into the rhythm some of the time...

 

[v22TTC]

Gah, our teacher keeps putting on some weird Tango-Salsa bastard-hybrid tunes in our TA classes... I can just about keep on doing something that resembles TA, through singular doggedness... until....

OK, most actual Salsa tunes don't have a clave - how come every one of these effin, ostensibly-Neo-TA, tunes has a clave in there at some point?! My poor ex-Salsa feet have a hell of a time: must... ignore... la clave!...

 

[JohnEm]

Gah, our teacher keeps putting on some weird Tango-Salsa bastard-hybrid tunes in our TA classes... I can just about keep on doing something that resembles TA, through singular doggedness... until....

Are you sure he/she is actually teaching Tango?
He/she sure isn't making it any easier to learn.

Another thought: why are you still going?

 

[v22TTC]

Are you sure he/she is actually teaching Tango?
He/she sure isn't making it any easier to learn.

Yeah, a couple of ideas have occured to me:-

1 It's cool/for the kids! Except most of us are around 40, and even the younger folks keep pulling faces and grumbling about much preferring Poema or something;

2 It's the equivalent of live-fire exercises with explosions going off around you, whilst being slapped with a big, wet, fish... like: 'So you're at a milonga, partner of your dreams asks you for a dance... and the infernal DJ puts this on - with my training; thou shalt prevail!'

Another thought: why are you still going?

Well, funny you should ask that.... There weren't many options (precisely two, in fact) and he was the least-worst.

But yeah, at least for now, we've parted company and it's the usual - me, on my own, doing my best to excel (though at least now I can practice the proper walk etc, rather than the crazy thing he had us doing).

I'm currently very mindful of your signature, Sir!

 

[JohnEm]

2 It's the equivalent of live-fire exercises with explosions going off around you, whilst being slapped with a big, wet, fish... like: 'So you're at a milonga, partner of your dreams asks you for a dance... and the infernal DJ puts this on - with my training; thou shalt prevail!'

They did that at River Tango on Saturday afternoon. Hours of the right music
followed by a 45 minute set of electro-whatt? Tango crash and bang more like.
Fortunately it was largely interrupted by Tango Siempre tuning up and sound
checking. There was a surreal moment though while the ever so tuneful violinist
was playing against an accompaniment of electro"tango".

But yeah, at least for now, we've parted company and it's the usual - me, on my own, doing my best to excel (though at least now I can practice the proper walk etc, rather than the crazy thing he had us doing).

I'm currently very mindful of your signature, Sir!

From what you've written, you have two things (at least) going for you.

A rather trite tango saying is you have to find your own tango.
It's much easier said than done and it takes time to have the necessary
knowledge/experience to decide for yourself even what that might mean.
And what it means to you is not necessarily the same as it is to someone else.

And as for my signature, just to encourage (or not), I've done that twice now.
But it is ultimately probably the most rewarding dance of my experience.

 

[caminito]

finding your own tango .. or dance who you are !

"To explain what is a milonguero, is really very difficult, because the feeling of this beautiful emotion is something new to each person. It is almost impossible to put it in words. But I shall try to do it, and I hope without offending or hurting anybody's feelings.
To be a milonguero, first of all you have your own style of dancing. It means that you have a unique feeling for the music, rhythm, cadence and embrace. When you have all this, the music invades your body and mind and then, only then, the chemistry begins that really makes you transmit to your partner as if both were talking, whispering, sliding on the floor with sacadas, corridas, turns, dancing only one for the other, not for the people. In that moment, when both are listening to the magic of the music, the skin of one in the skin of the other, the smell, the touch produces the miracle of something like a mantra, and the ying and the yang is there!!! We are dancing tango!!!
The priorities of a milonguero are the feeling and the woman. The codes are like the commandments which were born with the tango, and the music is defined in three parts. The first is a question, the second is a pause or prologue, the third part holds an answer. All this is in our feeling and this is why we always improvise, having the pleasure of being ourselves, in our own style with the rhythm and the cadence.
Today people teach in methodic ways, but the tango, the real Tango Salon, does not have method, because it is a feeling.
Technique and choreography are only for performance, this is tango which has been learned for hours for show business; there are hundreds of couples doing the same thing, and only a few of them, let us say ten or fifteen are really very good because they are different and that is another thing.
Every tango dancer of the streets, those who practised in the squares or parks, with other men, developed technique naturally, without knowing it. His steps and feeling were a technique.
My advice is - walk, walk with your toe first and always in the music, walk and practise to be yourself and not a copy of anybody else. Ricardo Vidort, July 2004"

 

[JohnEm]

finding your own tango .. or dance who you are !

"To explain what is a milonguero, is really very difficult, because the feeling of this beautiful emotion is something new to each person. It is almost impossible to put it in words. But I shall try to do it, and I hope without offending or hurting anybody's feelings.
To be a milonguero, first of all you have your own style of dancing. It means that you have a unique feeling for the music, rhythm, cadence and embrace. When you have all this, the music invades your body and mind and then, only then, the chemistry begins that really makes you transmit to your partner as if both were talking, whispering, sliding on the floor with sacadas, corridas, turns, dancing only one for the other, not for the people. In that moment, when both are listening to the magic of the music, the skin of one in the skin of the other, the smell, the touch produces the miracle of something like a mantra, and the ying and the yang is there!!! We are dancing tango!!!
The priorities of a milonguero are the feeling and the woman. The codes are like the commandments which were born with the tango, and the music is defined in three parts. The first is a question, the second is a pause or prologue, the third part holds an answer. All this is in our feeling and this is why we always improvise, having the pleasure of being ourselves, in our own style with the rhythm and the cadence.
Today people teach in methodic ways, but the tango, the real Tango Salon, does not have method, because it is a feeling.
Technique and choreography are only for performance, this is tango which has been learned for hours for show business; there are hundreds of couples doing the same thing, and only a few of them, let us say ten or fifteen are really very good because they are different and that is another thing.
Every tango dancer of the streets, those who practised in the squares or parks, with other men, developed technique naturally, without knowing it. His steps and feeling were a technique.
My advice is - walk, walk with your toe first and always in the music, walk and practise to be yourself and not a copy of anybody else. Ricardo Vidort, July 2004"

Hello Caminito!

Interesting you quote Ricardo Vidort.
While I wouldn't disagree with his words they come from his experiences
in another place and time.

I'm much more concerned in how people can find real tango in this age
of visual and passive artistic entertainment. It's likely that Ricardo Vidort
would have despised the homogenised and sterilised style of Villa Urquiza
which is being taught widely, probably because it suits classes.
No need to teach posture, balance, tone nor have to face the realities of
persuading anglo-saxons to embrace the embrace.

Possibly compared to Ricardo Vidort and the other milongueros my path
has been an even more individual one. The necessary technique is rarely
taught so you have to find what it is you want to do and work it out for yourself.
Even including encouraging your own practice partners. Fortunately we have
the internet giving us access to ideas and video from BsAs.

 

[Angel HI]

Caminito, welcome to the DF, and thanks for that... it's a good post.

John, I see no reason why this would/could not be very relevant today.

 

[bordertangoman]

Hello Caminito!

Interesting you quote Ricardo Vidort.
While I wouldn't disagree with his words they come from his experiences
in another place and time.

I'm much more concerned in how people can find real tango in this age
of visual and passive artistic entertainment. It's likely that Ricardo Vidort
would have despised the homogenised and sterilised style of Villa Urquiza
which is being taught widely, probably because it suits classes.
No need to teach posture, balance, tone nor have to face the realities of
persuading anglo-saxons to embrace the embrace.

what Vidort would have thought of it, I dont know, but my experince of being taught by Argentine teachers who dance Villa Urquiza is that balance, posture, embrace, Dissociation even details about where I point my big toe, are just as important as other forms of tango.

it may be that visitng teachers come with an expectation that we know how to balance, because they arent aware beforehand of what the problems of UK/European dancers are.

Is your view the VU style is a sterilised homogenised form of tango or that VU has been sterilised and homogenised by EU directives?

 

[opendoor]

Reminder

.. even details about where I point my big toe ..

Not to be misunderstood as an dissent, but since I had that knee injury in january (think you saw my photo with crutches and splint in my FB album) I really do know, that the big toe is very, very, important for the right balance and body structure system!

 

[bordertangoman]

Not to be misunderstood as an dissent, but since I had that knee injury in january (think you saw my photo with crutches and splint in my FB album) I really do know, that the big toe is very, very, important for the right balance and body structure system!

damn!, I was trying to keep it secret, as its the knowledge that lifts me above other tango teachers.......

 

[opendoor]

tango sellout

Dont worry we do not tell everything. We will keep the role of the little finger in embrace secret further more.