Dear Janice and everyone else, who read her post.
I'd like to reply to your post (see quoted below).
It is a DEMO! We will of course dance a differently than in a crowded Milonga. But I really think, that - compared to most other dancers - we stay quite faithful to the dance in the Salon. We do not show movements, that we do not also dance in the Milonga - apart from ONE boleo-like decoration, where I lift my feet from the floor. But we will - of course - make movements bigger and sometimes faster or slower than in a Milonga to express the music more divers. And we will not respect the line of dance during a demo. There IS no line of dance, when you are the only couple! ;-)
As for your assumption:
We do not like demos. We do them, because people want to see them and because we want to show (future) students how we dance, but we do not like them. We are actually scared of demos and very much limited in our expression. That shows in the quality of our movements, the degree of improvisation and our harmony. We will NEVER reach the same quality of dance during a performance than we do during a normal Milonga. If you would actually KNOW us, you'd not make such an assumption.
Oh yes, and: we do not train. EVER! Our style developed in accordance to what we teach. We teach walking every week, thus we walk a lot. We don't teach ganchos more than once a year, thus we don't dance Ganchos. We prepare classes by discussing contents, we listen to music, we dance at Milongas, but we never train. I wish we would, because we could surely profit from it! ;-)
If there are any questions to my original post, please ask them on my blog.
Baci,
Melina
QUOTE (Jantango):
My observations of these tango de salon teachers dancing for an audience of social dancers:
1. They enter the floor like dancers who perform, not social dancers.
2. The embrace is unusual for social dancers, more common among nuevo dancers. His left hand is above his head. Hers is in many positions except the normal embrace.
3. They pause which causes problems on a social floor.
4. They lift their feet off the floor to do kicks, a no-no on the social floor.
5. They change lanes; social dancers have to stay in a lane.
6. Most of their walking is directly down the line of dance; it's impossible on most social floors where men progress by stepping to the left, which they never do.
7. They dance opposite the line of dance.
Conclusion: They are a mixture of styles from their training. They like to perform, ignore all dance floor rules, and expect their students to become good social dancers in spite of their example. [End of QUOTE]
