pianistamediano
Forum Master
I should have said: from a strictly aesthetic point of view! About the best-looking thing (out of a rare few other things) about my dance is my posture, I believe.
Tango Diaries
- Thread starter Bailango
- Start date
I should have said: from a strictly aesthetic point of view! About the best-looking thing (out of a rare few other things) about my dance is my posture, I believe.
Miradamiranda
Well-Known Member
I don’t think I’ve ever met any of these guys outside of a milonga or big weekend event, so I wouldn’t know how they roll in real life. Maybe they are overly confident in tango but humble in the outside world.
Europe. More precisely, the unfashionable UK.
HappyLilac
Well-Known Member
I tried leading for the first time in a beginner class to help out with the lead/follow ratio. OMG it was so hard. Like why does walking forward as a lead feel so different than walking forward while following?
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Because you must signal a person in front of you – and so blocking your way – to walk backward first, and then synch up with them. You have to generate intention to project the follower's free leg, begin your step when you feel them move and start to create space to move into, move with them, and arrive at the same time.as them Whereas most front steps as a follower are led into space already liberated by a leader, whom you trust to do all of the above work to stay out of your way, move with you, and transfer weight with you. In effect, as a follower, your front steps (all steps, really) are suggested by the leader but on your terms, while as a leader, they are on your follower's terms.
This difference becomes less important with experience. But you said "beginner class," so I'd imagine that "your follower's terms" often means hesitation to project, uneven movement, unclear indication of arrival, etc., particularly in a follower whose first experience with walking backward is tango, and especially if they are wearing heels for the first time!
Agree with @JournalInTime !
You also have to think differently. What do I want the follower to do? And How do I achieve that? Then we get to the actual, physical, lesson part of 'projection' of that intention. I say 'physical' because it then becomes about the embrace (abrazo) and the physical connection to best achieve that communication (there's probably also an element of telepathy!). Hence many discussions about body shape, size, and 'fitting together' - and not leading with your arms.
Walking forward (for the leader, backwards for the follower) is about indicating the leg to start with, the intention (with your chest/upper body) to move that follower's leg, and then actually moving it, whilst the leader steps into the vacated space.
The follower also has to play a role there and offer appropriate resistance! Difficult to lead a follower who offers no resistance (a wisp!) as the leader has no idea where they are. They're not a rag doll responding to your 'command'! They can stand and move on their own.
But it's an achievement when you do manage to get the follower (and need many different ones) to follow your intention.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
And weight distribution. Many followers, despite being forced onto tiptoes by high-heeled shoes – and more than a few leaders – carry their weight too far back. You want both partners to carry their weight over their metatarsals (not all the way into the toes, which wrecks the toes!), so that each is pressing lightly against the other. This state of dynamic tension means that little effort is needed to get big results – it's what aerospace engineers call "controlled instability" (here, "control" means keeping track of your axis, while "instability" means sacrificing a bit of your axis to your partner), where the natural tendency is toward rapid response rather than resisting change.
This is hard. It won't happen in a beginner class. Advanced dancers sometimes dislike it, too – typically due to having heard some teacher say "never sacrifice your axis" as an imprecise way of saying "never lose control of your axis" (partial sacrifice, and just how much, is control!). There are entire sub-styles of tango where there's no body-on-body press. There are people who avoid it out of prudishness, and others who can't affect it because their joints are in bad shape (rarely because of tango, but it still affects tango).
With good weight carriage and axis control, the arms aren't even implicated, beyond offering guardrails that frame the embrace. I can – after 13 years of practice, 10 of those with my current partner – lead all of my vocabulary but colgadas and partial soltadas (where you retain arm contact and only that) – sans arms. But that's hard, too . . . and strangely, the "simple" walk is among the hardest of things to lead that way, because it's hard to maintain a consistent distance and timing without near-flawless weight carriage and mastery of all the stuff I said earlier about indicating, projecting, resynching, and transferring together.
It's essentially a series of linear sacadas: One person moves in response to the other person, who takes their place as they leave it. One exercise that helped my walk immensely was actually walking straight ahead in sacadas, placing my right foot behind my partner's right foot (across my body) and displacing their leg, and then doing the same left on left, in effect walking with crossing steps that expel my partner's legs. After that, it's easier to feel an ordinary parallel-system walk.
(It's also fun to use that exercise as an actual expression of the music, but in small doses.)
Exactly! That's the follower carrying weight over the metatarsals, creating light body-on-body pressure that gives a tendency toward rapid response rather than resisting change. The problem is that sometimes, followers (especially beginners) interpret "offer resistance" as "resist change." They aren't the same thing. Properly offered resistance actually enables change and accelerates response.
The worst. I danced with her last night. "Where are your legs? Where are you? What are you even doing?" As I say all the time, "lightness" is rapid change, enabled by resistance as I just wrote. Lightness through the absence of resistance is useless for tango.
Although it doesn't help that there are leaders who want their followers to be ragdolls, and who use force and words to make that clear. These guys try to move their partners instead of asking them to move with suggestions delivered through intention. And followers who become habituated to such bad leaders often end up waiting for commands and to be shoved around, and so won't take steps in response to a light shift of intention. This flaw is common among beginner followers who dance with leaders who teach on the dancefloor . . . because most such leaders can't silently communicate, but need to verbalize and force.
And this is where we run into the problems of language. Even 'follower' and 'leader' have problems (and I don't like the offered alternatives because they're meaningless, except to someone more advanced). Leading is, sort of, benign assertiveness - but then we run into elements of the macho image and all manner of issues with gender roles, and with the performance stereotypes. The key is that it's a partner dance.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Yeah, the terms are tricky. Here we work mainly in French, and speak of guideur (m)/guideuse (f), meaning "leader," and guidé (m)/guidée (f), which is roughly "(the one who is) led"; this is what I prefer, because it's the least-bad option and distinguishes roles without too strongly implying submission. Some prefer interprète to guidé/guidée, which here means "interpreter" in the artistic sense (a performer, usually of dance or music, most often dance or music composed by someone else), but I find that unclear owing to the fact that it can mean a dancer who interprets music, and thus applies to both parties and doesn't clear anything up. Some people try to use suiveur (m)/suiveuse (f), the literal translation of "follower," but that's laughable due to it meaning more usually either "copycat" or "shady person who stalks members of the opposite sex" . . . that's the only one I'd call wrong.
Most of the other terms are borrowed from trendy teachers and websites, and aren't known to enough of the community to be useful. Most of those are in English anyway, so they'd never get used for that reason.
A few old-timey teachers still use homme and femme out of tribute to their crusty old Argentine teachers who used hombre and mujer, but that doesn't go over well at all. It's regarded as innately sexist, especially by younger dancers.
Agreed.
TTanguero
Forum Master
I like 'proposer' and 'responder' (I can't remember which teaching couple came up with these), but of course, in collaborative dance, both are proposing, and both are responding. So like you say, it's tricky.
opendoor
Forum Master
But proposing doesn't work verbally, not even with an intentional movement, but right through execution.
Honestly, I find my approach more consistent. When I dance traditionally, I use projection. Before, when I danced alternatively, I switched roles fluidly. That was a form of play. But I know you and Miradamiranda don't like projecting.
TTanguero
Forum Master
You do?
opendoor
Forum Master
Not?
TTanguero
Forum Master
I'm not even sure what you mean. Leading involves projection.
opendoor
Forum Master
Sorry, then I misunderstood you. For me, words like "proposer" always carry contradiction, reservations or uncertainty regarding execution. Projection, on the other hand, is always unambiguous. The follower is remotely controlled, resistance is futile. Followers usually decide before they embrace an leader whether they want to dance with someone who projects or not.