Tango Diaries

[JournalInTime]

I most of the time dance with my eyes open and my left hand on the back of the leader (if in close embrace, my hand is lower from the neck of the leader, almost on the spine or where the junction of the shoulder blades begin). I very rarely dance with my eyes closed

I would love that. I'm a huge believer in the whole experience being as close to 50/50 as possible. The view of tango as "leader-choreographer-protector-navigator showing off a follower" doesn't work for me.

for that it has to be a not so crowded dance floor, a leader who I feel has the skills to handle the floor craft

To be fair, no amount of skill grants 360° vision. Yes, I can constantly turn my head and turn my couple to scan through 360°, but there's always a bit I cannot see at any given instant, and it only takes an instant to get blindsided. So, one of the secrets of good floorcraft is to listen with my body to slight messages from an alert follower and to respond instantly to those that say, "Whoa, someone is headed straight for us!"

When l dance with someone like that, I can dance responsively and creatively in the tiniest of spaces. In effect, the more aware and willing to communicate my follower is, the more interesting the dance that follower gets. An eyes-closed follower who leaves all the floorcraft to me gets a less interesting dance if the floor is crowded.

I do understand that some followers find that this divides their attention and makes the dance less fun for them. That's their choice. Hopefully, the eyes-closed followers who put 100% of floorcraft on me get extra fun from dancing eyes-closed that makes up for me giving them less texture in the dance because I have to use more of my brain to scan the environment.

It amounts to each person having, say, 50 "attention points" and floorcraft requiring, say, 20 of those in total. The follower and I can each provide 10, so we each have 40 left to give to everything else, or the follower can provide 0, so I have 30 left to give to everything else. They get to choose whether everything else is 40-40 or 30-50. The catch is that "how interesting the dance is" tends to be limited by the lower number . . .

I have also noticed that a majority of leaders prefer/look to invite followers dancing with their eyes closed.

The majority of leaders simply accept it when they're told, "Traditionally, the leader is the protector whose job it is to show off the follower." That's a tango tradition I happen to believe should die out, but I know better than to bet on a losing horse. We even have a tango about betting like that . . .

FYI: I can - and I somehow do - dance with my eyes closed even in open embrace (and I love it). And I can connect and be in a flow even with my eyes open.

Both skills – dancing blind and flow unaffected by visual distraction – are necessary for followers. When I discover a follower who has both, I invite them whenever I have the chance!

 

[JournalInTime]

Both skills – dancing blind and flow unaffected by visual distraction – are necessary for followers. When I discover a follower who has both, I invite them whenever I have the chance!

To expand on my thinking: Some "dance skills" are common across roles while others are not.

Leader	Follower
Communication	Communication
Connection	Connection
Embrace	Embrace
Flow Unaffected By Distraction	Flow Unaffected By Distraction
Intention	Intention
Movement Quality	Movement Quality
Musicality	Musicality
Initiation of Movement	Interpretation of Indication
Proposal	Counterproposal
Forward Awareness	Rearward Awareness
Predictive Navigation ("Dance Radar")	Dancing Blind

Some are absolutely identical, particularly connection, flow, and intention – there's no such thing as "leader connection" different from "follower connection." Others are manifested the same way, just in the mirror, like the embrace, which is asymmetric, and communication through the embrace. Yet others are at their core similar skills but manifested differently enough that they may not feel that way; e.g., a follower's movement quality and musicality are expressed through their counterproposals and interpretations, while a leader's are expressed in their proposals and initiation thereof.

But I dislike the view that floorcraft goes in the "Leader" column and its "Follower" counterpart is dancing blind. Floorcraft is two skills for the leader – awareness of what's ahead and maintaining a mental image of the big picture – and one for the follower, which is awareness of what's behind. That doesn't mean it isn't a follower skill.

Your feelings about this will depend on how you dance. I don't expect my follower walk backward all the time because I was taught that's tiring and boring for followers. I regularly turn my back to the direction of movement and take the back steps (which I have worked very hard to make clear and clean) while leading my follower forward, making use of follower front sacadas and forward ochos; or advance in side steps, in a promenade or doble frente, or with progressive turns or soltadas; or use static vocabulary when the ronda is slow or halted. So, the idea that walking backward is some special, innately blind, extra-difficult skill that followers use 90% of the time doesn't match my tango worldview. Others may disagree, perhaps vehemently.

 

[ardix]

It's on my list of countries to visit, so one day!

Do let me know when that happens! Or shall I send you some nice events?

 

[pianistamediano]

Do let me know when that happens! Or shall I send you some nice events?

Please do!

 

[Miradamiranda]

When they are repeat offenders of the things on the list, they get into my stop asking/inviting list no matter how good they may be and how much I like dancing with them.

Ouch, Harsh!
Frankly that’s like blaming the victim. ‘Now, what was she wearing again when she got raped?’

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Everything is transactional.

I don't believe that's true. It may be with some people but certainly not all people.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

So much this. I've grown tired of followers who accept to dance with all the Mr. No Floorcrafts of the milonga,

That's a lot of followers!

 

[Bailango]

Ouch, Harsh!
Frankly that’s like blaming the victim. ‘Now, what was she wearing again when she got raped?’

That’s totally false equivalency and sliding into a very dangerous territory for a civil discussion. In tango and partner dancing everything works with a consent. In partner dancing power to say no, is far greater than advantage of having to ask. Fear or intimidation of getting rejection looms no matter how experienced and hardened. We may think that it doesn’t matter and it becomes easier to move past rejections. Yet I haven’t yet met anyone that doesn’t get stung atleast slightly on being rejected. Able to cope, not let rejection affect you, not being bothered by a no, etc is a learned behavior over time. Rejection can be active (when asking) or passive (not being asked). Given to choice a person always gravitates towards those less likely to reject.

Why should repeated behavior be rewarded? It makes no sense. Whether leaders or followers.

Men with bad floorcraft and bad skills persist for years because they keep getting dances. It is understandable when someone is starting out or progressive. I know some men that are so bad after 20 years that even the women on the list won’t dance with them.

 

[Rabbit]

The number is reasonably big, but if you take the subset of dancers who dance sustained close-embrace, who really feel and respond to the music, who appreciate subtle expressions of the music, and have good floorcraft, it very quickly becomes rather small.

At a typical London milonga, the percentage who fall into that category ranges from maybe 5% to perhaps 20% at best. Go one hour outside London, in any direction, and the percentage is 95-100%.

Ok, to be fair I just danced 3 hours straight of mainly close embrace with musically responsive partners in London, so it can be good sometimes. Enough space that floorcraft wasn't an issue and people could actually walk around.

 

[opendoor]

...if you take the subset of dancers who dance sustained close-embrace, who really feel and respond to the music, who appreciate subtle expressions of the music, and have good floorcraft, it very quickly becomes rather small...

I have a bit of a stomachache with this statement because the combination of these characteristics mentioned could be seen as desirable. I say could because you certainly didn't mean it that way. Musicality in particular is lacking in this group of sustained closed dancing population. Musicality is much more than emphasizing the strong beats. Phrases go over four bars, which requires big steps and long pauses.

 

[Bailango]

I have a bit of a stomachache with this statement because the combination of these characteristics mentioned could be seen as desirable. I say could because you certainly didn't mean it that way. Musicality in particular is lacking in this group of sustained closed dancing population. Musicality is much more than emphasizing the strong beats. Phrases go over four bars, which requires big steps and long pauses.

Musicality is orthogonal to the style of embrace. I don’t think they should be mixed.

More than 95% of my dances are in close embrace. It is rare for me to encounter a follower who will not select close embrace by choice. The followers that I see dance in close embrace with one leader will be dancing in non-close embrace with a different leader. So may be depending on the leader the followers too choose which embrace they will follow. May be it is something about leader’s frame that makes follower select the embrace. I don’t know. I prefer close embrace, and most followers freely chose to dance that way. There are small number of occasions where follower may not start in semi-close embrace or more open embrace and then get into close embrace after half the songs. What is extremely rare for me is to encounter a follower who wishes to dance in open hold. When I say close embrace I mean either no daylight or the light barely passing. When I mean semi-close I mean about few cms of distance with no parts touching. Open hold is like what you see in swing or salsa.

From what I read here, it seems open hold type of embrace is a choice made by 50%(??) of followers or leaders in some places.

 

[opendoor]

...When I say close embrace I mean either no daylight or the light barely passing. When I mean semi-close I mean about few cms of distance with no parts touching..

Please excuse me, I wasn't clear in my terminology. I was referring to TT, who wrote about "sustained clos-embrace". From experience I know that this mostly means people who dance in parallel apilado position. My imagination ran wild.
When you talk about "open hold" (neo, swing, salsa), then you are skipping the middle thing, which is not that semi-close thing. The middle thing is "salon hold", only closed on the right side, 10° open on the left (leader's perspective). Argentines also call this "con luz", although the rays don't pass through.

(For details, watch my photo)

 

[Miradamiranda]

The followers who dance with bad floorcraft leaders go into my don’t invite or invite less often. Which means my list is always growing.

This is what I was referring to. Blaming the follower for her partner’s bad floor skills. If I accept a dance from a stranger I have no clue beforehand. This happened to me this weekend dancing in a different city. Or if I’ve danced with him before it might have been perfectly fine for the context the previous time (s). Or he simply dances differently this time around. Or so much time had gone by that I had forgotten how he did in the past.

Concerning followers’ responsibility with floor skills: too many followers don’t adjust the size of their steps and width of other movements to the situation. Like when a leader whips your leg around this way and that in boleos and I’m forcing my foot down to stay in contact with the floor if I can’t judge the distance behind me.
I am a frequent user of the hand break on the guy’s back. I don’t dance with my eyes closed. For equilibrium, the eyes being open is a big help, and if I danced with eyes closed, I’d have to spend extra attention on such things, so my dance would suffer.

 

[TTanguero]

Musicality in particular is lacking in this group of sustained closed dancing population.

Our experiences here differ dramatically! In my experience, there is a very strong correlation between dancing in open embrace and doing random athletics with no regard to the music.

Musicality is much more than emphasizing the strong beats. Phrases go over four bars, which requires big steps and long pauses.

Nope. Sure, if there is room for big steps, they can be used to express the music – and personally I'm never happier than when dancing a Pugliese tanda with room for a big walk! And I agree it can be frustrating when we want to take big steps but there's no space.

Where we disagree is in the idea that any specific movements are required to express the music. If I want to take a big step but there's no room, I will put dynamism into a small step or rebound. Long pauses, sure, and I find it bizarre when the music is very clearly saying "Pause!" and people are still whirling around (which you literally see all the time in London), but that's something we can do on all types of floors.

 

[TTanguero]

Ok, to be fair I just danced 3 hours straight of mainly close embrace with musically responsive partners in London, so it can be good sometimes. Enough space that floorcraft wasn't an issue and people could actually walk around.

Probably because everyone was at the London Tango Marathon

Which was a big enough room that even with a few dozen literal performers trying to relive their performances on the floor, there was enough space.