The apilado equation

[opendoor]

..The taught choreographed move of volcadas generally has no place on a busy crowded floor.

Does "taught choreographed" necessarily belong together with volcadas for you?

There are exceptions, I for one wasn't taught volcadas at all. I learned them from watching, worked them out and practiced them (I got no money for classes back then, sneaked into milongas, drank tap water in the washroom).

And I find that "choreographed" also is a wrong description, as a volcada is not a sequence but a certain action of the axes. We can volcadize every move, even simple walking.

Finally I find that volcadas yet can be carried out in the slowly advancing ronda. Not all volcadas are created equal. There are back, side, and front volcadas. With the latter variant, I would agree with you, but not with the others.

 

[LadyLeader]

The best advice I've ever heard about floorcraft
is to follow the mantra of once you left the space
don't go back (after all you cannot see behind).
This subtly promotes the slow inexorable progress
forwards. There is something else beneficial
to this - you are almost never being pressed from
behind because you are always escaping forward.
On a really crowded floor that sort of organisation
really helps everyone to be able to dance.

Yes this is usually the very first piece of correction you get when learning how a leader should apply tango's choreography part! A choreography can come in different forms and while some are extremely detailed some others are combining improvisation and choreography as tango is.

It was a relief for me to accept the choreography aspects in tango and through that accept the slow progress the dancers have on pista. It takes time to develop a natural flow in those aspects when only a few can teach and guide you. I don't teach but i wrote some of my thoughts below!

The fundamental element in tango choreography tells us to advance in a counterclockwise circle. To finetune it you create clear lines, keep your position in the ronda, manage your baldosa, advance at a steady speed and so on. All this choreography learning!

Another element tells us how to relate to our partner and to keep a comfortable contact with some known variations.

There is a range of movements we recognize as suitable for tango. Different dancers create different selections of those movements, some include more others less.

Following these choreography elements, these rules we have the right to play and improvise with our dance partner for fun.

If someone starts to use rock'n'roll moves diagonally over pista when tango is playing we would protest. Our right to improvise is not total but strictly limited!

 

[JohnEm]

Does "taught choreographed" necessarily belong together with volcadas for you?

There are exceptions, I for one wasn't taught volcadas at all. I learned them from watching, worked them out and practiced them (I got no money for classes back then, sneaked into milongas, drank tap water in the washroom).

And I find that "choreographed" also is a wrong description, as a volcada is not a sequence but a certain action of the axes. We can volcadize every move, even simple walking.

Finally I find that volcadas yet can be carried out in the slowly advancing ronda. Not all volcadas are created equal. There are back, side, and front volcadas. With the latter variant, I would agree with you, but not with the others.

I was certainly taught volcadas as a rather complex to lead
off-axis leg movements from cross to cross and back again.
Most definitely a stationary series of movements.

But it seems from your post and earlier ones
that perhaps we don't even agree what volcadas are
and it doesn't matter to me since mostly I don't do names.

By the way is a volgada a cross between a volcada
and colgada. No, no-one answer that please!
We already have new verb - to volcadize!

 

[opendoor]

..We already have new verb - to volcadize!

What you simply call Volcada is a so-called "forward or front Volcada" following Naveira's nomenclatura

I already annoyed my first teacher, an Uruguayo, with my classification and categorization of steps. He only wanted to convey tango the way he got to know it at home. Back then I went to a cultural Corner Shop, that was a neighborhood initiative (publicy funded) where Latinos met. It was the teaching I could afford. This teacher taught tango as his parents danced it in MV. It was the tango of the 60s and 70s: Basso, Varela, Raciatti, Sassone, late Pugliese. Later, when I started dancing with the young and stylish tango teachers I realized that there were styles, Milonguero, Villa Urquiza, Neotango and so forth.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

The local audience as at any social dance
are dancers themselves and know what they
are watching. An informed audience if you like.

Certainly. But we are an informed audience as well. Perhaps not to the same extent, but we are.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

but I've never seen this mythic ronda that advances constantly at a stately pace.

It's not a myth but it requires a dance floor filled with experienced and *considerate* dancers. It can happen. Really, it depends on the group.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

We can volcadize every move, even simple walking.

I can't visualize this. A volcano is always stationary, it has to be. The fact that you can follow it up with something that moves you forward doesn't change that fact.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

The fundamental element in tango choreography tells us to advance in a counterclockwise circle. To finetune it you create clear lines, keep your position in the ronda, manage your baldosa, advance at a steady speed and so on. All this choreography learning!

That has nothing to do with choreography; it's part of the codigos of traditional tango.

 

[Rabbit]

You can do quick and small volcadas where the follower leans on one beat and returns on the next.

In a musical pause you can hold the volcada through the pause. The ronda doesn't advance in these moments.

 

[itwillhappen]

The best advice I've ever heard about floorcraft
is to follow the mantra of once you left the space
don't go back (after all you cannot see behind).
This subtly promotes the slow inexorable progress
forwards. There is something else beneficial
to this - you are almost never being pressed from
behind because you are always escaping forward.
On a really crowded floor that sort of organisation
really helps everyone to be able to dance.

If only everyone knew it and did it.

Maybe you mix up "dancing a bit against the direction of the dance" and "dancing backwards"?

A standard situation in which I dance something against the dance direction is when the dance floor slowly fills up at one point and I create space for them.

A standard situation in which I dance backwards is when I lead forward ochos in the direction of the dance.

And I haven't swallowed a broomstick across, I can turn with open eyes while dancing and have a certain overview of what is going on around me.

 

[Gssh]

I was certainly taught volcadas as a rather complex to lead
off-axis leg movements from cross to cross and back again.
Most definitely a stationary series of movements.

I tend to think of volcada/colgada as the general family of off-axis/suspended/hanging technique - like with all techniques there are the huge showy versions that people often achieve more by imitating the outer form without using the actual technique, but like all basic principles the more important versions are much more subtle. I actually think that the cross and the ocho cortado very much belong in this family, and require a understanding of how each step progresses from on-axis through off-axis into on axis and how leading during the time that the follower is off-axis works.

Re: dancing against the direction of the dance - this is again one of the discussions that miss out one of the critical elements - in this case the ronda. The problem is never which direction we dance, or if we stop, or whatever, but if we are predictable enough to so that the couples around us don't have to react, and the flow of the ronda around us stays smooth. And what this requires is very dependent on local culture - if everybody can dance happily in a 'jagged' ronda it is a good ronda.
It in some ways mirrors the question what danceable music is - i would personally argue that danceable music has to be formulaic enough that what i hear, and what my partner hears, and what the people around me in the ronda hear as the major landmarks in the song is the same thing, even if nobody has heard it before. If everybody knows a song at least somewhat by heart and there are strong local norms how one dances to it then everything is dance able.
(e.g. for a while i had a lot of trouble to dance to electro tango - i had been working a lot on my milonga, so the most obvious element that i wanted to dance to was the often quite fast underlying beat - and neither the majority of my partners nor the ronda agreed with me on that)

Re: dancing against the direction of the dance - i also think this is not very much a question of vocabulary. At least in theory the ocho cortado should be the worst disruptive move - it is explicitly based on bringing the couple suddenly to a full stop and sending the follower against the line of dance into the blind spot of the leader.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

The problem is never which direction we dance, or if we stop, or whatever, but if we are predictable enough to so that the couples around us don't have to react, and the flow of the ronda around us stays smooth.

Primarily, this, yes. Although going against the line of dance for more than the width of your baldosa is generally frowned upon.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

At least in theory the ocho cortado should be the worst disruptive move - it is explicitly based on bringing the couple suddenly to a full stop and sending the follower against the line of dance into the blind spot of the leader.

Not really. That should be considered part of your space, the fact that she moves sideways and back is fine as long as you know what's around you (well, who is around you). There are far, far more disruptive movements than that. Case in point:

 

[Steve Pastor]

Took a break there to (try to) climb Mount Baker.
Here's something that is also from long ago, and is, I think, related to the topic of this thread.

Volcada - Strength or Technique?

One chap with whom I was talking last night insisted that leading a Volcada was all about the man having good upper body strength. Not that this 5ft.8in bird with a bit of muscle on her doesn't pause for tbreath when a short thin bloke leads me a volcada - BUT - I still think its more about the...

www.dance-forums.com

 

[ArbeeNYC]

I was certainly taught volcadas as a rather complex to lead
off-axis leg movements from cross to cross and back again.
Most definitely a stationary series of movements.

Speaking of social volcanos and moving against the line of dance: