Grocery list
To add on to the main lessons I learnt from BsAs, here I attach a short list – to serve as a reminder for myself – of the important technical things I picked up, and need to revise…
Group classes at Escuela de Argentino Tango
- steps and leads that can be used for milonga (as in the music style)
- lossening of the embrace and yet have a closer connection with my partner
- some slightly fancy enrosque patterns that requires the leader to be a bit more “selfish” in keeping his balance/axis (in the highly-hyped Villa Urquiza style 😈 )
Privates
- how to dance freely
- going with follower’s axis/weight so that she can also move freely and not be restricted by me
- the mental attitudes to project
At the milongas
- feeling the music
- joy of dancing
- truly dance with each other
- patience and yet be quick to react to music and situation on the floor
Full circle
For many years, and probably unlike many fledgling communities around the world, the Tango community in Singapore suffered from a systematic problem: there were no high-calibre local instructors. This was natural as everyone who was dancing in Singapore at the time started in the same boat – from scratch! The local scene was essentially at the mercy of visiting teachers who travelled to Singapore at their own expenses(!), and who furthermore taught a variety of styles and levels which were sometimes incompatible from one instructor to the next. See, for example, this list of Tango teachers who had given short workshops in Singapore over the years. Suffice it to say that there was quite a variety of styles.
While some teachers returned regularly to Singapore there were usually long gaps between visits. It was not really until 2006, when IXI Danza and Tango Oriental undertook considerable financial risks to hire specific teachers and started organising workshops on a larger scale compared to previous years, that there was some consistency in the quality of instructions. Unsurprisingly, since that time there has been a mini-boom in the local Tango scene, as evidenced by the number of regular milongas and local instructors. Due to a number of intensive workshops by the same overseas teachers, the level of dancing has also improved dramatically over the past three years.
Spirit of milonga without (high) heels
Although I had heard of “La Turca” with her platform shoes, it was not until I took classes with them in Buenos Aires that I was able to witness it for myself. Surely this will eliminate once and for all women’s excuse of not having good shoes to dance in!
A slightly less elegant clip but more informative technically:
Dance of the champions
This is a clip of the dance by current and previous champions at the recently concluded Salon section of the annual World Tango Championship held in Buenos Aires. The Japanese couple seen towards the end of the clip is the champion for 2009, and they will no doubt become household names in some dance circles in no time. However, the uniformity of the dance styles and music interpretation seen on this stage does seem worrying to me…