Varieties in Vals
Traditional Tango music is generally categorised as either Tango, Tango Vals (or Vals for short) and Tango milonga (milonga for short). There are sometimes even finer divisions, which I won’t go into here.
Just as in the more commonly-known Waltz, Vals has the familiar ‘1-2-3’ rhythm, with ‘1’ being the heavy beat. However, that is where the similarity ends. In Vals, unlike Waltz, the timing between the beats is not universal, and can be faster or slower from one song to the next. I am not sufficiently trained musically to offer any satisfactory explanation for this, but I can assure you that this can be felt very intuitively.
Fortuitous
Just returned from a wonderful night of dancing at our regular Tuesday milonguita at Xen Bar.
In fact, I am quite glad now that I did not manage to leave earlier (just before 11pm) as there weren’t many people up till that time. Tonight’s milonguita was delayed due to the workshop by Gladys/Ricardo at the same venue, and most of my friends who were at the workshop did not return from dinner till after 11pm.
Tango Nuevo
Attended 2 workshops on Tango Nuevo in the past two days. While these 2 classes are not the only exposures – having also attended 2 similar classes by Gladys/Ricardo last September – I have had to this new evolutionary development in Tango, I feel I can appreciate a little bit more of the main concepts the second time around.
Up till now, the emphasis has been on the ‘hanging’ – colgadas – and how to enter into and exit from, by following the flow of energy in the embrace and between the partners.
Firstly, the music
Attended a workshop by Gladys Fernandez and Ricardo Gallo tonight. Hard to believe it, but this year actually marks their fifth in Singapore! How time flies…
The content of the course can be summed up in a few words: feel the rhythm of the music and express it. The dynamics in Tango were expressed using the simple framework of slow-slow-quick-quick-quick, to some songs from Biagi and D’Arienzo in particular. But how they danced with so much feelings and expression using very simple steps! As they kept saying, the Tango is danced with the whole body, not just with the feet, and not just with the brain.