Dancing the Vals
Just noticed that Royce has commented on some thoughts I had about the music in Tango Vals.
I think I am doing some of the things mentioned in her explanations intuitively (and somewhat disorganizingly…) at present. However, my current understanding – including my understanding in music or lack of, period – is not sufficient for me to articulate it so clearly. In fact, in general, I tend to dance on the <1> and <1><2> beats of the Vals for most of Valses, but occasionally <1><2><3> on the faster Valses – crazy, isn’t it!? 🙂 At the moment at least, I hardly ever dance on <1><3> because it seems the “heavy”, i.e. the <1>, step will always feel rushed, no?? Having said that, may be worth trying out at the practica.
Rushing and confidence
Attended our semi-regular milonga last Saturday night.
Over the course of the night, it occurred that I might still be dancing too quickly – especially during my favourite Vals? That is, while I felt the ‘rush’ from the music, my partner might not have been totally comfortable with the pace…
Recent report card
Observations of some subtle changes appearing in my Tango recently.
Embrace:
Lately I am beginning to notice a preference for a more flexible embrace – that is, a slight V-hold with, from time to time, about a finger’s gap between myself and my partner. I suspect this may be similar to the salon-style embrace often discussed on Tango-L, as I had mentioned before. While most of a lead is still done with the impetus from the chest, the arms (or more specifically, the bend in the elbow) are also useful (and critical in some situations) for the purposes of leading. There seems – and without any conscious effort on my part – to be a shift from a strict adherence to the close embrace I mysteriously picked up while in Berlin and subsequently adopted for social dancing for most of the past two years, to a more fluid approach, which Esteban/Evelyn seem to advocate these days.
Tango styles
From time to time, inevitably heated discussions about the different styles in Tango crop up on the Tango-L list. The following is a classification proposed by a regular poster to the list, which I in fact quite agree with.