Some reflections
Simba’s reflections on 10 years of learning and dancing tango struck a chord with me. There is certainly a few parallels between his and my experiences. For instance, I started on the tango journey close to 10 years ago, also in a tango desert of a community. When I went to my first tango festival in Taipei in 2003 (the inaugural Taipei Tango Festival), I met Javier Rodriguez and Geraldine Rojas for the first time. Although I had seen them in CITA videos prior and been utterly impressed, I have to say the meeting with them did not have such a lasting impression. They were certainly brilliant dancers for sure, but I had other concerns to deal with – like, being to dance well technically… 🙂 By the time I had matured more as a dancer, Javier Rodriguez was already with a different partner when I saw him again.
This is something Simba mentioned that stuck with me especially.
Before we can expect people to find their own tango, they have to see the real tango. Smell the real tango. Touch the real tango. Listen to the real tango. And feel the real tango.
Thinking back, I guess this was probably the main driving force in persevering with bringing international teachers like Javier Rodriguez to Singapore in the past few years, despite the expenses involved. Realistically, one or two encounters with good teachers – famous or not – will not dramatically improve how one dances*. In addition, no doubt each of us who perseveres with tango will discover his/her path to the final destination. However, as of now I firmly believe that it’s important to have the right image early on, an goal of the tango (although not necessarily in the technical sense) that has come before and something that can carry the torch for.
* Incidentally, this is important for event organisers and participant needs to realise in order to manage their expectations.
Natural order
For more than once over the last couple of weeks, I have been hearing people referring to certain milongas in the local scene as being for the “experienced” dancer. Well, while I am sure no organiser sets out intentionally to create that impression, but I find it rather amusing nevertheless. After all the community in Singapore is not that large that we can choose to target only a small section of the dancers!? 🙂
Small pleasures in life
Sorry have been a little quiet for a while. Just usual “distractions” like work… 🙂
Two wonderful things happened at the milonga tonight. Firstly there was a couple of nice tandas with a visitor from London, who incidentally is also a friend of Christine Denniston who was in Singapore many years ago. Too bad I was not feeling well enough last night to dance with her when I was DJing…
The second little nugget is related to the period when I took over the 8-week beginners tango classes at Jitterbugs (a local dance school) towards the end of 2005, as a favour for some friends while they were holidaying in Buenos Aires. Incidentally I am very proud that, of the 20 people who started the course, close to 20 people completed!
Since this was quite a while ago, imagine my surprise when a girl from that class recognised me at the milonga tonight. It turned out that despite admitting not having “gotten it” after the beginners course 5 years ago, she decided to give tango another shot and so started taking a beginners classes recently. What I appreciated the most was when she told me that the reason she picked up tango again was because of the seeds we had sown 5 years ago. I am so happy to know that our work has not been in vain, that somehow or other that we are able to reach out and spread a little bit of the joy of tango! Perhaps I should give her the free CD that the rest of her classmates received upon completion but she missed out because she missed the final class as a present… 😉
Passion
The following quote is actually borrowed from a technology site. Strangely appropriate for tango I think.
“Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered pot holder.”
Raymond Chandler