Tango essence
After a weekend of workshops, a couple of privates and an enlightening conversation with Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse over supper, if you were to ask me: what is the essence of good Tango salon? My answer would be simply: the embrace.
While there are various techniques and perhaps stylistic considerations which I had briefly alluded to which contribute to a good embrace for dancing, here I am actually talking about only the attitude: one of unreservedly inviting and accepting the opportunity of holding someone with love. “Love” here does not need to have any sexual contexts but can simply be humanly love between two people. After that, the rest can in fact be seen as mere formality…
Visualisations
Examples of mental imagery which I learnt during another wonderful round of workshops with Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse.
Feline walk, with feet caressing the floor. In fact, the sensation is very similar to what is described here, which is very relaxed and calm.
A quick tip that changed the my embrace in a matter of seconds: picturing that I am trying to embrace five people in one go.
Finally, my favourite (the context being men connecting with each other and respecting the space in line of dance, and ladies taking the opportunities to express herself):
“Men create the order; ladies create the beauty.”
Tango and chaos
I started following what became the writings at Tango and Chaos when the website did not exist and the articles were posted instead on Tango-L. However, decided to revisit a few days ago and boy, what a pleasant surprise! Lots of new information on milongueros in Buenos Aires, and a new section on walking techniques. Since my recent private classes with Hsueh-tze and Javier Rodriguez/Andrea Misse all tended to focus on improving my walking, I was naturally quite fascinated. Well, suffice it to say, the conclusion is that, while the physical form may have deviated slightly, the essence is very much consistent with what I have been learning…
Here are some clips I really enjoyed. Curiously, apart from the age of the dancers, they really reminded me a little of the musicality and techniques exhibited by Javier Rodriguez. 🙂
- Pocho – scroll down to see the demonstration at Sunderland.
- Ricardo Vidort – scroll down to see the second clip.
The embrace
Having a good embrace is the key to being able to dance well in close embrace. Sounds like tautology, doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised at the number of people who were unaware of this and still “imagined” that they were dancing in close embrace, but that’s another story…
Here are some nice writings on the embrace, from people who had the opportunity to stay in Buenos Aires for extended periods of time: one from a leader’s and two from followers’ perspective. Incidentally, all three articles mentioned the style of Javier and Andrea who will be in Singapore next week!
Very worthwhile reading!