Tango Berlin
I was told once that, outside of Buenos Aires, Berlin is the city with the largest Tango population. Well, had some first-hand experiences recently when I visited my friend Christine in Berlin.
Tango and confidence
Last night had my first chance to Tango since returning from Europe, at our regular practica at the Singapore History Museum. Invariably, my regular partners commented that my leading had changed. And, to my delight, they all said that it was better, more assured and comfortable. I even had people who had travelled overseas come up to me afterwards, telling me how similar my dancing was to what they had seen there!
Well, enough of the self-praising. 😉
Musings on the embrace
Through my personal experiences and observations of other leaders, I have come to realise that for Argentine Tango, as far as leading the dance is concerned, the left arm of the leader does not have much importance. In fact, ideally, the leading should not be initiated by using the left arm alone. The bulk of the leading action is done through the body and the embracing (right) arm, whether we are dancing in a close or open embrace. Well, one can argue of course that arms are in fact not absolutely necessary for leading, but that is for a higher level and not really the point of discussion here.
Tango Paris
As I have mentioned in my travelling photos section, there seems to be nightly (weather permitting) Argentine Tango along the bank of River Seine in Paris.
During the week nights, there were usually 9-10 couples on the floor at any given time, and still with plenty of room to spare. Was a little disappointed because can’t really say that there were too many genuinely good leaders there. The leading seemed to be done more with the arms than the body. However, the organiser for the weekday events seemed to be able to lead many flashy moves and quite entertaining during a long stretch of Pugliese tracks.