The Argentine Tango is an advanced spacecraft ready to take us on fantastic journeys through the physical and emotional universe. Music is the powerful fuel that propels that craft.
The more that you understand about music, the farther and faster your tango spaceship will soar.
Music is fundamental to all dance regardless of genre. We can dance without music, but to do so we need to have music, or at least a clear and well-developed sense of rhythm actively imagined in our minds.
The more that you understand about music, the farther and faster your tango spaceship will soar.
Music is fundamental to all dance regardless of genre. We can dance without music, but to do so we need to have music, or at least a clear and well-developed sense of rhythm actively imagined in our minds.
The best dancers that I know - and those whom I have not met, but whose work I admire - tie every movement to music. Music influences all aspects of their tango, from step selection to the form and feel of their embrace, the pace, rhythm, and intensity of their walking steps, the speed and shape of their turns, even the amount and quality of their adornments and embellishments.
Music has the power to inspire creativity and direct improvisation in real time. It influences not only how we move, but how we hold each other, how we think an even how we breathe. Watch a pair of elegant dancers in action. Even their pauses are tied to details that they hear in the music.
When my students - even those at the beginner level - struggle with a technique or a figure, I put on music that supports the movement, and everyone dances better right away.
I have written about musicality in the past, and I plan to write much more on the topic in future posts, so I'll skip the details here. Here, I simply want to express how important music is to the Argentine Tango and how much we all stand to gain from a study of music as it applies to dance.
Note that music is Number One on my list of 'best practices'.
On a cautionary note, I have seen dancers with considerable skill who lack the ability to dance musically. As impressive as their movements are, they suffer from a lack of connection to the fundamental driving force of dance, the source of emotion and power within the tango, the music.
Watching dancers who struggle with this limitation is like listening to someone tell jokes in a language that we don't understand. We don't get it. Because they don't get it.
So, please please please! Dance as musically as you can, even if musicality is a struggle for you. I understand that this skill comes much more easily to some dancers, but everyone can improve. The musical novice can improve, and the musical expert can improve as well.
Keep working hard, and progress will come.
¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!
Daniel
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