Making Your Practice Time Count

Encoding and Reinforcing

The weekend is here! And YOU, being serious about your tango, have pushed those pesky errands off to another day so you can spend the afternoon at your favorite practica. 

You get there as early as you can. You dance as much as possible. You practice for two, three, even four solid hours. 

Maybe you've arranged to meet a friend there, or maybe you're happy to practice with whomever is there that day. The music starts, and you and your partner take the embrace and begin to dance. You dance together for song after song. 

It's wonderful. You're having a great time. But are you making the best use of your time? Are you getting better?

Of course you're getting better, your brain tells you. You just practiced for hours. How can that not be helpful?

I'm certain that it was helpful. And I’m sure that those hours did you some good. How much good it did depends on how you spent your time. What did you work on? How did you work on it? 


The Low-Key Milonga


Most people treat a practica like a low-key milonga, a social dance where you can show up in casual clothing, and no one complains if you stop and discuss technique on the dance floor. They important distinction is that what they do at a practica is not significantly different than what they do at a milonga.

A tanda begins. They find a partner. They dance together for a few songs, say thank you, and move on to the next person. It's fun. But is it moving your forward?

What I have described above is best categorized as rehearsing. Rehearsing has value. It enable us to get better acquainted with a partner. If we move from partner to partner at the practica, it gives us a chance to get better at leading or following others. Rehearsal also helps us to improve the flow of our dance, i.e. to link movements more smoothly and effortlessly. Rehearsal also afford us an opportunity to dance to a variety of music and orchestras.

But think about this for a moment. Can you not also accomplish all of these things at a milonga? The milonga floor might be more crowded, and people there might be less forgiving of experimentation, but you can certainly learn to dance with a variety of people there. You will encounter a variety of partners and music at milongas, and you will become a smoother dancer over time.


What Makes Practice Special?

Practice is like exercise. It's not the amount of time that we spend in a gym that makes us slimmer or stronger, it's how hard and how effectively we work when we're there.

If at the practica we dance a series of easy tandas, we're not challenging ourselves. We are breezing through material that our minds and bodies have already assimilated.

Rehearsal REINFORCES what we already know and what we already can do. It may smooth out a few rough edges, but it isn't going to give us a surge in improvement. Practice that is not well-structured might even exacerbate our technical problems.

Why? Because if rehearsal reinforces what we already know and do, it can reinforce our bad habits as well as our good ones.


Mindful Practice

I don't want people to think that they can't have a good time at the practica. I love dancing through tandas at practicas. It's fun. It's enjoyable, and we should all do it. 

That said, if you want to get the most out of your practice time, spend some of it actually practicing.

1. Identify an area where you want to improve. 

2. As your partner if they would mind working on a particular technique with you for a few minutes. If they don't want to, just dance with them, and ask your next partner.

3. When you find someone who is willing to work with you, don't just dance three songs together. Do the following.

a. STOP. You can't do what you need to do on the fly.

b. Examine the technique that is giving your trouble. Try to understand why it isn't going more smoothly. If there's a teacher who's willing to assist, ask them. Otherwise, do your best.

c. Think of what you might do to improve and give it a try. Don't worry if you don't get it right immediately; you've already got buy in from your partner to experiment for a bit. Do the best you can. If nothing else, you'll learn something new about the problem.

d. Be good to your partner. Don't put them in a risky or painful position while you're working out the problem. Don't make them repeat a movement so many times that it starts to become annoying or painful. Be kind to them, or they won't want to dance with you anymore.

e. Focus on this technique for a tanda or two, but not longer. The concentration and exertion required to change the way your body moves it intense, and it will burn you out quickly. You are ENCODING new information into your mind, body, and nervous system. Change at this level causes stress. If you focus on the problem for too long, the resulting stress will work against what you are trying to achieve.

Spend a few minutes working on your technique, then reward your patient partner with some fun, care-free dancing.

f. Don't expect immediate improvement. Even if during this session you suddenly realize why you were having the problem, it's going to take months for the technique to become a natural part of your dancing. Realize that you have taken an important step forward, and BE PATIENT. Buenos Aires wasn't built in a day.


Happy practicing! Have fun, spend some time working on your weaknesses, and always, always, always dance to the music.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2017 The Exploring Tango Blog

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Call and Response

The Fullest Expression of an Idea

Call and Response is a musical construct where a phrase is introduced by one performer and repeated by another or a group such as a chorus.

A well-known example of call and response from popular music is "Hi-De-Ho" by the late Cab Calloway. Cab sings, "Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho!" and the audience repeats the phrase note for note. Cab's part is the call, and the audience gives the response.

Call and response is used in choral music for religious services, and in both opera and modern show tunes when a chorus interacts with a soloist to amplify the impact of what is being sung.


An Effective Response

Picture a church or a temple for a moment. A lone singer standing at the front presents a musical phrase (the call). The choir and congregation then repeat the phrase (the response) filling the building with sound.

Which part is more important, the call or the response?

The Call makes a statement. It defines the words and the melody of what is to be sung.

The Response magnifies and amplifies the statement with an impact that no single voice could ever project, no matter how emotive or well-trained the lone singer might be. The Response brings emotional depth to the experience by offering a full expression of the original idea.

The Response also conveys a sense of unity and connection. The response says, "we are with you, we accept the call willfully and joyously, we are together and we are whole."

Lead and Follow

Call and Response have parallels in partners dancing. The Lead is the parallel of the Call. It provides information about what to do and how to do it, but it's emotionally and artistically insignificant by itself. The lead requires the expression and amplification of the follower's movements to give it gravity and significance.

Watch a leader practicing by himself for a few minutes. The movements are an important part of the dance, but it's not at all enjoyable to watch.

Watch again when a skilled follower joins the leader. Watch as her body interprets his movements and his touch. Watch as she becomes the embodiment of his lead expressing it beautifully in physical space. Watch as she conveys a sense of connection and unity as she receives his lead and amplifies it. The couple becomes one, because each of their parts is important.

Controversy

According to online discussions that I have read in recent years, some followers feel that their role in tango is less important than the leader's role. They seem to feel that unless the are actively guiding the flow of the dance, they are subservient to the leader.

I disagree for several reasons.

1. Following well requires full concentration. The lead is not predetermined. It has to be interpreted and expressed in real time. This is an enormous challenge even for experienced dancers.

2. Determining the direction of the dance requires a keen awareness of traffic. Followers are at a disadvantage in this regard based on their position and their responsibilities. It's simply not possible to see what's happening behind you. A good leader is not only deciding on steps purely for artistic expression. He's also keeping his follower out of danger.

3. As I have tried to express in the Call and Response analogy, the full emotional and aesthetic expression of the dance is the follower's domain, not the leader's. No one watches the dance floor to see a leader rotate his torso in a precise way. They want to see what the follower does with that information. They go to watch the interaction and the chemistry of the couple.

4. Outstanding followers are are rare as outstanding leaders. I often share the story of going to a practica week after week and being ignored by most of the people there. One week, I brought a friend who's an excellent follower. Afterward, several people ran up to me to tell me what a "great dancer" I was. The point is that I looked good because my follower was excellent. Instead of trying to be a co-leader, focus on becoming a better follower.

5. If you want to lead, lead. Learn what it takes and give it your best. Learn how to guide the follower to do what you want her to do. Learn how to compensate for followers with poor balance or a clutching embrace. Learn now to navigate traffic well (a skill that female leaders sometimes neglect). And when you go back to following, should you chose to do so, forget about leading and give that role your best as well.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

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Tango and Relationships

The Relative Importance Of Shared Interests 

A non-tango friend recently shared the opinion that good relationships are built on shared interests. Couples with shared interests tend to have more fun and stay together longer. 

Being an argumentative pain in the bum, I had to disagree. To support my dissent, I cited observations from the tango community.

Calling the Argentine tango a shared interest is an understatement. It's more than an interest for many people; it can become an obsession. Dedicated tangueros and tangueras go dancing several times a week, take classes and lessons to improve their dancing, watch tango videos and listen to the music in their spare time, and dream of trips to Buenos Aires.

If shared interests were the key to good relationships, the tango community would be full of successful, happy couples that met on the dance floor and stayed together for the long haul. My observations don't support this theory.

Observation 1. Most of the couples that I know from the tango community were together before they began to study the tango.

Observation 2. Most couples that get to know each other through dancing break up after a few weeks up to a few years. - Note: If you are one of the exceptions and your relationship has lasted, I congratulate you, for you have found someone very special. I wish you both the very best.

Observation 3. Most of the single women that I was dancing with five, ten, or fifteen years ago are STILL SINGLE. The ones that have entered into lasting marriages ended up with people from outside of the tango community.


The Devil Is In The Details

On many occasions, I have heard ladies say that they want to meet (i.e. date) a man who dances tango. I hear men that this, too, but not as often. It sounds like fun, but is dance skill a good basis for starting a relationship with someone?

What if a friend told you that they wanted to date someone who collects stamps. What does that say about the kind of husband or wife that person would be? In reality, it doesn't tell us anything at all.

A person is not defined by their interests. Human beings are far more complex than what they do for fun on the weekend. Any given person may be patient or irritable, kind or abusive, neat or sloppy, driven or lazy, joyful or depressed, dull or intelligent, calm or intense, faithful or dishonest, timid or adventurous. You need to consider all of those dimensions and more while choosing a life partner. 

So what if a person dances the tango? Even if they dance well, what does that tell you about them are and how well-suited they are to dedicate themselves to you, take care of you, and make you happy in the years to come?

I had to disagree with my friend. Shared interests are not fundamental to establishing a lasting relationship. Shared interests are the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

I did offer a counter proposal. I believe that successful couples recognize that each partner has their own set of interests. Each partner is dedicated to supporting the interests of the other to a reasonable degree. This mutual support keeps couples happy and function for the long term.

Another important dimension of relationships is how well the partners relate to one another, how supportively they treat each other, how well cared for each person feels. Do you want your relationship to last and be joyful? Make your partner feel loved and appreciated, and communicate to them openly about what you need to feel the same way.

Maybe your life partner will be a good dancer. Maybe they'll have two left feet. Does it really matter if you're happy together? There are lots of good dancers in the world. If your have a partner supports your love of dance, you should still be able to enjoy dancing. How well that person takes care of you is more important than how smoothly they perform a back sacada. Focus on what's important in life, and the joy that your partner brings to your life will carry over into everything that you do.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2017 The Exploring Tango Blog

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An Important Embrace

Let's Get Better

Do you want to get better? Would you like to be a better dancer? 

Here's the most important thing that you can do. 

Embrace the truth.

Embrace it - the whole truth. The ugly truth. The uncomfortable truth. The truth that you don't want to admit. The truth that you don't want anyone to know.


Be courageous. Be honest.

Embrace the truth about what's not working. - You can't fix something if you won't acknowledge it.

Embrace the truth about what you have been doing wrong, even if you once that that everything was fine.

Embrace the truth about your weaknesses. - Whether you have been dancing for three months or thirty years, you DO have weaknesses, and they're not invisible. Everyone can see them. You might as well give them a little practice time.


Be honest with yourself. Anything that you try to hide from will hold you back. So, why are you hiding?


If you want to improve, you'll need to invest time and energy on careful, mindful practice that targets specific weaknesses and areas where growth is desired. Before you can do that, you need to understand what to work on.


Hidden Dangers

What are the consequences of not facing and embracing the truth?

Wasted effort - How much progress will you make if you spend your time and effort (and money) on classes and pleasant social activities that don't address your fundamental needs? Ponder that one for a moment.

Unaddressed issues - Your weaknesses are weak for a reason. They are things that you don't do well naturally. You'll need to focus on them and work hard if you want to improve in these areas.

Unconscious incompetence - Let's talk about the 800-pound gorilla.

What if you're doing something so obviously wrong that everyone at the milonga notices it? Everyone except you, because you don't want to think that it's true. 

What if this publicly obvious problem is so flagrant that it discourages people from dancing with you? Wouldn't you want to fix that? Wouldn't you want to be aware of it so you can work on it and make progress? 


Coffee Shop

A baristas who used to work at my local coffee shop habitually wiped her nose with her hand while she was working. This behavior was a filthy, disgusting, and potentially a public health issue. 

Whenever I saw this lady behind the counter, I turned around and walked out of the store. I'd rather go to another coffee shop than expose myself to that.

I'm guessing that the woman was complete unaware of her unsanitary habit. 


What unconscious habits do you have, and how do you gain insight into them? What aspect of your tango technique are holding you back simply because you haven't consciously admitted them or come up with a plan to address them?

The best way to improve is to embrace the truth.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2017 The Exploring Tango Blog

www.exploringtango.com

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What Teachers Put Up With

Hard Lessons

Have you ever dreamed of teaching your own classes, of sharing the knowledge that you've developed over the years as you help others to reach their goals of becoming better dancers? Teaching is a thrilling and rewarding pursuit, even under challenging conditions.

But those challenges are real, and as a teacher, you'll have to deal with them. It's part of the package. Here's a sample of some of the issues that you'll be facing.


Gender Imbalance

When people come to a dance class, they expect to be dancing. When the leader to follower ratio is significantly imbalanced, the students are disappointed. They might not express that disappointment, but they're feeling it.

Well, guess what - the teacher is disappointed, too. They spent time planning what to teach in that class. They tailor the plan to the students that they expected to show up. If the gender balance is way off, their plan is useless, and they time that they put into it is wasted.

Further, they now have to find something to occupy a roomful of disappointed students that will make the hour worth their while.

Let's say that five followers show up, but there are no leaders. The quick solution is to turn the class into a mini-workshop on follower's technique. It might be tempting to work on boleos - just keep in mind that repeating boleos is tiring, and it doesn't accomplish much if there's no one to lead them in the context of an improvised tango.

Other possibilities include also adornments (followers love these), walking and posture (again, not to the point of becoming painful), and everybody's least favorite topic, musical interpretation.

So, you begin you follower's workshop, and everything is going smoothly until a couple walks in fifteen minutes late. What are you going to do now? Are you going to ask the leader of the couple to dance with six followers (leaving his partner feeling slighted)? Are you going to ask the two of them to join in your followers' workshop and hope that they leader understands that it's in his best interest to learn this stuff?

Rest assured, whatever choice you make, someone is going to complain.


Bickering

Let's say that you have a perfect leader/follower balance one day, but it's a small class. One married couple prefers not to change partners. The remaining couples rotate, but they dance with the same partners over and over again, because there aren't that many students.

At one point during the class, Follower Number 3 whispers in your ear. "Please don't make me dance with Leader Number 2 any more. He's obnoxious. I can't stand his attitude!"

After class, Leader Number 2 approaches you. "Please don't make me dance with Follower Number 3 next time. She's horrible!" 

Good luck working that situation out to everyone's satisfaction!


Playing Catch Up

The demands of life are more important than the demands of a dance class. I support anyone who has to work late sometimes or go on business trips or take care of their kids. 

Sometimes, people miss a week or two of classes, or more. When they return to class, they'll want to catch up with the group. Unfortunately, the nature of classes is progressive. 

Students who come to class every week might become impatient if you repeat a topics that they have already worked on. This is unfortunate, because repetition is critical to the development and understanding of skills, but it's also human nature. 

You can take the student who is catching up off to the side for a few minutes, but that diverts attention away from the rest of the class. The Absolute Golden Rule Of Teaching Anything is that students do NOT like it when you're not paying attention to them. Write that one down.

You have a couple of options. Ask the student to do the best that they can, and offer to help them after class (or in a private lesson). Ask some of the students who are doing well to demonstrate the technique as you explain it. They will feel valued, and they won't mind that you're spending time with someone who needs extra help. Or you might be able to jump to a topic that's new for everyone (or with which everyone is struggling). 


Mixed-Level Classes

Oh, the humanity! My worst moments as a teacher came when I was asked to teach two levels simultaneously. For example, a beginner couple shows up on the night of the Intermediate class. Or they say that they can't come on the Beginners' night. You don't want to turn them away, so you try to teach two levels simultaneously.

Here's a subtle hint: It's a BAD idea!

The experienced students will hate it because you're not paying enough attention to them. (Remember the Absolute Golden Rule or Teaching Anything.)

The less experience students will feel overwhelmed. They'll want to try the things that the more experienced students are doing and, worse, they'll perceive the simpler exercises that you are asking them to do to be less important. It's not true. What you are teaching them is critically important. But they won't see it that way.

Prepare yourself, my friends with teaching aspirations. The mixed-level class is a no-win situation.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2017 The Exploring Tango Blog

www.exploringtango.com

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Tango Friends

Have you ever felt anxious walking into an unfamiliar milonga or workshop? Here's a better question: have you ever NOT felt anxious under these conditions? No matter how experienced you are, walking into a room where no one knows you and hoping that someone there will dance with you, that is a scary situation. The relative openness of tango communities varies, but I have been to places where strangers are not warmly welcomed. University crowds can be particularly insular.

It's much more relaxed and comfortable to go to dance where people know you. Being greeted by friendly, welcoming faces is heartwarming. Having people there who enjoy your company and your dancing makes a big difference in the milonga experience.

Our tango communities afford us with the opportunity to build supportive, long-term relationships with like-minded connoisseurs of dance and music. I hope that you have developing and cultivating relationships like this in your own tango community. It's a blessing to have tango friends who welcome us back again and again into their space and their arms. Treasure those people, and appreciate them for the blessing of camaraderie and shared experience that they bring into your life.

It is important, however, to understand the limitations of such relationships. It is important to distinguish the convenient, context-related friendships of tango with the greater concept of friendship in real life. Our tango friends are warm and supportive and share with us an unspoken level of intimacy. Our dance connections can and will hold validity for years and years, even when we don't see people frequently, as when they live in a different city.

One might want to be mindful of certain level of dance hall distortion. Tango relationships rarely extend beyond the walls of the milonga. The segregation of real life and tango life can work in our favor in some cases, but it also has a downside.

The depth and quality of emotion that we experience on the dance floor gives the illusion of intimacy, of dedication, and abiding respect. But how deeply do those emotions run? Is the whole idea of dance connection a convenient mirage?

What would happen if you couldn't dance for some period of time? How would your tango friends react? You might not know if such separation has never occurred during your tango life. But that doesn't mean that it can't happen. Do you expect to interact with your tango friends if you are forced to step out of the tango world for a while? How long do you think that such an arrangement will last?


An Outsider's Perspective

Years ago, I found myself arguing this point with one of my non-tango friends. I had told her over dinner about my busy tango life. At the time, I was putting in a lot of tango hours each week, taking classes, going to milongas, practicing with dedicated partners, studying video, developing choreography, and working diligently on my own technique. I was dancing with hundreds of people every year, many of them people whom I had never met. I was making a lot of friends - or so I thought.

"They're not your friends," my friend said bluntly.

I was shocked. "What do you mean, they're not my friends? I see them all the time. We have a nice time together. They're good people; I know many of them quite well."

"They're not your friends," she repeated. "They act like your friends, because they get something from you," she argued. "The women get to dance with you, and the men hang out with you when they're out having fun."

"It's not like that," I explained.

"It is like that," she insisted. "You're not their friend. You're an enabler for their addiction."

"No! No! No!" I argued emphatically. "You're not part of the tango community. You don't understand how it really is."

My friend was unimpressed. We had to agree to disagree on this point.

Some years later, I scaled back my social dancing for a combination of personal and professional reasons. Guess what happened. I discovered that my friend's argument, the one that I tried to refute to her face, actually held merit. 

Once I stepped back from the tango scene, most of the "friendships" that I had developed over the years evaporated overnight. The only time I saw or heard from them was when I went out to an occasional dance. A handful of people did contact me in the early days of my social tango sabbatical, but most of the time, they were calling me to go out dancing. ("Are you coming to the milonga this weekend?" "Can you come out to watch me and my partner perform?" "Will you be my partner for this workshop?") Decline one or two of those invitations, and the phone stops ringing.

I had to face an uncomfortable truth. My tango friends were all nice people, but perhaps a bit less "friendly" than I had imagined. Where did they all go when my life faced challenges? 

Very few of them kept in touch to see how I was doing. They weren't around to cheer me up when I lost my job, for instance. They were blissfully unaware. I received no sympathy emails (or even texts) when I struggled with separate back, foot, and knee injuries. Everybody must have been out having fun at some milonga somewhere.

My non-tango friend was right, and I was wrong. I hate to be wrong.


Fluid Dynamics

Businessman and author Harvey Mackay once wrote: "Anyone who thinks he or she is indispensable should stick a finger in a bowl of water and notice the hole it leaves when the finger is pulled out."

The tango community has this kind of fluidity in its social dynamic. If you don't believe me, step away for a little while and watch what happens. Your friends will make new friends. Your favorite partners will hook up with new partners. (I had that happen to me once when I missed a single practica due to a bad cold.) 

That comfortable place where you feel appreciated and important, the whole scene that you know and love, it will move along quite nicely without you. No one there will spend more than the length of a song intro wondering what happened to you. If you aren't immediately available for next tanda, your friends are focusing on someone else.


Separation Anxiety

You don't have to take my word for it. At some point, life will probably force you to take a sabbatical from tango. You might need to deal with a health issue, a family matter, or a business or educational demand. Whatever it is, don't expect your tango friends to flock to your side. They have dancing to do.

One day, hopefully, you'll be able to return and enjoy some dancing again. The good news is that your old friends will still recognize you. They'll remember how nice it was to dance with you, and they'll enjoy having you back. That's the silver lining of the tango world: people never forget you as long as you're in the same room.

Your friends will almost certain ask you where you've been, but they'll do it in a very tango-centric way, as though you could not possibly have been doing something else. Here's the question that annoys me the most: "Where have you been dancing?"

"I haven't been dancing anywhere, you clueless nitwit! I have been taking care of myself, providing for my family, and tending of my responsibilities. I have been accomplishing things - important things - while you were wandering around in circles with strangers who pretend to actually care about you." - Yeah, I'd love to have the balls to say that one day.

Again, you don't have to take my word for it. But you might want to acknowledge that my semi-retirement from social dancing gives me a good vantage point on this issue. From where I'm standing, the tango scene does not seem as friendly as it did when I was a regular. If you have not yet spent some time outside of the elbow-to-elbow flux of weekly milongas, you have not yet seen the whole picture.

You may find that hard to believe - I would be surprised if you didn't - but I would encourage you to consider the possibility that what I am telling you is true. That way you won't be shocked one day when most of your tango friends vanish without a trace.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2017 The Exploring Tango Blog

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Effective Tango - Synchronization

Let's Get Together

One of the elements that makes the Argentine tango so beautiful is the level of synchronization between partners. When the leader and follower's movements are well synchronized - in terms of timing, energy, quality - their dance projects an intimate and appealing quality. They look as though they are enjoying each other, and they probably are.

On the other hand, when the synchronization is off, the dance looks awkward and tentative. There may be some stumbling and bumping, some stopping and starting and apologizing. When you watch a couple struggle like this, you can be pretty sure that they're not having a whole lot of fun.

How can you make synchronization work for you? How can you make your dance look smoother and more polished while having more fun with your partners?

First of all, you have to think about it. You can't just assume that things will take care of themselves. You have to be aware of timing - including the timing of the music. And you have to focus on this actively while you are dancing or practicing.


Leader Tips

If you're a leader, you have to know when you want to step. You have to know when you want your follower to step. And you have to communicate that timing information effectively through your lead. 

Also, please make sure that you always give the follower enough "lead time" to execute the movement. No one can move instantly. Communicate your intention early enough so she'll have time to respond to your cues.

How do you know if you're leading effectively? Because your follower is in sync with you. She moving precisely when and how you want her to! - Don't get discouraged. Practice makes perfect.


Follower Tips

Focus on the lead. Is the leader encouraging you to move not just in a particular direction, but at a precise instant in time? If he is giving you timing information, please don't ignore it. Feel it, embrace it, and work with it.

Oh, and I hate to say this, but it has to be said. Some leaders will NOT give you adequate timing information. They may be unaware that they should be doing so. In that case, try to execute all movements in time with the music. Hopefully, the leader is aiming to do the same, although that's not always the case (sadly).

Finally, it's never a good idea to perform any step automatically. If you do, you run the risk of ignoring the leader's timing suggestions, which will only discourage him. As an example, many followers get used to crossing at one speed and the cross at that speed all the time regardless of what they lead is communicating.

It helps to be a little obstinate as a follower. Think: "I'm not going to move unless you move me." Make the leader work for his dances.


The Music Factor

All of this is going to go much more smoothly if both partners are actively listening to the music and trying to move in concert with its rhythms and phrases. That said, musical interpretation and awareness is a big topic, and it's challenging for many people. But you can improve. The most important thing is to pay attention to the music while you are dancing. 

Let the orchestra be your tour guide as you travel around the floor. Those guys are working very hard to create beautiful music for you. Please do them - and your partner - a favor. Listen to that music. Find its timing and move with it instead of against it. Everyone will be happier. Even the people sitting and watching will be happier when you and your partner and the orchestra are all in sync.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

Copyright © 2017 The Exploring Tango Blog

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Blind: Strength In Vulnerability - A Review

Not Your Father's Tango Show

Forget about the bordellos and bar fights of Buenos Aires. You won't find them here. Rather than relying on familiar techniques and sentimental nostalgia, 'Blind: Strength In Vulnerability' forges ahead with a fresh new vision for tango performance in the Twenty-first Century. Unlike more traditional productions, 'Blind' is not a show ABOUT tango, but rather a conceptual view of human interaction told THROUGH the techniques and emotions of this highly expressive dance.

Presented on a minimalist stage with no props, except for two small chairs and elements of the dancers' clothing, 'Blind' unfolds as a series of abstract, geometrically choreographed sequences that explore the dynamics of intimacy and partnership, the highs and the lows, the pain and the joy, expectation and frustration. 

Created by dancers Diego Blanco and Ana Padron and their musical collaborator, bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo, 'Blind' offers a bold and exhilarating examination of life and connection through the art of dance.

To understand what 'Blind' is, we first must acknowledge what it's not. As mentioned above, this production is not nostalgic. It is not a costume piece, nor is it a showcase for technical brilliance. Each of the eight principal dancers is a brilliant performer in his or her own right, but technique is not the focus of the show. You will not walk out of 'Blind' mesmerized by the number of boleos and ganchos that someone managed to do in some small quantum of time. What will impress you is how well the dancers connected with one another. 'Blind' is a study of emotion rather than a frenzy of motion.

The surprising and well-conceived choreography unfolds in layers. The show opens with the most fundamental elements of Argentine Tango performed in daring fashion with geometric precision. Basic elements are then modified slowly and deliberately until increasingly complex variations emerge. At the highest level, the dancers perform the dazzling tricks and lifts of tango fantasia. But again, it's not about the technique; it's about the emotional interaction of the performers.

Those emotions are expressed most clearly in the featured duets. Each couple performs beautifully choreographed tango sequences. - There are multiple partner changes, so the show is not limited to four duets. - But the really fascinating elements of choreography happen in between the dances. I don't want to give anything away, but it's the quiet moments, the moments when the music isn't playing, that make 'Blind' so special.

The original music for the show, composed by Mr. Giraudo, is tasteful and elegant and follows the dynamic changes of the performances brilliantly. Mr. Giraudo brings a bassist's sensitivity to his compositions and arrangements. The music supports the conceptual motives of the production without ever getting in the way or taking focus away from the dancers. A+

I have only two minor criticisms/suggestions to share. First, I would have liked the show to have been a bit longer. One way to achieve this would have been to extend the same-sex sequences. These interactions were fascinating; I would have liked to have seen them developed further. Secondly, the ending came as a bit of a surprise. Initially, I thought that it was an intermission. Again, I believe that a slightly longer running time with a clearer build up would have helped.

'Blind' is an adventurous and enjoyable production. It's definitely not your father's tango show. It's bold. It's daring. It takes chances and delivers a satisfying emotional payoff. Sadly, the initial run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music has closed, but I hope that it will come back. It's well worth seeing. Kudos to the creators for avoiding clichés and bringing a new, exciting, visionary production to life. It's clear that 'Blind' was a labor of love. Mission accomplished. I loved it.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

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