Microwavable Culture of Learning

I know very well that you know very well that BAD TANGO is ubiquitous now these days. The tanguero-bloggers have always discussed these things.

Even so, these adverts/messages make me FURIOUS. The microwavable culture - bung it in the oven for 2 mins and you can cook anything - sort of attitude is just NOT acceptable when it comes to learning. Nobody can "master" anything in 1 lesson and all of these polluters of Argentine Tango (and other dances too) are trying to give the impression to people that one lesson is enough to acquire steps and display competence.

Anyone who thinks they can go straight into an advance class without having done at the very least 3 years of Argentine Tango should be __________. (I will leave this last word up to the imagination of the reader.)

See this e-mail below, addressed to subscribers of a latin bar that holds latin dance classes every night.

It makes me sick and these people should be thrashed into pieces by Alejandra Hobert's lethal voleos (with ice-pick stilettos)!!!!!! Then they'll learn the true consequence of "kicks & flicks".


Hi Everyone,

Just a very quick reminder that it’s hot and steamy Argentine Tango tonight at ******** (I've omitted the name) . We’ve got a great set of moves that we’ll be taking a look at that will produce a fabulous-looking addition to your portfolio.

No experience necessary, we always start with the basic 8 and add a different move each week. A partner would be useful, but not necessary.

Starts 8:00pm – 8:30pm with kicks and flicks for those who want to include that extra something in their dance followed at 8:30pm – 9:30pm with the general class session. 9:30pm – 10:15pm practice (practica), followed by candle-lit social dance (milonga) until midnight. £4.50 pp for one class, £8 pp for both.

Embelishments

I'm sure that the comparison has probably been made. So there you go:

Embelishments (or adornos in Castellano) are like icing on the cake.
- No icing, the cake can still be excellent, depending on the quality.
- Too much icing and the cake become sickly and unpalatable, even if the core is excellent.

Think about this when you set your feet in the dancefloor.

Dancing with beginners

I was inspired by Sorin's post about how beginners decide between a good dancer and the "good-dancers-that-only-look-good-to-beginners". It inspired me to write on how to dance with a beginner if you're a bit more experienced.
Not so long ago I saw an experienced dancer teaching an absolute beginner how to do a gancho. Now, this is like teaching a child that has never rode a bike to go downhill on a steep, rocky mountain. This person should be liable for any damages that this helpless beginner is going to do. I am not going to go into technicalities on how to lead or follow a gancho because that is NOT the reason why this blog exists. But needless to say that, if you're dancing with a beginner or even a post-beginner, DO NOT lead ganchos or any complex movements that will confuse this poor person.
If you dance with a beginner, walk to the music, keep it simple, make the beginner know how it acutally feels to dance to the music. You'll be doing a great job! A fantastic job! And if you think that dancing with a beginner is boring because they can only do a handful of things then you should (1) re-think why you're dancing and (2) lead SIMPLE things. Walking on the beat, front ochos, back ochos, crosses... These are all things that beginners should be doing and perfecting. Remember, when dancing with a beginner you're being responsible for the education of someone. Would you like to teach 5th grade stuff to someone who has just entered 1st grade?

Web 2.0 generation of tango

I remember that when I started tango the only way to see the top couples dancing was by having them to come to your place for tutoring and the occasional demo. Nowadays, full classes, demos and interviews are only a click away in Youtube or something like that.
Is this good? In a way, it allows tangoers to see more styles and more moves and it broadens their horizonts. However, it has the other side of the coin:
1 - you get more and more people trying to learn complicated steps online before they know how to walk properly, ignoring basic concepts that underlie those same steps they want to learn.
2 - you start getting Chicho's or Pablo Verón wannabes. Now, I have seen Chicho dancing in milongas and he doesn't do a 100th of the fantasia steps that he does on his demos. Wannabes do not understand this and they are the reason why some milongas get craply rated.
3 - Having seen 100 times you favourite dancer and trying to mimmick all his moves doesn't make you like him. It makes you a cheap imitation.


In conclusion, watch the videos in youtube from your idols but remember - be yourself when you dance rather than a regurgitation of somebody else.

Making tango a protected brand!

The popularity of Champagne has been great ever since the monks in France decided to reveal their experiments with wine. The result of that popularity was an opportunistic and thriving copy-cat of wines made by the same method. As a result, the French reserved the right to call Champagne only to wines produced within the region of Champagne. All the others had to be called something else: sparkling wine, or Cava, Spumantti, Espumante...

Like those Sparkling wines, ballroom tango was allowed to carry the word “tango”. Now this is annoying and makes it extremely misleading, leading lay people to think that tango is danced as if someone had something stuck up the back-passage at the same time that bites a rose. I don’t blame them, - that’s what comes on blockbuster films!

On top of this, there is a proliferation of (so called) Argentine Tango schools teaching this dance in a set of choreographed moves. They even have number for the moves and the other day I heard that someone knows as far as move number 8! Tango Lego MUST be eradicated! The soul of tango is in the pure improvisation.

These are the reasons why the tango community should try to protect the Argentine Tango brand. To protect Tango from those who only want to make money out of it. How would this be done? Creating a Think Tank? Any ideas?

Post Scriptum - Straight after writing this post i found this post by mshedgehog that goes in phase with what has been written here. Pure coincidence but it shows that more people are worried about this matter!

Tango LEGO

When I started tango I wasn’t so into going to dance in different places; I was quite happy in Edinburgh, I knew most people, had a regular group of people that knew enjoyed dancing with me and was generally confident. But my (full) time at Edinburgh drew to an end and, back in Braga, Portugal, I was getting cold turkeyed. So I decided to go to a milonga in Porto, about an hour drive and check out the scene.

I went in, the organisers greeted me, asked me about me, offered me a espresso and I went to sit quite happily. I stayed watching for a little bit and I was very confused. Everybody seemed to dance the same way! Everybody were copies of one another dressed in different bodies. The same ganchos, the same giros, the same embrace. Back in Edinburgh it’s the opposite. Even people that learn in the same place have different styles, different ways of walking, different solutions to get in and out of the dancing line. I asked somebody to dance and was again quite horrified when people did not understand a simple front ocho with a pasada. The simplest of things and they didn’t know how to follow it, even worse, they said that didn’t know what to do! I went home horrified that I had been learning the bad tango, that the last year and a half was hopeless.

It took me some time (weeks), but I soon realised that instead of dancing with an emphasis on the walk and on pure improvisation of movements derived from the walk, what these people were being taught was sets of moves that were pre-rehearsed and could be stuck one after the other, pretty much like a LEGO puzzle. LEGO tango? No thanks.

An example on how not to dance tango.

The music is shite, the dance is shite and those (pseudo) back ochos... Gosh, there is just so much bad tango going on that you have to see it with your own eyes (from Fishnets and Fedoras)