dancing, that we'd see each dancing to a different style of music. So
forgive me Alexis at being perplexed with your response. I have been known
After seeing the discussions, I have that feeling that either those who
post on the subject had inadequate amount of exposure to different tango
in different communities, different places, people and therefore are not
really have the trained eye to differentiate (for the average Westerner
all Chinese look the same), or they have the problem of not even trying
to look.
We have made a small experiment with some tango teachers (who - even by
their own admission - have fairly similar styles and priorities) in Hungary:
The task was to do the same: lead simple backwards ochos (there was no
other desription of the task, to allow for personal differences to emerge).
The lady was the same girl for each leader. From the outside although it
was a general backward ocho there were major differences:
- in the way it was shaped (more linerar, more curved)
- in the way it was sized and moved (someone made it small, someone
bigger to allow for the girl to do larger twists; also someone made it
non-moving, someone moving slightly forwards for the leader, someone
played unconsciously or consciously with the directions)
- in the way it was felt by the follower (since she was a teacher she
could tell the formal differences, but she could also tell which leader
whe preferred and why - the quality and consistency of the connection
was an important factor)
- in the way the followers posture and ability to be technically perfect
was effected by the complex choices (or call it style) made by the leader
Based on the above we have tried and analyzed some more complex moves as
well. We have conluded that it is a very powerful tool to have people
show the differences, because then they understand that it is completely
normal to have their own style of dancing - even more: it is inevitable.
This liberates a lot of people and makes the process of improvization
and learning technique a lot more relaxed.
My observation is, that as you go up the tango scale, the differences
are getting huge. Many of the differences are ultimately linked to
personality shining through people's dancing (when technical
difficulties cease to be a problem, personality is taking over more and
more priorities), some of these are personal preferences, some of them
depend on the partner-combination, some the music, some the mood. Given
all this, I cannot possibily imagine that any good dancer's natural
style could match another's (if we rule out intentional copying - but
even then there will be differences: it will, in most cases, just look
like a caricature of the original).
Cheers,
Aron
Budapest, Hungary
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