Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
Manuel wrote: I've taught in many classes by having the people tap their foot to the strong beats in tango, I've had them snap their fingers and even clap their hands to the beat. They seem to get it, but immediately after the exercise, they dance completely off the beat. It's amazing really, More amazing is the number of class teachers that continue to use this bankrupt method even after having noticed how ineffective it is. I wish there was something that could be taken or inhaled to make the beat accessible to more people... There is such a thing, Manuel. It is called dancing. You dance with them. You feel the beat, they feel you, and through the connection they get to feel the beat. -- Chris ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
Hi, I believe you always need to take into account how much each person you are teaching actually knows and breathes music. There's a couple of aspects that are important to me: 1) A good leader should be able to interpret the music and dance accordingly. (let's assume for now that the person has basic skills to do that). One of the hardest part is to transmit that interpretation to the follower in a non-imposing way. It's hard to search for alternatives interpretations when it is not working with the follower while you are in the middle of the music. But that's why we need to practice more :-) Getting to know more and more the follower helps of course. 2) Interpreting music at a non-basic level. After a while it's easy to dance to the beat, as in a step in a beat or similar. The hard part is to start playing with the beat. This playing w/ the beat allows you to flow through the music and be creative and putting those flashy moves of 15 steps in a musical context. One can imprint a slight vals flavor in a normal 4/4 by swinging 3 on 1 beat or on 2. Why not go for 3 + 2 and get a salsa'esq flavor for an instant? When I started out I was amazed at how people could dance/ do moves not on the rhythm. But I've learned that definitely not a lot of people have the background experience to actually understand what's happening at a rhythmical level or even tonal or timbric. We're all different and we all can improve in multiple dimensions. The more we listen and dance, the better we will get at it. I've found that some followers don't enjoy so much as others when I play a bit and don't do a standard interpretation. Others say they love it. That's the tao of any human interaction I guess :-) I'll go back to lurking mode. peace b On 10/2/07, Tom Stermitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I understand there is a problem, but disagree that it has to be a problem. Argentine Tango seems so improvisational and flexible that you can't find the structure. Specifically, the phrasing structure of Tango is 4 +4=8. This is easy count and easy to match with simple steps. But when you have too many steps, you lose the musicality. That is why it is so hard to teach musicality to intermediate and advanced dancers. The cool thing is: IT IS VERY EASY TO TEACH MUSICALITY TO BEGINNERS. On Oct 2, 2007, at 12:40 PM, Endzone 102 wrote: On 10/2/07, Tom Stermitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Teaching Musicality. So, when I teach I am highly focused on showing the men where the beat is and where the musical phrasing is. Change the music, repeat and rinse. It takes repetition and time, as this is a strange foreign genre to most. Basically, if they don't know the music, then they have to be shown exactly where it is, and how to make their movements relate to it. Musicality is when your energy matches the musical energy, the surge at the beginning of the phrase, the suspension at the end, the flow and wave of the waltz, the staccatto of D'Arienzo, the walk of Di Sarli, the drama of Pugliese. This tends to be the thing I find most guys around here struggle with. In ballroom dances, there's a known timing that you can find in the music. With Argentine Tango, there isn't. AT is more about feeling the music. That's a difficult concept to get across sometimes, especially when you're also trying to teach them how tango works. This gets more problematic when the music branches out away from traditional tango music. -Greg G ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
[Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
Hello All, This is my first time posting... I don't like to be considered someone that lurks on the list without ever responding back... yes, I'm a bit of a voyeur. I enjoyed the Heel-Toe discussion that went on for far too long, etc. and was a bit dismayed that more of a discussion about perverts didn't linger longer. Such are the whims of a discussion list. Also, thankfully, most of us just have better things to do... like DANCE. But I thought I'd give my answer to your question, Igor. When I first started dancing tango a lot of women were nice and a lot weren't so nice to me. They have the basic societal issue of competition and were none too pleased there was yet another female to contend with. An attractive female the men wanted to dance with (no matter how unskilled I was) didn't help matters. I purposefully go out of my way to make sure that women, and especially attractive women, feel welcome and warm and accepted because of my lukewarm reception when I first started. I genuinely am happy to have them -- BTW, it doesn't matter what size you are, how old you are, how much money you have, etc. to be attractive. Just making the effort to look your best is all. Here I am, a woman, about to tell you what I think men are up to. Sorry to burst some of your bubbles... we women are smarter than we look. We also may not be exactly right in all cases so this is just my opinion. Thanks for allowing me to share it. Basically, men want to dance with attractive women that smell nice, are good conversationalists, etc. and make them feel good about themselves. When a guy is new, he doesn't have a clue about the proper embrace. A strong lead can take an inexperienced woman and make her look and FEEL great. A weak lead feels completely intimidated and like a blubbering idiot. I have over many years invited, coerced and bribed (with the promise of a date, if you will, for some fellow that actually learned tango) many men to visit our community with the goal of adding them to the Argentine Tango herd. I have grabbed them from West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, Country/Western and my former boyfriend (before Tango became my boyfriend), Salsa. I've given free lessons, cheap lessons and encouraged them to go someplace else for group or private lessons, etc. They're consensus? Gosh, I hope you're sitting down. They didn't like the music. Okay, there, I've said it. Please don't get all your tailfeathers ruffled over yet another discussion about traditional, alternative, neo, nuevo, etc. on me. This isn't about that well-worn topic. Of the 40 or so men, NONE liked the music. They danced the other stuff because it was what they could hear a beat to, or dance to without thinking or whatever. What does that tell me? These guys dance to get laid. The go to hold women. They're doing the same thing many of us single people are doing: they're looking for love. My fault that I didn't find a dancer amongst them -- I just didn't get that right! Our AT is much more sacred than that. We cull the herd of the players pretty easily and quickly. You MUST become obsessed with the dance and to many of the men, they know they're goal was to meet a chick and move on to other things. How many of us know of a particular guy or gal that once they found someone (in whatever dance form / style it happened to be) they NEVER went to tango anymore? I can think of 3 couples from my former AT community. How many of us know a guy in our communities right now that really only dances tango as a means to find yet another vulnerable, gullible woman he has absolutely no intention of developing anything more serious with than an affair because he is a MILONGUERO in the worst possible way? And we let them do it because, dammit, they're good dancers! Don't blame them. They have a goal. They've succeeded. I always am excited when I meet a man that hasn't danced anything. He doesn't have any preconceived notions. These are our victims (oops, I mean... targets... oops, I mean... people of interest to focus our recruiting goals on). We come to tango for many reasons. We are the lucky ones that, for whatever reason we came to tango, FOUND tango. Who cares about finding the other things? Perhaps, we reason, we'll eventually find that. It is no longer the goal if it ever was. When I was a cocktail waitress, in those crazy times known as the 80's, one particular evening a man, shirt open to the navel, hairy chest, gold chains, was talking up some women in my section. I came to their rescue and explained that since he came over to meet the women and he'd done just that, he should now move on. Well, he went and complained to the Owner (not just a bartender or manager, mind you -- I really ticked him off). The owner had a bit of a talk with me but did an about face when I simply explained to
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
On Oct 2, 2007, at 10:34 AM, Darlene Robertson wrote: Hello All, ... I have over many years invited, coerced and bribed (with the promise of a date, if you will, for some fellow that actually learned tango) many men to visit our community with the goal of adding them to the Argentine Tango herd. I have grabbed them from West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, Country/Western and my former boyfriend (before Tango became my boyfriend), Salsa. I've given free lessons, cheap lessons and encouraged them to go someplace else for group or private lessons, etc. They're consensus? Gosh, I hope you're sitting down. They didn't like the music. Okay, there, I've said it. Please don't get all your tailfeathers ruffled over yet another discussion about traditional, alternative, neo, nuevo, etc. on me. This isn't about that well-worn topic. Of the 40 or so men, NONE liked the music. They danced the other stuff because it was what they could hear a beat to, or dance to without thinking or whatever. What does that tell me? These guys dance to get laid. The go to hold women. They're doing the same thing many of us single people are doing: they're looking for love. My fault that I didn't find a dancer amongst them -- I just didn't get that right! Abrazos, Darlene Thanks for this Darlene, I liked all your comments, but in particular you make an important point that so many men DON'T LIKE THE MUSIC (at first, I presume). This is strongly related to the other two points: LACK OF CONFIDENCE and RETENTION OF GUYS. I define advanced tango as simple things done well, but that is also a definition of confident tango. We've been throwing around the terms feminine and masculine, and those are useful but loaded terms. A more specific and easier to address issue is to address CONFIDENCE or lack thereof. Yes, tango requires masculine guys, but at the basic level it isn't that these guys aren't masculine. They feel tentative because they aren't confident. Tango requires (the follower requires), that the man proposes an idea, a step a sequence of steps or whatever. This is daunting for the men at first, and the crux of the problem is confidence vs uncertainty. I've taught for ten years, which is important because I've tried and abandoned many things with a specific goal of creating better retention of the men. Women are important, but they have more patience, can learn quickly in privates, and in general have an easier time with tangoat the beginning. Retain the men, and we'll retain the women. In my experience, the single most important driver for retaining the guys is whether they feel confident. Secondly, the foundation for confidence is understanding the music. You can draw a big fat arrow: MUSICALITY = CONFIDENCE = RETENTION = HAPPY WOMEN. Teaching Musicality. So, when I teach I am highly focused on showing the men where the beat is and where the musical phrasing is. Change the music, repeat and rinse. It takes repetition and time, as this is a strange foreign genre to most. Basically, if they don't know the music, then they have to be shown exactly where it is, and how to make their movements relate to it. Musicality is when your energy matches the musical energy, the surge at the beginning of the phrase, the suspension at the end, the flow and wave of the waltz, the staccatto of D'Arienzo, the walk of Di Sarli, the drama of Pugliese. Confidence is when you just know what to do in your bones. I'm sometimes accused of just teaching walking because I present tango steps or vocabulary more slowly than some teachers, but that is a misunderstanding because I'm teaching a MUSICAL way of walking, which some might call dancing. It is no wonder that some dancers like alternative music because they can hear it, move to it be inspired by it. Watch a North American dance to blues or RB. That is the music of our people; it makes sense to us, we can just feel what to do. In fact I use alternative precisely for this quality of creating confidence... Hmmm, I guess I CAN dance. Teaching steps. Steps? Steps don't equal tango; steps are just the things you do once you know tango. This is perhaps why in Argentina you can start with the steps. Culturally, they already know tango, what is sounds like, looks like, feels like, so they just need to know what to do. I know, you have teachers who present lots and lots of steps. This is so typical of new teachers and Intermediate dancers. Let me show you! This is an ocho, this is a volcada, this is a shoe shine, this is a whoop-de-do. They are teaching at the level they are learning, not the level where a beginner is learning. Teaching lots of steps keeps the guys in a constant state of un- confidence and un-ability. It is deceptive, perhaps. They feel like they are learning, and maybe they keep taking classes always seeking
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
This guy says, I'm perfect for you, 'cause I'm a cross between a macho man and a sensitive man. I said, Oh, a gay trucker? [] Judy Tenuta At 11:33 AM 10/2/2007, Tom Stermitz wrote: On Oct 2, 2007, at 10:34 AM, Darlene Robertson wrote: Hello All, ... I have over many years invited, coerced and bribed (with the promise of a date, if you will, for some fellow that actually learned tango) many men to visit our community with the goal of adding them to the Argentine Tango herd. I have grabbed them from West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, Country/Western and my former boyfriend (before Tango became my boyfriend), Salsa. I've given free lessons, cheap lessons and encouraged them to go someplace else for group or private lessons, etc. They're consensus? Gosh, I hope you're sitting down. They didn't like the music. Okay, there, I've said it. Please don't get all your tailfeathers ruffled over yet another discussion about traditional, alternative, neo, nuevo, etc. on me. This isn't about that well-worn topic. Of the 40 or so men, NONE liked the music. They danced the other stuff because it was what they could hear a beat to, or dance to without thinking or whatever. What does that tell me? These guys dance to get laid. The go to hold women. They're doing the same thing many of us single people are doing: they're looking for love. My fault that I didn't find a dancer amongst them -- I just didn't get that right! Abrazos, Darlene Thanks for this Darlene, I liked all your comments, but in particular you make an important point that so many men DON'T LIKE THE MUSIC (at first, I presume). This is strongly related to the other two points: LACK OF CONFIDENCE and RETENTION OF GUYS. I define advanced tango as simple things done well, but that is also a definition of confident tango. We've been throwing around the terms feminine and masculine, and those are useful but loaded terms. A more specific and easier to address issue is to address CONFIDENCE or lack thereof. Yes, tango requires masculine guys, but at the basic level it isn't that these guys aren't masculine. They feel tentative because they aren't confident. Tango requires (the follower requires), that the man proposes an idea, a step a sequence of steps or whatever. This is daunting for the men at first, and the crux of the problem is confidence vs uncertainty. I've taught for ten years, which is important because I've tried and abandoned many things with a specific goal of creating better retention of the men. Women are important, but they have more patience, can learn quickly in privates, and in general have an easier time with tangoat the beginning. Retain the men, and we'll retain the women. In my experience, the single most important driver for retaining the guys is whether they feel confident. Secondly, the foundation for confidence is understanding the music. You can draw a big fat arrow: MUSICALITY = CONFIDENCE = RETENTION = HAPPY WOMEN. Teaching Musicality. So, when I teach I am highly focused on showing the men where the beat is and where the musical phrasing is. Change the music, repeat and rinse. It takes repetition and time, as this is a strange foreign genre to most. Basically, if they don't know the music, then they have to be shown exactly where it is, and how to make their movements relate to it. Musicality is when your energy matches the musical energy, the surge at the beginning of the phrase, the suspension at the end, the flow and wave of the waltz, the staccatto of D'Arienzo, the walk of Di Sarli, the drama of Pugliese. Confidence is when you just know what to do in your bones. I'm sometimes accused of just teaching walking because I present tango steps or vocabulary more slowly than some teachers, but that is a misunderstanding because I'm teaching a MUSICAL way of walking, which some might call dancing. It is no wonder that some dancers like alternative music because they can hear it, move to it be inspired by it. Watch a North American dance to blues or RB. That is the music of our people; it makes sense to us, we can just feel what to do. In fact I use alternative precisely for this quality of creating confidence... Hmmm, I guess I CAN dance. Teaching steps. Steps? Steps don't equal tango; steps are just the things you do once you know tango. This is perhaps why in Argentina you can start with the steps. Culturally, they already know tango, what is sounds like, looks like, feels like, so they just need to know what to do. I know, you have teachers who present lots and lots of steps. This is so typical of new teachers and Intermediate dancers. Let me show you! This is an ocho, this is a volcada, this is a shoe shine, this is a whoop-de-do. They are teaching at the level they are learning, not the level where a beginner is learning. Teaching lots of steps keeps the guys in a constant state of un- confidence and un-ability. It is deceptive, perhaps. They feel like
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
On 10/2/07, Tom Stermitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Teaching Musicality. So, when I teach I am highly focused on showing the men where the beat is and where the musical phrasing is. Change the music, repeat and rinse. It takes repetition and time, as this is a strange foreign genre to most. Basically, if they don't know the music, then they have to be shown exactly where it is, and how to make their movements relate to it. Musicality is when your energy matches the musical energy, the surge at the beginning of the phrase, the suspension at the end, the flow and wave of the waltz, the staccatto of D'Arienzo, the walk of Di Sarli, the drama of Pugliese. This tends to be the thing I find most guys around here struggle with. In ballroom dances, there's a known timing that you can find in the music. With Argentine Tango, there isn't. AT is more about feeling the music. That's a difficult concept to get across sometimes, especially when you're also trying to teach them how tango works. This gets more problematic when the music branches out away from traditional tango music. -Greg G ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
I understand there is a problem, but disagree that it has to be a problem. Argentine Tango seems so improvisational and flexible that you can't find the structure. Specifically, the phrasing structure of Tango is 4 +4=8. This is easy count and easy to match with simple steps. But when you have too many steps, you lose the musicality. That is why it is so hard to teach musicality to intermediate and advanced dancers. The cool thing is: IT IS VERY EASY TO TEACH MUSICALITY TO BEGINNERS. On Oct 2, 2007, at 12:40 PM, Endzone 102 wrote: On 10/2/07, Tom Stermitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Teaching Musicality. So, when I teach I am highly focused on showing the men where the beat is and where the musical phrasing is. Change the music, repeat and rinse. It takes repetition and time, as this is a strange foreign genre to most. Basically, if they don't know the music, then they have to be shown exactly where it is, and how to make their movements relate to it. Musicality is when your energy matches the musical energy, the surge at the beginning of the phrase, the suspension at the end, the flow and wave of the waltz, the staccatto of D'Arienzo, the walk of Di Sarli, the drama of Pugliese. This tends to be the thing I find most guys around here struggle with. In ballroom dances, there's a known timing that you can find in the music. With Argentine Tango, there isn't. AT is more about feeling the music. That's a difficult concept to get across sometimes, especially when you're also trying to teach them how tango works. This gets more problematic when the music branches out away from traditional tango music. -Greg G ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
Thanks for recognizing the point I wanted to make. Let's start with confidence, and then masculine might mean something additional. That additional could be very interesting, but I think it is more subtle, complicated and cultural. Confidence as a foundation allows us to go on to other aspects of masculinity. Also, Femininity isn't about sugar and spice and pinkness. It is more of a diva-like quality. But, that is a different topic maybe. On Oct 2, 2007, at 1:07 PM, Caroline Polack wrote: So, essentially, weakness in leading is not masculine. Lack of confidence is not masculine. Worse of all are leaders who can't stop apologizing. Please just cut that out. A simple squeeze or stroke is more than apology enough. ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective - strong lead, no arms, etc.
--- Darlene Robertson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When a guy is new, he doesn't have a clue about the proper embrace. A strong lead can take an inexperienced woman and make her look and FEEL great. A weak lead feels completely intimidated and like a blubbering idiot. Shudder. There's that phrase strong lead, again! I was too busy to put in my 2 cents worth last week, so here it is. Choosing words is extremely important since they can connote different things to different people. I find that strong implies the use of strength, which is something I dislike in a lead. Tell a beginning male that a lead needs to be strong and he's likely to think of pulling or pushing the woman into place. (And it can suggest to the woman that she needs to be pushed into place.) A clear lead is what is needed and connotes a better sense of the masculinity desired in tango (as opposed to a big bruiser of a linebacker, for example). What is a clear lead? It's simply when every part of the man tell the woman the same thing. His chest, his arms, his hands, his earlobes, etc. send her the same message. This is masculine. This is not the wishy washiness of the chest saying one thing and the arms saying another thing and the hands saying yet something else. Which is why leading with no arms is helpful as an exercise. It's hard for men to learn to control different body parts all at once. Much easier for them to master control over their chest first if they also don't have to worry about their arms and their hands. Trini de Pittsburgh PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburghs most popular social dance! http://patangos.home.comcast.net/ Check out the hottest 2008 models today at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective
Hi Greg, I'm always puzzled by statements such as yours. I appreciate your contribution and courage to post your opinion, but I have to wonder what tango music you are talking about Maybe you are trying to find a steady, easy to follow beat to the music of Hugo Diaz' harmonica Otherwise I cannot believe that you can say that there is no known timing in Argentine tango music. ...The beat of danceable tango music is so pronounced and overpowering that you have to dance rhythmically The 4x4 and 2x4 of the tango is incredibly strong. Milonga and vals are also extremely rhythmical and the beat or timing is very easy to feel... Still, I do believe you. I've met a number of guys and women who have the hardest time finding the rhythm of the tango. I don't know what it is, but some folks just have a hard time with music... I've taught in many classes by having the people tap their foot to the strong beats in tango, I've had them snap their fingers and even clap their hands to the beat. They seem to get it, but immediately after the exercise, they dance completely off the beat. It's amazing really, I wish there was something that could be taken or inhaled to make the beat accessible to more people... Please, try listening to Rodriguez of the 50's, Darienzo from the 30's and 40's, and definitely good old Di Sarli from the 50's. If you don't hear the the timing pretty soon, please go to some teachers and ask them to work with you to help you find and use the beat of the tango. I guarantee you that there is so much rhythm in tango that it's practically impossible to ignore. Cheers, Manuel visit our webpage www.tango-rio.com Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 14:40:23 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This tends to be the thing I find most guys around here struggle with. In ballroom dances, there's a known timing that you can find in the music. With Argentine Tango, there isn't. AT is more about feeling the music. That's a difficult concept to get across sometimes, especially when you're also trying to teach them how tango works. This gets more problematic when the music branches out away from traditional tango music. -Greg G ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
