Tom wrote: "As the organizer for the Denver & San Diego festivals, I can reassure you that the concept of festivals for social dancing remains: "By Dancers; for Dancers". The milongas are arranged for social dancing: good djs, rectangular dance floor with tables and chairs around the periphery, tandas of traditional social tango, and cortinas for partner changing."
One of the things I have always appreciated about the Denver festivals has to do with the geometry of the portable dance floors that Tom brings in to create nice milonga floors in carpeted hotel conference rooms. Tom, please correct my numbers if I'm off here, but the square components of these floors look like they measure three or four feet on a side, and they are edged with thin metal edges fit flush with the finished floor. As I navigate them, it's kind of comporting to know that these floor components make really nicely dimensioned "lanes" on the floor, complete with 90-degree turn angles, which approximate the 1-meter square "baldosa" tile idea commonly used when discussing "dense dancing" skills in BsAs milongas (i.e., "tango al baldosa"). Even though in BsAs it's often far more crowded than this (this past Sunday in Canning comes to mind) it still is a great visual aid and psychological support to reinforce the tendency to form lanes as crowding increases. As a local, I sometimes don't go to every Milonga at the festivals, so others who are complaining may be talking about events I didn't attend. But when I've been in attendance, my experience is that couples stayed within their lane as conveniently defined by these floor tiles, and at least where I was, everything flowed smoothly. Sometimes it got too dense for the lanes to be useful guides, but that level of crowding was sporadic and unevenly distributed, and in any case didn't last long. This clear lane specification really helps me relax as a leader, knowing that those around me are inhabiting a mutually understood, comfortably well-defined share of the immediate space, and as long as I and my partner also stay within our share/square, everybody wins. An additional benefit to this consistency in floor layout at the festival - learners who may struggtle with their first festival experience can take away an easily understood quantifiable goal for their tango navigation training for the next festival: Learn to dance comfortably and musically within a well-defined square, in whatever way you choose, gradually shade into using the next square as the ronda moves, and all dancers can expect an equal shot at tango happiness. All the best, Brian Dunn Dance of the Heart www.danceoftheheart.com "Building a Better World, One Tango at a Time" _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
