Lisa Battan writes: >I want my partner to be musical (rhythmic), relaxed, >forward thinking, clear and energetic in his movements, >grounded, connected and dynamic (to name a few).
This is a nice list to start off with, but not exactly what I had in mind when I asked what you want people to do. What I meant was more like: I want my partner to dance in a way that permits me to listen to the music. The music tells me when to step, but many men will lead me to step when the music says otherwise. Resisting the lead so that I can step when the music says so only makes the men push harder. I have to ignore the music in order follow these men. Or maybe you mean: The men all walk on the beat, but they're not paying attention to the music. For example, they keep moving after the end of the song. In D'Arienzo's "Esta Noche Me Emborracho Bien" there's a break, but the guys just keep moving as if the break wasn't there. Or take Pugliese's "Pata Ancha." They're not adjusting to the change in tempo or the switch of the accent from the downbeat (beats 1 and 3 in a 4/4 measure) to the upbeat (beats 2 and 4). In order for the men to dance the way you want, they need three things: knowledge, ability, and motivation. They need to know what you want done and how it's done. They need to be able to do it. (For example, you want them to pivot, but they're wearing gummy-soled sneakers that really grip the floor. They're not going to pivot.) And they have to want to do it. For them to be motivated: They have to value the reward. The reward is conditional. They believe they can perform the task. In the work world the reward is money, and most people value money. In the tango world the reward might be the ego boost from executing fancy moves, or it might be holding your body next to theirs. Let's say the reward is foie gras but they hate liver of any kind no matter how expensive; they won't be motivated. The reward is conditional means that they get the reward if and only if they perform the desired behavior. If they get to hold your body next to theirs no matter how badly they dance, they won't be motivated. If they think you're going to spend all your time holding your body next to that tall gorgeous smiling stud muffin no matter how well they dance, they won't be motivated. If everybody tells them they have a great sense of rhythm and they expect to get the reward, they will be motivated. If everybody tells them they're dancing off beat and they expect not to get the reward, they will not be motivated. Training can provide them with knowledge and ability. Afterwards, motivation becomes important. For the first item on your list, "musical (rhythmic)," I would say that it has a hierarchical or pyramidal nature. The following schema/structure/paradigm/framework is something I just made up. Feel free to criticize it. In matching movement to music, I would say there are two sets of abilities. The first set, at the foundation of the pyramid, is the mechanical ability to walk to the beat of the music. The second set is interpretive and takes into account everything in the song, not just the location of the strong beats. At the bottom of the first set is the ability march to the beat of a metronome. If a person can't do that, it's a really bad sign. Next is the ability to march to the beat of a song that has steady regular beats and emphasizes the strong beats. Next is taking two steps where you normally take one, sometimes called "syncopated." Now, please don't tell me that that's not what "syncopated" means in music. I already know. Next is the ability to march to songs of different tempos. For faster tempos this means taking smaller steps. For slower tempos this means moving slower. A good test is dancing to Di Sarli's "Bahia Blanca." A more extreme test is dancing in slow motion to Piazzolla's "Oblivion." At the bottom of the second set is the ability to stop when the music stops. Almost everyone can tell when the song is about to end, even the guys who don't walk on the beat; so this shouldn't be a problem. What comes next I'm unsure of, maybe everything else. I guess the way to teach interpretation is to teach a lot of possibilities and then just let people do what feels right to them. Most people, when they dance D'Arienzo, step on each strong beat. Jorge Torres has an interesting way of dancing D'Arienzo. He dances slowly. He's still stepping on a strong beat, but he doesn't step on each strong beat. At the end of most tangos is a section called variacion where the number of notes doubled. In other words, if in the previous section the notes were eighths, in the variacion the notes are sixteenths. In reaction to this one could do giros, stepping on both strong and weak beats. Often in the middle of the song there's a section called fraseo that does the same thing. During a pause or rest, one could freeze one's movement at the last note to emphasize the pause. (Of course one would have to know ahead of time that a particular note was followed by a pause.) Floorcraft should be learnt before worrying about interpretation. What can be done on the dance floor is constrained by the environment of the dance floor. For example, the waltz tells me to fly down the line of dance, but the person in front of me is stationary. I have to do something else instead. Or maybe the tango tells me that now would be a good time to pause and do adornos, but the person behind me is tailgating. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l