2000  anatomy

Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:14:08 -0600
From: "Frank G. Williams" <frankw@MAIL.AHC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: anatomy

Trini de Pittsburgh writes:

>>My theory is that few of us know how to use our bodies

in the way it was designed (hence, our aches & pains
in common tasks). So when someone says to walk a
certain way, we don't have any basis for understanding
whether doing so makes sense anatomically. So we make
things, such as learning tango, more difficult than necessary.<<

In this, I do not mean to comment on the general value
of teaching paradigms for movement. What you think
helps you probably does help you. That said, if *anatomical*
analyses of movement were useful, I'd be a much better
dancer...

Except for your ankles, the base of your skull and an
adaptation in your pelvis, you are pretty much designed
to be a quadruped. On the face of it, being a quadruped
would make tango about twice as difficult and half as much fun.
The anatomy of the human ankle suggests that in the murky
pre-Neanderthal past, the pressures of natural selection that
have shaped our bodies may have preferred early Cajun/African
dancers over early ballerinas. In ballet, the tarsal bones are
(approx.) vertical whereas in the Cajun/African dances they
are approximately parallel to the ground. The tarsal bones
of the horse (for example) are vertical to the ground like the
ballerina's but alas, the pre-ballerina was apparently cheated
by natural selection in a way that the prehistoric horse was not. [Perhaps
pre-ballerinas were easier prey for the
sabertooth tiger than were the Cajun/African dancers or horses].
Yet, the 'unnatural' craft of ballet survives to this day.

Tangueras who approach the tarsal angle of the ballerina
with their high heels and diminutive toe profiles, are NOT
dancing in the way nature intended. I for one am glad because,
as Martha Graham knew, nature's way is BAREFOOT.
I think I speak on behalf of all tangueros, everywhere,
when I say, "Thank YOU, tangueras, for your high idealism
and for wearing some of the sexiest footwear ever."
How many times have I heard it murmured in the milonga,
"Mmmmm, she has n-i-c-e hocks!"???

With less tongue in cheek... The human vertebral column
is nearly identical to the quadrupeds', who patented the design as a
suspension arch below which the organs hang. Poor quadrupeds, they almost
never do ochos. Yet no matter how we enjoy them, this torsion of the spine
is not very 'natural'. Note that a good
range of contrabody rotation is very rare in tango beginners.
Experienced (& classically trained) tango dancers such as Florencia T.,
Corina dlR., and Milena P., among others, have become wary of the
repetitive stress on their backs caused by over-rotation.

Some movements are anatomically impossible. Some movements
are merely anatomically challenging. For those we have Tango Nuevo.

Dance it with care and in good taste.

Frank G. Williams, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota
612-625-6441

Department of Neuroscience
6-145 Jackson Hall
321 Church Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Department of Veterinary Pathobiology
205 Veterinary Science
1971 Commonwealth Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55108