3984  AT and ballroom

Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 07:08:06 EST
From: LGMoseley@AOL.COM
Subject: AT and ballroom

--- Rain 4est <bailartangos@YAHOO.COM> escribis:

> Just for the sake of argument, if you dance Tango,
> you're pretty much dancing
> one dance, the whole night long.
> .
> If you're dancing ballroom, you're typically
> dancing as many different dances as you have fingers
> on your hands.
> .
> R4

I dance both. With ballroom, at a social dance you would probably do Waltz,
Foxtrot, Quickstep, Ballroom Tango, Cha Cha Cha, Rumba, Samba, Jive in the
main. That is 8 dances. With Tango Argentino, although to the untutored eye it
looks as though you are doing the same dance all night long, in fact, the
apparently same dance is different with each piece of music, each orchestra, each
partner, and with your mood as well. That gives one an incalculably large
range of of choices.

Compare dancing to Orchesta Tipica Victor, wiht dancing to Pugliese or
Piazzolla - three different experiences, even if they are playing the same number.
Compare dancing with an inexperienced and unbalanced dancer to dancing with
someone who has balance and poise. Different dances.

Of course that is true only if you are dancing AT as a creative dance at
which the leader can change his mind, not for each figure, but for each
individual step, and the follower can express her preferences through the subtle
communication that AT develops. If you are trying to do AT only with fixed
figures, then in effect you are doing only a variation on ballroom dancing, and you
have imposed the same limitation on yourself.

Many ballroom couples have 'their' figures, which are hard to dance with a
new and unknown partner. It is often the case that the lady learns the figures
more readily than does the man, and effectively leads from in front. One of
my commonest experiences at the end of an introductory AT workshop, attended
by several long-serving ballroom couple, is for the lady to come up to us and
say "Thanks. We have been dancing together for 10 (15. 20..) years, and today
is the first time that he has led me."

Of course, there are also Vals and Milonga.

Of course, none of this shows that either or ballroom or AT is better. They
are not. They are just different forms of dancing. It does not, however, help
someone who is thinking of starting AT to be told that it is "the same dance
all night long". Anyone who thinks that does not understand what Tango is
really like.

Laurie (Laurence)