4418  Big toe lead

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:39:15 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Big toe lead
To: tango-l@mit.edu

I grew up in a neighborhood famous for tango, Villa Urquiza. One of my first
tango maestros was Jose Vazquez (Lampazo). He was well known as a dancer for
his elegance, his skill and his unique way of dancing milonga in the whole
city of Buenos Aires.

Lampazo started to dance in 1939 and continued to dance for most of his life
except for about 20 years (1953 t0 1972). He lived through the golden era of
tango and new the greatest dancers that ever existed such as Petroleo who
created many of the tango moves we use today such as the walked turn,
molinete, boleo, and the upright posture in contrast to the more flexed one
of the Cnyengue style.

In his time it was a custom to go to the practicas in other neighborhoods.
He along with a group of about 15 young men would go to the practica in
Villa Devoto every Monday, Wednesday and Friday . There they could see new
steps that they tried to copy.

After the practica they would gather at street corner in Villa Urquiza to
start changing the steps learned according to the personality of each one of
the dancers. Everyone danced in a different way .

In those days women did not go to the practicas so the creation was entirely
done by men among themselves. They continued to practice in the street
corner under the light lamp till the neighbors (bothered by the noise)
poured a bucket of water on them from a balcony by 2 or 3 am.

Lampazo liked to start dancing either with the usual side step to the left
or straight forward.

His lead to the lady to step back was to change weight in place: he would
put his body weight on his left foot, then on his right, then on his left
again, the woman followed accordingly changing her weight. Once his weight
was on the left foot the right was free to advance and the woman stepped
back with her left.

But he also liked to put his weight on his left foot and then advance his
right one slightly to gently touch the left shoe of the woman. In this way
he lead her to start walking backwards.

The process of changing weight in place was accompanied by a slight movement
of the upper body from side to side that was very characteristic of him and
elegant.

For the sake of this discussion I called that move "big toe lead".

Another time I will explain what I mean by using your leg to lead.

Best regards, Sergio

P.S. I only have a couple of days free right now.