860 Inner Essences of Tango
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 11:29:01 -0600
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Inner Essences of Tango
In reading through the recent discussions about musicality, connection,
etc. I beginning to think that teachers can easily fall into traps by
trying to teach an inner essence of tango, such as connection, musicality
and improvisation. How does teaching these concepts become a trap? When a
teacher uses extensive class time trying to convey their own understanding
of an inner essence, they are likely to be wasting their own efforts and
their students time. The students must find these essences for themselves
to understand and appreciate how these essential elements work in the
dance.
You can teach people the mechanics of a good embrace, and tell them about
connection, but they have to find the connection in their own hearts and
souls. You can teach people the basic rhythmic elements of tango movement,
and suggest ways to interpret the music, but they have to find the musical
expression in themselves You can teach people elemental tango movements,
and tell the dance is improvisational, but they have to discover how to
recombine the elements themselves.
With regards to all,
Steve (de Tejas)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 11:23:59 -0800
From: Jim Maes <dancetango@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Re: Inner Essences of Tango
>The students must find these essences for themselves
>to understand and appreciate how these essential elements work in the
>dance.
>
>You can teach people the mechanics of a good embrace, and tell them about
>connection, but they have to find the connection in their own hearts and
>souls. You can teach people the basic rhythmic elements of tango movement,
>and suggest ways to interpret the music, but they have to find the musical
>expression in themselves You can teach people elemental tango movements,
>and tell the dance is improvisational, but they have to discover how to
>recombine the elements themselves.
Teaching this kind of stuff is difficult to a general audience. Remember
that there are new movements towards "New age" "Enlightenment" etc. Why not
bring some of that Into Tango? Is Tango a representation of life? I agree
that it "might" not be appropriate for general tango classes, but there are
some people that come from "Spirituality/metaphysics/esoteric" that can
merge these elements. Maybe more of these people should have specialized
classes (for the VERY few who are interested)
Tango is a living thing, and as is true with life, each person brings
something different to it. There is a place for the traditionalists, those
that keep history in perspective, some of those that can only relate to
Pugliese or a particular religion, and those that love to explore the
cutting edge, or astral travel, enlightenment, the meaning of life. If you
don't like that women lead, or men follow, then maybe you should put on
white sheets and burn them at the stake :) Tango CAN be another venue for
world change, but only if we can grow up. Tango tends to be homophobic, a
condition that comes from fear of ones own masculinity. Do we forget that
when Tango started, men only had each other to dance with? Where they
queer? Does it make me wrong if I like to follow women on occasion, and
feel that sweet dreamstate they seem to fall into when they trust you.
Here, compare this, have you ever wondered and possibly wished you could
experience what orgasm felt like to your partner? **Chuckle** that should
raise some eyebrows :) :) but I am serious.
So I pose these questions to you all
What is spiritual?
What is connected?
What is soul?
Till next time
Jim (San Francisco)
p.s. I think it would be nice if people included where they live in their
posts. It makes it easier to understand what culture influences you most.
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 15:20:38 -0800
From: Bruno <romerob@TELUSPLANET.NET>
Subject: FW: [TANGO-L] Inner Essences of Tango
Steve de Tejas wrote:
........
<In reading through the recent discussions about musicality, connection,
etc. I beginning to think that teachers can easily fall into traps by
trying to teach an inner essence of tango, such as connection, musicality
and improvisation.>
---------------
Perhaps, a way of not falling into a trap is to have a teaching methodology.
Take the case of Improvisation. When improvisation could be taught? It will
help to set groundrules. What groundrules? We could begin by observing the
"traditional essence" of the tango steps as they were originally created by
the tango creators. If we do a sandwich we should do it as it was created a
not detract it from its original composition. In this way we avoid to have
many answers in how to execute a sandwich. When to improvise? after
completing a traditional step i.e. a sandwich. We move from traditional to
improvisational. Is taht all? No, when we improvise we must follow the
rhthyms and instruments in a tango. This is why is necessary to observe the
most seasoned dancers in how they do it.
In a simplified way a methodology could be:
Structure ----> Function ------> Improvisation.
Vocabulary: a compilation of descriptive terms that will be used in tango
instruction.
Structure: teaching the required technique -- posture, embrace, walk, drills
and exercises to execute the traditional tango steps.
Function: Dancing to the various tango music.
Improvisation: Show examples (contemporary, classic, ballet, etc.) of how to
improvise following the methodology groundrules (i.e. not mixing styles).
Thanks,
Bruno
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 23:13:36 -0800
From: Jonathan Thornton <jnt@NOYAU.COM>
Subject: Re: Inner Essences of Tango
On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Stephen Brown wrote:
> and improvisation. How does teaching these concepts become a trap? When a
> teacher uses extensive class time trying to convey their own understanding
> of an inner essence, they are likely to be wasting their own efforts and
> their students time. The students must find these essences for themselves
> to understand and appreciate how these essential elements work in the
> dance.
Steve,
I agree with you that a teacher can't directly convey to a class
their inner understanding. But I don't think that the only alternative is
to leave it up to the students to find their own way unassisted.
I sought dance and improvisation classes outside of tango and
social dance in order to supplement my dance exploration. I did find in
Contact Improvisation classes approaches that increased my sense and
understanding of physical expression.
There are approaches to teaching improvisation that can result in
some profound and wonderful learning experiences. What I don't know yet is
how to approach teaching it within the context of a social dance like
tango. I think there are dance teachers in the more experimental
approaches to dance who do have very effective ways of approaching the
development of improvisational dance. The challenge is how to use this
pedagogy in teaching traditional social dancing.
> You can teach people the mechanics of a good embrace, and tell them about
> connection, but they have to find the connection in their own hearts and
> souls. You can teach people the basic rhythmic elements of tango movement,
> and suggest ways to interpret the music, but they have to find the musical
> expression in themselves You can teach people elemental tango movements,
> and tell the dance is improvisational, but they have to discover how to
> recombine the elements themselves.
Again, I find this dichotomy to severe. Particularly with people like
myself who had very little background in dance and movement to be left to
our own resources would yield little. There are approaches to teaching
that are more experiential and yet directed in an open way that technique
isn't. Feldenkrais Awareness in Movement classes are a good example of
this. The instructor offers a developing progression of material for the
students to explore and aids them in that exploration and yet each student
is allowed to progress at their own pace and find their own learnings in
the experience.
These kinds of approaches require a different class structure than most
social dancers have experienced, but that is no big deal. I loved the way
my Contact Improv teacher spent the first hour of class having us starting
on the floor tuning in our bodies and movement. But spending 30 or more
minutes on the floor breathing and slowly moving with attention is not
something I've ever experienced in a social dance class. But having spent
that time coming into full attention to our physical awareness when we
began to improvise in that contact class we did so with a very different
quality than had we just walked in off the street and set to work.
I believe there can be a pedagogy that really supports the development of
improvisation, connection, and communication in tango. This is not the
traditional approach of course, but then neither are the current classes
and workshops the way that tango was originally learned either.
And of course students have to do the work themselves, and there is always
self learning. But good teachers can be inspiring and good pedagogy can be
extremely helpful even though there will great variety in what we will
attain. It's not different with any other subject. Few people who study
writing will write works that will ever be published, yet their writing
can be improved by the attention of a good teacher. And speaking of
writing, Steve, I wish I could express myself as succinctly as you did.
Though I disagree with your conclusions I appreciate the clear way you
made your point.
I compare the experience of a beginning piano student with a beginning
social dancer. Both are exposed to specific necessary techniques, but
within weeks, beginning with very simple little melodies the beginning
music student will be introduced to the challenge of musical expression
and interpretation and that will be one of the developing threads of their
education. I think the same thing can be done for tango. I really think
that that part of dance has been neglected in the teaching of social
dance. Skilled teachers can teach far more than technique. A good piano
teacher wouldn't leave it entirely up to the student. I don't think a good
tango teacher should either.
Jonathan Thornton
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:04:39 -0600
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Re: Inner Essences of Tango
Johnathan wrote:
>I agree with you that a teacher can't directly convey to a class
>their inner understanding. But I don't think that the only
>alternative is to leave it up to the students to find their own
>way unassisted.
I think we are in agreement. I am not in favor of the instructor leaving
their students to find their own way to the promised land unassisted. My
point is that the instructor can teach the material that leads the student
to discover connection, musicality and improvisation and other inner
essences of tango, but in the end the student must find these things in
themselves. But if the instructor goes too far in trying to teach inner
essences too quickly or too thoroughly, I think they run the risk of
conveying nothing that will be useful to their students, or even in burning
their students out.
Among other things, those who wish to become tango dancers must develop a
basic understanding of the movements before they can refine them. In
addition, knowledge cannot be poured in one's ear,..., particularly when it
comes to movement. One needs to develop through the experience of
movement.
With best regards,
Steve
Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
https://www.tejastango.com/
