2459 Teaching and learning tango
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 13:45:53 +0200
From: Melina Sedo <melinasedo@ONLINEHOME.DE>
Subject: Teaching and learning tango
Hi Sergio,
My first real learning experience was with a teacher who teaches a kind
of open embrace salon-stage mix. She taught steps. One each lesson with
a tiny bit of technique. She was not that bad as a teacher - seen from
a technical point of view. But, as she was not interested that her
students advance, she never criticised and she did not encourage us to
think for ourselves, to improvise or to go to other Milongas or
teachers. I once took a private lesson with her and she didn't even
critisice me then, I seemed to be perfect! But of course I was just a
beginner. I would never have developed if I had stayed with her.
It was only a few month later, I encountered another couple of
teachers, dancing Milonguero Style and trying to give us a deeper
understanding for the soul and the technique of Tango. I never went
back to the first teacher. She continued to teach her ways and dance
her shows....
Now, being a teacher myself, the first thing I teach is, that Tango is
a social dance and a form of communication within the couple. The aim
must be to dance comfortably with a partner within a Milonga, to share
this experience with the ohers and not to show off!!! I try to tell
them, that walking nicely is better than trying to dance lenghty
figures without having the right basis... Tango is walking!
Therefore our emphasis is on stucture and technique - We teach almost
no figures. The first ten lessons contain:
Technique and structure:
-Posture!!!!!
-Walking alone!!!!!
-Leading/following changes of weight and walking in all directions
(except the mens back step ;-)
-Walking on both sides of the follower
-Leading the followers cross in both systems (parallel and crossed)
-Changing from parallel into the crossed system and back (all
possibilities in movement and in the place)
-technique of leading and dancing back and forward ochos
-changing directions
-maybe technique of leading and dancing turns (but this depends on how
fast the studends learn and how often they dance inbetweeen the
lessons)
Figures (as mere examples to combine the basics):
-The so called basic step (without the leaders back step, of course)
-The Ocho-Cortado
And of course:
-the embrace
-musicality and rhythm
-Combining all basic elements and improvising
-Dancing in small space
We dance close embrace, but we do not impose this onto our students, as
we know, that dancing in close embrace is very hard for beginners,
whose posture is not that good. So normally they start with a little
distance and end up dancing in close embrace.
And: we encourage our students to go to Milongas, to travel and to take
lessons with other teachers. To develop you have to be open for
different ways.
Well, that's it.
bye,
Melina
Melina Sedó & Detlef Engel
www.tangodesalon.de
tango@tangodesalon.de
(0049) (0)681 9381839
(0049) (0)177 4340669
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:40:58 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Teaching and learning tango
To: tango-l@mit.edu
Brian Dunn wrote:
"Janis wrote:
"There had to be someone teaching tango in Buenos Aires before the late
1980s."
Yet more data -
"At the time of the revolution [of tango dancing in the 1940's], Mingo
[Pugliese] points out, few milongueros were professional. Cachafaz and Ain
had given lessons in the 1920's, [and] Mendez and El Negro Pavura ran
studios..."
"Tango - The Art History of Love" - R.F. Thompson, pp. 249-250
Before the sixties tango was taught mostly within the family. It was
transmitted from parents to children, from older to younger siblings, or
else you could learn from your uncles or your cousins.
Then you could start practicing in family gatherings or parties,
engagements, weddings, baptisms, birthdays, etc.
Later on, boys would teach each other playing both roles (man and woman) so
that they could learn to dance but also to lead. Leading has always being
the most difficult thing to learn.
During weekends they would go to dance to the neighborhood clubs, modestly
leading their partners to execute the new moves that they had learned during
the week.
The usual practice consisted in learning some new steps or figures but lots
of walks and some corridas.
My father had a good friend who owned a dance studio, his name and that of
the Studio was
"Gaeta". That studio taught all sorts of dances including tango, in great
part by mail, with descriptions and graphics that were sent all over the
world. It had great economical success. I wonder now how useful such a
program by mail may have been. :))
My main interest at the time, during my childhood was to collect the
thousands of post stamps that came to the studio from all over the world.
Some people from my neighborhood, very few, would learn from this type of
studio but generally speaking those were the worst dancers and they had the
characteristic of dancing the same way.
We have historical documentation of music and songs in magazines,
newspapers, radio programs, recordings, television and movies. Unfortunately
there are very few documents for the dance itself, they are mostly in very
old movies.
Summary Tango and other dances were passed from generation to generation
within the family and the neighborhood. There were dance studios as well.
The big problem is that exists a period of a generation that ceased to dance
tango and broke the chain of teaching and learning.
Best regards, Sergio
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Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:38 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
From: "Chris, UK" <tl2@chrisjj.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Teaching and learning tango
Cc: tl2@chrisjj.com
Sergio wrote:
> My father had a good friend who owned a dance studio, his name and that
> of the Studio was "Gaeta". That studio taught all sorts of dances
> including tango, in great part by mail, with descriptions and graphics
Thanks for account Sergio - most interesting. I stand corrected.
> Some people from my neighborhood, very few, would learn from this type
> of studio but generally speaking those were the worst dancers and they
> had the characteristic of dancing the same way.
Not much change there in half a century. ;)
Chris
-------- Original Message --------
*Subject:* [Tango-L] Teaching and learning tango
*From:* "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
*To:* tango-l@mit.edu
*Date:* Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:40:58 +0000
Brian Dunn wrote:
"Janis wrote:
"There had to be someone teaching tango in Buenos Aires before the late
1980s."
Yet more data -
"At the time of the revolution [of tango dancing in the 1940's], Mingo
[Pugliese] points out, few milongueros were professional. Cachafaz and Ain
had given lessons in the 1920's, [and] Mendez and El Negro Pavura ran
studios..."
"Tango - The Art History of Love" - R.F. Thompson, pp. 249-250
Before the sixties tango was taught mostly within the family. It was
transmitted from parents to children, from older to younger siblings, or
else you could learn from your uncles or your cousins.
Then you could start practicing in family gatherings or parties,
engagements, weddings, baptisms, birthdays, etc.
Later on, boys would teach each other playing both roles (man and woman) so
that they could learn to dance but also to lead. Leading has always being
the most difficult thing to learn.
During weekends they would go to dance to the neighborhood clubs, modestly
leading their partners to execute the new moves that they had learned during
the week.
The usual practice consisted in learning some new steps or figures but lots
of walks and some corridas.
My father had a good friend who owned a dance studio, his name and that of
the Studio was
"Gaeta". That studio taught all sorts of dances including tango, in great
part by mail, with descriptions and graphics that were sent all over the
world. It had great economical success. I wonder now how useful such a
program by mail may have been. :))
My main interest at the time, during my childhood was to collect the
thousands of post stamps that came to the studio from all over the world.
Some people from my neighborhood, very few, would learn from this type of
studio but generally speaking those were the worst dancers and they had the
characteristic of dancing the same way.
We have historical documentation of music and songs in magazines,
newspapers, radio programs, recordings, television and movies. Unfortunately
there are very few documents for the dance itself, they are mostly in very
old movies.
Summary Tango and other dances were passed from generation to generation
within the family and the neighborhood. There were dance studios as well.
The big problem is that exists a period of a generation that ceased to dance
tango and broke the chain of teaching and learning.
Best regards, Sergio
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Microsoft Office Live
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