2172  improvisation vs known steps

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 02:28:31 -0500
From: bailadora2000@EXCITE.COM
Subject: Re: improvisation vs known steps

I wrote: If we all started out improvising...well, tango wouldn't look the way it does, neither would salsa, swing, etc.

Pichi wrote: I don't think that would be such a bad thing. Tango is truly a feeling which is danced. I wish that more classes of tango began with allowing the students to improvise--move the way they feel with the music [this is what young children do naturally without inhibitions].

I agree with you here about teaching methods...I teach children mostly, and I teach them to learn how to move and feel their movement and their bodies before ever explaining to them a dance step. I've been studying alot about how movement therapists work and using that in my teaching methods. But let's think about something here... many people on this list have complained before as to what is the right type of music to dance tango too. There are many purists who seem to think new tangos can't exist, and that only the music of the 40's and 50's is real tango, or at least nothing past Piazzolla can be considered tango. Well, then that totally disputes what people are saying about what tango really is. If tango dance (not tango music) is just moving with feeling to the music....then any music you hear, you could say you are dancing tango to it...even if you are moving and gyrating your hips around.

Tango (the dance)is a STYLE of dance! Quit trying to equate it to just simply moving with feeling. Yes, it provokes feelings but it is not all that tango is. Does that mean I can walk and move side to side to the rhythm of hip hop and call it tango? That would be like saying a ragtime is a tango, because perhaps it has similar ways that it is written. Tango is made up of certain elements that are created by certain movements that make it identifiable as a dance style. For example, the ocho is ONE of those elements...now...doesn't mean it has to be always put together in the exact same way. Doing a series of ochos constitutes a pattern. But these elements themselves are necessary to the dance to be recognized as tango, otherwise if we take all these elements of these certain movements we know as "tango steps", then there is no style of dance..it's just moving to music. Then we might as well forget about giving the dance a name.

Nicole
Miami