162  Learning Tango - Figures

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 23:36:30 -0700
From: "Larry E. Carroll" <larrydla@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Learning Tango - Figures

It is easy for me to say that figures are the least important part of
learning tango. I doubt if most beginners would agree, however. What
do you tell your family or friends when they ask you what you learned
today? "I'm getting really good at spiritual connection with my
partner" will not impress most people - at least, impress positively.

It is only advanced dancers who understand that figures are just the
visible part of the iceberg of a dance. To a beginner the visible is
all there is, and they want something to show for their work, for
themselves even more than for anyone else. And figures are important.
They are esthetic creations, enjoyed by both leader and follower.

So several years ago, when I wrote a book on how to do the tango, I
decided that the way to handle figures was to make them so easy to
master that dancers would have time and motive to focus on other
things equally important: music, style, body control, navigation,
lead/follow, adornments, the emotional and social and artistic sides
of dancing.

At that time I had 8 years of tango experience on top of 25 years in
lots of other dances. I had been a professional system analyst almost
as long. And a lot of the work had already been done by various tango
teachers and teachers of other dances (such as Skippy Blair in swing).

The resulting system for easily learning (and creating) figures you
can find in the book at the URL below. But how I came up with it you
might find interesting.

There are two major kinds of figures used in tango. Mingo Pugliese and
his followers teach one. It is based on molinetes and other circular
actions. This seems to be (as Pugliese claims) the way it was done in
the Golden Age of tango in Argentina: the 1940s plus and minus about 5
years. This is also the core of Nuevo Tango - though its teachers no
longer use the Nuevo label, preferring to just call it the
Naveira/Salas school.

Molinetes (and fragments of them, like ochos cortados) are very
compact, suitable for the extremely crowded dance floors in many
1940's milongas, which might take up an entire city block and pack in
3000-4000 people.

But foreigners are taught big, open, rectangular figures, the sort of
thing suitable to a stage. Where dancers move fast to keep the
audience excited, and move back and forth, left-stage to right-stage
and back again. This is where the Eight-Count Basic comes from. Most
people in the world learn these rectangular figures, so I came up with
a system based on it - which I also designed to be useful with
molinetes.

Perhaps the first piece broken off the monolithic 8CB by teachers is
the last three steps, the tango close or resolucion. Or sometimes they
break off the first (backward for the man) step, telling us that you
never start a dance with this step lest you step on someone. You only
use it after beginning the dance.

That leaves the middle four steps. This pattern has an interesting
property: it begins and ends on the same foot. So you can repeat it,
and combine the repetitions in any order and number.

Not only that. You can break the four-step sequence in half - giving
you a couple of two-step patterns that also have the property of
starting and ending on the same foot. Ditto for the ocho, which has
two steps. Ditto for the rock step (the cunita). Ditto for the two
long steps that make up the figure I call the paseo (stroll).

So complex figures have this pattern: a single (optional) step, any
number of two-step walks, the three-step resolution. Instead of
learning a single complicated Basic, you learn a few simple Basics.
You vary and combine them in a few simple ways (that you already do
all the time in ordinary walking). And you can now create hundreds or
even thousands of complex figures.

If you practice enough.

Larry de Los Angeles
https://home.att.net/~larrydla

Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 17:36:18 -0700
From: "Larry E. Carroll" <larrydla@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Learning Tango - Figures - Women

The idea that the first step of the 8CB could be a basic figure in its
own right was crucial in the creation of my system of tango figures.
It is an odd idea; usually we think of a figure as having several
steps.

But it is not an odd idea for women. To advanced women dancers the
only figure they dance has a single step. (Or maybe two half-steps -
which I will get to later.)

Several years ago I was watching a videotape someone had made at a
conference where Miguel & Milena were teaching. It included some shots
taken at a milonga where Milena was dancing socially. Some of the shots
showed closeups of Milena's footwork, and I noticed something very
interesting.

Whenever she took a step, as her moving foot neared her supporting
foot, her moving foot slowed down. As if she were waiting to see what
was going to happen next. This slowing was very slight, and I had to
spend a lot of slow-motion viewing to be sure it was more than my
imagination.

Since then I have paid more attention to waiting in the women I dance
with. Every one who is very good gives me the feeling that she is
ready for anything I do, of not thinking of anything else but right
now. Not thinking of the next steps, but THIS step.

Perhaps these great dancers are really on automatic. Maybe they are in
some sense asleep. Or thinking of some boyfriend or would-be-boyfriend
and I am just a dance dummy to them. But oftentimes I think they are
the exact opposite of oblivious.

From the few times in classes when the teacher has led me in some
pattern, the tactic I found worked best was to focus on just that one
step, each step. And time seemed to stop. Or expand. I was aware of
much more when I did not have to think about the next step, or many
next steps. I had time and attention to appreciate all the details of
the dance. And to add something.

We often think of following as a passive activity. As becoming a slave
to the master, the leader. I think just the opposite is true. A woman
CHOOSES to give some dance actions to the leader; these actions are
not taken from her. Being led by a terrific leader, as clumsy as I was
in a totally unfamiliar role, nevertheless gave me a feeling of great
freedom.

I even once tried to throw in an adorno or two. I made a total mess of
the adornments. But trying did help me realize that there are two
halves to a step. There's the moving part where your body tilts toward
its destination and your foot travels toward it. And the settling part
when the moving foot stops and the weight transfers to it and the
former supporting foot moves into position near the new support.

It is during this second part where women can do adornments. Men, of
course, can do adornos also. But for women it is a major way she can
contribute to the dance. Sometimes men will indicate an adornment with
a lead for, say, a gancho. But it is the woman who decides whether to
do a gancho between his legs, or a sentada or amague to his side - or
nothing at all.

A woman can also choose to do an adornment without being lead to it.
And she has an enormous range to choose from that (done right) will
not interfere with the leader. Or even be noticed by him, if she does
it deftly enough.

For this reason in my book I introduced adornos very early, in
addition to talking about figures, which are exclusively a man's
concern. And I cover all the adornos I know throughout the book,
including upper-body adornos as well as those done with the foot or
leg.

Most classes, live or taped, have lots of figures. And to some extent
this is necessary. Figures are the skeleton of a dance, around which
the entire body hangs. And men would not go to a class that did not
include one of their primary responsibilities and pleasures.

But why should a woman go to classes? After all, knowing figures
actually HURTS her ability to dance well. There are literally
thousands of figures that an average man may lead. Trying to
anticipate the figure takes away all her ability to focus on other
things.

I think the smart course of action is not to avoid such classes, but
turn them to your advantage. Use the classes to practice gracefully
recovering from your mistakes (and his!) without comment. (Do not try
to help him out. Most men's egos are too fragile - and that includes
MINE!) Practice focusing on each individual step, on firming up your
embrace, and all the other aspects of frame and balance and reaction.
You can do all this if you properly totally ignore figures.

You can also pester the teacher to help you with your concerns. After
all, you are paying him. And a little less focus on figures and more
on how to lead or follow them will do your men partners good too.

Larry de Los Angeles
https://home.att.net/~larrydla