3136  Making the connection!

Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:56:38 -0600
From: Leonard Kunkel <image10@SWBELL.NET>
Subject: Making the connection!

I am very fortunate to have a young lady working with me in my lessons
who challenges me and continues to ask questions of me in front of the
class which makes me analyses which makes what I am saying more
expansive and more meaningful to the students. Susan Munoz is a talented
tangera and I praise and appreciate her contributions and assistance.

I prefaced this message this way because of her asking questions of me
and our discussions about different styles that the subject of the
following realization came to me. I have been analyzing in my own mind
the different connections that come with different styles. And it
suddenly occurred to me that in my dance my primary connection is not
with my partner, My primary connection is with the music. I dance and
lead my best when I find myself with a feeling of being inside the
music. Feeling as if I am another instrument of the orchestra. I am a
very high feeling person so the music can and does have a profound
effect on me. Even if dancing before an audience I am aware only of the
music and how my partner and I are expressing it.

This last Saturday I went to a ballroom dance mostly because I could not
see myself turning down again the owner from whom I rent studio time.
She has invited me so many times and I could not come up with one more
excuse. I have somehow felt I would be betraying my mistress, tango if I
went to go to a ballroom event. After the evening I was glad I had
attended. I found that I was able to put tango movements to almost all
of the music played. It was surprisingly gratifying for me to make this
connection to ballroom music to interpret into tango and milonga
movements. A couple of times in the past I have done the same to country
and western events.

My partner is the secondary connection. I prefer dancing with ladies
that come inside the music with me. They surrender as me to the music.
Neither of us being concerned about steps but allowing our feelings to
come out in a variety of expressive movements. Sometimes these movements
are subtle, sometimes more flowery or expressive, whatever feels to be
dictated by the music. My dance is to try to let the music interpret the
movement. Being in either salon style or milongero can be as meaningful
for me. I feel the music just as intense. Now the connection with my
partner may vary, not better or less, but differently according to the
style. I am convinced that the frame I teach if followed is just as
solid whether a couple is in open or closed embrace.

I love the tango. I thoroughly enjoy all the possibility of ways that
the Argentine tango offers to express the music. The more I learn the
more I want to learn. The more I teach the better dancer and teacher I
become, thanks to assists from talented people like Susan.

May Your Tango prosper,
Leonardo K.