1202  Playing the rhythms with steps

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 12:32:33 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <Stermitz@RAGTIME.ORG>
Subject: Playing the rhythms with steps

>This issue of dancing on the beat in tango is confusing. After being
>around tango for over 10 years, I'm still not clear on it. This is what I
>know about it:
>
>Tangueros talk about dancing "ritmo" or dancing "compas". Both translate
>roughly into English as "rhythm". The difference is perhaps most
>evident in milonga. In this dance the follower dances ritmo (i.e.
>on the beat). In effect the follower is keeping time, maybe with
>embellishments, but always following the base line beat.
>
>In contrast the leader may dance compas by introducing syncopations.
>That is the leader may split the beat or fake a step. The movement
>follows more the melody line.
>...
>Bob Hink

As any musician or tango teacher will point out, Tango has at its
root, a solid, "walking" heart-beat and a half-time "staccato" beat.
The timing is also sometimes split in a 3-3-2 or "long-long-short"
pattern. There are other rhythms gong on and other moments of strong
and weak emphasis, so that none of the ARGENTINE tangos after the
late 1920s feels boring or march-like.

The tempo of Tango beats varies only occasionally (for example with
more modern tango, or in Pugliese's Desde el Alma), but a straight
tempo is typical of the Golden Era tangos.

Also, Tango doesn't "swing" by slipping off the beat.


Playing the rhythms with steps (weight changes)

Always (I would say) we use a finite number of rhythmic STEPS:
- ON the heart-beat,
- the half-beat,
- sometimes a triplet against the heart-beat,
- sometimes a long-long-short,
- or else we pause dramatically while beats slip away and tension mounts.

The beats and footsteps of Tango are pretty clear; we don't randomly
step "off the beat", for example just before or after the beat.

We tend to show our partners clearly which foot has our axis (aside
from when the leader hides it in order to change to x-system.)

Some steps are harder or softer, more grounded or not-so-grounded, etc


The leader and follower don't have to step on the same beats, always
mirrored, like in almost every other dance. There is a rhythmic
interplay. For example in the "crossed-basic", the Leader doubles
into cross-footed, then follower doubles at the cross back to
parallel.

At the best, you can be playing a staccato tempo in one partner
against a slower one in the other, or vice versa. Sometimes, when she
is really good, the woman will triple-step on her own instead
of:"just following" the man's lead of a single-step.

This turns the tango dancer into a member of the tango orchestra (the
missing drum-section, perhaps), not a marionette ordered about by the
music.


--

Tom Stermitz
https://www.tango.org/
stermitz@tango.org
303-388-2560