Despite some hilarious but unimportant errors (er, Luis is not Brazilian) and the bizarre headline (headlines never have anything to do with the writer) this is rather sweet:
Especially in the way it presents tango as a civilised entertainment for young people, and specifically a hell of a lot more pleasant and interesting than alternatives in Dalston. It's true; if you're dancing tango, getting drunk or high as well is very much optional rather than compulsory, and there are tight practical limits to doing both at the same time, at least unless you've had a lot of practice.
I was going to say that the article exaggerated the role of the East End; tango is not new to London, not by a couple of decades, and the East End is the latest place to get it rather than the first. But, on reflection, it changes all the time, and the milongas they mention certainly have an important role in the way it's has gone in the last couple of years and the way it's likely to go next. For the person likely to be interested in the article, that's what's important. (Then I started looking for my review of the Light Temple - it's stuck in draft, I can't remember why, and I haven't got time to fix it right now).
Congratulations to Luis and Elizabeth for managing to sound quite sensible and more or less like themselves, when transmogrified by print. That can be a bit of a lottery, I think you did well.
I have been to this milonga a couple of times, but not since the place was refurbished. I felt then that it was good choice for beginners, depending on who was teaching, and it sounds like it still is. In theory it's much nearer me than central London is, but it's a lot less accessible given the day and the time. That's nice in a way, as it might stay local and get its own crowd, which can be a very good thing.
When people dance at parties or in nightclubs, they are not making art. People dance to celebrate good luck, or to encourage their team, or for religious purposes, or because it's what they do, like the round dance they do in Catalonia on Sundays. I don't think any of that is art. But all these things are timeless and common and part of daily life.
Sometimes I enjoy watching good dancers dance, but that doesn't mean they have any artistic intent, and it doesn't mean that I am doing the same thing as someone consuming art.
There's nothing wrong with artistic dance. Lots of dance is certainly art. But it is wrong to talk as though dance is necessarily performance, and that non-artistic, non-performance dance is some sort of inferior 'just-for-fun' offshoot, defined as low-quality, because high-quality dance would be art. This belief does real harm to people who would enjoy non-art dance and be good at it, and real harm to dance communities.
The concerns, priorities and purposes of art are totally different from my concerns, priorities and purposes when I'm dancing, and they're mostly incompatible. This is a problem that non-art dancers have to solve when they are asked to give a demonstration to satisify other people's (totally reasonable) curiosity - a problem tackled by Elizabeth hereand by Melina here. I like performances that solve this problem well and inform the curious without without misinforming them. It's not easy to do, it requires thought and self-awareness as well as empathy with the audience.
You see this unexamined assumption, that dance is a subset of art, in virtually all mainstream-media references to dance. It irritates me how non-art dance - surely the majority of all dance, considered worldwide - is either presupposed out of existence, or horribly deformed by a totally imaginary requirement that it make sense as a performance.
There should be more people dancing, more commonly, than there are, without being obliged to feel all artistic about it. And without feeling that if they ever get good, they'll automatically be artists and expected to teach or perform. Those are all totally different vocations and have no necessary connection with each other, or with just dancing. They're not needed to validate the quality of anyone's dance. (And they don't, incidentally).
Being an excellent social (or indeed solo, or religious, or football-terrace) dancer is a valid and possible goal, and it's always nice to have more of them.
I've written a lot about Joaquín Amenábar's workshops on tango music for dancers, so here is a housekeeping post with a list of everything else. It's worth reading the comments on each, especially the first one.
Joaquín teaches Bandoneón at the University in Buenos Aires and another conservatoire, and he also dances in the milongas. His classes are very carefully designed for the nine out of ten dancers who have no music education at all.
But even if you do have some musical education (mine is not much, but more than most - I can sing my part in a madrigal, with practice) I'd still very much recommend them. They're fascinating.
What what these classes did for me was raise the problems of musical understanding from the level of the animal or child, and expose them to the firepower of adult human intellect. This is an effective way to get improvement quickly. It's like letting an elephant solve a problem with its trunk.
The three classes I took were also great fun, and so are the exercises in the book/DVD set (which should become available, eventually, from here). They are much fun as being three and doing Music and Movement, or sitting crosslegged on the floor and watching Playschool with Floella Benjamin, or Life On Earth. I love it.
... and against quite a lot of bad dancing, for women at least.
José Garofalo in the heels, Carlos Stasi leading. Hat tip to TangoCommuter, who adds a bit of context at the link.
In case you feel that your permanent immunity requires a booster shot, José Garofalo does another version here.
I think the parody is stronger in the one with Carlos Stasi, because it's closer to common experience with a man leading, and truth is always funnier. But the second one, with Veronica Alvarenga, is better lit.
Here's a completely beautiful "dance of love" Tango.
The man is Julian Elizari, who teaches at the Dome. The woman I only know as Audrey, she's a regular on the London social scene. She has a stupendous grace and elegance of movement, but the thing I'm really studying in this video is her beautiful, gentle, soft, fluid, connected, lively embrace. I want to be able to do it like that one day.
Adrian and Amanda Costa are giving some classes in London from 21st-28th August, at Conway Hall, the Crypt, the Dome, and Wild Court (where Negracha is). Check Tango-UK for details and updates, that link includes the search.
I'll be away on holiday; but I've done a workshop with them once before and I really got a lot out of it, so I would go if I wasn't somewhere else. I thought their teaching was high quality, and I also think they dance exceptionally well. For example, and I know lots of people have posted this video recently, but still:
I've said this before, I'll say it again: I love the start (to 00:37).
I am fortunate to be part of at least two vaguely subversive subcultures - argentine tango and social knitting. If I mention knitting, practically everyone will know what it is. "Tango," however, is ambiguous and needs to be explained.
I usually say that ballroom tango is to argentine tango as baseball is to cricket. There is a well-known historical relationship, and there are features that show you the common ancestry. But no-one who played either, or watched both, could ever confuse them for a moment. It occurred to me recently that an even better analogy might be the relationship between American Football and Rugby Union. American Football is carefully planned, episodic, and highly dramatised. Rugby Union should be fluid and continuous, and to get a good game, every single player must be able to improvise. But of course they have a very recent common ancestor, certainly within the 20th century.
There is no reason why a person can't play both games (either set) or do both dances at the social level, but anyone who does will tell you that although some of the skills are the same, most of them are different, and the general character of what you're doing diverges very much. The chances are that a person will prefer one or the other as a means of self-expression, depending on your environment, but also on your personality if you have the choice.
A very misleading feature is that both dances can occasionally be danced to the same music, although I think that would rarely give a satisfying result.
I'm going to show you a couple of short videos to explain. These are peformances, so the activity these people are engaged in is necessarily different from the kind of social dancing you'd do in the appropriate club; but in this context the difference won't put you on the wrong track. First, here is an attractive couple dancing a ballroom tango. I don't know who they are, but the video makes a good illustration.
Notice that their connection is at the hip or lower ribcage, and with the arms, and both maintain a very firm, consistent, outward-leaning frame, as though they were posing as a vase of flowers. The upper part of the frame doesn't alter unless it is opened entirely to do some kind of spin or dramatic accent. You can see that their hands stay in the same place. I think of this frame and posture as characteristic of all the dances known as "ballroom". Notice also that they're looking away from each other and their heads are far apart. Consequently, it makes sense to do accents and ornaments with the head, and this happens a lot. It makes the general character of the dance formal and dramatic, for people in evening clothes.
The music has a very strongly-marked regular beat, like a march.
Next, here is another attractive couple dancing an argentine tango. They are Ney Melo and Jennifer Bratt, quite well-known teachers in the USA.
Notice the completely different embrace. They look very nice, but nothing like a vase of flowers; the most obvious feature to the uninitiated would probably be how the eye is drawn irresistibly to her bottom by every move. That's because their connection is not at the hips but with the upper torso, near the shoulders; it can often be between the woman's left underarm and the man's right shoulder, although you don't really see that in this case. Both stand with their torsos fully upright, and the frame is not rigid, but fluid; see how they open out from 01:50 to 02:09, and then close again. While they open, she grasps his right upper arm so she still has a connection to his shoulders, which is where the lead is coming from, and he releases her with his right hand, then gathers her in again. They dance with their heads close together, often actually in contact (02:20-02:30), and her eyes are always within his frame. In this embrace it makes no sense whatsoever to do dramatic accents or ornaments with your head; it would break the frame completely; anything of that kind that's detectable to anyone but the couple themselves must happen between hips and ground (02:50 onwards, but also throughout). It would be rather pointless, and risky, for her to wear a long dress - although you will often see some truly spectacular shoes down there.
The music is also more fluid; it has the same quadruple beat, but the beat is not spelled out in the same way; it's there, and you can see it in their feet, but the melody and instrumentation wind around it like convolvulus.
There is actually quite a bit of variation in the embrace. Often you will see a more directly front-on embrace in which the follower will face over the leader's shoulder, but she will still be looking inwards rather than out, and it is very common and natural for the follower to close her eyes. You will also sometimes see a couple leaning quite sharply inwards, balancing against each other at the shoulder with their feet quite far apart. There is an in-between I do with some people in which our heads do not quite make contact, but I'm staring fixedly down his ear canal; that tends to happen with men who wear glasses, and it's the result of me slightly changing the angle of my embrace to avoid accidentally bending them or hurting myself on a corner.
Even if you are absolutely clueless and you have never danced anything, I think you will now be able to tell the difference, should you unexpectedly come upon a dance called Tango.
If you'd like to fit it on a small piece of paper, I suggest the following diagnostic tests, roughly in descending order of conclusivity:
Are they making a vase of flowers, or a display cabinet for her bottom?
Is there any fancy stuff happening above the neck, or is it all between hips and floor?
Do her eyes point outwards or inwards?
Do their heads come into contact at any time?
Is every beat clearly sounded in the music, or am I expected to fill it in myself? (Not always conclusive - argentine tango is also danced to music that sounds a lot like clubbers' lounge - but often a good clue)
"I gave [him] the message. He told me (in Spanish): 'You have no idea how nice it was to dance with her, a real pleasure' (here he was rubbing his heart). 'She enjoys dancing so much and you can feel it when you dance with her, it is a wonderful feeling.'"
Posts
