Dalston Tango in the Evening Standard

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:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-24014972-strictly-come-dalston-dancing-the-tango-in-hackney.do

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.

Dance is not necessarily Art

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 here and 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.

Chacarera

As discussed on the train  ... some links.

• Video playlist that walks you through most of the basic steps really, really s-l-o-w-l-y (in very easy Spanish) so you can learn them. Half an hour of this is pretty good exercise, actually.
• Monica Paz demonstrating the whole thing. Includes the bit at the end not demonstrated in the previous playlist, and shows much more clearly how it fits the music.
• Clear drawings of the whole procedure in sweet little old-time cartoony pictures, with ...
• list of the steps in order - and also the longer chacarera doble
• Diagram of chacarera doble, with little curly lines showing where you're supposed to be, instead of the cartoons.

For those who weren't on that particular train, this is a country dance in 6/8 (or I think of it more as groups of 4 triple measures) danced in a line formation with specific steps in a fixed order, so if you want to join in you just have to learn them and practice at home till they can't go wrong. People play it sometimes at milongas, Beto sometimes plays it after the end at Aldenham. It's much cooler if you can keep the lines straight, so some of us were half-arranging to practice it together.

The most likely 'gotcha' looks to me like the full (swapping places) turn and the introduction being sometimes over eight and sometimes over only six measures. (Is it consistent, so the introduction would tell us which?)

First album I found on itunes, as far as I can tell from the previews this seems to have at least one example where the full turn is over only 6 measures:
Los Mejores 13 - Folklore - Chacarera - Various Artists

Balloons

When I've had a really lovely dance, it seems like the little girl inside, the little girl who didn't have to go to school yet and was full of joy, is smiling and holding a balloon.

Sometimes I like to stop, and just enjoy having a balloon for a while.

If the DJing and the dancing is going so extremely well that I just can't stop, I can end up with a whole bunch of balloons, each different, to look at on the way home.

Aran Vase

Aran Vase

Here's the other object I started on the Eurostar.

I like pottery. I was thinking about the beautiful pots that archaeologists sometimes find in tombs, and how distinctive they often are to particular times and places, but also how regular; so that styles and shapes of pottery can date a site with surprising precision.

I was also thinking about the way textiles hardly ever survive. And the way that the women and men who knitted traditional seafarers' garments of the British Isles would start with a more or less fixed basic design and set of techniques that worked well with the materials, and then execute them with a range of motifs and variations that they personally favoured, or that they learned from family members or friends, or that their own invention suggested. Always bearing in mind that the result had to be a practical and beautiful garment, acceptable to the intended wearer. More or less the same conditions, then, that governed the production of pots.

Glasses

Anyway, this came to mind, more or less as it looks, although I work out a lot of the details as I go along. It has four little feet so that it stands up nicely, and the inside is the same shape as the outside.

Generally, it's designed to be looked at, but it's also an excellent place to put down a pair of glasses.

I'm going to be working on some more designs like this.

Embrace (dialogues) part 2

Interior, Practica

Hedgie
Ok, I just want to try this because if I understand what it is, I'll be able to do it or not do it on purpose instead of accidentally. I'm going to do it normally first.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

Yep - ok - this is what you normally feel like.

Hedgie

Right, now I'm not going to move anything, but I'm going to try doing it another way.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

Oh!

Hedgie

Is that the kind of thing we were asking about? It might be a bit exaggerated.

Mr. Hu

Yes, that's it. Change it back!

Hedgie
Ok, just a sec.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

... yes, that's back to normal. Wow. That's totally different. Show me again?

- Dance -

That's quite disturbing. You feel like a totally different person.

Hedgie

I was still following you, though. I wasn't not following, I mean, I wasn't having any problems following, that I was aware of.

Mr. Hu

Yes - you were - you were doing everything, but, in comparison, it felt totally disconnected. What are you actually doing? I can't see any difference at all.

Hedgie

Ok, we're standing like this. And the way I think of it in my head is ... my arms and head are the same, whatever is comfortable and seems to work for the partner, it doesn't really matter.

Mr. Hu

Ok

Hedgie

The way I do it is - I go fuzzy - I want to blur the boundary between your nervous system and mine. And then - I want to to be really, really curious about what's going to happen next. So I go curious and I go fuzzy-fuzzy ... I want my point of concentration, where my mind is, to be in there, about where your centre is. Now, I'm guessing that what happens is, people dance like it makes sense to dance in classes, which mostly isn't like that.

Mr. Hu

Hang on a second. Let me try doing that too.

Hedgie
 ... okay.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

Oooh, that's really interesting. I like that, a lot. I'll try that next time I'm following. But I really like it when we both do it.

Hedgie

I'm not sure if I can tell the difference yet, let's stick with it and see how it goes.

Mr. Hu

If you do that and somebody is trying to wrestle you ... it'd be a disaster. So, you turned it off ...

Hedgie

I hardened the embrace a bit, hardened the surface, brought back the boundary, and concentrated sort of more behind myself. Doesn't prove anything general, but at least I feel like I understand what's working for me now. I hate it when stuff just changes randomly for no reason.

Mr Hu

Don't do it again.

Mr V [a visiting acquaintance interested in the discussion]
My girlfriend used to be like that, everybody would tell her how beautiful her feet were, and I was, "your feet? What about ME? Oi! I'm over here!". And she, like, she'd totally missed the point. And then I got her to try [some exercise or other, can't remember what] and she got it, and she went, "Oh!! ...  I'm not sure I'm OK with you feeling like that with all these other women." But then she got over it and she danced a lot better, she feels really nice now.

Hedgie
Fair-minded woman, obviously.

Embrace (dialogues) part 1

This is a subject that's been intriguing and puzzling me for a while. I'm finding a lot of friends and acquaintances who have various problems, experiences and solutions. This is one conversation, slightly edited but not substantially. Don't be freaked out by my friend's apparently bizarre martial arts analogy. It's normal for him.

Virtual Interior (Facebook Chat) slightly edited, but not substantially.

Hedgie
... I am trying to work out what his problem is. He was complaining about the women, that he can't dance with them because they have "zero embrace" and I can't see why it doesn't work.

Mr. Hu
After Friday i think I know what he means

Hedgie
Like, he tried dancing with X because he said she looked like she could dance, and then it was a disaster, he said there was very little following going on - and I don't understand that becuase it just can't be the case that she doesn't follow. So I have no idea what he means.
So what's your theory? (What do you mean, Friday?)

Mr. Hu
:collects thoughts:
Loosely speaking, being "plugged in" is a massive simplification of what it can be

Hedgie
okay
I mean, he seems to do okay with me, he even quite likes dancing with me
and I don't understand how what she is doing can be THAT different from what I do, it looks the same to me.

Mr. Hu
To use martial arts as an analogy, imagine two olympic fencers going at it full speed

Hedgie
okay

Mr. Hu
So there's imppecable technique, posture, rhythm etc

Hedgie
okay

Mr. Hu
Now imagine two samurai, facign each other standing completely motionless, swords undrawn

Hedgie
okay ...

Mr. Hu
trying to feel for want of a better word, each other's spirit / inner calm / experience

Hedgie
observing each other

Mr. Hu
very deeply

Hedgie
okay

Mr. Hu
but here's the twist
After a while one of them will bow deeply, turn and walk away. No swords are drawn
But the one who walked away lost

Hedgie
Right, fair enough, I suppose they know what they're doing.

Mr. Hu
So imagine the differnece between thinking you can beat this guy (fencing) and knowing deep down you can beat this guy (samurai)

Hedgie
okay ...
Not sure how this applies, but conceptually willing to go with it

Mr. Hu
cool
No go back to tango embrace
Imagine the difference between focussing on your technique as you dance and focussing on him as you dance

Hedgie
That's okay, it makes sense, but I still seem to manage just about (although it's tough) even after a 3-hour workshop

Mr. Hu
hee hee

Hedgie
So there must be a fair amount of leeway there
For potential follower distraction
And I would have thought it would be enough to accommodate her easily
It feels like a reasonable explanation but it doesn't seem enough

Mr. Hu
There's a difference between knowing that it's possible, being interested in doing it but being distracted , and not knowing it's possible at all

Hedgie
Oh. Okay
Maybe it's that then
That's tough to solve

Mr. Hu
Or I guess more simply, I can drive and talk and still get you home. If all I could do was talk...

Hedgie
We'd go nowhere

Mr. Hu
Yup

Hedgie
And if all you could do was drive we'd still get there

Mr. Hu
Yup

Hedgie
just less interestingly

Mr. Hu
Which is probably you in the above example

Hedgie
Yeah, okay
Above, when you said you thought you understood it since Friday
I don't know what happened on Friday, or which Friday
i.e.that you might know what he was on about

Mr. Hu
Last Friday had a ephiphany dancing with someone at Negracha

Hedgie
Oh right
What was the epiphany

Mr. Hu
that there's a lot more to plugging in than meets the eye

Hedgie
Was the dance working, or not working?

Mr. Hu
Working very well. never experienced anything like it in tango before

Hedgie
Ace

Mr. Hu
Yup. But conversely given that your friend is a lot more expereinced than I am, if he's after that and beyond, I can see why he's getting grumpy

Hedgie
Right

Mr. Hu
In a similar vein I can totally see why you would choose to dial it back with someone who had messed up posture / musicality etc

Hedgie
As in why the follower would?

Mr. Hu
Both

Hedgie
Right

Mr. Hu
Which I think was what he was trying to tell me with a story about him dancing with someone who looked really good, but felt ugh

Hedgie
I suppose. Actually, I think I have an idea now about what it is. Let me try turning it off and on at the practica next week and you can tell me whether that's it, or not.

Mr Hu
Okay

[Part 2 to follow]

Music with Holes In - Biagi and the Dancing Flower

Biagi, to me, is music with holes in; it has an open, airy texture, like a Swiss cheese. A lot of people find it challenging to dance to, perhaps in apprehension of falling down the holes and embarrassing themselves. It's wonderful stuff, though.

Here, then, by the request of some very dear friends, (one of whom said that her perception of El Flete had been transformed by the Dancing Flower's interpretation) is Biagi's "La Viruta" danced by a piezoelectric plastic flower. Just in case you were in danger of taking this tango nonsense too seriously.



The Dancing Flower loves Biagi! Analyses in the comments please. (I know the video quality isn't too good - the original is high quality but my internet connection doesn't really have the upload speed for HD - sorry).