Candombe, Canyengue - crowdsourced

Well that worked out well. I asked about candombe and the comments came up with all sorts of interesting things. Here's a followup post with the videos from those comments embedded.

First of all, Simba has a post about a documentary about candombe. That looks like a good place to start if you're interested. Tangocommuter suggested a book, perhaps to be treated with caution.

Maya had taken a candombe class with Paul and Michiko some years ago, and she found two examples of candombe being danced. Game Cat said this one looked like 'giros on E after a pint of Red Bull and bag of sugar ... it also looks fun'. (I thought E just made you warble inanely and love everybody, but I wasn't a Hacienda chick). Anyway I agree with him that it's a bit swingy and jivey and has a very 'live' connection. I also think they're pretty much doing the same things a lot of people who prefer to dance in open embrace do for a fast milonga. I'm not personally crazy about that style as applied to milonga, I prefer close embrace, but I do think it makes a lot more sense here.



Here's Maya's second example, a nice choreography that tells a story about itself, from Companhia Milonga Candombe:



Here are Facundo and Kely Posadas, also mentioned by Maya. I can hear the drums clearly in this one. This is mostly close embrace, but it also feels to me as though it's a little bit more its own thing; clearly there's a strong relationship to milonga, but I think a dancer of cuban salsa could find something familar too.



Now here's something that looks very different, and to music that's also quite different, but has some things in common: Canyengue. I hear brass I mean woodwind instruments, but not drums. This is exactly the same as what I was taught a couple of years ago as Canyengue. Definitely 'centripetal'. Marta Anton and Manolo 'El Gallego':



AFAIK the couple who taught me this (Paul and Michiko again) learned it from Rodolfo and Maria Cieri: the video TC linked to of them is interesting to watch too but has embedding disabled. I think Canyengue is a bit of a reconstruction. Which is fine by me. Anyway I remember it feeling very good, and for some reason doing wonders for my close-embrace tango, I wish I could dance it more often.

Interesting to compare and contrast both music and dances. Right, I seem to have picked up a stupid cough on my holidays, so you can think about the above while I go and breathe eucalyptus in a cloud of steam.

Canyengue

I danced the Canyengue set tonight, and then it was time to go home.

I've only danced Canyengue in class before, never socially, and the last time in class was a month or so ago. In the first one I got the hold a bit wrong, forgetting how important it is to point your face in the correct direction. In the second and third that was better, but I didn't entirely deliver the little off-axis-ness that is supposed to be there. I think my feet were generally OK but I felt a little bit clumsy and approximate. I was tiring, I'd danced all evening and at least one of my feet was hurting quite a bit. (I need to get some of that magic cold goo to rub on sore spots - I have the magic hot goo, but it's not as effective).

Canyengue looks quite a bit different, so I was sure I'd be stared at. Most people just dance tango to the same music. I haven't had much practice at it, and I couldn't afford to be distracted by catching anyone's eye. I've also found that it's very tempting in a Canyengue hold to look down, at your shadow on the floor, and that causes things to go wrong. So I made a decision to keep my eyes shut.

They were so firmly shut, and I was concentrating so hard, that I was quite surprised at where we were when I opened them. He could have danced me out into the street and I wouldn't have known.

I danced one more dance - Poema - with someone else. He asked me as I was getting a drink of water on the way to my coat. I'd only danced with him once before, I want to dance with him again, and he said "I really like Poema" (which had already started) - and I hesitated and said yes.

He dances really nicely but I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have done. I had intended the previous dance to be my last one because it was exactly what I wanted to take home with me. And I was regretting not having stuck to that idea. I'd actually been inspired to say "that's my last one" to the previous partner, as well, and having gone back on that made me feel worse. I felt obscurely as though I'd treated both of them with less respect than I would have wished, in my own mind if not in theirs. Just one of life's little errors, I suppose.

As soon as Poema was over I explained that I had to get my train. And I more or less got to take home what I wanted.

Canyengue looks rather bizarre, to my eye, but it feels gorgeous.