Floorcraft: skill and attitude.
Floorcraft, such an issue in the milonga, especially when it gets crowded. It is never fun to be kicked and stepped on, or be on alert all the time. Sucks the joy of dancing.
My first BsAs milonga experience was at Nino Bien with Cherie y Ruben. I had never seen a floor so packed before. I did all right, however, after a few tandas. Navigation on a milonga floor is somewhat like driving: follow the car ahead of you, maintain the distance, if traffic is heavy then be patient; and avoid dangerous behaviors such as cutting lane left and right, over speeding (like 20 miles above speed limit) and tailgating.
I have danced in the milongas in Hong Kong, Roma, and Moscow as well as different festivals in the US since. From my observation, floorcraft has as much to do with skill as with attitude.
Good floorcraft skill is not very difficult to obtain. How hard it is to learn how to walk behind someone and avoid bumping into the others? The problem is that a lot of teachers teach how to dance, not how to dance social tango. Beginners do not have the proper introduction of floorcraft when they start learning.
The biggest problem, however, is the dancers’ attitude that contributes the messy dance floor. I’ve rarely seen the couple who is dancing for each other being the offender. If one is dancing for the partner, one is usually considerate enough to protect the other, not to do anything that spoils the joy of dancing. The biggest offenders are the ones who are dancing for themselves; sometimes the tango artists wanna be. They dance to show off.
At different festival milongas, I had seen quite a few “advanced” dancers performing all these fancy nuevo moves on the crowded floor, stopping the traffic and hogging three times more space than the others. They wanted to dance like Gustavo or Chicho, inspired by how they performed; while the real Gustavo or Chicho was dancing like the regular dancers on the milonga floor. It is not about open or close embrace, although it takes high skill to dance fluidly. It is about being considerate to the fellow dancers, not to invade others’ space and to respect the line of dance. Even the biggest names in tango, nuevo or traditional, follow the line of dance and respect other space.
Who gives you right not to?
Here is a clip from Sunderland, March 2008. Old milongueros, famous tango teachers were dancing peacefully along with regular dancers. I missed the flowing piso.
I think you are right in that it has to do with people’s concept of what they are doing. And I totally agree that you don’t need a high level of technical skill to have good floorcraft. In fact floorcraft not uncommonly gets worse with experience. The thing that really sabotages it, for me, though, is if you tend to dance in a mechanical way, and that can be a skill thing or an attitude thing – or maybe it’s both, in the sense that it comes from a teaching approach that works for aspiring performers, but doesn’t work at all well for social dancers and messes up both skill and attitude.
> the real Gustavo or Chicho was dancing like the
> regular dancers on the milonga floor.
That’s something I would like to see…
> Here is a clip from Sunderland, March 2008. Old milongueros,
> famous tango teachers were dancing peacefully
… but do not find anywhere in that video.
My experience of dancing near Gustavo was most unpleasant. That was before I learned not to join the ronda near a dangerous guy.
Chris,
I was on the floor while Gustavo was dancing with a regular tanguera in a crowded milonga, at certain point I was behind him. He was all right as far as my experience went. I saw Chicho dancing in the festival milongas at Baltimore tango festival and Moscow tango festival. He was very good navigating on the crowded floor.
About the clip, as I remembered you were asking for clips of Javi dancing in the milonga. Here it is…
along with Carlos Rivarola and a few milongueros.
> I saw Chicho dancing in the festival milongas at Baltimore tango
> festival and Moscow tango festival. He was very good navigating
> on the crowded floor.
I had the misfortune of sharing a floor with him at an Amsterdam milonga last night. The guy was dancing in his usual selfish show style, totally oblivious to the neighbouring couples, spending most of the time with his eyes down looking at footwork. The only reason he was tolerable is that the other guys formed a 4-meter avoidance zone around him.
My teacher once said that in BA’s milongas the other couples will begin to “zoom” in on the showy dancers, until they leave these disrespectful dancers with no room except the necessary to tango politely. I thought that was great… and funny.
Sometimes, some people have to learn things the hard way.