tangopilgrim.com

A few nights ago at this milonga, I was hanging out at the bar area, cooling off from a tanda of D’Arienzo. A tanguero with whom I had never got acquainted or even exchanged names asked me this question during a conversation. I was bit surprised .

Haha…I am still learning. There are so many things to learn. It is fun to learn new things, to understand myself a bit more… And there are too many responsibilities that come with teaching.

“So you just want to enjoy it.” he then said. “Oh yeah!” I smiled.

It’s happened to me quite a few times lately: people, often strangers, ask me either if I am a teacher or when I start teaching…TANGO!

At Berlin tango festival, a couple of women asked if I was a teacher at the afternoon practica, where I danced with them in my flipflops.

A fellow tanguero friend said to me a few weeks ago: You should dj more often and teach. The music you play and the way you dance shows a lot of sensibilities. People should learn about this side of tango…

A mother, after watching me dancing with her beautiful daughter who was taking her first tango steps at an outdoor milonga, said: ” Are you a teacher?… You have very good technique, I can tell.”

…

About a year ago, the thought actually crossed my mind. At the time, despite uncertain of other aspects of the dance, I was pretty sure that I was ready to show others what a good embrace and posture were. I consulted a wise friend of mine. She encouraged the idea, but advised me to gain some more credentials and experience first.

You should spend a few months in BsAs. Learn everything that you could from your master. Ask them if you could be a teaching assistant. You should be an apprentice before a maestro… but I have no doubt you would be very good at it(teaching).

After that conversation, I reexamined my motive. Do I really want to teach tango?

Most of my intention at the time I was thinking of teaching tango was to build a name for myself. Though a part of it was that I wanted to share what I had learned with others.

Realized that, I put the thought away and started to dance around the world and continued my studying with Javi and Andrea.

One night a few weeks back, after dancing with my first teacher in the milonga, I asked her when we were walking out of the venue: ” I am dancing pretty well now, no?”

You are great. It is in you now.

“What do you mean?” I was bit puzzled.

The dance is in your body. It is no longer in your head. You don’t think about how to dance any more.

A friend of mine, who has been touring and teaching around the world, danced a tanda with me at the afternoon practilonga at a festival. At some point when I had a long pause in the music, she stopped the dance, looked at and said:” Wow, you are super zen.”

There are some other comments from different tangueras and professional dancers that compliment my dance.

The interesting thing is: all these happen after I stopped trying.

” Dancing with women like them is something different. It is not because they weigh 80 Kilos. They don’t weigh 80 Kilos… they ARE 80 kilos… of tango.”— from this documentary.

The first time I danced with a woman who had been dancing for over ten years, I freaked out. She was so different from the other women with whom I had been used to dance. Those women were light on their feet; they were effortless to dance with and they followed me well. But her, despite her average size body, she felt like a giant statue. I didn’t know how to move her, let alone dancing with her. I couldn’t say that I had enjoyed our dance.

Throughout the years, I had danced with many women who have been dancing for over ten to twenty years. They all have a common character: solidly heavy. I couldn’t figure out how, sometimes a petite woman, who weighs less than 100lbs and whom I could pick up with one arm, feel so heavy. After all, I was a three year blackbelt who could flip a guy who was about 50lbs heavier than me and mount him on the his back for two minutes. I felt weak, lack of strength, and therefore nervous, when I embraced them.

A man is like a column…

Andrea told me when I had my first private classes with them. For a few years, when I danced with these experienced women, I still felt wobbly and not grounded.

It was not until recently, when I started to focus dancing with my dantian and moved with my axis, that I realized the reason these experienced woman were felt heavy before was because they danced with their whole body and they were grounded. Less experienced women who haven’t found their own axises are dancing only with part of their body. The movement of a limp feels light, the movement of a body feels heavy.

When I first watched the video on youtube, I didn’t understand what Javier meant: how could a little old lady have 80kilos of tango in her? I guess I understand it now.

Once upon a time (although it was just over a year ago, I feel like ages), I took a private with a famous tango star who was the leading role in a famous tango show. At that moment, I was lost, didn’t know how to move on. Despite all my skepticism of learning social tango from a stage star, he was highly recommended by a few women whom I had danced with. “He made me feel like a woman.” according to one. That was always my goal of dancing tango.

I was never interested in being a good dancer, who could execute perfect sacada and lead beautiful beleos, or dance fluidly and brilliantly. I was never interested in the physical aspect of the dance.  I have been practicing and studying martial arts for many years. Complex movement and sequences don’t interest me. Forms is just means to a more profound finding: the internal chi and harmony…  That’s why all these moves: Colgada, volcada, whatever they are, generally it took me less than half an hour to be able to learn to execute it nicely. What interests me, at this point, is to discover the connection and find that magical moment between the two.

Well, I digress (maybe not). This amazing dancer taught me something at that class : you need to dance one step ahead, you need to always know where to put the woman next… an advice I had heard it before. He was right. It was a man’s responsibility.

Back to present time, at festivals and the milongas in Buenos Aires, I sit and watch: so many dancers, majority of them are trying to dance the next step, create the next movement, so busy, so impatient. I feel tired just watching them. And bored. Even with the few who could dance beautifully to the music. Something is missing from the dance.

I met a young German girl from another town at Berlin festival. I spot her dancing on the floor the first night out. The milonga was held at the Berlin City Hall: Rotes Rathause. A grand venue for milonga. A dream place to dance in. Apparently over six hundred dancer thought the same… the place was packed with frenzied dancers. She stood out, so unusually calm for a young dancer. So collected. I tried to cabeceo her the whole night. Three hours later we danced. Then every night after we looked for each other for a tanda. The third night, her last night, after we danced a tanda of D’Arienzo con Maure in a jam packed room, one of the famous performers and teachers at the festival stopped her and asked for her name. Later he asked her for a tanda. I took a look and turned away. Not interesting… disappointed actually.

The after hour milonga continued after 4:30am, I was so tired and  almost skipped it. I went out and  came back. There was a woman I would  love to have a tanda  with. I put on my shoes, then disappointingly saw her taking  off hers. Oh well, the music was good. I sat and  watched others dance.

They caught me eyes: this same young girl and a young guy. They stood out from the rest of the crowd. Smooth, flowing on the floor. Not rushed, not hurried. One body, four  feet, painting the floor. My eyes had been following them, for four tandas (one Biagi, one D’agostino con Vargas, one OTV and one Canaro milonga). I was jealous. She had  not danced with anyone more than one tanda. At the same time, I was happy watching them. It was such a rare joy to watch the music coming from the bodies, the feet.  ( Have I mentioned that I rarely watch and even avoid watching live performances at the milongas? ) Never a moment during that four tandas I felt disinterested.

They were dancing in the moment, every moment, for each other, without the sign of wanting to go to the next step. They just moved when they were both ready. The in between steps were filled with music, energy…

A wise and dear friend of mine, a successful writer, once told me: silence in tango is very pleasant. It is like sitting here with someone you know very well, your spouse, your very good friend, without feeling the need to entertain each other, to make an effort to talk to each other. Just sitting here comfortably, enjoy the presence of each other. Enjoy the moment…

A while ago, a friend asked me in a practica: So what are you working now?

Try not to dance. I answered.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying more and more just embracing my partner, listening to the music and not worrying about what to dance next. Just being in the moment and dance in the moment.

It is such a joy!

I have various drafts but no time to finish them. But this, I would like to share with you: Olga Besio talked about embellishment. That should probably clear up some of the criticisms to certain well known dancers and young ones, especially from non Argentine, that I have encountered throughout the years. Or not. In any case, it is interesting to hear from one of the great maestras:

Prof. Olga Besio (2007)

Translation: Maria Celia Arias

In order to speak about embellishments, and to give support to all that comes along with them, it would be important to mention some of the origins of the essence and existence of Tango and it’s dance.

It is necessary to clarify that the word “dance” does not only refer to the practice of a technique. On the contrary, its more general use and meaning refers to all forms of dance. And this reference alludes to that which occurs naturally, primitively, remotely, that which is visceral and even animal like in the human experience. In this sense we are talking about an experience that comes from an earlier time historically, chronologically and ontologically than this concept of technique we speak of today.

If we understand the dance as a profoundly natural act, which is born from the human experience, then as we speak of popular and social dance (where perhaps the tango dance is our most intrinsic example) we immediately discard all that would seem redundant or obvious.

So then: What is the Tango? What we already know: a dance for two, a deep communication with the other, and with the music, and then we can even say we begin to “discover” this idea of dialog. The dialog between the dancing couple, the dialog with the music, the dialog that happens between the feet when they draw famous figures on the floor such as the “ochos” and so many others. We can even take this idea further, and mention the dialog that happens between the feet, the legs and the air, when drawing “boleos” with precision and fine clarity, creating and recreating the same, yet new shape, with each occurrence.

But, then what is the embellishment, which has also been called at times, the decoration or the dancer’s expressiveness? The embellishment consists of the precise expression of the essence of the tango. There is no purpose in embellishments stemming from mere technique alone, if one does not understand “what they really mean and stand for.” The legs of the dancers create and form a dancing couple as one. They embrace, they join, dialog together, they caress… and this all technically happens due to a game of rotation in their joints and articulations. But this game of rotation should not be understood as something cold and technical; on the contrary, it is something absolutely natural and as logical as any kind of language. The legs “express”, and are “expressive”, when they have and know the language; not merely because they move or know how to move.

Therefore, we have just destroyed various myths about embellishments.

· One being that embellishments are ‘moves that must be learned or copied from another’. In no way is this ever the case. The technical study and training is of utmost importance, but it is by far not enough. There are excellent dancers who perform embellishments with true emotion, but we also often times see, unfortunately, the mere repetition of movements or copies of those excellent dancers performed by others who did not understand the true essence of the movement. Generally, in these cases, the original dancer is excellent, and the copycats result as irrelevant, and sometimes even unpleasant or grotesque interpreters.

· Another myth is that which state that the embellishment belongs to the woman. In no case is this true. The embellishment is everything that the man or woman does without interfering in the mark of the dance, the steps, figures and sequences, and etc. This includes being able to stay in exact union with the music without producing any awkward pulls or tugs off rhythm. For this to happen, it is absolutely necessary to first know how to lead and follow, and to have a very well developed ear for the music. I always say to my students that they should only realize their partner was doing embellishments when they watch the video. This actually happened to a famous dancer who, when he watched the video of his performance he saw for the first time what his partner was doing, and then understood why she always received so many complements and comments.

· Still another myth is that for the woman to be able to add embellishments, the man needs to give her time. This may be the case when we are speaking about choreography, where these moments can be planned and elaborated in agreement between the partners, or even a third party. But in the improvised tango dance, the embellishments come from one’s intelligence, ability, the “Tanguerismo” of the woman, in the ability to decide whether it would be appropriate or not, and to know when and what type of embellishment is more appropriate for the current circumstance. Of course, if the dancer has little experience, it is not recommended that she try this in the milonga: that is what classes and practices are for.

The last myth I will mention is that of the ear and musicality, and that some dancers consider it enough just to be able to hear the rhythm. Other more advanced dancers speak about dancing the phrase. I must clarify again, that this is not enough; it is necessary to understand the melody and the particular expressivity of each musical piece, of each orchestras arrangement, of each version… and in this same vein, understand the musicality needed by the dancers is much more than rhythm, the compass, the down beats, the silent beats, the double-time beats, and all of those elements that are so often spoken about (and often times confused with one and the other). The musicality, which is required here, is the kind that can translate, create and recreate time and time again the sentiments, compositional structure, and the essence of the particular piece, which the couple has the said opportunity to dance and express.

Last but not least, it is necessary to mention that the embellishment is not limited to movement, and is not limited to the feet and the legs. It is true that this may be the most visible in many cases, but the embellishment exists in the whole body, in one’s attitude, in the silence, in the closing of the eyes, in the pauses, in the changes of speed and in the thousands of variables that can occur and need to be practiced technically, and methodically. The embellishments purpose is to definitively show the love and passion for the dance, that each individual and each couple is capable of feeling and expressing.

My friends were in town the day I returned from Baires. I went to meet them at the Sunday milonga. Naturally we talked about my trip, my experience. At some point I said to my friend: you know what, the more I dance, the more I believe in the way Javier and Andrea teach. Because when I dance with women who have been studying the same way (well enough), I feel that I am free and everything is right, the embrace, the walk, the connection, the feeling and the music that I could express and hear from her…

Perfection does exist. I exclaimed.

I know what you mean. He smiled. But… before you know what’s right, you must know what’s wrong.

I almost bowed to him.