The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 8 Jun 2000
to 9 Jun 2000
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 03:00:28 -0400
Sender: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 8 Jun 2000 to 9 Jun 2000 (#2000-157)
There are 5 messages totalling 213 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Lines men tell women at the milongas
2. El Tanguata announces new web site
3. Growing Tango Crystals (2)
4. Phil Ferrigno/ATLANTA/MAPICS is out of the office.
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 12:32:02 -0400
From: SERGIO <SERGIO @NCINTER.NET>
Subject: Lines men tell women at the milongas
"Sos por lejos, la mejor bailarina que hay aqui, no, en serio! Buenos, vos
y otra chica."
You are by far the best dancer in this place, seriously! All right, you and
another girl.
"No puedo creer que me hayas dado bolilla para bailar, hace meses, !anos!
que te miro."
I cannot believe that you finally acepted to dance with me, I have been
looking at you for months, years!
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 17:06:48 -0300
From: Janis Kenyon <jantango @FEEDBACK.NET.AR>
Subject: El Tanguata announces new web site
El Tanguata is one of the two tango magazines published monthly and
distributed free of charge in the milongas in Buenos Aires. Luz Valbuena
and Diego Yepes are in charge of publication. Yesterday Diego told me that
they will have a webpage running in July www.eltanguata.com which will
include articles from previous issues (69 have been published to date) and a
chat room in English and Spanish.
Tito Palumbo, who has been in charge of the publication of Buenos Aires
Tango for six years, has told me that a webpage is in the works. Their
email address is: abatango @yahoo.com I have watched this magazine grow
over the years to its current color 24-page format. Issue #112 has just
been published with a new supplement.
Be sure to obtain copies of both publications when you arrive in Buenos
Aires. They contain information on classes, milongas, special events and
interesting articles.
Janis (Pichi) Kenyon
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 15:55:54 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <stermitz @CSN.NET>
Subject: Growing Tango Crystals
Not to flog a dead horse,...
The discussion on the 8CB w/DBS raised important issues about
teaching methodologies, but it also missed some. I raised the
following questions, hoping to trigger some creative thinking:
In the US tango communities are
>...still small, inexperienced and growing. They are isolated one from
>another and from Buenos Aires. We have all these seed crystals where
>the vision, style and habits of the original, core group and the
>original teachers will propagate into the future as they grow. In the
>larger, established communities you can easily see the consequences
>of the initial teaching.
>
>Do you want your community to be inspired by the elegant salon tango
>of Nito & Elba Garcia, the flowing improvised tango of Gustavo
>Naveira, the stage/fantasy tango of Forever Tango or the very close
>and rhythmic style of Cacho Dante?
>
>In 5 years do you want the dancing in your community to look like
>Buenos Aires?
>
>How do you get from here to there?
Here are a couple more thoughts:
Some people are attracted to the Analytical, some to the Intuitive.
One kind of teacher or teaching methodology will drive some people
away, while another will enable them to succeed.
I have noticed a strong tendency in tango instruction toward
methodologies emphasizing analysis, structure and technique, rather
than toward intuition, heart and connection.
The analytical/structural approach is used whether teaching fantasy
style, salon tango built out of the 8CB with variations, or the
improvisational style of Gustavo.
I'm not saying analysis, structure or technique are bad, but if you
start people learning tango by emphasizing the Structure, isn't it
much harder for them to discover the Heart?
I know that our community was strongly introverted and analytical at
the start. The good thing is that they (we) were working really hard
at getting better, but if a real "party person" were to peek in, they
would never come back. It took a while before our community finally
consisted of a greater variety of personalities. But, the social
scene never really became viable until we got past that heavy
analytical emphasis.
It could be that the social scene itself was the key factor, but I
think if we had remained bogged down in the analytical personality
type and approach, we never would have started growing.
Do others notice this in their communities?
Tom Stermitz
stermitz @ragtime.org
http://www.ragtime.org/ragtime
http://www.tango.org/dance
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 00:33:25 -0400
From: Manuel Patino <white95r @HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Growing Tango Crystals
Tom posits:
> Some people are attracted to the Analytical, some to the Intuitive.
> One kind of teacher or teaching methodology will drive some people
> away, while another will enable them to succeed.
>
> I have noticed a strong tendency in tango instruction toward
> methodologies emphasizing analysis, structure and technique, rather
> than toward intuition, heart and connection.
The great majority of people, IMHO, ask for or rather demand analyses,
structure and technique. After all, they are learning a particular way to
move to a particular type of music. It is no surprise that one sees these
methodoligies applied to teaching tango dance as well as any other type of
dance. In a similar manner, musicians must learn this way. It is only after
many hour of toil and practice that the hands and /or mouth can move with
deceptive ease and caress music from an instrument.
> The analytical/structural approach is used whether teaching fantasy
> style, salon tango built out of the 8CB with variations, or the
> improvisational style of Gustavo.
>
> I'm not saying analysis, structure or technique are bad, but if you
> start people learning tango by emphasizing the Structure, isn't it
> much harder for them to discover the Heart?
At the risk of sounding contrary, this is not a realistic or viable idea.
Aside from a few notable exceptions, people must painfully learn certain
skills before they can dance anything even remotely resembling tango (or
salsa or swing or what have you). Lets face it, if just teaching movement is
so difficult, how is one to teach *heart*? Excuse me, but either you have it
or you don't. And even if one has *heart*, it does not mean that one cannot
express it thru a dance like tango without knowledge of how to dance! I've
personally experienced (before I learned to dance) tremendous frustration
when listening to very moving music like tango or tropical music (or swing)
and wanting to dance to it but not knowing how. I'm not the only one either,
many people (some, excellent dancers in other genres) have shared with me
the frustration they feel when their *heart* asks them to move but their
body does not know how!
I've also seen many people who are either too lazy to learn or too
individualistic to adhere to a regime of learning. They hear the music and
just start jumping about or moving in outlandish ways (some of these same
people will beat on drums and snares with not an iota of rhythm or
musicality too). These are the ones who poo poo the tango as being "too
regimented" or "sexist" or any number of adjectives to excuse their
inability or unwillingness to learn. I'm not elitist or militaristic and I
do not grudge people their enjoyment of the moment when they simply cannot
resist the call of the music in their heart to dance, but I certainly think
that if you want to dance Argentine tango (or salsa, swing, etc) you better
by God learn to do it as well as you can. You owe it to yourself your
partner and the rest of the dancers on the floor. When I agree to dance a
tango, that is exactly what I will do. I respect it too much to just get up
there and start moving in any which way. *Heart* alone is by no means
sufficient to dance tango. And if you cannot "find heart" you've no business
on the dance floor. Frankly, I don't believe for one minute that anybody who
undertakes learning to dance Argentine Tango (or Salsa, swing, etc.) doesn't
already have their *heart* quite well located ;)
Anyway, teaching *heart* to one who does not have already is about as easy
as describing colors to the blind. Or teaching somebody how to swallow.
Without the analysis, method and system the person will never get to the
point where *intuition* will help them at all. One can no more *intuit*
dancing tango than playing the guitar.
Heartfull tangos to all,
Manuel
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 01:00:06 -0400
From: Phil Ferrigno <Phil.Ferrigno @MAPICS.COM>
Subject: Phil Ferrigno/ATLANTA/MAPICS is out of the office.
I will be out of the office from 06/07/2000 until 06/15/2000.
I will respond to your message when I return.
Best Regards,
Phil
End of TANGO-L Digest - 8 Jun 2000 to 9 Jun 2000 (#2000-157)
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