Re: [TANGO-L] Tango dancer as improvisational musician

[Jonathan Thornton <jnt @NOYAU.COM>]

     * From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG>
     * Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 09:17:57 -0500

>Rick from PDX wrote:

>>Tango is almost totally led, no?  ... West Coast is the
>>only dance I know that isn't totally led. ... [S]he [the
>>follower] can hijack the lead, pause in very places &
>>"say something" thru her dancing.

>I do not think it is all the case that only the leader gets to be the
>improvisational musician.  I have danced with a number of women who are
>quite capable of hijacking the lead and rerouting the dance completely to
>their own tastes.  (I am not writing about back leading.)  Some women do
>it so strongly that the leader has no choice but to do what she wants.
>Some do it with a light subtlety that can be overrun if the leader
>chooses.

>The first time I danced with a woman who hijacked with the lead, after
>the first dance she asked me is it okay if I lead.  My response was that
>it was great fun.  It is great to dance with someone who co-creates the
>dance.
>
>Stephen Brown

The conventions of lead/leader and follow/follower are a basic structure
to the dance. Hijacking, or the exchange of lead and follow are
alterations within that basic convention. But I have found that dancing in
close communication with a partner can go beyond that convention to
something else.

It was in a contact improvisation class that I first heard this something
else called "the mind of the duet". I don't know where that phrase
originated. But having experienced dancing from "the mind of the duet" the
usual approach of dancing lead/follow always feels lacking, it's not
enough. I think we have to learn and develop lead/follow skills. I'm not
advocating abandoning that. But if all dancing consists of is me saying
"back step", follower "takes backstep", me saying " boleo", follower
"boleo's", I've lost interest in what I find a meaningless conversation.

I am using "saying" and "conversation" to refer to non verbal body
gestures and movements. What I want is a conversation that says, "This is
how I feel the music with you in this moment", and then I want to hear
from my partner, "and this is how I respond to you, and how I feel" and
then I respond, and at some point WE respond. Listening to her I hear
something and I move from what I heard, and she responds and the
improvisation moves into newness, something never before, and it's
exciting, and meaningful.

Afterwards I might say to her in words, "you know that movement when you
were kind of swaying in a soft circle, how did you come to feel that?",
and she might look surprised and say, "I? I thought you were doing it!".
Well, it wasn't me, it wasn't her, IT was something that emerged from the
mind of the duet. Note, mind singular. It wasn't led, it wasn't followed,
it was something WE discovered, created, danced together. And when We are
dancing like that, I feel like it is enough, that I need nothing else. I
feel that activity is completely satisfying in itself.

I hope Huck in his earlier post wasn't putting contact improvisation down.
It is not what was called in the 60's a group grope. There are very
specific skills involved and the key thing is learning to pay attention in
the MOMENT to your senses and your body, and all the other bodies. You
dance from the reality of the moment and not the concepts you may have
acquired about what dancing should be. It helps in developing floor skills
as well as partnering skills, and it was the class where I first learned
consciously about the wonderful possibilities of dancing from/with/in "the
mind of the duet".

Peace,
Jonathan Thornton