Re: [TANGO-L] TANGO-L Digest - 18 Nov 2005 to 19 Nov 2005 (#2005-317)

[Lucia <curvasreales @YAHOO.COM.AR>]

Hyla,

  You have just described, in so many words, what a catalyst, in music and dance, is.

  Thanks,

  Lucia ;->

H Dickinson <hyladlmp  @YAHOO.COM> escribis:  Lucia wrote something along the lines of(I am probably
misrepresenting a bit what she meant to say, I'm trying to get
it from memory):  "In TANGO DANCE, the music is just a
catalyst...the important thing is what you do with the movement,
so why not use whatever music you like to inspire you?"

HUH?  I guess it depends on who you talk to, who you dance with.
 For me and the people with whom I adore to dance, the music is
absolutely key, essential, absolutely impossible to separate
from the dance itself.  It's not just some initial inspiration;
the intricacies and interplay within the music itself are the
whole lifeblood of the dance.  You are not just using the music
as a background to your movement, or a structure to embellish
on.  You are responding to the music, becoming involved in the
music, making choices every second about which parts of the
music you wish to highlight or play down or even contradict.
Sometimes it is as if your feet or your heart or the movement of
your body becomes another instrument, adding a little more
music.  Perhaps another rhythm with the feet, perhaps a
deepening of the sweetness of the melody with the way you move
your leg or torso...

As a dancer, I am answering and expanding the music into the
spatial and visual dimensions.  I am also expanding the
connection that I have with my partner into the music, and
expanding the connection with the music to include my partner.
I can think of at least a dozen dancers with whom I could
happily dance hours at a time to a rotation of good, solid,
classic D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Tanturi, Rodriguez and Calo (just
for expample), over and over and over, and never ever get bored
because the two of us would keep finding new things in the
music, or play differently with the "same old things", or
inspire one another, on and on.  My favorite dancers keep
hearing and sharing new things, which then inspires me to hear
new things, which then.....etc.

The reason the classics are classics is because they have a
depth and complexity such that the more that you listen and play
with the music, the more you find in it.  Someone recently
mentioned to me that after a while you have all the music
memorized, but I don't actually find that is so.  About three
years ago I was sure that I had that classic early instrumental
D'Arienzo stuff down cold, at least the ones that were in heavy
rotation where I dance.  Then I danced with some visitor from
out of town and realized I had so much to learn; he was dancing
to things in the music I had never thought to listen for.  Since
then, I've found more and more and more in those same D'Arienzo
tunes that I used to think I had down cold, and I am not sure
any more that I will ever come to the end of it.

Because if I ever finally do get the whole entire thing
memorized, every rhythm of every instrument, each pause and
syncopation and change in mood, intensity, instrumental balance
etc., well, even then, I'll have lots of time to get creative
with which aspects I wish to highlight at this particular moment
of this particular dance with this particular person. I'm not
just talking about highlighting rhythmically, but with the
density/lightness of my movement, the dynamics of entering or
leaving each weight change.  So, in effect, I can become one or
two new instruments in the music, and for that moment in time
and that particular partner, I can create a new music that has
never been experienced before and will never be experienced
again.

I recently took an intensive workshop with Luciana Valle in
Buenos Aires (thanks Deb and Brian for a great great experience,
check out Dance of the Heart for the one in Feb/March) where we
were working with some of the young rising professionals as
partners.  A lot of the time, someone would just put a Di Sarli
album on repeat, and we'd be dancing to it non-stop for a couple
of hours, and then the same one next day, with every once in a
while some D'agostino or Tanturi or what have you, then back to
the same Di Sarli again.  Guess what, I never got tired of it,
because the enthusiasm and creativity that those kids brought to
the interpretation and expression of the music was so thrilling
and inspiring--one album over and over for hours and each time
two or three particular songs came on, the third time, the
tenth, the eighteenth, you could practically feel half the
people in the class sigh "ohhh, wow".  I was, too.  Oh,
wow--eighteen or however many times in a five day period and I
can't wait to get to dance this again with this or that
wonderful dancer who keeps hearing more and more in it each
time.  And this was during a class, with complex and difficult
new vocabulary to learn and practice, and still that love for
the music dripping out the pores even more than the sweat.  A
volcada done not just for the lovely free leg swooping feel, but
because the music really really wants that deep glorious swoop
right exactly here, and then an abrupt cutting sacada there, and
then a breath holding suspenseful
when-am-I-going-to-put-my-foot-down hanging colgada right at
some sustained phrase.....

Sure, if you've never danced with a partner who can hear the
music like that, then you can't possibly appreciate it.  If
you've never tried to hear the music in any sort of depth, you
won't appreciate this even if you do get to dance with one of
those fabulously musical dancers, because you will just be
confused, or it will just go right over your head.  But the
reason that so many of us get so cranky about the alternative
music sometimes, is that there is so incredibly much richness in
the classics that folks just never bother to listen for, and
thus they guarantee themselves and their partners boring dances.
 And that richness does not exist in the same way in most of the
newer tango music or alternative music.  Sure, if you can't hear
that richness, you get bored with the "same old thing" and
require something new to excite you, some different rhythm or
instrumentation.  I do like some of the alternative--if there is
music playing that inspires me to dance, I have a very hard time
not dancing to it, and I'll usually find a way to enjoy it, too.
 But it crowds out what I really love, and I think it keeps a
lot of people from taking the time to listen deeply enough to
really dance to the complexity in the classics.

Hyla




__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com



		
---------------------------------
 1GB gratis, Antivirus y Antispam
 Correo Yahoo!, el mejor correo web del mundo
 Abrm tu cuenta aqum