[Tango-L] Choreography

[TangoDC.com]

Er, guys... ?

What's the big deal about syncopation? It's a rather simple affair of 
superimposed patterns... Hasn't everyone cultivated the habit of looking 
up words and ideas they're not clear about? Given that everyone reading 
this has Internet access: can't you start today?

As for your usage of "choreography," Trini, you're perfectly correct. 
The word, as a technical term in dance, has both the meaning you've been 
using (general selection of elements) and the one more commonly thought 
correct by some members of this list (premeditated, rehearsed, and 
executed program). A quick look at Answers.com or Wikipedia will verify 
this, as will browsing just about any (gasp) book on dance as an art form.

I really do advise everyone to look this garbage up Before they start 
pontificating about "respecting words" and all that.

As for Michael's contradictory post on what "choreography" means in 
tango (it's steps known in advance; it's Not steps a follower can see 
coming a mile away), it unwittingly points to precisely the ambiguity 
I'm trying to examine. I posed this question vaguely on purpose. I am 
interested in what people actually _think_ about pre-prepared, fully 
choreographed stage tango. Especially if you've ever done it, and 
comprehend that tango moves in that situation Still require 
lead-and-follow, connection, and so forth. And if you're hostile to the 
notion of it being done, in your dance or in anyone's, I'd love to hear 
your reasoning.

But I'm also interested in the more delicate question of where we 
separate choreography from improv. Ocho cortado provides a fine example. 
If you deploy that sequence impromptu, but dance it the same way every 
time-- i.e., with the same rhythmic intention, and with all the steps in 
order-- which word better describes it? If you're not able to follow 
variations in it, to syncopate it (speak of the devil) against the base 
tempo, or to understand (with your body) that it's only a "move" because 
custom makes it so-- is your improv really deficient? Or are you already 
dealing with a matter of degrees?

What, in other words, IS "vocabulary"? Is it the whole burrito, or the 
rice and beans, with the ability to compose them impromptu? Or is it 
rather the attributes and qualities of those discrete parts themselves? 
How nice are the beans? How perfect the rice?

And why the hell do I care?

1.
I just taught an advanced class on precisely this topic (ocho cortado as 
choreography vs. as improv), after considering it extensively, analyzing 
it during practice and social dancing, and looking at it in as many ways 
as I'm capable of. My students, to judge from the smiles on their faces 
and the comments I received after class, had enlightened themselves in 
the course of that hour. I'm in the process of double-checking and 
reconsidering, in the spirit of relentless but confident skepticism.

2.
I recently (last Thursday) danced at length (11 hours or so) with 
someone trained in International Ballroom tango, and had to make it 
work. Initially we were completely incompatible. But we tried to be good 
sports about it, and met halfway. In the end, we were dancing something 
that I consider about 75% improv, with the remainder being fancy moves 
that were kinda-sorta choreographed, including a few on-demand poses 
that needed to be synchronized with other couples. (Full disclosure: We 
were shooting a commercial.) In truth, there simply wasn't time to imbue 
everything; but my partner learned with phenomenal speed. Also, we were 
able to execute certain moves that would be accidents with anyone except 
a partner of very high caliber. I used to be completely opposed to 
choreographed dancing, in theory at least, but this experience changed 
my thinking about it. I began to doubt my former opinion. The 
possibilities were immense, and they included many of the same 
functional elements of social dancing.

3.
Now, it occurred to me while doing all this that I was "teaching" my 
partner some very gymnastic shit (which she already had the skills to 
do, anyway; we truly collaborated when it came to selecting the figures, 
which in any case were fully led and fully followed, albeit "known in 
advance" in an ad hoc sort of way) in _exactly_ the same way that one 
teaches someone ochos. This led me to realize that ochos-- let alone a 
more "scripted" sequence such as the misnomered "ocho cortado"-- are 
choreography, at least initially. (That's why beginners frequently can't 
"get out" of them.) At least, we'd do well to call them such, if we're 
being honest about this dance.

4.
It also occurred to me that we could teach beginners, provided they had 
sufficient athletic ability, jumps and weird showy stuff as readily as 
we teach them ochos. Perhaps not two beginners, but certainly one, if 
paired with a skillful partner. The method is exactly the same: It's a 
mixture of choreography and connection. Gradually (one hopes) the 
choreography recedes.

I'm not suggesting anyone actually do this just yet.

But to speculate: Perhaps we could actually accelerate people's learning 
by teaching more complex figures first-- those which require a 
lead-follow relationship if they're to be possible at all, like boleos-- 
and then simplifying, honing, refining afterwards.

I realize full well that this goes against most dominant pedagogical 
methods in many disciplines, which tend to start small and then build 
up. By the same token, however, I'm talking about more than a 
hypothesis. I've used the start-big approach in other areas, and have 
found that it adds adrenaline to the learning process. I've used it as a 
systematic teaching method, not in dance, and seen good results. (E.g., 
learn a language by trying to translate it, before you're "ready" in the 
eyes of most teaching philosophies.) Starting big gives you Context-- 
without which, discrete elements are not only simplistic but often 
meaningless. Likewise, small parts only make sense if you already have a 
stake in learning detail.

This method, incidentally, is how I began learning this dance, under a 
teacher (a native Argentine, as if that actually mattered) (he was 
fearless, hilarious, and my age, which were probably more important) who 
showed me many things I soon forgot, and which were out of my league, 
but which carried more knowledge than simpler stuff. This method is also 
how I learned, years earlier, to translate some very difficult Italian 
poetry.

In short: I'm beginning to wonder what would happen if I taught my 
beginning students the ocho cortado, and how to be creative with it, 
while teaching my advanced students the tango embrace. I'm already 
seeing people make progress quickly. Retention notwithstanding (I give 
them notebooks; it's up to them to use them), I ask myself if it's 
hubris to imagine them learning even More rapidly. This dance takes too 
long to get, and is too expensive, especially for young people. It 
pisses me off, and I'm trying to damage my own teaching career by 
getting my students out of my classes at maximum speed. Unfortunately, I 
realize, that may keep them coming back.

Improv is the goal, yes. Total improv, by the millisecond. Choreography, 
I'm starting to think, can help us get there, by giving us material to 
play around. I teach mainly structural ideas; but I now see the wisdom 
(as opposed to the laxity) behind teaching step sequences. The burden 
has got to be on the student, at some point. If you give a bicycle to an 
idiot, he'll learn how to ride it somewhere useful. If you give it to 
Picasso, he'll take it apart, make a bull's head, and sell it for enough 
cash to buy ten more pieces of raw material. I'm not making the claim 
that most teachers-- since most teachers do offer sequences-- have 
thought these questions out. (And they are questions.) But I imagine 
some of them have; and I think we're all rather stupid to dismiss it 
impatiently, now that we've taken those classes and believe ourselves 
(mistakenly or not) done with them.

Before you start saying Nay, and counsel "just dancing" (vanitas 
vanitatum), or accuse me of reinventing the wheel, consider what I'm 
trying to say. Ocho cortado, blandly, is impromptu choreography at best. 
A move out of a box. A rock step (or two) done with molasses viscosity, 
then a slingshot front cross step, followed by a thrice-rocked sidestep 
(involving butt), concluding with the "normal" cross (and where it goes 
from there is anyone's guess), could be either improv or choreography, 
depending on whether you write it down beforehand or afterwards. In 
fact, I'm even beginning to think that anything one Can write down, in 
whatever system of notation, is choreography, regardless of when the 
writing occurs relative to the dance. Improv is really when you have no 
goddamn idea what you're doing, until you've just done it for the first 
time on earth.

My apologies to you all if all these points have been considered in 
threads previous. I may be guilty, like many an art critic, of educating 
myself in public. I just hope that what I'm laboriously describing (and 
challenging) is more than grist.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC

"A little learning is a dangerous thing..."
-- Alexander Pope, "Essay on Criticism," ii.15.


Huck Kennedy wrote:

"Igor Polk" <ipolk at virtuar.com> writes:
  

> We should respect words, otherwise the messy world
> will become even more messy.
>     

     I wholeheartedly agree, Igor.