[Tango-L] Choreography

[Jonathan Thornton]

Manuel,

I really appreciate what you've written. I'm going to disagree a little bit
and perhaps my points will make sense, perhaps not but you have made very
helpful advances in this thread by looking more closely at improvisation.

In Contact and other improvised dance forms there is a much wider range of
improvisation allowed and often music is not used. Tango and other social
dances allows only a restricted subset of movement. There is as you observe
a big difference between the two improvisations.

Have you done the follow hands exercise in your Contact classes? There
occurred a key epiphany for me in class doing this. At the end talking about
when either of us could initiate a lead I commented on something my partner
did only to hear her say that she didn't do it, she thought I did it. I
asked our teacher about this, and it was an experience other students
expressed also and she answered that that "was the mind of the duet." Mind
singular of duet plural. And I have experienced that dancing tango. For me
dancing in the mind of the duet is the rare jackpot that keeps me dancing.

We begin as infants with a very limited repertoire of movement. As we grow
and develop we increase our capabilities and our repertoire. Learning to
dance, play an instrument, cook, sew, etc. involves among other things
adding to our repertoire of movements. I can't do back flips and so no
surprise that my improvisations included no back flips. When we dance tango
we use a selection of our repertoire. When we do improvisation we use a much
larger selection from our repertoire.

My view here differs from your statement:

"MHO, to be totally improvised and spontaneous, the dance would have to be
made from unplanned, unlearned, brand new movements. When I think of
improvisation in the dance, I think of "contact improv" where things just
sort of develop without preconceived notions (or motions)."

In my contact classes we did "free improvisation" but we often did "scores"
that had some sort of constraints such as an improvisation began at one wall
and moved across the floor to the opposite wall. The music in social dance
is for me (but not everyone!) a major constraint. I think the difference
between contact improv is mostly a matter of degrees, but then I'm a lumper.
(for those who are familiar with the lumper splitter dichotomy there was a
discussion some years back here that you might be able to recover from the
archive).

Much more rarely in tango than in improv but it does happen that a new
movement occurs, mostly mistakes but some of those mistakes become new
moves. Improvisation involves learning and some of it can be formal but it's
more about what you learn from your experience where as now tango is often a
set of formally taught techniques but there are some of those in Contact
also.

"Some of these are many very small choreographies more or less strung
together in fairly predictable fashion done within the length of the song."

I'm not comfortable calling learned movements choreographies. Yes, one could
speak of choreographing a pizza, or dress, or changing a tire. But then it
is equally true to say that one spontaneously choreographs an improvisation.
I find it more useful to keep choreography a formal term that is concerned
with how something is presented to a viewing audience.

If two people dancing together are consciously considering how they look to
a viewer I would say they are choreographing their dance. But if two people
dancing together are enjoying their interaction and the music using a shared
constrained subset of movement in response to each other, the music, and
floor conditions then I would say they are improvising their dance, not from
scratch but from a select palate so to speak.

Technique has importance in terms of visual impact but it also is
significant in the way the dancers express and enjoy the music and dance for
each other.

I am quibbling here. It's only language as your over all perception makes
sense to me. My motive for the quibbling is that I am very interested in the
nature of what is spontaneous, which means I'm trying to understand the way
our brains interact with each other through the dance particularly with the
idea of nurturing "dancing in the mind of the duet" which for me is an
incredible high.

Now to cut to my bottom line. I have danced with some good partners who have
very good
visual impact and are musical in their visual expression of the music. They
are very thoughtful and thinking all the time. But that is not why I dance
nor what I want from the dance. I want to reach a state where my brain isn't
relying on conscious direction to dance. The dancing takes place and my
consciousness is free to savor the depth of my experience of the music and
my partner and my experience. The dance that then takes place surprises me
because it's not mine, it's not hers, it's the mind of the duet dancing us.

Jonathan Thornton



On 7/26/06, WHITE 95 R <white95r at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everybody!
>
> With some trepidation I decided to wade into this
> choreography/improvisation
> debate. I think that what most tango dancers who can dance even just a
> little bit, realize that the show tango exhibitions consist of steps and
> movements that are practiced in a certain sequence and with a particular
> piece of music. This produces a more polished and interesting performance
> with some elaborate and intricate moves. The rehearsed performance looks
> good and it matches the music. If the performers are good enough it it's
> actually quite beautiful and shows great musicality and skill. If the
> dancers are not so good, the results can be less than impressive.
>
> Now, there is a widespread use of the word "improvised" as it refers to
> the
> tango. To my thinking, this means that it's unrehearsed and spontaneous.
> However, if you look at it a little more deeply, you can see that the
> "improvised" part applies only to the order and variety of the
> sub-choreographies that everyone has learned as the basic steps of tango.
>
> Practically everybody dances a short walk, a partial turn to the right,
> the
> "ocho cortado", a partial turn to the left, back ochos, etc. The more
> advanced dancers complete turns to both sides and perform other more
> difficult steps. Basically all those steps and moves are learned and
> rehearsed (choreographed ?) little sequences of steps. Most of us try to
> put
> these little sequences in places where the music seems to "fit" better.
> Basically, this is all the improvisation that I've seen in tango dancing.
>
> IMHO, to be totally improvised and spontaneous, the dance would have to be
> made from unplanned, unlearned, brand new movements. When I think of
> improvisation in the dance, I think of "contact improv" where things just
> sort of develop without preconceived notions (or motions). I think all
> tango
> dancers dance choreographies. Some of these are many very small
> choreographies more or less strung together in fairly predictable fashion
> done within the length of the song. The biggest difference between the
> "show" choreographies and the "improvised" dancing is that the show
> dancers
> practice and rehearse longer and more complicated sequences of tango steps
> which more rigidly follow the music.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Manuel
>
>
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>



-- 
"The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it,
but it still encloses, as does all that which is truthful, a secret."
Jorge Luis Borges