[Tango-L] Direction: Open & Crossed & Open & Closed

[Brian Dunn]

Hello Jake and others,

First of all...
Fair warning: Those readers who are not in an analytical mood should stop
reading now and begin dancing immediately, with broomsticks if necessary ;>


Jake, you wrote:
>>>
And is this where that moronic two-foot colgada came from?
<<<
How about this more complete explanation: 
"two-step colgada" = "moronic two-foot colgada" = "shared-axis turn with
colgada 'dynamizer' (Spanish: dynamizador) keeping follower on her standing
leg (thus temporarily suspending both the walking-systems and the code of
the follower's turn as useful ways of explaining what is happening) while
leader takes two counterbalancing steps around follower's fixed foot, giving
her a big swoopy flight through the air until it's time to go somewhere
else, thus re-entering the world of parallel/crossed/etc."  But, you know, I
was making a list, trying for a shorthand expression - honestly, I am only
impersonating a moron as an acting exercise...;>


>>>
An "open" step should be one that brings one or both dancers into a 
position that is clearly described by the word "open."
<<<
If you like...but the issue could also be as simple as "If it's not crossed,
it's open."  Like "if the light's not on, then it's off".  It doesn't have
to be so tough.

>>>
If my partner is directly in front of me, and walks directly at me while I
walk directly backward, and we're in parallel system, then we're already
facing each other.
<<<
I guess I'm just saying that insistence on directionality terms like
"forwards" and "backwards" which are not couple-specific terms may have
consequences for the usefulness of your analysis - consequences that you may
not like, given your goals.  

On the other hand, investing a little in couple-specific terms like "front
cross/open/back cross" to describe these things may well pay off in avoiding
"such cumbersome...descriptions".

But let's do a case study!
>>>
I'm looking for something that, as I noted, can clearly describe an
over-turned back ocho.
<<<  
I assume you mean that "the follower is doing a back ocho" (which this
framework would analyze as 2 follower's back cross steps in succession).
Since a back cross step can go anywhere within approximately a 180 degree
arc, in this framework, we'll say that an "overturned back cross" is one
with more than 180 degrees of pivot, so you have a sequence of two of these
big mamas to make your "ocho" (which in this case isn't shaped much like an
"8" anymore, but - oh well, so much for terminology).  

Continuing on anyway, according to the framework, her part in this is
expressed as:
   Two overturned (>180) back crosses

To complete the framework's couple-oriented analysis, the leader could
accompany these overturned back crosses with, any of the following:
1. two overturned front-crosses 
2. two open steps 
3. two "shallow" (i.e., not overturned) back-crosses 
4. a weight shift in place 
5. standing on one leg (no accompaniment)(probably not what you're thinking,
but it fits your definition)

But there is yet more nontrivial ambiguity to resolve. Taking a step in
cases 1, 2 and 3 raises the question of whether the couple is stepping
together on more or less parallel paths ("with" motion), or stepping in more
or less opposing directions ("Contra" motion). In contra motion, from above
they will be seen to rotate as a couple while they step around a common
center, if they maintain a constant distance from each other.  

This gives us
1a. two overturned front-crosses WITH
1b. two shallow front-crosses CONTRA (sacadas make this easier)
2a. two open steps WITH
2b. two open steps CONTRA 
3a. two "shallow" (i.e., not overturned) back-crosses WITH 
3b. two "overturned" back-crosses CONTRA (it's a strain to make everything
overturned in this case, maybe should be abandoned) 
4. a weight shift in place 
5. standing on one leg (no accompaniment) 


So the clear description you ask for above:
Follower:   Two overturned (>180) back crosses
Leader: any one of the eight possibilities listed above

Given the initial ambiguity about the leader's action, this gives us a
fairly small table of relatively compact couple-centric descriptions, don't
you think? 

All the best,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado USA
www.danceoftheheart.com
"Building a Better World, One Tango at a Time"