[Tango-L] Fame and photos

Sun Aug 19 15:27:48 EDT 2007

So this thread is now about "close embrace"?
  Dear Tango Experts: 
  "Close Embrace" takes in a lot of territory.
  Trini wrote "And I'm grateful that Christopher & Caroline of San 
  Francisco and Robert Hauk brought her to the States to teach."
  Robert Hauk is joined by (hopefully again) Steven Payne here 
  in Portland in teaching an apilado form of "close embrace". 
  Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Alex Krebs, who also teaches 
  here in Portland, taught a much less apilado form of "close 
  embrace" as part of the multiple series of classes that I took 
  from him several years ago.
  Most teachers teach "Close embrace" without addressing the issue
  of how things work ie the exchange of energy between partners.
  Put another way, "close embrace"  includes a fairly wide range of
  sharing energy (aka weight ) with your partner, and a continuum of 
  contact throughout the upper body.
  I would say that if you truly want to learn "close embrace", learn to 
  dance apilado. At the very least, be aware of the fact that there are
  differences.
  I don't much care for Susanna's style as a leader, but the ability to 
  be so at one with someone in the dance that she represents, is
  what for me separates tango from all other dances I've done.
  Here I echo Trini's comment  "I'm more into how it feels.".

"Trini y Sean (PATangoS)" <patangos at yahoo.com> wrote:
  Gosh, for such a being such a terrible teacher, it's a
wonder that so many of Susana's students (men & women) get
danced with at all at any of these festivals! Hmmm...could
it be that they actually know how to dance?

Funny, when I compare notes with other experienced women
(nuevo and salon dancers from around the country) about the
male dancers we particularly enjoy, we often come up with
the same names - and gosh if there usually aren't several
that have been influenced a lot by Susana. 

And that is what counts at the end of the day.

Your comments are the same as what many can say about other
teachers and dance styles. Some Nuevo and Salon dancers
can be just as dogmatic. Inexperienced dancers need to be
corrected no matter what the style or teacher, which I
think is what you've related. Personally, I find her
students (or students of her students) easier to teach than
others because they usually know that they have lots and
lots to learn. And I can name at least 4 other instructors
who sell CD's on tour, too.

In my studies with excellent teachers of all styles, none
of them have disputed anything Susana has ever taught me. 
There've been some stylistic differences but there's always
a reason behind it, one which is not a basic part of
Susana's style . I find that those who don't like Susana's
teaching often lack a good understanding of her style. 
Heck, she is quite blunt about sacrificing elegance for
stability for the man. (IMHO, it makes the men feel more
masculine, which I enjoy.) So if one is into only the
"looks" of tango, skip Susana. I'm more into how it feels.

Trini de Pittsburgh

--- "Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)" wrote:

> Hi list,
> 
> A little graffiti...
> 
> Crrtango at aol.com wrote:
> > Trini wrote:
> >
> > > dancing. Many of the old-timers had no idea how they did
> what they did.>
> > 
> From what I've seen, she hadn't a clue herself.
> > [This and the rest is Charles...] True, but some do
> know how to teach. She may have figured out how to teach
> it well but she never learned to dance it well.
> Again, we encounter the difference between knowing how to
> dance and 
> knowing how to teach. To me, if you don't dance what you
> teach, and vice 
> versa, you're full of it.
> 
> To the seams.
> > Whether good or bad, a teacher is still going to be the
> dance model for what they teach.
> This is the same point from the other end of the
> telescope. And let me 
> quote Stephen Brown's recent post on "Finding Clarity in
> Tango"--
> 
> > 4) Much of what is represented as tango instruction
> doesn't do much more than convey the instructor's own
> style of dancing. This criticism doesn't apply to
> everyone who teaches tango.
> > 
> The only teachers exempt from this "criticism" are the
> ones who _do not_ 
> dance what they teach.
> 
> I'm frankly astonished that Chris (UK), who's usually a
> perceptive 
> critic of bullshit, could call the post in which this
> piece of hogwash 
> was written "excellent." And then quote Yeats on top of
> it. Tsk, tsk, my 
> friend.
> > That is my point: Susana Miller is a so-so dancer with
> an over-inflated reputation, not an important and
> influential one. She just got more publicity.
> Amen, Charles. And she "got" more publicity because she
> found more 
> suckers at, evidently, the opportune moment.
> > The only reason her "close embrace" approach was novel
> was because it appealed to people who had no sense of
> tango history or never learned tango correctly in the
> first place.
> Nor have many of them learned how to dance correctly
> since. As a 
> teacher, I'm _constantly_ correcting the worse habits of
> her goddamn 
> McMilonguero style, which are as close to choreography as
> the most 
> number-based sequence is.
> 
> If it wasn't for her, conscientious teachers might have
> very little to 
> do indeed.
> > It is sad when the traditional way of dancing is
> forgotten or ignored to the point that someone can come
> along and market it as 
> > if it were a new way of dancing.
> > 
> Sad, yes; but a false alternative is false nonetheless--
> as you, 
> Charles, seem to imply. As for the rest of you-- never
> forget that she 
> has consciously and deliberately _marketed_ her teaching
> as "authentic," 
> if not always "new." What "influence" she has had--
> contra "Trini de 
> Pittsburgh"-- has largely occurred because her teaching
> excels in the 
> bad-habits department, and therefore requires a lot of
> fixing. If she 
> disappeared for one generation of tango dancers (provided
> her 
> "disciples" could stop their tongues), we would have no
> more reason to 
> mention her name.
> 
> In truth, as I've pointed out here before (and as the
> interview w/ 
> Fabian Salas on Keith Elshaw's website makes plain), SM
> is responsible 
> for propagating that incorrigible misnomer "ocho
> cortado," which move is 
> patently nothing of the kind. I personally have spent
> excessive time 
> getting students _out_ of that one damn pattern. I wish
> my teaching 
> could be more productive than remedial, with all my
> heart; but as long 
> as this woman's "influence" remains in circulation, I and
> many others 
> will have problems to undo, as our priority.
> 
> AND the woman sells (or at least formerly sold) other
> people's 
> copyrighted music on CD. And in _poor_ fidelity at that
> (which in my 
> view is hardly excusable, if you're going to be a punk.
> What honorable 
> pirate traffics in garbage?).
> 
> AND her disciples, the "close embrace" people (I dance
> close embrace 
> too, mind you), have become, I daresay, the only
> _dogmatically_ 
> closed-minded participants in this dance we all love. As
> is evidenced 
> here, on this very list, every other month or so.
> 
> So please tell me, O List-- given this critique-- what
> possible value 
> does this self-appointed (if ever there was one) apostle
> of the 
> "authentic" have to her credit? We're well past the point
> at which her 
> "non-stage" approach (not that it's even true) holds any
> water. I've 
> seen her teach in DC; I've cleaned up the reductive mess
> she leaves; I'd 
> sincerely like to know. I mean, if there's one teacher
> who _should not_ 
> have a press photo, it's her, as far as I can tell.
> 
> Jake
> DC
> 

PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh?s most popular social dance!
http://patangos.home.comcast.net/

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