[Tango-L] Expanding social dancing to exhibition level?

[Keith]

Christopher,

No, I don't think competitors in the Social Dance Competition would know the 
music in advance - that would be even worse and definitely encourage
choreography. So, OK, it wouldn't be 100% choreographed the way a show is, 
but any half-decent dancer can dance a choreography slightly differently to suit 
whatever music is being played. Especially since, whatever music is, it's likely to
be something they're already familiar with. I'm sure the competitors are very good 
social dancers but, to maximize their chance of avoiding mistakes, they're likely
to choreograph as much as possible, rather than improvise as I'm sure they do in 
the milongas.

Keith, HK

On Thu Aug 30 13:11 , ceverett at ceverett.com sent:

>
>On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 00:54:06 -0400, "Keith" keith at tangohk.com> said:
>> For a little R'n'R I entered a Tango competition earlier this year [in
>> BsAs]. It's as Janis says, there was so much space available, it was much 
>> easier than dancing in the milongas. Other than moving CCW around the
>> floor and dancing to the music, no improvisation was necessary as there 
>> were no obstructions. We could pretty much dance whatever we wanted
>> whenever we wanted. Given time and practice, we could have choreographed
>> an entire 3-minute dance routine for use in the competition and I'm sure
>> that's what many competitors are now doing. 
>
>Well, just to be contrarian, did you know what the music was going to be
>in advance?  If not, do you think a decent choreography without knowing
>the music is even possible?  I don;t know these things, I've never done
>a choreography in my life, but I'm not sure you can even have a preset
>range of steps in mind to perform to any random music successfully ... 
>it's not improvisation and it's not a set choreography; it's bound to 
>come out looking bad.
>
>Ballroom people don't just have choreographies, I'm pretty sure they
>know 
>what the music will be in advance.
>
>But if you did know what the music was going to be, then maybe you're 
>right.
>
>Christopher