[Tango-L] Who leads what who follows what

[Alexis Cousein]

doug at swingfusion.com wrote:
> I am lead.  Have been instructed to always lead very footfall of follow,
> every weight change of follow, every boleo, gancho usw..  Follow adds style,
> follow adds embellishment.  I shape dance, she adds nuance.  I lead beats,
> phrasing, musical structure of dance.  Follow works within structure to
> create intricacy.

Followers *can* be more active than this, because to lead properly is also
to listen and to move only after you both *agree* where you're headed and
how fast so that you can move together.

Which means there's a conversation which opens the possibility
of dialogue.

For instance, most good followers will influence what you do with the musical
structure of the dance. You won't realise it, but it'll happen (unless you're
an insensitive leader). Followers aren't just house interior decorators, but
*also* architects. I even happen to think that in the *really* good dances
the follower has an almost dominant responsability with respect to how
you're dancing to the beat of the music (or slightly behind or in front),
and a shared responsability with respect to how the couple is
dancing to phrases (and how pauses are wound and unwound).

Some good followers will even take over the lead completely at times (the
most oft encountered circumstance is where the follower *forces* enough time
for something which you can see as an embellishment, but which changes
the matching of steps to the muscial phrases, which makes it much more
than an embellishment), which is perfectly acceptable *to me* as long as it's
clearly communicated, but other leaders will abhor this.

I happen to like dancing with extremely active followers, because it makes
the dance more surprising and you're never on autopilot. Other leaders don't
like to get out of their comfort zone and don't adhere to the "no guts, no
glory" philosophy, and they may not like the lack of total control.

Of course, that's all in ideal circumstances. Intricate and subtle
leader/follower communication is only possible when there's total
trust in both directions between leader and follower (if you're constantly
thinking the other person will screw up, you're *not* bound to listen to some
signals that take you in an unexpected direction, and that holds for leaders
and followers alike).


-- 
Alexis Cousein                                  al at sgi.com
Senior Systems Engineer/Solutions Architect     SGI/Silicon Graphics
--
<If I have seen further, it is by standing on reference manuals>