[Tango-L] Tango Connect-Improv

[Tom Stermitz]

Tango came out of an Oral/Aural tradion. Tango isn't contained in the  
sheet music. We've lost something because we no longer have the tango  
tradition of passing ideas down the generations. We've also lost  
something because musicians usually want to artists (fair enough)  
rather than dance-orchestras.


Metaphorical History story:

I get the feeling that tango originated with musicians tucked into a  
corner of the bar, like an irish jam session. Musicans trading ideas  
and melodies. Then a few people get up from the tables and start  
dancing. The musicians scoot back from just looking at each other,  
and start to watch the dancers' feet. The guitarist catches the eyes  
of one of the leaders, flashes a grin, then gives him a litlle frill  
in the treble line. The leader does a zapateo, and the flutist echoes  
back the frill.

The follower? The follower might be the audience. (Yeah, she can be a  
whole lot more, but I'm following a metaphor here).


TANGO CONNECT-IMPROV EXERCISE

(TM... I Just made the term up)

As an exercise in creating a more inclusive and improvisational  
conversation between dancers and orchestra,

(1) Imagine taking the orchestra off the stage and placing it on a  
little riser  in the middle of the dance floor, so the musicians are  
head level with the dancers. Maybe we leave a symbolic empty chair  
within the orchestra.

(2) Let the orchestra play something in the style of D'Agostino, way  
more sparse than they are used to. They can't use sheet music,  
instead should catch the eyes of each other and the dancers.

(3) I wonder if they could use this method to create new, totally  
improvisational music, and we could call it tango.



Tom Stermitz
http://www.tango.org