[Tango-L] hips and mambo

[Deby Novitz]

 Yes, at one point salsa was the dance and mambo the music.  That was in 
the 70s.  Since then Salsa has evolved, just like tango.  Mambo is 
danced on the 2,but it is a completely different dance than salsa on the 
2. Salsa came from the mambo but was danced on the 1 with turns.  Now 
you can dance it on the 2 with even flashier moves. 

Moving the hips; David you are weird!  (Meant nicely)  What Caroline 
says has validity.  Most women are not aware that they move their hips 
and shoulders when they dance.  Just like men are not aware they use 
that left arm like a slot machine to lead. 

One is limited by who they learned from.  Other times people see things 
they think looks right or good and they choose to emulate it.  "Bailando 
con tu culo" a very crude way but used to describe dancing with your 
butt sticking out, is not good tango.  It is bad posture and heels that 
are too high.

The other night a beginner woman from England was sitting at our table.  
She has been dancing 3 weeks and her heels were higher than mine.  We 
got on the topic of balance.  I told her that if she wore a lower heel, 
say 7cm instead of 10.5 her balance would improve.  She told me her 
teacher told her it would be easier and she would dance better in a 
higher heel.  What could I say?  I don't want to bad mouth her teacher.

After the accident when I started to dance again,there was no way I 
could dance in my 10 cm heels.  I had lost all my balance and axis.  I 
started in 7cm, then to 8cm.  Now I am back to my 10cm heels.  I 
explained this to her, although I am not sure it got through.  Women 
think the high heels look sexy.  They do, but not when you cannot dance 
properly in them.  They make you look worse.  For me it has always been 
more important to look elegant in my dance.  It killed me to wear a 
lower heel, but it would have killed me more to feel like a teeter 
totter and look worse than I felt I did.

I digress, anyway, the point I guess I am trying to make is that natural 
movements of the body, proper teaching, are what make a dance regardless 
of what dance it is.  With more and more people learning tango, it is 
only natural that we see more and more people just starting to learn in 
the milongas.