[Tango-L] 6 months

[WHITE 95 R]

>From: Stephen.P.Brown at dal.frb.org

>I generally accept Tete's perspective that dancing tango is about the
>music not the steps.  Tete's perspective does suggest that it is quite
>possible to learn to dance tango reasonably well in six months.  In fact,
>when Susan and I were teaching on a regular basis about half our beginning
>students in group classes were ready to dance passably at a milonga in
>abut 6-8 weeks of once a week lessons for an hour's duration.

Hi Steve, Tete's perspective (as I gathered from attending his classes) 
boils down to "I can dance tango" (shows some dancing) "but you are not 
doing it right". I congratulate you on your wonderful success. Being 
instrumental in half of your students being able to dance well in the 
milongas in six weeks is nothing short of phenomenal.

>Teaching beginning tango as walking and as small elements of movement
>creates the possibility of emphasizing the rhythm of the music.

True that. We do that all the classes we teach.

>beginning students can assemble these small movements to dance.

Not necessarily. Actually it's highly unlikely that the beginning student 
can do any such thing.

>After the students have mastered some basic rhythmic and movement skills,
>learning something about the underlying structure of the tango would be
>helpful.

Here is the crux of the problem. Mastering basic rhythmic and movement 
skills is most difficult for the average person who walks into a tango 
class. IMHO, if a dancer has mastered basic rhythmic and movement skills, he 
or she is already a master dancer and is probably teaching classes 
somewhere. I think that the key to this whole argument is how one defines 
"mastering rhythmic and movement skills" or just what makes a given person a 
"passable dancer" on the pista....


>Along the way, some refinement of movement is good.

I'd say along the way the refinement of movement is the key to mastering the 
"rhythmic" and "movement" skills. Maybe I'm a bit of a curmudgeon, but I 
totally disagree with many people's definition of "mastering" various skills 
of dancing. Actually, "mastering" rhythmic movement (or dancing to the 
music, if you will), is a rare quality among dancers. There are very few 
dancers who actually have any "mastery" of that. On top of that, "mastery" 
of navigation is also very difficult and rare to see. I think it's 
disingenuous to say that beginner dancers can master anything is six weeks 
(or even six months). Again, maybe my definitions of "mastery" and "skill" 
are way off base, but I can only talk based on my experience and 
observations over the years.

Cheers,

Manuel

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