[Tango-L] Rock step?

[Tango Society of Central Illinois]

On 7/23/07, ceverett at ceverett.com <ceverett at ceverett.com> wrote:
>
>
> I believe we have a confusion about terminology.
>
> When I was going to Marta Fama's group class in Palermo on Wednesday
> night, she was teaching some milonga traspie stuff that looked awfully
> like what I learned as a "rockstep" here in the USA.  As Manuel says,
> it's also known to many as an "arrependita".
>
> The rockstep (as I understand it) isn't a core piece of tango by
> itself, because the woman isn't being led to collect.



Christopher (& list),

I apologize for confusion about terminology. I'm not sure where I first
picked up this term. What I can 'rock steps' Robert Hauk calls 'check steps'
to desinate the incomplete weight transfer.

I think most people are familiar with 'la cunita', which I believe has also
been referred to on occasion as 'la hamaca', which does not result, as you
say, in the woman being led to collect.

This is part of a larger family of 'steps' in which leading the woman to
collect after 'rocking' is included; in fact, the collecting steps comprise
a greater proportion of this family. For example, the man can step forward
with the left foot resulting in a incomplete transfer of weight, followed by
an incomplete transfer of weight to the back (right foot), followed by
bringing the woman to collect by leading her to step forward on the right
foot and now make a complete weight change. The angle of orientation of this
'rock step' can change, clockwise or counterclockwise.

With regard to weight transfer, as Deby says, less is better. (Perhaps this
is why 'rock' step  is a poor term that, for better or worse, is widespread
in the English speaking tango world. I'd be happy to substitute a better
term.)

The most familiar named sequence in this family is the 'ocho cortado', which
in itself has several common variations. The ocho cortado is a common
culmination of rock steps that rotate clockwise, followed by
counterclockwise movement into the cross.

Another named sequence in this family is the 'media vuelta', although this
term is perhaps too general (literally 'half turn') to be useful. In this
sequence the man steps movement outside partner right (woman back left),
crosses left behind right foot and rotates his chest to lead the women
forward right (back then forward constituting a 'rock'), then forward left,
with the continued rotation bringing the woman again inot the cross. This is
a conterclockwise turn.

There are numerous other sequence combinations that can incorporate various
components of these named 'steps'.



However, there's a important kernel of wisdom hidden here: a man
> needs a surprisingly small number of basic elements on his part to
> dance tango adequately.



With reference to these rock step (or otherwise named) elements being part
of the 'core' repertoire of milonguero style tango, they join walks
(caminadas) and runs (corridas), forward and back ochos, and grapevine
turns. Probably that's more than a 'small number of basic elements', because
one can, of course, dance adequately/well with a subset of repertoire.


This same number of basic elements is also all he needs to be a
> great dancer, if we believe the distance between adequacy and
> greatness is measured in terms of embrace, posture, technique,
> musicality and quality of movement as well as repertoire.
>
> Christopher
>