[Tango-L] CITA continues in BsAs

[Janis Kenyon]

Randy in Miami wrote:
I would like to ask Janis how you started with your Tango dancing.  Did you
have any dance training before Tango? Did you start with lessons? Did you go
to BA and learn on the dance floors at the Milongas? I personally like
Janis, she is one of my friends. At this time I think that these answers
would be good for our discussion and for everybody. Janis is a jewel to
dance with, if you know how to lead. >>

It started when I was about ten.  My parents were attending ballroom dance
classes.  They would show my sister and me the steps they learned in class
and danced with us.  Tango was my favorite even then.  Tango recordings
(other than Argentine orchestras) were among the music we listened to as
children.  My sister and I went to ballet classes years before, but she
continued in dance while I studied piano.  Thanks to my parents I had early
dance and musical training.  It was easier for me when I finally studied
latin social dancing in my 40s.  My introduction to Argentine tango was from
a lawyer in Chicago in 1991.   He learned lots of steps from a Japanese
woman, who had studied six months in Buenos Aires.  I was learning his
choreography to perform at a public event with him.  I went to Stanford
Tango Week in 1993 where I learned more choreography.

After five trips to BsAs and then a move in 1999, I started dancing
regularly with a milonguero in Buenos Aires.  There was no conscious
decision to change the way I danced.  I enjoyed dancing simply with the men
in the milongas.  I have been fortunate to dance with the best in Buenos
Aires.  You have to be a good dancer yourself in order to recognize one.

Tango in Buenos Aires is a different world from tango in the United States
or anywhere else.  It's about feeling.  Studying steps and technique aren't
important.  When Argentines ask me where I learned tango, I tell them I
began learning steps 15 years ago in the US, but I really learned from the
milongueros.  They taught me so much about the orchestras.  I had to learn
to feel it by myself.  Many of the women in the milongas learned by dancing
and never had classes.

The woman attending CITA has studied tango for two years.  She is past 60
and doesn't need to learn anymore steps in tango.  That's why I told her
to forget about taking 15 classes that she won't remember or need to know
and spend her time going to the afternoon milongas to enjoy dancing.   It
has taken me years of dancing and teaching to realize that tango is easier
than everyone makes it.  You can only dance well to music you know and love.

Tango isn't about learning to execute your teachers' steps perfectly to win
their approval.  It's about feeling the music and expressing your own style.

Tango classes should start with studying the tango orchestras.  A better
understanding of the music will result in better social dancing.


Janis Kenyon
Buenos Aires