[Tango-L] Strong Lead - resistance effect

[Daniel Lakeland]

On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 11:36:00PM -0400, WHITE 95 R wrote:
> 
> This is only my opinion and I don't presume to correct anyone. I think
> that the word "resistance" can be used to mean different things in
> tango. For instance, it's common to find among new women dancers a
> tendency to collapse the point of contact upon receiving a lead from
> the man instead of taking the intended step. She leaves her body pretty
> much where it started at the beginning of the lead....

For those with a physics bent, I have been considering the physics of
tango for a while now. I would say the following about the
lead-follow.

You can imagine the system of two dancers as a two particle
interaction with a force similar to the one between two atoms. The
leader moves towards the follower, and initially the follower does
nothing, but as the gap closes, she rapidly accelerates to match the
leader. Or alternatively, with a back step as the gap opens, initially
she does nothing but then rapidly accelerates to match again.

However, this is not mediated by actual forces transmitted through the
arms or the chest, but rather by an awareness that the follower needs
to have. 

The result should be a slightly oscillatory motion which has a
frequency closely related to the frequency of the musical beats. 

Similarly, with a boleo or other torsional movement, the follower and
leader must wind up like a spring, the torso and legs out of sync. A
super stiff follower will turn like a pencil, whereas a relaxed
follower will stay behind too much. In order to keep the tempo, the
implied stiffness of the system must produce a natural frequency of
oscillation similar to the tempo of the music (or perhaps a harmonic
multiple of).

According to the tempo of the music, the interaction must appear to be
more stiff for quick movements, and less stiff for slow movements, so
that the tempo of the music and the frequency of the oscillations
in the interaction of the two bodies are related.

However, I must stress, it is not solely via the transmission of
actual forces between the arms or the chest that this stiffness or
looseness is mediated. The bodies act 'as if' a force is acting
between them, but not because the leader is applying a physical force
to the follower.


-- 
Daniel Lakeland
dlakelan at street-artists.org
http://www.street-artists.org/~dlakelan