[Tango-L] leading cruzada

[Joe Grohens]

This idea of "led" versus "automatic" crossing is a problematic  
dichotomy that leads to a lot of misunderstaning in tango dancing, in  
my opinion.

I have seen couples at classes and practicas debating why the cross  
did not happen, with the woman telling the man to push her with his  
arm, or to twist his torso, or to do other (IMO) superfluous things. I  
have danced with some women who seem to refuse to cross unless I do  
something "extra" with my arm. I think that is because somewhere they  
heard "don't cross unless the man leads it." Then they think that  
"lead" means push with the arm or something.

I guess people have different ideas of what "lead" means. In my view,  
if the man moves his body in a direction that takes the women into the  
crossing sequence, I would call that 'leading" the cross. He shouldn't  
need to do anything especially different with his arms or torso to  
guide the woman to crossing.

The woman stays in front of the man. If she doesn't cross when he goes  
that way, the couple will feel that they are separating or going out  
of alignment.

There should be no such thing as an "automatic" cross. "Automatic"  
would mean that the women just do a cross on their own as a memorized  
pattern. That's wrong. Women do not dance on their own. They dance  
with and in response to what the man is doing.

If the man turns counter-clockwise and the woman walks around him, she  
will customarily walk with a crossing sequence, as has been described  
earlier.

If the man walks on the outside right of the woman, she will  
customarily walk with a crossing sequence.

If the man walks more in front of her, she will walk without crossing.

If the man walks on her left in a typical closed embrace, she will  
_normally_ not cross. (As Jay just said, the asymmetry of the embrace  
works against the crossing sequence when walking on the woman's left.)

These are conventions that women who know how to dance tango become  
accustomed to and internalize through experience.

The man's body position and trajectory is what induces the woman's  
crossing sequence. If he stops moving, she will stop moving. If he  
changes direction, she will change direction. If he continues moving  
on a path to her cross, a woman (who knows how to dance tango and who  
has developed dance technique) will walk in a crossing sequence.

.......
I remember sitting with a visiting teacher and watching a middle-aged  
Argentine couple dancing tango at a house party. The visiting teacher,  
commenting on how much he loved to watch people dance, pointed out to  
me that this coulple did not use the cross, and he asked me where they  
were from. The teacher said that he would bet that they are from  
outside Buenos Aires -  that the crossing is not used so much in tango  
outside of Buenos Aires. We then asked the couple where they were from  
-- they had grown up and learned to dance in the interior, some place  
like Rosario, maybe (don't remember exactly).