[Tango-L] demo advice needed

[Keith]

Trini,

A few points.

1. Unless your dancers are very experienced, choreograph 
everything. Otherwise, they’ll freeze.

2. Forget about LOD. Try each sequence out and see whether it looks 
better from right to left or left to right. Then arrange the choreography 
to suit. Build up a repertoire of lines or sequences that you can arrange 
in different ways to suit the dance area and the ability of each dancer.

3. In terms of importance the entry will constitute 30% of the dance 
and the ending 60%. The rest is 10%. You’ll need an entry to grab the 
attention of the audience and an ending to get them clapping. 

4. You need big figures to keep the attention of the audience. If you 
have dancers who can kick high – do it. If you have dancers who can 
do the splits – do it. Lifts and jumps are great. The ‘seat’, where the 
girl jumps onto the man’s leg is incredibly easy and I can teach it to any 
couple in 15 minutes. Audiences love it. Put in lots and lots of Ganchos 
and Boleos – front and back.

5. If you have young, attractive couples – show them off. Teenagers 
are gold. When my daughter was 14, she could hardly dance but 
audiences loved her.

6. It’s a show. Forget about social dancing or you’ll just send everyone 
to sleep. And you can tell your students it’s just for fun, but if there’s 
a stony silence at the end of the performance, trust me – that’s not fun.

But if the show goes well and the audience loves it - it's the greatest
feeling there is. 

Good Luck,

Keith, HK


 On Sat Feb  9  3:34 , "Trini y Sean (PATangoS)"  sent:

>Hola everyone!
>
>If youÂ’re an anti-performance person, please hit your
>delete key.
>
>So I'm wondering if folks might have some tips regarding
>demos or performances.  Our community has gotten a bunch of
>demo requests lately, particularly among the college
>students for their universities or college talent shows. 
>There are a couple of things that pop up for which we're
>looking for advice.
>