[Tango-L] Breaking the "paso basico."

[Bruno Afonso]

Hi Mario,

On 2/12/08, Mario <sopelote at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the refreshing honesty, Mash...'going to a job interview'..lol

It's definitely more formal. But that challenges you to dance better.
I'd say that at milongas I mainly dance with dancers I know and
willing to put up with my inexperience :)

>    I've just spent the past month wondering why the slow Tango is soooo difficult
>    and has this ability to be posed and marched thru instead of danced.

There's a couple of reasons why slow tango is harder:

1) Requires better balance
2) Requires better musical interpretation to be actually danced.

>     The only thing that I've come up with is that I've heard in BsAs the Milongueros
>      only dance when their song and their orchestra is played.  That they choose to
>       dance only to their favorite songs, the one's that move them, and they know every note.

That's fine. But that only means they will never expand their ability
to learn to enjoy other tangos :)

>        Recently, I've been waiting for Tangos to be played with a strong, driving beat,
>          before I will dance.  This has worked well enough that I was strongly complimented
>           by the follow after what may have been my best tango.  The beat was strong and
>            I didn't mind dancing slow to it and pausing when there was a pause.
>             There is a lot of Tango out there with a fugitive beat that comes and goes, and
>              what seems like moments with nothing happening..
>                no wonder one needs steps,there.

Strong, driving beats are the more danceable tangos and easier ones to
start dancing to. It's all good but I find it's much more interesting
to actually be able to interpret and dance to slower and highly
musically interesting tangos. For example, there's parts of
Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos de Aires Operetta that are exquisite to
dance to. Not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure :)

The coming and going of beats allows for actually styling your dance
to the mood of the music. That's actually what is interesting about
it. You can imagine it as a bandoneon "expanding and contracting" and
imprinting that to your dance.

b

-- 
Bruno Afonso
http://brunoafonso.com (personal, mostly portuguese)
http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:BrunoAfonso (Professional, english)