[Tango-L] No dancing before the music

[Sergio Vandekier]

Ballroom dances have a particular choreography that fits a particular music.   Sometimes it is possible to use the choreography of a dance for something else.

For instance   one can dance back and forth, cha-cha, rumba or swing to the same music.  Some times the feeling is the proper one but many times there is "a wrong feeling".  Something like dancing a "Paso Doble" like a "Merengue" or vice-versa.

One thing is to do this intentionally, after you became an accomplished good dancer, and a different one is to do it out of ignorance of the proper music, and more importantly the proper "feeling".

The same way it is possible to use the Argentine Tango choreography to dance to any type of music, but the "feeling" changes.  

"Feeling" is one of the characteristics of A. Tango, if you change the feeling then you are dancing something that is similar to tango but that it is not tango.

Ideally you are an excellent tango dancer, somebody who knows Argentine Tango and the difference between all the most important tango orchestras, their evolution in time and style, and also you know how to dance to each one of them in the proper form, with the proper speed and the proper feeling.

You are all of the above but then you decide to use the tango choreography to dance to swing...or to "La traviata",... this is fine...have a good time doing it.

However, more frequently one sees people dancing to "non tango music" out of sheer ignorance of the real tango music.  Music that they never bothered to try to understand, in order to dance properly and with the right feeling.

Tango music varies so much from orchestra to orchestra that anybody should be able to find a couple that they really understand and can dance with intense feeling as it is supposed to be.

To be able to understand the music one has to listen, one orchestra at the time. Then move to that music with your eyes closed, trying to develop the right dynamics and the right feeling and finally then dance with different partners.   If necessary have a good dancer to show you how to move to the beat and wwith the rifgt feeling.

Best wishes, Sergio



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