[Tango-L] Styles of Tango

[Huck Kennedy]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Darya Khripkova
<dkhripkova at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Close-embrace leaders have a "blind spot" and their follower's eyes are
> closed too :) Call it even?

     Actually no, to be honest.  The blind spot is easily dealt with
through turning relatively frequently (so as to get other viewpoints),
and through trust that the other dancers will behave as they are
supposed to behave, ie. not pass you, not overrun you from behind, not
dance backwards in the line of dance, not zig-zag in and out of lanes,
etc.

     Btw, this brings up an interesting problem that ballroom dancers
often bring to tango.  They are taught that the slower dancers should
be in the inside lanes, while the faster dancers should be on the
outside.  So a ballroom dancer will think nothing of passing somebody
on the outside.  Passing (since it is allowed in the first place) on
the outside rather than the inside is actually good in ballroom,
because it helps prevent the dance floor from decaying into the
middle.  And the maneuver works out fine, because the follower's head
is way back and out of the way and the all the leaders can see
everywhere; but it can be disastrous in the tango world, because the
blind spot prevents the leader from seeing the passer coming, and the
leader doesn't expect him in the first place due to traditional
no-passing codigos.

     Some of the rudest behavior I've seen on a tango dance floor is
some clown trying to squeeze himself and his partner through the half
meter blind spot between me and my partner (in the outside lane) and
the front row of tables.

Huck