[Tango-L] Posing in tango

[Huck Kennedy]

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 2:01 PM, Trini y Sean (PATangoS)
<patangos at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 6/9/08, Deby Novitz <dnovitz at lavidacondeby.com> wrote:
>
>> First and foremost.  The music.  When the music
>> pauses so should the dancers.
>
> Or more accurately, the dancers dance the pauses.  It's not just the feet that dance.

     I really like the first of Trini's two sentences here.

     Many people seem to think (and I've actually seen it taught on
occasion in so-called "musicality" classes) that a pause in the music
means that everyone has to abruptly stop dancing and freeze in place,
as though they are playing some childhood game like Simon Says or
Musical Chairs, or else they are summarily (and simplistically) judged
to be not dancing "with musicality."  While more often than not when
that happens, it is indeed the case (no musicality), it is not
necessarily true.

     You do have to somehow dance the pauses in the music,
distinguishing them in some manner from the rest of the music, but the
dancer should be allowed to exercise creativity and interpret the
pauses as he or she sees fit, not just everyone on the dance floor
obediently freezing in place out of blind fear, lest someone accuse
them of not being a "true portenyo."  ("Haaaa  haaaa, they moved,
gringo alert!!!  Euro trash!!!  Not a portenyo!!!   Haaa haaa!!!!)

Huck