[Tango-L] Pausing and Posing in Tango

[Tango Society of Central Illinois]

Should one used pauses in dancing tango?

One of the difficulties in coming to a judgment about whether pauses
are used or are normal in tango is that the 'pause' is not clearly
defined in terms of its duration.

At one level, one can say that one is ALWAYS pausing in tango (milonga
and vals). A man leads a movement and waits (pauses) until the woman's
movement is completed (collection or change of weight occurs) before
the next movement is led. Likewise, after completing a movement, a
woman waits (pauses) until the man leads the next movement. That's
obvious. Or is it? At times looking across a US milonga floor, one can
wonder whether there is any waiting for the partner's movement to be
completed before the next movement is made. This lack of pausing is
what gives the dance its rushed appearance.

One thing that I like about the way milongueros dance is that those
slight pauses between steps are apparent. See the following videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSJLX7OA8Pg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioq8BdMxuO8

Another question regarding pauses is whether it is normal and
acceptable in tango to skip beats without moving around the floor.  At
one extreme,  it is normally considered unacceptable to stop in the
line of dance and stay in one place for an extended period of time.
There was a generation of tango dancers trained mostly in the 1990s
for whom parada - sandwich - lustrada + many adornments in place were
a normal part of dance. That may be fine drama when executed well on
the stage, but not on the social dance floor, where it blocks the flow
of the ronda. Fortunately this species is rapidly becoming extinct.
However, another mutant appears to have evolved that is often
associated with tango milonguero, but which resembles nothing I have
ever seen on the milonga dance floor in Buenos Aires. This is where a
man may remain motionless as several beats of music pass by and the
woman is engaging in a orgy of adornments, very loosely if at all
connected with the music. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpljPVhW6Gs

This type of pausing seems to be replacing the sandwich - lustrada
game of the 90s on the milonga dance floor at some venues. For the
most part it is used primarily when later Pugliese is played, although
I've seen this manner of dancing to mid-1950s Di Sarli as well.

This type of pausing is excessive because it ignores the music and
anti-social because it ignores the ronda. Its origin is unclear to me
and may be due in part to a misunderstanding of pauses discussed in
tango workshops, or even mis-taught by instructors who  misunderstood
the content of previous workshops.

An intermediate level of pausing is a pause of 1 or 2 seconds after
coming to a collection point (including the cruzada), before
proceeding to the next movement. This may match the music, e.g., the
pauses in the music of 50s Pugliese or the bandoneon flourishes that
occur between phrases in the music of the D'agostino-Vargas orchestra.
Here there are natural gaps in the music. This brief pausing could
then be extended to other tango music that is smoother (less
rhythmic), e.g., Calo - Beron or Fresedo - Ray. In this case, one may
actually pause 1 or 2 beats after a cruzada or collection (e.g.,
'resolution'), i.e., the rhythm continues but movement does not. This
is in part functional in that it allows the woman time to collect. I
have encountered this concept of limited pausing in several workshops
taught by well-known instructors of social tango. The acceptability of
this, I believe, depends on the 2 factors I mentioned before -
navigation (i.e., not blocking the flow of the ronda) and the rhythm
and phrasing of the music. My experience in Buenos Aires is that the
ronda is in nearly constant motion and thus even these short pauses
may even be pushing the limits of navigational acceptability, although
not always, depending on floor density. Most dancers in the milongas
of Buenos Aires do not have their dances punctuated with multiple
pauses and so the ronda is always progressing, except under the most
extreme high density. With respect to musicality these pauses can
work, as long as the movements into and out of the pause are connected
to the rhythm and phrasing of the music (e.g., exit from pause on
strongly accented beat). Even so, if acceptable in these terms, the
pause should be just a moment of respite in the dance, rather than the
dance being constructed around the pauses as in the last video
referenced.

Ron