[Tango-L] What Argentine Tango is, and what it is not.

[Tango Society of Central Illinois]

On 3/7/08, steve pastor <tang0man2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   My experience has been that ballroom teachers emphasize doing the pattern
>   as taught. If you deviate you are scolded, either by the teacher or your
>   partner for not dancing what is being taught.
>   Although this also happens in AT, there is an order of magnitude of difference.
>   And many AT teachers teach patterns while talking about, and even teaching,
>   variations and improvisation.
>   There is a similar difference between being able to point to a few "crossed foot"
>   patterns in non AT dances, and teaching being in "crossed system" as an
>   integral part of the dance.

I started ballroom dance about 3 years before I was exposed to
(Argentine) [redundant adjective] tango. It took me about 2 years of
dancing tango before it replaced ballroom dance as my favorite dance
environment. This was mostly because in ballroom dance there is a
variety of dances and it seemed odd at first to dance one dance all
night. This was before I learned the richness of tango improvisation
and the diversity of musical interpretation.

I agree with most of what Steve says. In ballroom dance you are taught
to memorize figures. The higher the level of the class, the longer the
sequences. In contrast in tango, what seem like memorized figures at
first start breaking down as more opportunities for improvisation at
each point in a sequence arise.

However, I was fortunate in having a ballroom dance instructor who
taught a good amount of improvisation. She showed me how figures could
be altered to fit the floor when needed. There is nothing inherent in
ballroom dance that prevents improvisation.

After gaining some proficiency in tango, I started to see
opportunities for improvisation in ballroom dances, seeing them most
readily in swing, salsa, cha-cha, and merengue. OK, for the most part,
these are urban folk dances like tango, where dancers develop the
dance rather than the dance academy, but in theory anyone who
understands the structure of a social dance can use the existing
elements and alter the sequence of linking them.

Having said that, although I still enjoy doing ballroom dance on
occasion, there is absolutely no dance like tango, which is so rich in
connection, movement, and musicality, it has become a passion, yes an
obsession, that has become a central focus in daily life.

Ron