[Tango-L] followers expressiveness

[Tango For Her]

I get a lot of resistance from teachers on here, but,
I still feel that there are a couple of things lacking
from traditional teaching.  Just mark this down as
“thinking outside the box”.  

(1) Teach a class where the leader indicates the
direction and feel of the step, the follower steps and
the leader follows the follower through the step. 
Experiment with various types of music.  Instruct the
follower throughout the class on musicality.  Let the
leader be along for the ride.  Why not?  Teachers
always set the follower up to be the “extra” in the
class.  Have the leader follow the follower through
the step.

(2) Remember my post on making the pivot be more
important than steps?  Okay.  Using #1, above, teach
the follower to move in and out of the pivot
musically. Yes, teach the leader, too.  But, I am all
for teaching the follower and send them out to the
milongas with feel.  Then, the leaders will feel it
through them!   

Can you spot the people, at milongas, that move with
varying feels (energies) into and out of the pivot? 
Sit and watch.  There are probably only a few in your
community.  Yes, NYC, Denver, and others will have
more.  

One time, my partner invited an advanced leader from
another community to our milongas for the weekend.  I
love my partner.  She has what Jackie wants to teach. 
I gave her all the space in the world.  Later, I said,
“So?”  She said, “I miss that feel.”  No kidding.  I
was watching.  He had a great variety of leads.  For
sure, I sat and, mentally, took notes.  But, I knew he
was missing one thing:  He wasn’t changing the feel as
he moved through a step.  You know?  Give her some
passion!  Cool leads are, well, cool!  Passionate
movements are musical to the n-th degree.

Here, go to this webpage:
http://www.2dcurves.com/exponential/exponential.html 

Click on the various exponential links.  Teach your
leaders and followers to feel the music according to
different curves.  Let the x-axis be distance through
the step.  Let the y-axis be speed, emphasis, energy,
anything other than the boredom of constant speed and
energy!  

Create exercises where they dance to the violin, the
voice, etc.  Create exercises where they think of
dancing heavy, like a clown, etc.  AND, give examples
derived from those curves.  

Make it fun!  Let it by funny!  And, above all, stop
teaching just the leader!  The follower paid, too!



--- jackie ling wong <jackie.wong at adelphia.net> wrote:

> as most people on this list know, i lead and i
> follow.  i have been  
> told that one of my best qualities as a dancer is my
> ability to  
> express myself musically.  to quote someone... "you
> dance the music".   
> this is not through only embellishments.
> 
> now, i have led many followers... and there are
> followers who just  
> follow which is nice and then there are followers
> who dance with  
> you....  who dance melodically... and hear the notes
> that are   
> emphasized and can translate that to their dance. 
> it feels like they  
> are reading my mind because my expression in the
> dance becomes so  
> easy.  her/his boleo considers not only the time of
> the movement but  
> the energy, how the beat is used (emphasized at the
> beg. of the  
> beat...etc)...  it feels like painting.
> 
> i probably am not expressing this correctly and
> please don't give me  
> grief for that.  in fact, if someone can express it
> better, i would  
> love to hear it.
> 
> my question...  how do you teach this?  is there an
> exercise that can  
> help people understand what i am saying?
> 



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