[Tango-L] Tips for Followers? prt 2

[larrynla@juno.com]

This sent to me by someone who occasionally reads TANGO-L but is not a member.  Posted with her approval.  --  Larry de Los Angeles

[CONTINUED FROM PART ONE]

Listen with your body.  Many followers manifest concentration through a terrified expression:  “What is he going to do next?  Will I know how to follow him?”  Learn to express the raptness of your attention externally in a way that makes your partner glad to have you in his arms.  It is more pleasing if your outer appearance says “I hear the music and I am waiting for you to join us in an expression of this music and this moment.  This is going to be wonderful”.  Since your partner can’t see your face, strive to manifest your attention through the aliveness of your connection in the places where you are touching him – your right hand, your upper torso and your left hand. 

Don’t adorn every step.  Although adornments are your opportunity to express your own joy they should also be an appreciation of the leader, an expression of your delight in what he is making of this moment.  If he gives you a beat or two, use the adornment to enhance the lead that he has offered for this particular music.  That could mean a staccato beat on your ankle if he has been dancing to the rhythm or a languid caress of the floor if he has been dancing to the melody.    As you know from your attendance at US Milongas, it is can be pretty much “all adornos, all the time” but in my view, they give a rote, auto-pilot look to the dance that isn’t pleasing.  If you are lucky enough to dance with a particular partner often enough to understand his style, it is possible to engage in a sweet little “call and response” or “point-counter-point” in adornos, but this will be the exception, not the rule.  Save it for the guy who really knows how to lead a boleo (that would be one in 50, in my experience – maybe the ratio is better in LA). 

The most exquisite adornment I ever saw was during a vals at El Beso.   The leader (older, paunchier) had just executed an amazing single-pivot turn that lasted for at least ten seconds. They were in a milonguero embrace, never broken, with her arm over his shoulder and her hand low on his back, between his shoulder blades.  At the end of the turn, just as they stepped out of it, she smiled and lifted her hand to the back of his neck for two seconds and then slid it down to the center of his back – not in an icky, cloying way, but in a “man, you are amazing” way.  She knew he couldn’t see her smile, and the lovely flutter of her hand and touch on his neck was her tribute to what he had created.      

And yes, the shoes help, because your foot is already articulated and when you put your weight down on a 3 inch heel it only has a tiny distance to travel and you avoid that bumpedty-bump that you probably experienced when trying to step onto your toes and then roll onto your heel.  I expect you aren’t planning to make a career of following so I imagine it won’t be worth it to invest in a size whatever-you-are  Comme il Fauts, but if you ever get a chance you should try it.   

I think open embrace (hand on bicep) is good for learning a step, and in my experience newer leaders like it because they aren’t having to deal with all of the anxiety of finding a place for their feet that comes in close embrace.  It can teach a leader to lead with his chest (but mostly only if the follower continues to say “stop steering me with your hands) but it completely changes the way the follower manages her weight and axis. 

If you really want to know what it is like to follow, you should be dancing with men.  In my experience, women leads have a lot of difficulty with the chest lead.  It takes a long time for them to learn how to bring the weight of the upper body forward before extending the leg.  Of course, this could be complicated by the fact that there are too many peaks and not enough valleys when women dance together in milonguero-style close embrace.  It’s better if the woman is bigger and heavier than you are.  Don’t know what you have in LA, but if  you are ever in Portland, Alex Krebs has a men’s technique class in which the men trade off lead and follow. 

Liz

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