[Tango-L] Apilado an extinct creature?

[burak ozkosem]

Dear Mario,
I'm hoping that you are dancing Tango as intensive as posting to
tango-L, here is my perspective on Apilado style.

The major obstacle for Apilado is the tango embrace itself. If you
take a longitudinal section of the embrace, you will see that by
drawing a line from the axis to the left end(inside) of the embrace
and right end(outside) of the embrace,  left and right arms have
totally different angles between partners.

Outside of the embrace is closer than inside of the embrace. This is
one of the reasons why Argentine Tango is a "right handed" dance which
causes the counter clock wise "ronda" as the line of dance.
Since the distance between outside shoulders and inside shoulders is
not the same, this makes the "button to button" closing or chest to
chest closing more difficult and uncomfortable for several body types.

Of course there are several ways to  fix this issue, for instance, you
can break the embrace, so shoulders can align with same distance
between the partners.

Other obstacles:
 -The effect of height/weight proportion differences.
 -Very limited Tango Vocabulary which also causes repetition and lack
of tools to improvise.
 -Very limited sight for leader (right eye blindfolded)
 -Very good musicality required (which not many leaders have)
 -Fragile posture/body alignment

All these obstacle make Apilado style very specific and difficult.

BTW: I don't know where you got the idea of "one axis" in Apilado,
there is no such thing unless you hold your partner on top of your
head while you are dancing or she is stepping on your shoes all the
time during the dance.

Burak
Chicago

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Mario <sopelote at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I recently received this information off line from someone who seems to know his stuff.
> It is about the Abrazo Apilado and I was quite suprised by what I read;
>
> " Mario, the use of the apilado embrace outside a few specific moves is very controversial.  I think few, if any, use it throughout a dance.  It is used in specific moves, like those involving the tent such as the volcada, push, et al.  It may be used more in performance Tango, but I don't see it in most social Tango (except for those few specific moves)." - el
>
> Maybe, this is the problem I had been having for so long with my lead...is anyone dancing
> apilado all the time?
> All opinions on this will be appreciated...I just want to say that my three best experiences
> dancing Tango were when I danced the Milonga with three different experienced dancers
> and we definately used apilado (one axis) for the entire dance each time...  I've been looking for a similar experience since but maybe I'm chasing the phantom of the opera??
>
>
>
>
>
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