Al compás!!! - Re: [Tango-L] stepping off the beat

["Christian Lüthen"]

Well said, John!

I am just back from a little, tiny milonga in The Hague ["Den Haag"] down here in The Netherlands. We had live music tonight: a lay orchestra, no professionals (allthough guided by a professional). Not perfect, but authentic! And yes: they had a beat! No destructive, difficult music as currently played by the 'young wild' from Buenos Aires (as great as musicians they are), but just very much into their music.

Also the dancers in this tiny milonga: mostly not the youngest any more, BUT: they were dancing to the beat, to the rythm, to the syncopations ... to the music! This in contrast to the big milonga in big port city Rotterdam which I attended a week ago and left in total frustration: impressive als the figures the dancers there were able to memorize, impressive how high they were able to kick their leg, impressive how they were able to walt 3 or more steps backwards against the line of dance ... and most impressive: they were able to perform all this in total ignorance of the music and the beat! Grueling! 

Better less figures to the beat - and even better: to the music, than all the fancy foottricks ignoring the music and even the beat! 

Al compás!!!
Christian






-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:23:08 -0500
> Von: "John E. Wroblewski" <nrj.sparrow at prodigy.net>
> An: tango-l at mit.edu
> Betreff: [Tango-L] stepping off the beat

> First on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 the highest expert level, my musical
> knowledge is perhaps at best 1. BUT I know one thing for sure.......you
> have
> to dance to the beat....why does a normal heart beat around 50 to 99 times
> a
> minute, why does the sun rise and set every 24 hours of beat, why does the
> ebb and flow of tide "beat" predictable. The fact is, and it does not
> matter, if you're an expert instructor, grew up in BA, visited BA, wrote
> about Tango and BA or any other association you have with BA, Tango,
> Argentina it's the syncopation of the music (which by the way, if you did
> not know) is STRUCTURED. This means we DANCE TO THE BEAT.
>  
> When my daughter was 6 year old she took, violin lessons, Guest what she
> learned.....PLAY BY THE BEAT, So let me ask all the "experts" out there,
> those who are self proclaimed, and those who have earned their right full
> place in the Tango community, because of your dedication, devotion, why
> would you support anything other than DANCING TO THE BEAT.
> 
> It's the beat which unifies the musicality, syncopation, harmony,
> equilibrium between the dancers and Tango music. It's the beat, music,
> instrument and the totality of the tango experience, which for a few
> minutes
> of time, creates the passion of the Tango... Do you think you  have
> passion
> without the beat?,...never. Do you think you can have the sense of oneness
> with your partner without the beat?..never 
> 
> Without  the beat, all that remains it noise, confusion, perplexity, so
> folk
> let's get with it dance to the beat.   
> 
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-- 
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           christian.luethen at gmx.net
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How inappropriate to call this planet earth ...
... as clearly it is ocean!
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