[Tango-L] tango - touch - vision: call for comments!‏

[info@adagioconbrio.co.uk]

Dear tango dancers,
I have been invited to present a paper about tango & touch mainly drawing from
my own experience of the inclusive classes I facilitate in London, teaching
tango to people with various degree of visual impairment/s (only in the last two
years).
I would be really grateful if you could take a moment to think about your own
experience and write a couple of sentences (or more!). I hope your experience
and thoughts will inspire and support my writing and i intend to include your
feedbacks in my presentation. You could sign with your name only or remain
anonymous.

The main question is: "What is the relation between vision and touch in dancing
and learning tango?"(from my abstract below)

Please send your responses to: tangoclubitalia at yahoo.co.uk
many thanks!
Adriana


CLOSE YOUR EYES AND... DANCE: Touch and vision in Argentine tango
by Adriana Pegorer


Tango is a social practice layered with etiquette, and vision is one of its
primary aspects. For example the "cabeceo", a brief nod employed to discreetly
invite, accept and decline to dance, has a fundamental reliance on the exchange
of gazes between prospective partners.

But the central role of vision is challenged by, amongst others, the late tango
master Carlos Gavito, who proposed the absence of visual engagement for the
follower during the dance -if motivated by the dance itself-. The kinaesthetic
intention of moving as ‘one heart with four legs’ can, according to Gavito, be
better achieved if the sense of sight is not used or is made void in the
follower. The skilful leader accompanies the follower within a firm embrace
around the dancing hall and amongst the other couples, with legs and feet
sometimes touching.


What is the relation between vision and touch in dancing and learning tango?
Drawing on my experience of teaching tango to people with visual impairment, I
will critically engage with this problematic. I will focus on how the quality of
moving without seeing enriches the dancing and how my practice of release based
techniques and Japanese butoh provided me with fundamental teaching tools that
foreground kinaesthetic empathy over visual mimesis.

Conference outline “Touching and to be Touched – Kinesthesia and Empathy in
Dance”
The conference “Touching and to be Touched – Kinesthesia and Empathy in Dance”
is steered by the question in what way forms and practices of touch in dance are
connected with the evocation of feelings. The planned contributions therefore
will research touch from the perspectives of motion and touch of the physical
body and of being moved/being touched in the emotional sense.
Guiding questions for this conference ask about the modes of transfer – between
touching, being touched and observing touch in dance. Working on the assumptions
of various theories of body, emotion and senses, how are the processes of
tactile touch, and being touched emotionally, interpreted? Is there a specific
spectrum of emotions that is activated during these processes (within both the
auditor and the practitioner)? How could the relationship of movement, touch and
emotion be analyzed in connection to kinesthesia and empathy?
The conference is divided into three sections:
1.      Contributions to the concepts of touch in dance, and to the theory of
touch within the dynamic relations between kinesthesia and empathy.
2.      Contributions to the theory and practice of Contact Improvisation with
particular reference to touch and emotion.
3.      Contributions to Argentine Tango investigating
- the relationship between different techniques/styles and emotional effects,
- the interplay of movement and music,
- sensation versus emotion regarding kinesthesia and empathy.