[Tango-L] Better? Worse? Just different

[O Bardo]

On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 7:46 AM, <HBBOOGIE1 at aol.com> wrote:

>
> The first question  Blas asked me was “what is the number one most
> important thing about dancing  tango” ...   “The Music” first you need to
>  learn the music second is “The Heart” you need to feel the music in your
> heart  only then can you dance Tango
>

Thank you. This is true. Tango is first and last a very special form of
music. The dance grew out of that music and the music grew with the dance.
Argentina is a culture of warm feelings. So much more open and expressive
than Anglo-American culture. To focus on the dance and the steps is to get
it entirely wrong. It is why there is too often so very little depth in the
tango danced in the states.

I fault the culture but also teachers who don't educate their students to
this core truth of tango. Once the dancers are listening and hearing and
feeling the music in their hearts and sharing that with one another then
they understand the dance. Until then it can be an elegant posturing to
tango but is not what tango is or is about. Getting the externals perfect
and missing the inner feeling is missing it entirely. To much tango is being
danced missing it entirely.

I listen to the music now. A music so rich and full of depths. Struggling to
find the truth of tango I found it in the music. The dance brought me to the
music, but having found the music given the aridity of most of the dancing
in the United States I stopped dancing.

Beginners should be told to listen to the music and helped to understand the
music and should be given to understand that their dancing can only develop
as their understanding and appreciation of the music grows. I must confess I
am pessimistic.

There is currently another thread discussing tango music. In case there is
anyone on the list who has not seen "Si Sos Brujo" I cannot recommend it
strongly enough. The documentary demonstrates the specialness of tango and
music like jazz that needs to personally transmit the music and techniques
from generation to generation. It is not enough to write in down. The
written music can only serve as a notational aid but doesn't capture the
music.

I do hope that if you see yourself as a tango dancer you will come to see
yourself as a lover of tango music first and then a dancer.

Jonathan Thornton