[Tango-L] about Richard Powers ragtime dance workshop

[Robert Dodier]

Hey gang,

for what it's worth, I had the pleasure of attending Richard Powers'
ragtime dance workshop a couple of days ago.
I mention it because we did a lot of old-fashioned (circa 1912) tango.
Richard says that he tries to teach tango as close to the
style of that era as he can -- in particular he says that the
style of Paris (& therefore New York & everywhere else) was
the same as the style of Argentina. The old-fashioned tango we
learned had a lot in common with modern-day tango, but there
were a lot of differences too.

Richard is a very personable and remarkably effective teacher.
I enjoyed his commentary -- he is well-informed and always kept
his comments on topic -- he talked a lot, all day, and always
for good reason. He kept the class steadily moving along
(in a literal and figurative sense) all day long. I think any dance
teacher would do well to attend a workshop with him to see how
he teaches.

Finally he dances very well himself and he & his partner gave
several charming demonstrations.

I was intrigued by Richard's remark that there was a dance
craze for the one-step in the early 1900's. If a person could
dance a little bit, it was probably the one-step. That makes me
wonder whether tango might be more widely known. I like to
think that tango is pretty simple -- could tango be the dance
that people do when they don't know much about dancing?

All the best,

Robert Dodier
Boulder, CO