Wizzardous a writer as ever Martin, just keeps hips and ink flowing.
Category: Comment
A few years ago, my wife and I named a milonguero with the nickname “El muerto”. (The Dead). I prefer not to know what my nickname is while I dance
Oh Martin! I think I see your point and I suffered from it too!!!
Probably, that is why I invented this little formula you mention in your article 🙂
So, let me clarify that in my book I share just ONE “kind of mathematical equation” (not more than that!) and just in the Fifth Chapter!! In that chapter you may see many graphs representing it, because I develop detailed explanations and propose many exercises so you slowly learn to play with it while dancing.
It is one tool for training perception and decision making while improvising, not for describing body movement complexity at all!!
Luckily, I wrote it for you and the group of students when we finished the lesson at Los Locos last year, so you don´t depend on your short attention span, neither need to remember it by heart to go on exploring with it! 🙂 (You shared a picture of it on Facebook recently)
I may tell your readers it has the shape of a formula to represent and synthesize three very simple questions: -Where to is the next step? (directions/orientation in space/dance floor), -Where through into the embrace? (relative positions between dancers and free leg system) and -When? (that depends on music, space around, body state, etc). A simple model to play with and create combinations while deepening perception and duo sensation of togetherness.
For sure, when you will read the book (hopefully soon in English) you will need some time to understand it. And then, you will need a bit more time to embody it so you can play with it on the dance floor. I truly and deeply believe it is one joyable tool I use for dancing and teaching!!
I hope to go on sharing this approach and much more in my next visit to Amsterdam!
A warm embrace on a beautiful tango,
Andrea
PD: Anyone that wants to know more, please contact me trough Ig, Fb or mail: andreauchitel@gmail.com
I know, I know. Ha ha
This made me chuckle!
Te comprendo, MartÃn. Mi pareja y yo estamos en los 70 y hasta hoy bailamos como si tuviéramos 40. Pero los últimos meses un molesto silbido en mi oÃdo (esta vez en mi propio oÃdo) que llamamos tinnitus me está produciendo un perturbador micro vértigo de vez en cuando. ..ya veces Oh!! mientras bailo!
Esto me está planteando abandonar esta pasión tanguera, pero me digo a mà mismo que también podrÃa sucederle a un bailarÃn de 30 años y seguramente intentarÃa seguir bailando mientras pudiera, asà que yo estoy haciendo lo mismo. ¡Mis parejas de baile habituales ya van conociendo mi problema y milagro! aún no me han relegado en la lista de espera, pero no me extrañarÃa que comenzaran a mirar para el lado contrario para no encontrarse con mi mirada en mi intento de cabeceo en el momento menos pensado.
Thank you so much!
Clever and eloquent article, yet funny and honest without ever feeling like vacuous self-pity. More please!
I see that my response to this has been rudely disturbed by a pandemic. I actually dance a lot at my own milonga, leading by example so to speak, pun intended. Of course, I try to enroll as many leaders in the same mission to give everybody a good time which over time has been successful, creating some critical mass of leaders willing to contribute to the bigger cause next to the ones that are more selective, which is also totally okay. As for the outsider part, your strategy is also very useful for me. I wrote a piece on our primate roots that sort of explains the background of it, purely in the interest of science of course 🙂
The irony of your evocation of Scent of a Woman is that the tanguero is blind. Perhaps dress is relevant only to those on the sidelines, the realm of failed and rejected cabeceos. The dancers are otherwise engaged, in thrall to an experience that owes nothing to sight. A sensual embrace, musical surrender, and yes, even scent rule those incandescent moments!