I was djing at this milonga and playing a nice tanda of Calo con Beron. One of the guys who has been dancing for a couple of years asked one of the local teachers to dance. She was a dynamic dancer who has danced and performed with some of the biggest names in Tango. She gracefully accepted the invitation and embraced him. This guy, whom I know, danced decently. He walked with the music and did slow giros. Slowly the teacher closed her eyes...
All of sudden, he decided to open up the embrace and started performing some forever tango stunts, which was clearly beyond his physical capability. Looking at the expression of her stern face, trying to dance to his lead, I shook my head: this guys hadn't figured it out yet. He hadn't found his tango.
A couple of weeks later, at the same milonga I was dancing with a beautiful young woman from out of town. She had a decent embrace, dancing quite nicely. Our cheeks were touched. I was breathing smoothly, and I could hear her breathing. A moment of tranquility...
That lasted only less than two minutes, she went in and out and danced close to open afterward. The whole tanda, except the first two minutes, I had to figure how to dance with her. It was like trying to sleep, but constantly being waken up. I hadn't asked her to dance again, although she was very beautiful young woman.
I have paid attention to how good teachers, dancers and performers dancing socially in the milongas. Most of them don't break the embrace and do the amazing things that they do in the performances. Most of them dance very calmly, one step at a time. The ones who are moving like chicken without a head, showing everything they have learned yet mastered on the floor are the clueless wannabes.
There are nothing, in my opinion, that one wants to express in the music or communicate with partner, that one couldn't do it within the embrace. You could, however, find a lot of things missing in the open embrace.
I've been dancing with good and bad dancers for years. The good dancers do open and close embrace within the dancing frame, lead's right arm sliding along follower's two shoulder blades, changing V shapes bigger or smaller. If this is not what you observed nor experienced, it can be very bad.
ReplyDeleteBetter dancer don't need to break the embrace to dance well, especially in social dance floor. Have you heard of the concept of one body four legs? Besides V shape or front on is still close embrace.
ReplyDeleteI have met so many people (some even teach)whom have been dancing for years and still don't know what they are doing. Now if you really got it, you don't even have to move to make a woman dream in the music. There is dance and there is the tango (the tangasmic one) that some have experienced. If you haven't experience that, you have my sympathy.
I personally like it closed. If I am in front of the man, the way I was taught and how I saw it the very first time, then I want to stay there and not have to think too much or lose my connection.
ReplyDeleteI understand the concept of a fluid embrace, but then that means one is putting more attention on the steps than I would like to and I personally like to focus on the music and being taken to another place with my partner.
I figure that if I have to think to much about what I am doing rather than just doing it, I would rather dance with someone else.
Exactly... closed embrace could be fluid as well. It is a matter of ability.
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