Fran is one of the most highly regarded Argentine Tango teachers in New York City. He teaches at Dance Manhattan and the Argentine Consulate and is dance director and emcee for Stardust Dance Productions.  He is a also very successful freelance writer, who even takes over this newsletter when I’m out.

May 24, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Why do you participate in a dance class? The obvious answer is that you want to learn how to dance. Going a little deeper, you make a contract with a teacher. He or she contracts to do what is necessary to teach you how to dance. And you contract to do whatever is necessary to learn. This is the relationship that gets formed (at least in the ideal world), when you join a dance class.

Moving into the real world, however, this isn’t really the way things work. Most students don’t really want to learn how to dance at all. What they want is to know how to dance. Furthermore, they want to know how to do it now. I remember that when I was attempting to learn how to dance, the few teachers who insisted on my developing solid dance technique in order to move properly drove me crazy. I figured that if only they’d just show me a few steps right away, I could develop all that technique on my own time – preferably later.

Fortunately for students like I was during that period of time, most people who teach dance these days don’t worry too much about teaching students how to dance. They’re very happy to feed the student as many steps as the student wants – as long as the financial end of the contract continues to be taken care of. This achieves three definite goals:

·      The teacher pays his or her rent on an ongoing basis.

·      The student is blissfully happy in the short term.

·      The student learns pretty much nothing.

When you walk into a dance class conducted by a teacher like this, you can bet that you’re going to be shown a dance figure of some sort. This is what you want, and this is what you get. For example, when you come into my second class at the Firehouse, I teach steps. And this class is always much more crowded than my first class – in which I focus on technique. We could all pretend that most of the students at the Firehouse already have the technique well in hand, which means that they’re actually ready for my second class. But this isn’t the case. It’s just that most of my Firehouse students would like very much to know how to dance. But learning … that seems to be another story.

Being a teacher who is committed to actually teaching students how to dance, I encourage you to take the opportunity to learn. This means making a contract with yourself to do what is necessary to get progressively better. It means spending serious time in basic classes. It means asking questions. It means practicing. It means dancing far more than you do now. And it almost certainly means finding a one-to-one teacher and working regularly together to reach your own inner potential.

Each week at the Firehouse I see a few people who seem ready and willing to learn. I’d very much like to see more. Maybe you can become one of them. If you do, believe me, I’ll notice.

May 17, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Among the qualities every Tango dancer should have is patience.

P a t i e n c e.

First and foremost, you have to have patience with yourself. Learning to dance Tango takes far more time and effort than most of us expect. We live in an era in which people want what they want immediately, if not sooner. We see other people around us who seem to know what they’re doing, and we assume that we can pick up their apparent skills right away. When it doesn’t happen that way, many of us become angry at the world. Some of us decide we really didn’t want Tango in the first place. And we walk away from it.

I always thought that I was “a quick study” in learning most things. People told me: “Fran, you learn really fast.” It turns out that this isn’t true at all, and never was. I just looked as if I were learning quickly, because I was afraid to let them see me sweat. But believe me, in learning Tango I sweat. In fact, everything I’ve ever truly learned – whether in Tango or anything else -- has taken me a very long time to fully integrate. Example: I’ve been dancing Tango since 1986. Recently, I’ve begun to believe that I might be starting to learn something about it. I’m not kidding. Tango takes a lifetime commitment. As does anything worthwhile.

If you can start to become patient with yourself, you’ll soon find that you begin focusing more on the process of learning than on the end result. If you can concentrate on each individual step in the learning process – and enjoy developing your mental and physical capabilities in small increments – the big picture will take care of itself almost by magic. This type of guidance usually requires the helping hand of a good teacher, but there are some people who seem to have the ability to effectively serve as their own teachers, if they don’t fall into the trap of instead becoming taskmasters or punitive monitors.

Try becoming patient with yourself, and see whether it works.

Part two of the patience equation is to be infinitely patient with other people, especially the partners with whom you’re dancing. If you’re dancing with someone, and they’re not responding the way you want, the absolutely worst thing you can do is walk away from them. I’ve seen this happen at milongas in New York. It happened once during one of my Saturday practicas, and I kicked the offender out of the room, telling him that if he ever did that again at one of my events, he’d be banned forever. Frankly, I wish other people responsible for hosting Tango events would act in the same way I did, but I think sometimes their minds are more on their pockets than on their customers’ feelings.

The second worst thing you can do, when someone isn’t doing exactly what you want, is teaching. The implication is this behavior is that your lead is perfect, and your follower is just too inept to follow appropriately. Or, if you’re a follower who likes to teach leaders, that he’s just not doing his job as a competent leader. In either case, teaching is insulting behavior – nothing less. In a worst-case scenario – where the dance is absolutely falling apart – you can recommend that the teacher if there is one, be consulted. But I wouldn’t recommend going further than that.

The bottom line in all of this is that patience with yourself and patience with your partners is the only way to behave, when you’re in the process of learning Tango. And when you’ve finally achieved success, when you feel that you’ve at last mastered the dance, if I’m still breathing, let me know how feel about things then.

May 10, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Here’s the key question every leader has to ask himself, when interacting with a follower on the dance floor: “How do I feel to her as I ask her to make this movement I’m trying to invite?”

As leaders, the first – and often the only – question we generally ask ourselves is: “What do I want to do?” The answer most often presents itself to us as an image we have of a complex sequence we learned in a class, or tried to memorize from a video. In such circumstances we might possibly recall what we’re supposed to do within the sequence – but if we were asked what the follower was supposed to be doing, we might be hard pressed to define or describe it. And the question I posed above about how I make her feel when inviting each movement within the sequence might never come up.

But again, that’s the key question:

“How do I feel to her as I ask her to make this movement I’m trying to invite?”

Let me break down how a skilled leader approaches every movement in the dance. Let’s assume that he wants to try out some interesting sequence he just learned. (In the first place, I wouldn’t call this creative, improvisational dancing at its best, but what the hell.) In any event, first he asks: “What do I want my follower to do?” The whole idea behind leading is to lead something. So, he has to know in advance exactly what that something is that he wants to lead. If you can’t remember what she’s supposed to be doing, you can’t lead it.

The next consideration in the equation is: “What am I as a leader going to do, what action am I going to take, in order to invite my follower to take this step?” As I said above, this is what most leaders start with, but it should be the second question we ask ourselves. If you’ve made a serious study of appropriate lead/follow mechanisms, you know by this time how to invite each kind of movement you might want your follower to make during the dance. There is no special magic to this: Each movement calls for a very specific lead. Both you and your follower have to “speak this language” in order to make the lead/follow collaboration work. If you don’t speak the language, your first job in dancing Tango is to learn and become adept at this crucial skill. This can take months -- or years -- to master.

Now, we come to question 3: “How do I feel to her as I ask her to make this movement I’m trying to invite?” As I said, this is the key question. Even though I remember what it is she’s supposed to, and even though I have a good idea about what it takes to invite each movement, now I have to put all this knowledge into practice in the moment. If I’m busy thinking about the completion of the sequence, if I’m concentrating on how it will look to people around me, I may lose focus on the way I’m making my follower feel within every second of every individual movement within the sequence. The result of this loss of focus on my part is that she ends up feeling violated, pushed around, beat up, and abandoned.

Women: Have you ever felt this way during a dance?

If so, you now know why. Your leader isn’t thinking about how his movements are making you feel. His mind is elsewhere, and so is his dance.

Leaders: Please, please, please start paying attention to how the movements you make affect your follower. All you have to do is to notice her balance at the end of her steps, If she’s flying through the air and you have the sense that you’ve got to catch her before she falls, the chances are very good that your movements are causing this to happen. Stop, going too fast, stop using your arms to produce movement, and slow down. This will help things along.

Oh, and one more thing. If you want to get good at Tango, take lessons.

May 3, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Last weekend, Pat and I attended a “Stardust Dance Weekend” at a hotel called Honor’s Haven in the Catskills, which is something we do about four times per year.

At Stardust, we have one room dedicated to dancing Argentine Tango. Quite often, guests who don’t dance Tango wander into this room to see what’s going on. Sometimes, they briefly attempt to join the dancers on the floor, but more often than not they just watch for a while, and then leave.

In the spirit of getting everyone up to dance I want to offer four possible scenarios for situations like this, and what the dancers can do about them:

He dances Argentine Tango, she doesn’t. If the follower has an American dance background, but doesn’t dance Argentine Tango, the leader can suggest that in this dance, they’re going to try to move together one step at a time, and he will be taking things very slowly, often stopping between steps. This will help to counter her inclination to just start going and never stopping as she might otherwise do in, let’s say, American or International Tango. She won’t know what la cruzada is, so he shouldn’t try to lead that movement. And when it comes ocho, he can tell her that the forward ocho is similar to a “fan” in American Tango, and a back ocho is similar to a “fall away fan.” Stay away from molinete, gancho, parada, sacada, boleo, and calicita. I know, that’s a lot to leave out, but what are you gonna do?

She dances Argentine Tango, he doesn’t. The follower’s job is to respond to whatever the leader invites with his lead. If he asks for all American Tango steps, she can just respond in the same way she would follow steps led in Argentine Tango. It won’t feel like what we do, but she’ll be dancing and having a bit of fun.

Both partners dance Argentine Tango. Get up and dance.

Neither partner dances Argentine Tango. Take lessons now!

Parenthetically, lots of people from the Firehouse attend these Stardust Dance events, and if you’re looking for a full weekend of dance, food and fun, you can’t do better.

April 26, 2012

Any leader who has ever tried to follow has realized instantly that instead of being able to plan the movements he makes as he normally would, he is absolutely dependent on whomever is leading to get him from one place to another. Most leaders who try following can’t wait to reverse roles, and get back to leading again.

To be a competent leader, one has to be able to make his follower feel perfectly comfortable with not knowing from one moment to the next what she is going to be asked to do. For this to happen, the follower must know what to expect in general in terms of a good lead, and she has to receive such a lead from her partner all the way through the dance. When this happens – good lead, good follow – the dance is more or less effortless, and any small difficulties which arise can easily be worked out between the partners. When it doesn’t happen, the dance pretty much falls apart or becomes an exercise is brutality and back leading.

I often tell beginner-level students that my classes in lead and follow are the most important things they will ever learn in Tango. Naturally, they never believe this, since their sights are invariably set on being magically transformed into stage performers who can effortlessly execute any complex movement at will. By the time these same people have been dancing for a year or more, a few of them will begin to become aware that lead/follow might be more important than they thought. Sometimes, a student will approach me to say that he or she has suddenly discovered the value of lead and follow, and that she or she has decided to start over again, learning Tango from the top so that they can concentrate on the things they couldn’t wait to get past during their early lessons. When this happens, I am encouraged that these people just might learn to dance after all.

As a leader, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about this huge gap between being a leader and being a follower. It’s really like night and day. It is the leader’s job to bridge the enormous gap between his follower not knowing what he’s going to ask of her, and of her knowing clearly what to do from moment to moment.

As a follower, it’s time to stop blaming yourself entirely for problems that occur on the dance floor, and begin recognizing those leaders who are able to bridge the crucial lead/follow gap, and those who are not.

April 19, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. During one of my classes at the Argentine Consulate this week, a woman who had never danced Tango before observed that she was having great difficulty keeping her balance at the end of back steps. This produced a sympathetic response from most of the women in the class, who noted that they, too, were continually having the same problem even though many had been dancing Tango for much longer than the new student.

I answered this woman’s observation by confessing that after dancing Tango for approximately 25 years, I myself still have to concentrate intensely, or I lose my own balance during aback step.

There is a significant amount of specialized technique that goes into taking a back step comfortably. But the best piece of advice I can give anyone about taking this step is to plan ahead for balance – rather than simply launching oneself into the step, and hoping for the best at its end.

A back step is inherently difficult. We’re used to moving forward, because this is the way we get from one place to another everyday. Over the years, the great majority of us have developed a sense of balance in propelling ourselves forward without having to catch ourselves at the end of our movement. On the other hand, a back step is largely unfamiliar. For most of us, it feels as if we’re almost falling into unknown territory.

What can we do to gain a bit more control? Before you take any back step, think to yourself, “I’m going to find my balance at the end of this step.” As you take the step, keep thinking that thought. It is almost a certainty that your balance at the end of that step will be better than it might have been otherwise. The reason for this, I think, is that your increased consciousness of the movement will make it less erratic, less out of control.

Leaders can help a great deal in this process. Just by knowing that your follower needs to concentrate on every back step she takes in order to be more comfortable, you can support her efforts by not abruptly shoving her into these steps. Instead, think to yourself, “I’m going to help her be balanced at the end of this step.” I guarantee that you’ll be pleased with the results.

April 12, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. One aspect of Tango that is very challenging for teachers to convey to students is that of rhythmic movement within the music – some people refer to this as “musicality.”

In every other dance that students learn here in the U.S.A. they also learn a fixed basic rhythm. In Salsa, it’s 1-2-3, 1-2-3 (or 1-2-3, 5-6-7), or 2-3-4, 6-7-8 for old school mambo. In Swing, it’s tri-ple step, tri-ple step, rock step. In American Slow Waltz, it’s 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Pick a dance, any dance, and there’s a recognizable rhythm that accompanies it right from the beginning.

Not so in Tango. Not so in Milonga. Not so in Vals Cruzada.

In these dances, not only do you not have a memorized basic step you can rely on (which you also have in the above-mentioned American dances), you also don’t have any kind of basic rhythm to fall back on. For the average dance student, this makes learning Tango extremely difficult.

Okay, let’s take a deep breath and talk about what you do have to work with in learning Tango. You’ve heard me discuss the five basic elements of movement: forward, backward, to the side, in-place, and pause. These are single-step movements that you use in creating your own figures in Tango, in Milonga, or in Vals. With these individual movements you can generate thousands of combinations – virtually an unlimited number of what we usually call “dance steps.”

But what about rhythm? Since there isn’t any basic timing to the dance, you have to make up your own as you go along. Some basic choices you have are:

1.     Moving to every beat (half-note) of the song.

2.     Moving to every other beat of the song.

3.     Taking occasional long pauses.

4.     Doubling the timing occasionally through the use of “traspie.”

These four ideas represent a fundamental rhythmic vocabulary, which you can use in creating your own rhythmic response to any Tango, Milonga, or Vals. Becoming expert in the employment of rhythmic technique can, of course, be a lifetime study. My best advice here is to consult with your private teacher in mastering the skill of using these rhythmic elements in your dance.

As your dancing becomes more skillful and more creative, you will eventually reach a point where you hear a particular song, and know more or less instinctively what movement techniques as well as what rhythmic elements will enable you and your partner to enjoy that particular song as much as possible.

Some people reach this point in their dancing within a few months. For others, it may take a number of years. It really doesn’t matter how long it takes. (Although I know you want to arrive yesterday, don’t you?) What’s important is that you make up your mind to get there, and enjoy every moment the process.

April 5, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. One aspect of Tango that is very challenging for teachers to convey to students is that of rhythmic movement within the music – some people refer to this as “musicality.”

In every other dance that students learn here in the U.S.A. they also learn a fixed basic rhythm. In Salsa, it’s 1-2-3, 1-2-3 (or 1-2-3, 5-6-7), or 2-3-4, 6-7-8 for old school mambo. In Swing, it’s tri-ple step, tri-ple step, rock step. In American Slow Waltz, it’s 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Pick a dance, any dance, and there’s a recognizable rhythm that accompanies it right from the beginning.

Not so in Tango. Not so in Milonga. Not so in Vals Cruzada.

In these dances, not only do you not have a memorized basic step you can rely on (which you also have in the above-mentioned American dances), you also don’t have any kind of basic rhythm to fall back on. For the average dance student, this makes learning Tango extremely difficult.

Okay, let’s take a deep breath and talk about what you do have to work with in learning Tango. You’ve heard me discuss the five basic elements of movement: forward, backward, to the side, in-place, and pause. These are single-step movements that you use in creating your own figures in Tango, in Milonga, or in Vals. With these individual movements you can generate thousands of combinations – virtually an unlimited number of what we usually call “dance steps.”

But what about rhythm? Since there isn’t any basic timing to the dance, you have to make up your own as you go along. Some basic choices you have are:

1.     Moving to every beat (half-note) of the song.

2.     Moving to every other beat of the song.

3.     Taking occasional long pauses.

4.     Doubling the timing occasionally through the use of “traspie.”

These four ideas represent a fundamental rhythmic vocabulary, which you can use in creating your own rhythmic response to any Tango, Milonga, or Vals. Becoming expert in the employment of rhythmic technique can, of course, be a lifetime study. My best advice here is to consult with your private teacher in mastering the skill of using these rhythmic elements in your dance.

As your dancing becomes more skillful and more creative, you will eventually reach a point where you hear a particular song, and know more or less instinctively what movement techniques as well as what rhythmic elements will enable you and your partner to enjoy that particular song as much as possible.

Some people reach this point in their dancing within a few months. For others, it may take a number of years. It really doesn’t matter how long it takes. (Although I know you want to arrive yesterday, don’t you?) What’s important is that you make up your mind to get there, and enjoy every moment the process.

March 29, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Let’s talk about the anatomy of a dance step. I’m talking about any forward, backward, or side step taken by either a leader or a follower. (What I’m going to say might also apply generally to a weight change in place, but we’ll leave that movement undiscussed for now.)

Every step has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning of a typical Tango step involves initiation by the leader and response by the follower. In fact, the art of leading refers specifically to what happens in the beginning of each dance step. The leader uses a very special technique (which we’ve discussed in other Tango Tips) to invite the follower to take a single step forward, backward, or to the side. At this same moment the art of following also comes into play. She reads his specific lead, and responds to it by beginning to execute the step asked for. All this happens in that crucial moment, which we’ll call the beginning of the step.

The middle of the step involves traveling. Depending upon what step was invited, the couple now moves in one of three directions: forward, backward, or to the side. Generally speaking, this movement is independent; i.e., the leader does not carry the follower in any way through the step. He moves on his own, and so does she. To put it another way, the follower doesn’t need – and should not receive -- any assistance whatever from the leader in traveling through space.

The end of the step calls for balance on the part of both the leader and the follower. Like the middle of the step, this balance at the end is also independent. It is not the leader’s job to “help” the follower come into balance at the end of any given step. Nor is it the follower’s job to in any way use the leader’s body in bringing herself into balance. Both leader and follower have to use their individual inner resources to effect balance without relying on their partner for assistance. It is not uncommon for an unskilled leader to force a follower out of balance during a step, and then try to rectify the situation by attempting to steady her with his arms at the movement’s end. This is bad dancing, and should be avoided. It is also common to find a follower who hasn’t paid enough attention to achieving her own balance at the end of a step, suddenly realizing that she’s about to fall onto the other leg, and grasp onto the leader for emergency support. This, too, is bad dancing, and needs to be addressed.

In developing and practicing the social dance collaboration, both partners should eventually learn that except for the moment of initiation in each step -- i.e., the beginning -- they are each fully independent from one another. The next time you finish a dance step, and find yourself hanging onto your partner for dear life (or at least for balance), please start becoming aware that this is not what’s supposed to happen. If you have a teacher, this is what you need to work on in order to become a better dancer.

March 22, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. I can reduce this week’s Tip to two words:

S l o w  D o w n !

Most people – people at every skill level – tend to dance Tango too fast. More advanced dancers seem to be trying imitate performers (who are themselves dancing much faster than would be acceptable on a social dance floor), and beginners are so nervous about their dancing that they seem to just want to get it all over and done with as quickly as possible. The result is that the majority of us are race-walking rather than dancing.

S l o w  D o w n !

It’s hard to dance slowly. When we slow down, we can feel the problems we’re having with balance, problems that maybe we should have been dealing with a long time ago, but we decided to focus on other things instead – like complicated dance figures that we thought would make us look as if we had more experience than we actually do have.

S l o w  D o w n !

When we slow down, the lead/follow connection has to be very precise in order to make the dance work properly. We can’t simply rely on momentum – which in this case is another term for falling.

S l o w  D o w n !

When we slow down, we can start to discover how to use the music more effectively. Rather than always mindlessly moving to every beat, we can begin to vary our rhythm in order to improvise in a create way.

There are many things you can do to speed up your progress in dancing Tango. But I guarantee that one of the fastest ways to kick your Tango into high gear is to hurry up and

S l o w  D o w n !

March 15, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. As beginner leaders and followers learn Tango, they move along slightly differing trajectories. Most beginner leaders are gentle in the extreme with their followers, since they're afraid to accidentally cause them harm. The result is that their lead is subtle to the point of almost being non-existent. At the same time, beginner followers are usually so hyper-responsive that they jump at the slightest movement, often taking several steps instead of just the one being led.

As time goes on, some followers learn that Tango is done in increments of one step at a time. Gradually, through experience and maybe a few dance lessons, they learn to respond to leads by taking only one step, and then waiting for the next lead before taking the next. But by this time, leaders who used to be naively gentle, even fearful of over-leading, have been exposed to a repertoire of dance figures, which they have more or less committed to memory. Armed with this questionable knowledge, many of these leaders now push and shove their unfortunate followers through such repertoire, having either never really learned, or possibly completely forgotten, the appropriate mechanisms for good leading.

Skilled leading and following is an art. And, as it happens, skilled leading and following is the foundation of social Tango. As I've said many times before, most leaders think of Tango as a memorized series of figures. The last thing they think about is how such figures should be led. By the same token, most followers think of following as being controlled by a powerful leader, who literally carries them through the steps. These notions are utterly and completely false. And yet they persist.

If you are a follower, the moment you actually begin to take each step that is led, and then stop, taking care to bring yourself into quiet balance, waiting for the next lead to come - this is the moment when you embrace the art of following. It doesn't stop there, but this is your biggest hurdle in becoming a skilled follower.

If you are a leader, the moment you stop thinking about figures, and concentrate on properly leading and accompanying the individual step you're currently attempting with your follower -- this is the moment when you embrace the art of leading. It's only the beginning, but now you're on your way to being a skilled leader.

Most people dancing Tango won't pay attention to what I'm saying here. Either they'll think they already know this information (which they don't), or that they'll learn it some other time. Right now, they're too busy memorizing steps. In any case, they will never become even mediocre Tango dancers. The few who take what I'm saying here seriously, and act on it by finding a competent teacher who can help them discover the art of leading and following, will eventually succeed in becoming skilled, if not artful, dancers of Tango.

Which of these are you?

March 8, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. One of the pervasive myths about Tango is that the leader controls the follower’s movement, that he makes her do the figures that we see her executing on the dance floor. Beginner leaders – along with leaders who may have been dancing Tango for many years, but who have never actually learned how to lead properly – constantly attempt to control their partners by holding them in a vice-like grip and using their arms to direct each step the followers take.

Beginner followers – along with so-called experienced followers who have never learned how to follow properly – exacerbate the problem by surrendering complete control of their movement to their leaders, assuming that if they’re going to execute a figure, the leader has to somehow make them do it by physically carrying them through it.

The relationship between Tango partners that I’ve described above is what I sometimes refer to as the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” syndrome. It is a complete mischaracterization of what each partner actually does in the dance, and it turns Tango into little more than a wresting match between the two people involved.

What actually is supposed to happen is that each of the partners plays a distinctive, collaborative role in the symbiosis of the dance. The leader very gently suggests an individual step through a specific movement of his torso, which the follower receives through the embrace. Without in any way being forced by the leader, the follower executes the invited movement on her own, then waits in balance for the next lead.

Instead of forcing his follower through a rigidly timed choreography, the leader allows his planned figure to unfold within his follower’s capabilities as she is able to execute each step within the total series of movements. He may have a general idea of the overall timing of the pattern he wants to lead, but he recognizes that as the figure proceeds any number of technical issues may impede its ideal execution, and he therefore adapts to whatever alterations of timing might be necessary to ensure his partner comfort and safety.

In this way, Tango becomes an ongoing, sympathetic collaboration rather than a kind of adversarial combat. Both partners in the dance play their appropriate roles without hindrance of any kind from the other; thus the unique paradox of Tango is fulfilled: Two people apparently entwined, acting as one, yet functioning with absolute individuality.

March 1, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. One of the milongas Pat and I really love in Buenos Aires is “Sunderland” on Saturday nights. This venue is actually a large gymnasium in the suburbs of the city, where dancers young and old come for an evening of traditional Tango.

A couple we know recently returned from a visit to Buenos Aires, and reported that last Saturday night one of the event promoters escorted a couple off the floor, telling them their dancing was too dangerous, and was interfering with the welfare of others dancers. Apparently, he had spoken to them once as discretely as possible, when several of his regular patrons had complained. And when they continued to dance in an inappropriate way, he physically walked them off the floor, gave them their money back, and asked them to leave the premises.

Wow!

In this country we tend to be far more reticent about thoughtless dancers than they are in Buenos Aires. And this often means that an entire roomful of people suffers, because one couple doesn’t know how to act appropriately in a public place.

I’m not sure what steps can be taken by promoters to ensure harmony in our dance venues here at home, but as dancers we can make ourselves conscious of our effect on other people in the room, when we start “taking over the floor.” Many of us dancing Tango in this country are relatively new to this dance, maybe even new to the art of social dancing in general. Since the majority of us leaders find ourselves focused on elaborate stage sequences, which we pick up from our teachers, it’s very easy to lose sight of the fact that every step we take may cause us to physically collide with another couple, if we’re not careful.

When Pat and I dance in a crowded room, our first concern is the wellbeing of everyone else on the dance floor. Only then, do we consider what figures we might be able to execute, given the space and dance flow parameters in which we find ourselves. I think that ultimately this is the solution to the problem: each of us has to carefully monitor our own behavior, making sure we take good care of everyone on the floor, not just ourselves and our partners.

Let’s try to do this from now on at Firehouse Tango, and maybe we’ll become a model for others in the Tango community to emulate.

First 2012 Cat's Away milonga next week!

Hi everyone, Pat here. Fran and I are very excited to be hosting the Cat's Away Milonga next week--March 8th. We are looking forward to a wonderful evening of home cooked food, fabulous music, and an all-around good time. As Fran and I look at our culinary sign-up poster, we feel such a deep gratitude for the generosity that exists in our group - our sincere thanks to all who have signed up! We need just a few more volunteers –

For our March 8^th Cat’s Away

One appetizer!

For our March 15^th Cat's Away

·      1 salad

·      3 appetizers

·      1 entrees

Please email us at franchesleigh@mac.com or paltman@bcrfcure.org

And, a few requests to make our evening go smoothly:

·      If you're bringing food, please check in with Tibor at the desk, and then go straight to the kitchen. Please do not leave your food on the table.

·      Those bringing Appetizers – please arrive at 7:30 p.m., latest 7:45 p.m.  Appetizers will be served at 8:00 p.m.

·      Those bringing Entrees – please arrive at 8:30 p.m., latest 8:45 p.m. If your food needs heating up, please arrive before 8:30 p.m. Entrees will be served at 9 p.m.

February 23, 2012

Fran Chesleigh has been writing weekly Tango Tips for Firehouse since 2006.  You'll  find them all archived on our website at www.firehousetango.com  under Tango Tips.

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. In the United States, if a man wants to ask a woman to dance, he walks up to where she’s sitting, and says something like “May I have this dance?” or “Would you care to dance?” At present, women are perfectly free to ask men to dance as well. This is the culture that has evolved in the USA over the past 15 to 20 years.

In Argentina, however, things are quite different. In a typical Buenos Aires milonga, dancers come to the event either as couples or alone. If they arrive as couples, they sit together, and almost always dance exclusively with one another for the entire evening. As a matter of course, no single man will ask a woman who is part of a couple to dance.

On the other hand, when dancers arrive alone the men sit together in one area of the milonga and the women in another area. In Argentina, a woman never asks a man to dance, however she makes herself available by deciding whom she’d like to dance with, and then carefully watching his eyes on the chance that he will invite her in the following way. The man finds the woman he wants to dance with by searching the available women with his eyes. When he sees the woman he’s interested in, he attempts to make definite eye contact with her. Then, he nods in her direction in a movement that is usually called “cabeceo.” She nods back to him, and they proceed to meet in the middle of the dance floor to enjoy a tanda of dance together (see last week’s Tango Tip for the meaning of the word “tanda”). At the end of the tanda, the man returns his current partner to her seat, and the process begins again.

Occasionally, a man will approach a woman at her table and ask her directly for a dance. This happens sometimes in the case of a foreign woman being addressed by a man attempting to take advantage of her ignorance of Argentine milonga custom. Such behavior is invariably considered to be rude, and a woman should always say “no, thank you” to such ill-mannered advances.

Do Argentine cultural mores work here in the United States? A milonga host may from time to time announce that “tonight, we’re all going to act as if we’re in Buenos Aires to see what it feels like to abide by their rules.” Or perhaps it might be an unstated condition of a given ongoing milonga that Buenos Aires protocol applies. For some people the shift in behavior is no problem. For others, it may tend to feel strange and somehow not true to our contemporary values. You have to decide for yourself whether you feel comfortable with adopting the traditional behavior of a culture, which is significantly different from our own.

First 2012 Cat's Away milonga in TWO WEEKS!

Hi everyone, Pat here. We are now only TWO WEEKS away from our first Cat's Away Milonga of 2012!! A big "thank you" to everyone who has already signed up to bring their masterpiece dish for all us hungry mice.

For those of you who may be perched on the fence, we would like to fill up the slots for the MARCH 8^th feast – particularly appetizer and dessert volunteers, a couple of salad makers. 

And, there are still slots open for MARCH 10^th

We prefer that you bring your food in your own dishes (these can be disposable, if appropriate); we can also warm food in the large oven in the Firehouse Kitchen. For salad makers, there are two large dishes at the Firehouse, plus a couple of smaller bowls. Contact me (paltman@bcrfcure.org) or Fran (franchesleigh@mac.com) with any questions. Please don't be shy--we want to hear from you!! 

February 16, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Let’s talk about the way in which milongas (meaning the events themselves) are structured in Buenos Aires. As you well know by this time, there are three song/dance styles that are offered at a typical milonga: Tango, Vals, and Milonga. These occur in groups, which are called tandas. Generally, a Tango tanda consists of 4 songs either by the same orchestra, or at least in the same style and at more or less the same tempo. The Vals tanda comprises either 3 or 4 songs, and the Milonga tanda also consists of 3 or 4 songs.

If the music is being provided by a DJ as it often is in Buenos Aires, a Tango tanda will begin the evening. Between the individual songs of the tanda couples will remain together on the dance floor, chatting between themselves well into the beginning of the next song. After about 30 seconds have elapsed everyone will begin dancing again. At the end of the tanda a short musical interlude will signal that the tanda is over. This is called a cortina or “curtain” and may be any kind of music that the DJ chooses. During the cortina, the man will accompany his current partner back to her seat, thank her for the dances, and seek another partner. (We’ll go into this aspect of milonga etiquette at another time.) The next tanda will consist of another group of Tangos (4 songs) or possibly Vals or Milonga.

Well on into the event the DJ may choose to signal a longer break in the tanda structure by playing one or more songs in a completely different style such as American Swing, Merengue, or Salsa. At such a point the DJ may also select an Argentine folk song such as Chacarera – during which time those who can dance this form will take the floor and show off their skills in this lively dance.

The continuously revolving tanda structure of the milonga provides both leaders and followers with a very predictable means of enjoying each other’s company for limited periods of time, and for changing partners regularly without causing offense of any kind. Occasionally, one of the partners will find him- or herself dancing with someone whom he or she finds unsuitable. In such a circumstance the offended partner may choose to break off the partnership at the end of a dance – before the tanda has come to an end. As an example, a woman who finds her partner unacceptable may finish the first dance, courteously thank her partner for the dance, and walk off the dance floor. By leaving her partner stranded in the middle of the floor, she announces to everyone that their interaction has been a disaster. He is mortally embarrassed and insulted as he leaves the floor himself, and there is virtually no chance that they will ever dance together again. Such gaffes rarely happen, however, since people in Buenos Aires are generally quite careful about their choices in partners.

Next week, we’ll talk about how individuals choose their partners during a typical milonga in Buenos Aires.

First Cat's Away milonga in three weeks!

We are now only three weeks away from our first Cat's Away Milonga on Thursday March 8, and already it's beginning to take shape. There are still plenty of slots that need to be filled, and you can either sign up on the Poster at the KofC, or you can send Fran or me an email to let us know if you will be bringing a dish.

Not every item has to be a masterpiece. Simple appetizers, entrees or desserts are welcome too! We will also need two people each week to make a large salad. Keep in mind that these salads -- and each dish -- should feed approximately 25 people. The Appetizer dishes generally go out at the 8:00 p.m. lesson break, and the entrees are served at 9:00 p.m., after the second lesson. To sign up or ask questions, contact me at paltman@bcrfcure.org, or Fran at franchesleigh@mac.com.

We are waiting to hear from you!

February 09, 2012

Hello everyone, Pat here with your Tango Tip of the Week. As Fran has promised, this week I will compliment his Tango Tip on the leader’s use of his right arm in the dance, with the follower’s corresponding use of her left arm.

When forming the dance embrace, the follower typically positions her left arm around the leader’s right shoulder, so that her hand comes to rest on his upper back in a place that is most comfortable for the couple. It could be his shoulder itself, just below the shoulder, or further around on his upper back.

If dancing close, the follower can position her arm all the way around the lower part of her leader’s neck. However, this can only be done if the follower’s height allows her to remain on her own balance. Too often, we see a follower forming an embrace in which she literally drapes herself on the leader, arm hooked around his neck and balance totally compromised as she leans on him at a precipitous angle. Followers: please don’t ever do this!

But let’s assume that the embrace is in balance and comfortable, and the dance begins. In linear movement (forward, side and back steps), the follower can comfortably keep her arm and hand in place, as I have described above.  However, if the leader asks for full side-to-side ochos, these pivoting and stepping movements will require the follower to adjust her arm in order to accommodate additional space, so that she can execute her ochos with good technique, and in balance. This could mean that her hand slides onto the leader’s upper arm. When the leader moves on, she can re-adjust her arm to its former position.

Similarly, in molinete, there should be enough space between leader and follower to allow her balanced execution of this difficult technique. I find that my arm and hand immediately slide to my leader’s mid-arm, usually just above the elbow. This separates me from the embrace sufficiently for the molinete, without any chance of pulling him off balance. Once the leader moves on, again the closer embrace can be resumed.

The follower should also be prepared to adjust her arm in other movements, such as gancho and parada, even the cross if the leader creates a separation in the embrace during such movements.

Periodically, when the embrace is close, a follower may lift her arm off her leader’s back and hold it in position but without touching. A few movements later she will re-engage her arm and resume the full embrace. This is entirely the follower’s choice, and should only be done during linear movement.

Followers, understand that your arm position can and should be flexible. Do not keep it rigid throughout the dance. Knowing that there can be movement in the embrace, which can be really close or can move apart at certain places, will open up a greater understanding of this amazing dance. By adjusting your left arm positions throughout the dance, you will feel much more confident and in control of your movements, and it will enhance your enjoyment and comfort.

While the Cats are away - it's time to play CHEF!

Hello everyone, Pat here, and the Cat’s Away poster is back once again in preparation for our two amazing evenings at Firehouse when we feast on some of the most sumptuous dishes you have ever tasted.  This year these two special evenings will be held on March 8 and March 15!!  Please make sure to mark your calendars. What’s different this year is that there are no Cats who are away…we are all here, including Sue and Joe, and ready to start cooking! We will bring the poster each week from now on so there's plenty of time to consider what you will bring. We'll need appetizers, entrees, salads and desserts--and the usual beverages, so start reviewing your best recipes and plan to join the banquet brigade! If you’d like to sign up via email, contact Fran or me at franchesleigh@mac.com. You can also contact Pat at paltman@bcrfcure.org.

February 02, 2012

Hi everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. I promised you a Tip by Pat this week, but she’s so buried in work, it’ll have to wait until next week. In the meantime, you may recall that last week I addressed the subject of the leader’s right arm on the follower’s back. I’m not going to restate what I said already (you can read that Tip in the Firehouse Tango Archives, if you haven’t seen it already); but I want to add one more idea.

Quite often, an Argentine man can be observed, actually removing his arm from his follower’s back at various times during a dance. He will do this by simply extending it outward from her back while leaving it in the embrace position -- and he will generally keep his arm off her back for several steps. There can be no other reason for him to do this than to clearly demonstrate that the leader’s right arm is unnecessary in leading the follower in whatever movement is being undertaken at the time.

Beginner leaders invariably believe that a follower has to be led by the use of the leader’s arms. The Argentine men who practice removing their right arm from their follower’s back are telling us that this is simply not the case. Try this yourself, when dancing with someone you’ve partnered before. You’ll find that it works both in the linear dance as well as in ocho and molinete. If you have any questions about it, ask Pat or me. We’ll be happy to give you our own demonstration of how easily this technique works.

January 26, 2012

Hi everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Let’s talk about the leader’s right arm on the follower’s back. If you’ve had any experience with American/European ballroom dancing, you know that as a leader your job is to place your hand on that part of the follower’s back which is called the shoulder blade, making a level platform with your forearm and biceps so that she can gently rest her arm on it during the dance (whether it be Foxtrot, Waltz, Viennese Waltz, American Tango Quickstep or Peabody). Once you’ve established this arm position, it remains firmly in place for the duration of the dance. In fact, this somewhat rigid arm position helps to define the embrace in these ballroom dances.

Argentine Tango, on the other hand is quite different. In the first place, the basic embrace calls for placing the palm of your right hand in the center of the follower’s back while keeping your forearm low along her side; i.e., without making a platform. The closer you dance with the follower the more your arm will reach around her back, so that in a very close embrace you may find that your hand is making contact with the far side of her back rather than the center. In assuming this position it is crucial to avoid pulling the follower toward you. She must be able to maintain her own upright balance – even in the closet embrace.

During the “linear” part of the dance – i.e., when making forward, backward, side or in-place movements – the leader’s arm remains in the position described above. However, when leading ocho, molinete, parada, calicita, gancho, and other movements which involve a change in the relationship of the leader’s and follower’s front, the leader’s arm changes position in order to accommodate each of these and other such movements. In some instances the leader’s arm may slide further behind the follower’s back. In other instances the leader’s arm may slide almost to her side. When these movements are completed, the leader’s arm returns to its normal position in the center of her

January 19, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. As a follower, how quickly should you respond to a lead? Once a beginning follower gets over being completely paralyzed about following anything at all, she usually begins trying to respond instantly. In fact, many inexperienced followers respond almost before they even receive the lead. At the same time, inexperienced leaders; i.e. leaders who aren’t certain that their leads are working, are often satisfied only when their follower responds instantaneously to whatever lead they give. This is the only way they can absolutely verify that she has actually felt the lead.

As the lead/follow collaboration mellows a bit, both partners begin to realize that following a lead is an interaction, which takes a bit more time to accomplish than instant cause and effect. Leading and following are like two halves of a conversation. Thus, the more experienced leader knows that when he suggests a lead, his follower has to process the request and then take action. Sometimes she responds immediately; sometimes she needs more time.

With this in mind, followers should make up their minds to respond accurately and comfortably to received leads rather than instantly and without appropriate control over their own movements. At the same time, leaders should learn to be patient. In stage dancing, speed is often critical in achieving a specific affect in the dance. In social dancing this is almost never the case. In social dancing the emphasis should always be on the mutual comfort and enjoyment of both partners rather than on speed of execution and other performance-oriented criteria.

Assuming you have a fundamental level of skill as a follower, you should be asking yourself: “Am I having a good time, dancing with this leader?” If the answer is no, because he seems to have a bunch of rules to which you aren’t able to measure up, I suggest that you find someone else to dance with. The down side of continuing to dance with such a taskmaster just isn’t worth the effort.

Happy dancing!!!

January 12, 2012

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. A crucially important fact that every leader has to constantly bear in mind when dancing Tango is that his follower has no idea from one moment to the next what he wants her to do. This is perhaps the single most important consideration in the lead/follower collaboration. What it means is that the follower is standing still – almost certainly balanced on one leg – waiting for her leader to invite a movement or series of continuous movements. What these movements will be she hasn’t the slightest idea. But she knows she has to be ready for anything. If her leader is skilled, he’ll be able to make the transition from stillness to movement easy, even comfortable. If he isn’t so skilled, it will be an ordeal.

On the other side of the equation, the leader knows exactly what he’s going to do. Before he invites his follower to do something, he forms a mental picture of the step -- or the sequence of steps -- in his mind. He has advance knowledge of what’s going to occur, which, to again state the obvious, means that the movement comes as no surprise to him, when it happens.

Compare the two mental states: the leader knows exactly what’s going to happen; the follow has no idea what’s going to happen – completely opposite states of mind.

In a good working social dance relationship the leader employs a group of very specific skills to transfer his knowledge of what he wants to happen to his follower. The follower receives the information in increments of one step at a time. Most likely, she won’t remember the sequence in its entirety since she won’t have a complete picture of it in the same way that the leader has. What she will remember is that each step was successful, because the leader was able to give her good information from moment to moment.

A good many things can go terribly wrong in the lead/follow collaboration. The most important – as well as the most common -- error that a leader can make is to focus on the picture of what he wants to do himself – and forget to invite his follower to do what she needs to do in order to complement his lead. In such a case, he will start moving himself, but not give his follower the appropriate indication of what he wants her to do. Of course, she’ll try her best to do something, anything, but she’s just be guessing. The result: Disaster.

The most common error for a follower is to begin a movement – or even a series of movements -- on her own without being specifically led to do so. This happens more to beginners than to skilled followers, but every follower is guilty of this error at one time or another.

In order to minimize the occurrence of these common errors in your Tango, you have to make up your mind as a leader to focus on the correct lead for every step you want your follower to take. If you don’t know what the correct leads are, ask your teacher. If you’re a follower, make up your mind that you’ll never take another un-led step again. Make certain that from now on you wait, wait, wait until you get a clear indication from your leader before making a single move. At the end of every step, bring yourself into balance and wait for the next lead.

These ideas may seem obvious. But we all know that they’re very difficult to put into practice and to maintain, step after step after step. It might help to be aware that everyone who dances Tango makes the same mistakes. We’re all in this together.

January 5, 2012

Fran Chesleigh has been writing weekly Tango Tips for Firehouse since 2006.  You'll  find them all archived on our website at www.firehousetango.com under Tango Tips.

Hello everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Recently, a couple who have been taking Tango lessons with me for many years took a month-long vacation that didn’t involve dancing Tango. When they returned and resumed lessons, their first comment was “We forgot everything!” I suggested that they try having a dance just to see what might happen. To make a long story short, they enjoyed one of the very best Tangos they’ve ever done.

I asked John (the male partner and leader) what he was thinking about during the dance. He said “I couldn’t remember a single figure for the whole time. I knew the five elements [forward, backward, sideward, in place, pause]. I remembered la cruzada, I remembered forward and backward ochos, and molinete. That was it. From there, I just made the rest up.” As I listened to John, describing his dance, I was reminded of a quote from the well-known milonguero, Pupi Castello, who died about ten years ago. Speaking to a group of students, Pupi said “If I teach you to walk, along with cruzada, molinete, and ocho, I can send you to any milonga anywhere – that’s all you need to dance Tango with the masters.

Social Tango is not a dance of figures. Or, as so many of my own Argentine teachers have said to me over the years, “there are no steps in Tango.” This is a point you’ve heard me repeat many times during these Tango Tips as well as during any lessons you may have ever taken with Pat and me. My student John was fearful that he wouldn’t be able to live up to expectations, because his memory for complex figures had temporarily deserted him.  And yet, his Tango was pure, simple, elegant, and musical. Why? Because was John did remember was his technique of movement. He remembered the years of repeating the same elements over and over. He remembered the mechanics of lead and follow. He remembered to move with the music, placing his steps on the beats. In short, John remembered how to dance.

At the same time, John’s partner and wife, Katherine, who has learned by this time that there’s just no way she’ll ever be able to anticipate what John is going to lead next, remembered to relax, maintain her balance, and respond to each lead, coming to a stop at the end of each step. The result of their mutual efforts was indeed one of the best dances they’ve ever had.

2012 might be the year you decide to learn how to dance Tango rather than what to dance. 2012 might be the year in which you develop your movement technique so that it really becomes part of you in a way that it hasn’t up until now. 2012 might be the year when you fine-tune your lead/follow skills so that you feel comfortable and confident dancing with any skilled partner. 2012 might be the year that you finally become a Tango dancer.

It’s all up to you.