http://allseattletango.com/mb/forum/discussions live. love. tango. en-US Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:13:36 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://allseattletango.com/mb/search.php http://allseattletango.com/mb/topic/followers-courtesy-lesson#post-241 Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:08:34 +0000 Suze 241@http://allseattletango.com/mb/ <p>Followers Courtesy Lesson</p> <p>I visited Seattle one year ago, Sept 12th (or so) Century Ballroom. A special night, live music/dinner event and my first time in a city away from my small northern California coast, Mendocino Tango Community. I alone, everyone else appeared to be with friends, coupled, and busy dancing. I was excited to be in Seattle for one precious night! Towards evenings end, I finally began to dance. Lovely partners, courteous, friendly and skilled. Impressive community. Tango heaven. A special partner, who danced with sweet and furious heart, placed my mind at rest and my body in full service of the dance. Connection. Rare Miracle. I was wearing a long beaded scarf at my waist and it wrapped us both in delicious delayed boleos as if to bless every pivot. We parted politely, thanking. Later, unwittingly, I accepted his offer of a drink and concurrently a last tanda dance from someone else! I have regretted this confused and rude mistake ever since. I did not immediately grasp the implication of my quick (and greedy) decision on the floor. My inexperience is no excuse, but a reminder that there are lots of ways I need to improve my Tango!</p> <p><em>[Admin Note: Moved posting from "How to Use this Message Board" topic to its own topic thread. See also Susan's comment on allseattletango.com Facebook page, where you can also reply: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-Seattle-Tango/220675553027" rel="nofollow">http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-Seattle-Tango/220675553027</a> jwl, 2010-08-25 ]</em> </p> http://allseattletango.com/mb/topic/i-had-a-dream#post-68 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:44:32 +0000 Timothy Shaw 68@http://allseattletango.com/mb/ <p>Hi Alberto,</p> <p>I interpret your dream as a question: how can I effectively improve my tango, and get out of my "cage"? </p> <p>What I have found is that I improve - in my technique, in the expanse and usefulness of my vocabularity, in my musicality - specifically through practice. Practice doesn't really happen at milongas - milongas are primarily about socializing and enjoying what you already know well in the dance. Practice happens for me to some degree at practicas, but only with concerted effort (since often at unguided practicas I find it tempting to relax into just dancing as if at a milonga, rather than actually working on improving what's happening). The situations in which I find it most productive to practice and improve is at guided practicas and practicing at home - by myself and working with a dance partner. If you can, find a space at home with a suitable floor (smooth, wood ideally or perhaps tile or concrete) where you can set up a few mirrors to see better what is happening, and convene with a dance partner (or ideally with one of several you periodically work with) to iron out the rough spots and also try things that you've learned in classes but haven't yet mastered. Also use the space to work on drills that you learn from a teacher - walking drills, balance drills, etc. Go to guided practicas, where people are specifically practicing - stopping to talk about how things are working and how they can work better - where drills are taught and done, and where you can get expert help on trouble spots. Seek to work with people at various levels - more skilled than you and less skilled than you - so that you are getting helpful feedback, and also not relying upon the higher skill of your partner to turn an ambiguous lead into something beautiful and musical but instead are obliged to lead clearly, effectively and musically. Most importantly, of course, understand that it is a constant work in progress for all of us, and so when things don't go the way we hoped, the onus is on both partners to adjust what they are doing, to make it easier for the other. </p> <p>Bear in mind, the notion behind the "50 steps at 20, 20 steps at 50" is that, ultimately, the dance is enjoyable not by virtue of the expanse of one's vocabulary, but rather by how one uses the vocabulary in musical and interesting (perhaps even surprising) ways. Any given movement (a single walking step or weight change, even) can be done in innumerable different ways, incorporating variables of speed, density, physical body position/posture, and so on. This and how movements are interlinked (also having innumberable possibilities) is what makes for compelling and enjoyable dancing, far more so than executing some fancy piernazo. </p> <p>I hope recounting my personal experience (and aspiration, frankly) helps you in some way. </p> <p>I do like your idea for playing back video instruction at slow speed, and now want to invoke that for video I have from various workshops I've taken. </p> <p>Cheers,<br /> Tim </p> http://allseattletango.com/mb/topic/i-had-a-dream#post-67 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:38:44 +0000 Alberto 67@http://allseattletango.com/mb/ <p>Instead of going to a tango lesson without knowing what will be on the menu I dreamed of lessons 'A la carte'. There was a list of many tango steps on my computer screen and for each one I could see instructors giving a demonstration. I could watch it at normal speed or in slow motion as many times as I wanted. I could also see different ways to get in and out of that step. One more click and I had a list of the instructors and the date they teach it.<br /> Learning a step is not enough for the lead. He must also be able to lead somebody who does not know it. Even at 2 lessons per step, in my dream I could get a dozen new steps in 6 months.<br /> They say that when you are 20 you use 50 steps and when you are 50 you use 20 steps. What I know for sure is that after dancing tango for a few years the lead feels limited to a set of steps and it is not easy to get out of that cage.</p> <p>Could you help make a dream come true? </p> http://allseattletango.com/mb/topic/familiar-faces-in-the-movies#post-57 Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:55:53 +0000 Lisa 57@http://allseattletango.com/mb/ <p>I rented DVD "Forever Tango with Luis Bravo: Live from Teatro Coliseo Podesta" from Netflix and was happily surprised to find a familiar face among the performers. It was Leonardo Barrionuevo, our Carlos's brother who occasionally comes to Seattle and conducts workshop with his partner Miriam Larici. He did an excellent job.</p> <p>I also watched Carlos Saura's "Tango" again and found another familiar face. It was Patricio Touceda who is in town now with his partner Eva. I saw this film a decade ago without knowing that one of the performers would become my primary tango teacher. It is delightful to see familiar faces in the movies.</p> <p>Lisa </p> http://allseattletango.com/mb/topic/some-thoughts-after-halloween-milonga#post-49 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:00:14 +0000 Kristina 49@http://allseattletango.com/mb/ <p>What a great Halloween Milonga was last night!!! (Thanks Tony&amp;Ilana). It was a pleasure to sit and watch all of those men and women passing by in such beautiful, creative and so different costumes. I could spend hours just watching them and listening tango music…</p> <p> Why it’s not like that in a regular milonga? Each milonga should be special. Milonga is a place where we are getting together to dance and have fun. It’s a social event. We tangueros and tangueras can make milonga night fabulous or we can make it boring.</p> <p> There are so many types of clothes to choose from for tango. As soon as we are getting more experienced in tango, we understand what types of clothes are good and comfortable for us in the dance. In the same way we put on us not only comfortable cloth, but also cloth that characterized our personality. Let’s separate our clothes for tango class, tango practica and milonga.</p> <p> Tango is an Art. We can express ourselves by our movements in music, by our existence in music and movements. But the look is also very important and it helps to make people who are watching us to feel The Tango.</p> <p> Let’s dress differently for a Milonga night. </p> <p> Kristina Ivanova. </p> http://allseattletango.com/mb/topic/tango-gets-un-cultural-approval#post-38 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:18:57 +0000 John Lee 38@http://allseattletango.com/mb/ <p><strong>From Albert:</strong></p> <p>"Tango gets UN cultural approval": <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8282781.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8282781.stm</a> </p>