Guiding Tango Angels

Yesterday we heralded in the birthday of Jesus with the traditional booze, food, head colds, and drunken dancing. Oliver & Rachel (not me) kindly provided up us with venues, tuck, and fine hospitality.

There was no tango to be had though. Instead an impromptu dance to some reggaeton, which reminded me I really haven´t used my hips for dancing for the last 5 weeks as the only dancing I´ve done has been to tango. And there is no hip wriggling in tango...

Today I had a private class with Aurora Lubiz. She was suggested to me as a teacher by two wonderful German ladies, who were also staying at La Casita De San Telmo when I arrived here and were absolutely wonderful giving me tips on where to go, who to take classes with, and also taking me out with them to milongas. They were completely my Guiding Tango Angels and I´ve missed them ever since they winged their way back to Germany. On their advice, I´ve been to a couple of Aurora´s classes at Escuela Argentina de Tango on womens technique and adornments and really enjoyed her approach. She´s very warm, funny, passionate, but also talks about the muscles to use to make the movements, and where you should feel the movements coming from and ending in. It was her who started me thinking about opening my chest and pulling up through my abdomin, which Mariana then did more work on, to get the correct posture.

It was an enjoyable private lesson, though I felt like I achieved less with her then I did in a private lesson with Mariana. We did some work on walking, ochos, turns, sacada, and a couple of cross steps, as well as some simple adornments which was good and now I look back we did cover a lot. I think one of the reasons it was less enjoyable was that although she moves with you, holding you in a practice hold where you are both holding each others arms rather then in a classic leader follower position, she doesn´t completely dance with you which Mariana does. So I never let go and really got into dancing, it was definitely more practice and less dance. However I think I still got a lot out of the class and am looking forward to a second private lesson on Monday as well as a group class tomorrow.

I asked Aurora how many times I should take classes a week to really improve and work on my dancing, and she said at least two classes. She also suggested doing classic ballet and modern dance to connect with my body and learn how to use it. Finally she did wonders for my current low self-confidence by saying that what I´ve achieved in the last month of learning to dance was really good and I have great potential to be a good dancer if I practice. Hooray again!

So the new plan when I get back to London is:

- Quit gym.
- Join some sort of dance place (Pineapple Studios?) & go to tango, ballet & modern dance...and anything else that looks interesting.
- Visit some more classes & milongas in London to see which suit me and which I can go to regularly and which I can really learn at.
- Take Spanish classes.
- Book flights and accomodation for BA 2009.

I´ll work out how to fit in my job in, and finances around, later.

The Story So Far...

Here are some posts I´ve put up in other places on the internet...to get you up to speed...

Dec 19 2008

The update is, today i learnt what i´ve been doing wrong.

OK, actually every day i´m learning what i´ve been doing wrong, but today I really understood what I´ve been doing wrong.

There are 3 (I think) different styles of Tango. Tango Milongese, Tango Salon and Tango Nuevo.

I´ve learnt Milongese in london from my teacher, which is where both partners lean in to each other and the leader leads from the chest. The leader could lead without any arms if he/she wanted to, it is so much about the chest. This is in a closed embrace - so both partners lean in to each other to form a triangle, rest cheek to cheek and the chest is always in contact because that is where the centre is and the communication is.

But here in BA I´ve danced with men who have not always lead with the chest but lead with the arms. Which I think is more Salon. And also bad practice if you´re dancing milonga, but leading in a salon style.

Basically because I´m young(ish) with blonde hair and a bit cute, men here like to ask me to dance to show off with. So I´ve ended up doing lots of great tango moves and doing bits of footwork (all those cute leg moves in the air and circling moves with the foot on the floor), that really, someone with a big stick should have come along to me and hit me and told me to get off the dance floor and go and relearn the basics.

Tango Nuevo is Modern Tango, where there is lots of separation and people who don´t dance it look down on it, because they think its more showy and less about the connection with the other dancer, and more about getting some moves in. I want to learn it cos I´m ultimately a massive show off. However, I need to learn milongese first because that is harder and once I´m able to stop trying to dance ´steps´and instead listen with my body to my partner´s body, wait for my partner to indicate what he/she wants (I went to Tango Queer on Tuesday, so I know a good dance can happen with either sex, as its all about a connection, not about a sexual feeling) and respond accordingly, I will be a better technical dancer and will be able to chuck myself around in Tango Nuevo if I want.

So my revelation came tonight because where i´ve been staying i´ve been hanging out with a couple of german women. One of them has danced with me a couple of times and I could feel her frustration that I wasn´t listening properly with my body to what she was leading me to do. And when i´ve seen her lead with other people, they all seem to get what she wants, so i knew it was my fault and not hers. And today i went to a class where it was explained. How i should lean, how I should listen, how I should walk, what the indicators are. Basics, but the most important things.All stuff I´ve heard before but tonight i really *got* it.

So now I start 10 hardcore days of learning to dance. I plan to have one group class and 1 or 2 private classes a day. Plus a milonga (the dance you go to, like you would a disco, only its tango). Having been to 8 classes and 6 milonga in the last 6 days, I´m cream crackered. And walking 10miles+ across town didn´t help my blisters. But sod it. I´m on it and I love it.

If I can return to London a better dance partner and my teacher notices, my dream will have been partially accomplished. My other dream is of course to do all the flicky footwork and be the greatest dancer in the world ever, but if I can be a good follower first, that will be a good step towards it.

Oh, and for those who have asked...queer tango you dance whichever position you want. Good dancers swap part way through the dance, so you start leading and end up following, or vice versa. If I can learn to be a good follower I reckon next year I´ll start learning to lead. Cos its fun and it will only help to make me a more rounded dancer - when you can understand what the other person is doing, you can really understand what you should be doing. In my classes in london the men learn the same moves as the women because they need to know what the women will be doing as followers so they can lead them properly.


PS I forgot Tango Fantasy which is show tango on stage.

PPS I have got 3 pairs of well cute shoesdance with 8cm-10cm heels. But I think I´m going to only wear the practice shoes I bought in a bowling shoe style with 1cm heels. Cos I figure once I can dance in them properly I can dance in real heels. In heels its much harder to feel what you´re doing on the floor with your feet.

Oh, and so next tuesday when I go to TangoQueer I can look a bit butch ;)