What do you value in a woman, who you dance with?

Question and answer from an interview with Fabian Paralta

Que valoras en la mujer cuando bailas?

Primero agradezco a la bailarina el compartir ese tango que me provocó invitarla a bailar, lo que valoro fundamentalmente es la entrega, si se da eso, puedo disfrutar el baile hasta con gente que recién empieza a bailar.
Lo que importa es el abrazo, no es solo conducir, es la entrega, es abrir un canal.


Translation:
What do you value in a woman, who you dance with?

I am grateful that she values the same kind of tango as this provoked my invitation in first place. Then, the thing I value the most, is the "entrega". If this is achieved, I can have pleasure even when dancing with beginners. The connection (abrazo), not leading per se, but the "entrega", this is waht opens a channel (between us).


I prefer not to translate the word "entrega" - I want to avoid the possible misinterpretation. Better use the original word "entrega", and defining what we mean by it. As far as I understand the use of the word by the dancers of tango argentino, it is the same meaning that I put in "passive following". Passive mot in a sense of not participating, of slow or heavy movement. Only passive to the energy, comming from the leader, not fighting it, but using it. The lady just correctly channels this energy to create beutiful movements, instead of trying to generate that energy by using her muscles.

Walking in tango

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Why is it so important to walk the tango first? Because there is something in the tango dance that has no relationship with the figures and can not be learned through the figures.

What exactly?

Because in the walk hides something that can be described as the smell of the right dish you prepare, the exact sky color tonality you are looking for while painting a canvas, the right sequence of notes while composing a melody, or the word that describes your true feelings while writing a poem.

In the tango walk the embrace develops as a main element on one structure that later will be changed NOT BY WILL but… BY FEELING… when the emotions are so strong inside the embrace that can not longer fit inside the tranquility or the excitement of the walk it is then when body enters a different stage of expression.

Teachers, dancers, and anyone! should start by forbidding himself to do steps for at least one week, and you will automatically feel the difference on your inner dance. It will not be easy. Your ego will play against you. You will feel that your dance is empty. AND IT IS. because, before you were NOTHING, or better to say, your dance WAS NOTHING. your dance was missing something
important : YOU! After the emptiness, after fighting with your ego, you might meet acceptance, and with acceptance, PEACE.With PEACE, you will reach the state of mind that frees you from the structure, and you will no longer belong to your body but TO YOUR FEELINGS…

from there forward, let the body do its thing.

you

YOU

just enjoy the DANCE!

Sebastian Arce – facebook – October 21st 2010

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Fabian Peralta & Lorena Ermocida - "Tango Argentino en el Moran" Jan 2011

So let's see how the new couple performs from 'high tango' point of view . . .

First, Lorena is taller than Virginia, and this should enable better level of body to body natural walking synchronization (see the literature for 'inverted pendulum walking model', or simply read my publication about its application to tango). In short, this is the phenomenon when two humans with attached torsos are physically inclined to walk in synchron. To stop with the theory, this simply means their 'natural' step length will be similar, providing less need for the connection to correct the possible deviations. But, in the same time this creates the danger of losing the connection from time to time. The 'use it, or lose it' principle is in effect here. Dancers must be aware of it and work against it. If there is not enough interraction in the step, the connection may become loose unintentionally. As it is seen in the video, this is probably what happens. Let's see:



All in all, they are on the verge of becoming miscoordinated. In fact, they are often miscoordinated, although slightly, and all is well masked as they are both very experienced dancers. Still, this is not what a really good dance looks like. Maskimg the problems does not solve them. There are many moments where he is trying to catch on with her, as she is racing ahead - or at least this is my impression - but I see no visual evidence he is leading her in many places. Maybe it's choreographed, at least partially. But even if it is, it is better for the lady to follow the lead the same way as in improvisation, to be able to show the specific depth of movement, specific "look" of it, as in good improvisation by tango masters. Examples of unconvincing stuff can be found at 0:58, 1:52, 3:40 etc.

Saying this, I don't mean to say the dance is bad. Instead, I mean dancers of their level should do far better. I am used to see better quality from Fabian and his parthner, whoever she is. I am not used to see him that kind of almost helpless, almost powerless, almost boring . . .



In the second clip, things are a bit better, as they use close embrace more, but still. almost none of the playful moves go through in the manner they are supposed to. See the situation at 1:23, this is simply not good. No matter if they are big names. The quick little steps at 2:17 can be performed much better too. And all this is, because the lady is following actively, which is a "mortal sin" in high tango :-) There are many more not so good situations in the dance, no need to show them all.

Fortunately the normal, slow, standard steps look good. Which is to be expected in the end. But the inability to do the things in a more playful manner is very talkative - their (most likely her) technique is not optimal, at least from the point of view I present here. The more usual steps are performed in a well trained manner, so they look fantastic. But still, this is only the surface . . . there is no deeper content - fortunately for Fabian and Lorena there are not many people able to see it - but I am sure he can feel it.

If you can't see it, you can't dance it

Two dances from one and the same event, one of them decent, the other absolutely awful, total disgrace. But, 99% of the tangeros can't see the difference. It is precisely why not many people can actually dance well. I chose choreographed pieces delibarately.





Those, who don't see the difference, can't be motivated to spend the hundreds of hours, training the special way of walking/stepping/leading/following needed to dance this unique dance - everybody knows how this technique is vital for tango, but very few people actually understand how far are they from really doing it correctly. And you can't learn something you don't see.

Here is a short clip from a lesson, all the most important things in the walking, (leading and following in the step), are unusually easy to spot, but only if you know what to look for:

About the lady's body position

I simply repost this here, translated into english. I will illustrate what is the position almost all argentinean ladies take, when dancing tango. The rare exceptions are almost always in the nuevo- and neo-tango species.

To focus the attention:

See the red zone, a curvature in the waist - in fact, this is the natural human body position, only a little but overdone.

Beginning with world-known argentinean couples:










Even this weird nuevo dance, arguably not tango at all, shows the same position, but not easy to see behind all the stuff going on:


The final (2009) of the world tango championship in "tango-de-salon" category:


All these couples, and many, many other, dance this way. Why? Is it a fashion? Or a genetic feature of argentinas? Or is there something else?

The genetics hypothesis is easy to prove wrong - she is brazilian:


American:


French:


Polish:



I think I have just proved the genes are not responsible.

Then? Fashion? Pure coincidence? Or an important part of the dance technique, that there is no good tango without?
The most interesting fact is, that, for my ten years of tango experience, I have not attended a single lesson or seminar, where this position is explained. Not that I did not attend hundreds of lessons and many dozens of seminars. Kind of mistery . . .

Actually, there was one teacher that touched the matter - Andrea Misse explained it once by instructing ladies to think as if their leg is longer (as it is straightened in the course of a back step), projecting above the hips, which is in fact leading to the position we discuss here. But still not quite well explained.

And, for an end, similarly to "Don't do this at home" - please, don't immitate this position unless you fully understand its purpose and right way to accomplish it. Immitating it just externally will do no good.

Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes

So, how they dance in 2006:


In 2008:


And, in 2009:


What happened to them? They dance like a different couple? I think this is because they discovered High Tango, no matter what name they use for it.

High tango

Kind of introduction . . .

The term "High tango" is not something widely accepted. It will be used here to describe a way to dance tnngo. It is both old and new. Old, because in fact many tangueros danced this way for decades. New, because there are no known to me sources of information about it. At least, a systematic one. So, many things had to be reinvented, based on experience and pieces of information, coming from various sources (Web sites, youtube videos, workshops with good dancers).

Of course, my personal ideas about "high tango" may not fully coincide with the ideas of someone else, but still, these ideas come from more than 9 years of practice and are verified to be very fruitful. Both in the way the dance feels and the way the movements look from outside. Because for me, those are one and the same thing. Or at least, there is strong connection between them. "Form follows function", as mentioned on a respected web-site (www.tangoandchaos.org). One should care about function first, then about the form. In 99% of the cases, if the function works fine, then the look will be fine too without any need for additional work specifically targeted on the look.

"High" may be interpreted in many ways in the context of tango. One may be that this is elitist tango. Yes, it could be elitist, but not because it is not social and not democratic. It is open to every one, every one is invited to dance and berry the fruits. But it is elitist, because not everyone will be able or will invest enough time and effort to reach the point (or the height?), where the fruits become accessible.

Another interpretation is connected with the technique used. The couple generally stays high. There no grounding of any kind. And this is not about beauty, it is about effectiveness. Moving with knees bent is like crawling, a lot of unnecessary moves of strained body joints, which consumes energy, Instead, by having the knee bend less, the energy loss is less, resulting in very light movements of the couple, enabling flight-like experience. More on this topic in some later post.