Limerick Tango

This should have been post B in a series that went A.) On Performances, B.) Limerick does Strictly Come Dancing, C.) Press Coverage.

OK for someone not entirely enamoured with performance style tango what am I doing getting involved with something whose official title is Lords and Ladies of the Dance?

There are a number of good reasons. Firstly it’s for charity. All proceeds are in aid of Cancer Care in the mid-west. Secondly it is great exposure for argentine tango in the city and finally, and the bit I relish the most, I get to teach someone one-on-one from scratch.

Originally the organisers didn’t want me to perform preferring instead one of my students. But seeing as I haven’t taught my students to be performers they all said no. That also got me out of the possible bind of having to teach someone to lead. So in the end I will be both dancing and performing.

Twice.

Yes, I’ve been assigned not one, but two dancers. I shall be dancing a tango with one and a milonga with the other and I have until the end of October to teach them.

Wish me luck.

I’m not a particularly big fan of performances. I think that they are, at times, misused and misunderstood. Their own merits are perfectly valid. Show tango with its big lights and fishnet tights can make good theatre. As a storytelling device a well choreographed tango is extremely powerful. It’s where the performance turns up on the milonga floor that the issues crop up.

The mid-milonga performance serves a number of functions.

• It allows visiting instructors to tout their wares.
• It allows the same instructors to put another item on their bill thereby making their travelling more worthwhile. It is their livelihood after-all.
• The honouring of an individual/couple, birthday dances,  leaving dos.

All valid functions with perfectly worthwhile uses for the community. The problem lies not in the performance or the performers but in the interpretation of the performance. Performance tango is, by its nature, big, showy and external. The misinterpretation is that all good tango is big, showy and external. Tango can be big, tango can be small. It can be showy or it can be extremely private.

How can a society that created The Rules have a problem with Codigos?

It goes:

Left
Left
Left
Change the weight onto the left, left
Open left
Close left

In all seriousness the words right and left are not words that I’m able to work with. There is the weightbearing-leg and the free-leg. Attaching the identifiers right or left to these is nigh on impossible to me at times. Layer on top of this the sides of the embrace, the open-side and the closed-side, and you have the perfect dance for someone who has two left feet.

At times I feel like the native guide, leading adventurers to discover the watering holes of my youth and following them to where they would want me to go.

I sware I never saw his chest move.

A derogatory term referring to instructors that teach nothing but sequences.