LimerickTango » Form Tempo Intent

Diving in

LimerickTango — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:22:02 +0000

Usually the recommendation I give to people starting tango is not to hold back and to jump in with both feet. However I think that the best analogy for truly committing and properly involving yourself with something should be that of swimming with your head under the water. Yes you can swim without getting your hair wet, but not very effectively. To swim efficiently and with purpose you really have to immerse your head and toy with drowning

What makes a good dancer?

LimerickTango — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:05:36 +0000

A good dancer is not the sum of their steps.

Technique will only make you not bad.

Being able to earnestly and honestly engage with your partner is the mark of a good dancer.

The False Edge

LimerickTango — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:50:56 +0000

Usually a single edged cut and thrust weapon, such as a sabre, has more than one edge. The top third of the back of the blade is often given an edge to add to the blades thrusting ability. Such an edge is known as the false edge.

The false edge in tango is blindly practising technique, ingraining your movements with the soulless movements of an automaton. Yes your movements will have gained an edge in their precision but your dancing will lose something in the way of feeling. If you want to find feeling when you dance then it is essential that you have feeling when you practise.

Height

LimerickTango — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:24:07 +0000

The height of feeling in your kicks is more important to me than their distance from the floor.

Checklist tango

LimerickTango — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:31:10 +0000

It is safe to say that tango is not the easiest thing in the world to learn. It can seem to have so many bits. Feet, posture, embrace, intention. And it’s ok when learning specific things about each element to concentrate on that element. But when dancing you must bring it all together. It is no good going “feet are in the right position” and then forgetting about them otherwise it just becomes a checklist tango.

Form, Tempo, Intent 1

LimerickTango — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:44:01 +0000

My Maestro di Arma taught with a mantra of “Form, Tempo, Intent”. For their attacks to be effective a fencer should have good form. For that attack to to pose a threat it must have intent and it must be executed at the right time, tempo. It is a mantra that I keep bumping into the essence of everywhere, nowhere more so than tango.

Let us start with a quote from E. Santos Discepolo lifted from Tangri-La

“Tango is not about what is done, but how it is done”.

The form of tango is easily identifiable, its posture, its moves, its mechanics, the cogs in the timepiece, the what. Tempo is, of course, the beat of the music, the tick of the clock. With those two components you will have something that looks like tango, will move like tango, but it won’t be tango.

For it to be tango there must be intent, there must be a desire to connect, to communicate, there must be music (for music is much more than just the beat). Intent is to beat and to mechanics what the concept of time is to a watch. Without the concept of time a watch is a mere trinket or bangle, with the concept of time we can be desperately lost in the absence of that mere trinket.