Limerick Tango

To those who complicate tango it can always be made simpler

To those who simplify tango it will always reveal complexities.

The magic of tango divides into two parts. Those spells whose design it is to entrance the audience and those spells whose design it is to entrance the dancers. For some bizzare reason people have become convinced that those spells that will wow the crowd will have the same effect on their partner. Why? They do not attempt to entrall the crowd with spells intended only for their partner. Why should their partner be entralled by spells not meant solely for them.

I am utterly amazed at peoples insistence at making tango look like hard work.

What exactly do you do for an encore?

Pulp - This is hardcore

This is exactly what goes through my mind when I see dances by Wonderboy - “every flash move” type dancers. Why exactly are you putting yourself under so much pressure to come up with “move” after “move”? Contrast this with those dancers who keep things predominantly simple and then add in a flourish, a bit of flash, which reminds you why they are out there on the floor performing. (Fernando Galera & Vilma Vega would be an example)

How difficult it is to be simple.

Vincent van Gogh

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides!

-Artur Schnabel

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.

-Shunryu Suzuki

So many times I meet people who are daunted by the sheer infinity of possibilities in tango. (Hurray! for improvised dance.) Leaders bewildered by what step they should take next, racking their brains for steps they shouldn’t remember. Followers stuffed so full of combinations that they can’t distinguish a pause for being just that, a pause. Fear, frustration, anger.

Pour quoi?

Because the prevalent method of teaching is through the demonstration and repetition of steps, sequences, phrases… Throwing as many combinations as humanly possible at the dancers in the hope that something will stick and some will stay.

The beginner comes to believe that to be expert is to know many. The beginner is annoyed that they cannot remember all the sequences. Perhaps the expert does know many, but their skill comes in seeing few, to dismissing the unselected to the periphery of their vision, silencing their chatter and concentrating on the task in hand. Of being able to see the trees for the wood. (more…)

This is not a post about those who count steps or about those who divide their steps with a protractor. This is post is about the analogy between my experience of being lectured engineering maths and tango.

My greatest problem with engineering maths was that it was lectured by mathematicians to engineers. Mathematicians think like mathematicians and engineers take everything apart, put it back together and then wonder why they still have a spare screw. This was always evident when they were teaching us derivations. There would be lines and lines of equations and suddenly the whole thing would collapse. It into a neat expression. Us into a dumbfounded expression and asking “why?”. “Oh sine of the angle over the angle is pretty much one for small angles”, or something to that effect. As engineers we didn’t go around noticing or remembering that sine of the angle over the angle is pretty much one for small angles. We tended to think we had better things to be remembering.

So too with tango. On occasion when I’m dancing there are phrases that I can remember the shape of but for the life of me I can’t do because I can’t remember the particular little equality that collapses the thing into place. It’s frustrating, it’s irritating. Usually because the shape of that particular phrase suited what I wanted to express at the moment. It’s like having a word on the tip of your tongue but not being able to say it.

Those are the instances where I don’t see the link. Then there are times when I’m watching video clips of performances (I usually like to just enjoy live performances and not be too analytical, plus video has pause and rewind) and there is a phrase that I like the look of and yet again I’ll be dumbfounded. “What did he just do, that appeared to come from nowhere!” So I’ll pause and rewind a number of times, being able to play at half and quarter speeds is handy too, and eventually I’ll spot it. Most of the times it’s nothing more than a change of foot at a particular time. But at that particular time it unlocks a whole new set of possibilities.

These are the mathematicians of tango. Those who can freely see at any point the minor change required to unlock major variations.

For the time being I’ll stick with being an engineer, breaking things and wondering why I have a screw left over.

For the time being I’ll just put one foot after another.

For the time being I’ll just forget everything and remember…

Tango is all about communication. Quite subtle, interesting, difficult, non-verbal, rewarding communication with people who are very often complete strangers. Its the ‘complete stranger’ part of it that I want to write about.

When Jane started trying to communicate with Tarzan she began with “Me Jane, you Tarzan”. She didn’t start with “Hello. How do you do. I’m Miss Jane Porter of Baltimore, Maryland. I sailed here aboard the Arrow, on Wednesdays we do crochet and my favourite colour is blue”. Baby steps and baby words. Let them build slowly and carefully and before you know it you’ll be having discourses on Kant’s metaphysics.

So when you dance with someone, be it the first time or the first time in a long time, start off simple, establish communication. Don’t expect or try complex and complicated from the off, the communication will be lost in the noise.

Remember. “Me Tarzan, you Jane. Would you like to dance?”

Stop letting the tango get in the way and dance!