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| Please don't attempt this at home (or anywhere else)! |
video clip, she said in Spanish:
"This is NOT tango!"
I looked at her in disbelief. She looked at the computer screen in horror.
I did not understand her statement for about a year. You see, I only knew about tango from the perspective of it being an awesome way of dancing and doing cool moves. I can never know what she saw in that video, but I think she was culturally nauseated, like a French connoisseur of art observing a group of American art students making poor renditions of Vincent van Gogh's art, while speaking English in a French accent and drinking blueberry wine with a straw -- all the while proclaiming to be protagonists of post-impressionist painting. That's what I mean by "culturally nauseated."
Eventually, I knew the essence of tango was that is an artful expression, framed in a social context. Great art requires a great frame. The art itself is the expression of what I call the essential Three M's of tango:
Music, Movement, eMbrace
(1) A common unity of inspiration by listening to the genre of music that has inspired this art form and way of moving.
(2) Tandem movement of two souls.
(3) A warm eMbrace of two people.
I am at times inspired by performances, but often I cringe at the applause for the move most removed from tango (acrobatics and ballet, for example). Perhaps my Argentine work colleague also saw the grace of the video I showed her long ago, but I think the horrific effect that the video above has on me is what she saw. More and more, even the most graceful pseudo-tango acrobatics create this feeling of nausea as the above video clip does because the graceful dancers are inspiring anti-social tango on the social dance floor. The graceful ones are gracefully bad examples for dancers who dance socially. I believe they unwittingly motivate people to see tango as a competition or sport. Tango is not a race, a time trial, a performance. It is the three Ms, framed in a social context.
Important revision note:
An earlier version of this post had a video clip that was pointed out by a friend as being a couple that were not professional and in a contest for people at their level. A tango teacher narrated in the background, which I did not understand was rather cruel. I was under the impression, falsely, that the man himself was narrating.
Also it is fair to say that many performers are doing great things for tango to keep it alive with fresh ideas. Tango, like a language, will change with vocabulary and syntax and rhetoric. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of performers, is that it makes it possible for talented teachers to make a living at helping people to be more graceful in their tango expression, and they link tango with gracefulness and aesthetic expression.
In your professional opinion as a therapist, which would you say is the healthier use of time: engaging in a physical activity and creative expression, or spending a a few hours publicly pointing out and ridiculing the poor dancing of beginners? We applaud people for accomplishing things that represent work and success for them, not just for things that we intend to emulate.
ReplyDeletePhil, which beginners? This must have hit a nerve for you to have missed the fact that these are all professional dancers in the pursuit of being amazing to all who would watch. They are NOT beginners! Graceful dancers lead these folks and many others down the path of asocial dancing. Although some performances show great tendrness, mostly performance dancing creates a type of toxic waste at a Milonga. But if it seems like "ridicule" to point out tourists throwing garbage in the well at an oasis, such as many tango performers do at the oasis of a social dance, then my "professional opinion" is that you are free to publically point out my errors. Having said that, I regret the sarcastic narration in the background of the first video, which I misunderstood as the male dancer's own voice, explaining his own moves. Phil, the problem with having an opinion is that I can offend a few or many. I do appreciate, and value your opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe video you posted of the escenario competition is not a professional couple. It's a pair of amateur local dancers who are dancing stage tango *in a stage tango competition, on stage*. You may find their dancing unskilled, but they are following the guidelines of a competition and enjoying themselves. Nowhere do they claim to be highly-skilled, let alone professional, dancers. They don't teach and they don't dance that way at the milonga. I think it's actually rather cruel to disseminate a video of them with scornful, satirical commentary. What does it achieve, except to humiliate two innocent individuals?
ReplyDeleteHi Mark
ReplyDeleteI looked the video clips.. I entirely agree with you on this.. They are all spectacularly awful !
The hostile comment by Phil is bizarre.. Clearly these dancers are not beginners at being awful.. They are professional entertainers - paid to be spectacular dancers.. But what they are doing is not tango.
Bill
An earlier version of this blog had a video clip that was pointed out by a friend as being a couple that were not professional and in a contest for people at their level. A tango teacher narrated in the background, which I did not understand was rather cruel. I was under the impression, falsely, that the man himself was narrating.
ReplyDeleteAlso it is fair to say that many performers are doing great things for tango to keep it alive with fresh ideas. Tango, like a language, will change with vocabulary and syntax and rhetoric. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of performers, is that it makes it possible for talented teachers to make a living at helping people to be more graceful in their tango expression, and they link tango with gracefulness and aesthetic expression.
Tango Therapist, I whole-heartedly agree with your view about the 'essential three M's.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in 'What really matters', we cannot escape the large numbers of Youtube videos of great quality (and questionable) performances. http://www.tangosalonadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/what-really-matters_26.html
Beginner dancers will almost certainly be dazzled by these displays, and some will want to emulate them. They know no better.
For the sake of social dancing and a healthy tango community, teachers of tango and more experienced dancers have a responsibility to make the clear distinction between stage and social tango ... and foster the latter.
Phil and Terpsi have a good point: It is not cool to be cruel. I was not careful enough to pay attention to the words and who was saying them in the first version of this post. However, I stand by my assessment that tango is a precious thing and all precious things end up needing to be protected. From whom? People who don't care? No! From people who learn tango and take it to a "new level." That "new level" is making dance a spectator sport. Maybe not it Buenos Aires, but on nearly every dance floor in Europe and America there is some asocial dancer, who is out performing for us all, bumping into us, hurting us or our partners. Who will protect a very magical social world from becoming asocial or cold with competition and self-interest? The entire US seems to be sitting on their asses and watching dancing as a sport like football. Thanks to the ballroom business, dance has become a huge money-making project in the US and the world. Now have lost "dance" as mostly a verb. Instead it has become a mere adjective and not a verb -- dance sport / dance competition. Ultimately, souls who need to get out and dance in social setting, sit instead at home, watching others dacing to be amazing. The little boy and girl inside them has forgotten what it was like to move to the music. The only baby animals that move to music without instruction or behavior modification are human beings. Something of our essential substance becomes latent and dies when dance becomes mostly an adjective. To dance is to be human, and the videos I presented featured the sort of dancers who are happy to have others watch them, rather than inspire others to get up and be the little boy/girl they once were.
ReplyDeleteOver and over again I find that it is appropriate to say that for me this is not tango. Every time I say this is not tango I get subtle reminders that my version of tango was not always what it is now.
ReplyDeleteI danced ballroom before tango. My abject apologies to those who suffered because of that.
Learning what works for me in tango and what doesn't work was a process and one of the unpleasant stages I went through and suspect that every dancer goes through is thinking that you're doing tango for others instead of just yourself and your partner. There is a reason it takes years to learn and while I cringe at some of the obnoxious stages I got stuck in I'm convinced that you have to smile and just let others discover for themselves what is and is not tango.
For me tango is not a display for others although you are welcome to watch and observe if you so choose. For me I cringe when I see displays of stage or lessons put into practice that don't match the music or the partner or the floor. For me I am trying to allow others the freedom to learn what works for them as long as it doesn't injure others.