Tango's Musical Terms: The Essential Elements of Music

Music's Essential Elements:  Melody, Harmony and Rhythm.  

If tango dancers really wish to dance musically, they must at least sense which of the three elements of music is the fundamental block.  I realize that there are many more elements (see link at the bottom), but let's keep this discussion on what is the essential of the essential.  Among these three blocks, even the focus is often questionable. which is the one essential one?  Are they all essential?  No. However, if you watch the camera man's focus on music performance, the limelight is often on the melody.  Also, much discussion on the Internet on the essential blocks starts with the melody.  It's true in tango that I often dance the melodic line, but the best musicians who play/sing the melodic line are exceptionally connected to where the rhythm is!  Are you?

The body as the first musical instrument

Picasso Ceramic:  Dancing to the flute

Through tango I have discovered that the most primal musical instrument on earth is the human body.  Each body contains its own rhythm, called a pulse, and internal music.  Of course, many will dispute this, but it was the acceptable theory during one of the most amazing periods of artistic human development:  The Renaissance.  The power of musica instumentalis is that an orchestra or musician can give two or more people a common pulse.

I love this ceramic piece from Picasso (shown to the left) because it shows the power of musical expression to make the animal within us dance.  Only the child human animal dances without instruction to music; so what looks like a goat is actually our unique brain delighted by music so much that we human beings are moved to dance.  The flutist and the dancer are one.

I found this ceramic Picasso work of art because recently I remembered something important about my first instrument (other than my body).  I was looking for a picture of a plastic flute I had in fourth grade.  As a fourth grader, I had to learn to play the flutophone.  Before a big concert, all three classes at my school came together and we were playing together.  It sounded pretty darn good, I thought.  But then the music teacher asked everyone who took the music test and got a 80% or above to play.  Most of us put our instruments to our side and just listened.

Flutophone

It was amazing!  What a difference between muddled music and a clean rhythm and clear melody!  This was a huge realization of what musicality is -- it is clean rhythms and clear (even if dark or raspy) tones.

I was not good as a flutist, so I was one of the many who only listened.  But the music became a part of me.  This experience resounded in me.  I wanted to be a part of it.  That is what music does:  It has the power to move us psychologically and bodily.

I eventually dedicated myself to being a musician in fifth grade after hearing a cellist play for the first time. I was so moved that I had to learn to be a musician.  I played later in string orchestras as a bassist.  A year later in fifth-grade summer school, I started as a percussionist, which became my main instrument as a musician in symphonic orchestras, jazz bands and combos.  The electric bass brought me to dancing salsa, learning latin percussion, and then I discovered the most amazing instrument through tango:  The body.

Now I am more musically aware than ever since I learned, through tango, to embody music, that is, use my body as my primary instrument.  My music is movement as a body-musician.  Body-musicians (like singers*) use their body to create musical expression with instrumentalists or as soloists.  Tango body-musicians join with tango orchestras, usually in duets on a floor of many duets of body-musicians, which is called in tango a "milonga."

If anyone asks you if you play an instrument, the answer for tango dancers is:  "Yes.  My body."



*Theories of musica humana did not consider the voice as part of the body but instead musica instrumentalis.  I like this idea that the voice is a separate instrument from the body, but music departments and even my musicians' union when I was a professional did not allow singers in to the union because of the belief that the voice was not an instrument.  During the Renaissance the belief was that the voice box was a separate instrument and was not musica humana: "Musica quae in quibusdam constituta est instrumentis (sounds made by singers and instrumentalists)." An easy way to settle this philosophical hair-splitting is simply to allow the body to be an instrument!  The body includes the voice box, a pounding heart, vibrations of multiple organs, the buzzing and frequencies of molecules and atoms.  When we move our mind begins making its own music.  Therefore, I believe that dancing and singing are examples of how we, especially when aware, become body-musicians.



Photo credit of Picasso's work:
Ceramic:  http://www.rogallery.com/Picasso/Plates/picasso-flute_player.html

Tango's Musical Terms: "Musicality"

Musicality is, simply stated, a sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music.

Musicality is not originally a dancer's term, although dancers sometimes use it as if it were.  Musicality, as I learned it formally, is the ability to express music in a way that goes beyond the correct notes or literally what is written in the musical notation.  The expression of musicality creates a response that accentuates a mood or feeling.  If you have seen musicians or dancers who perform and you are deeply moved, it was more than the music or graceful movement to the music:  Musicality was on center stage.

Musicality is a subset of every course on music a musician takes and is the goal of every musical performance.  In academic settings, musicality is addressed especially under musicianship courses.

The best musicality course for a musician, however, is dance.  That is my experience, at least.  I am not alone.  Many musicians who become dancers have a common experience:  We learn more about musicality as musicians through dance than in any course!  We can feel the dynamics of the music, how the notes can fill the body with a dance response.  We musician/dancers then return to our instruments as better musicians, better at musical expression--without out any changes to our technical abilities.   Can dancers, then, do the reverse?  Yes.

Dancing exactly on the pulse, is the first level of musicality.  This level of musicality is like snapping one's fingers to the music in time.  Done correctly and simply can be a very wonderful musical expression.  The next level is "hitting the notes," which includes hearing and responding to the actually rhythms.  A much higher level is to hear and react to the the dynamics -- the myriad changes in the music, such as expressing the sweeping or staccato parts of the music, and then poetically knitting these dynamic changes all together.   However, I am reluctant to suggest a hierarchy to musicality.  Simplicity may win out for musicality in the end.

Musicians do not always dance musically.  Have you noticed?  I have.  Musicians must become dancers and embody music.  This is not easy, but once it happens, you may see a huge change in that beginner dancer who happens to be a musician.  One the other hand, dancers have to grow on the side of musical growth.  I believe a dancer must become what I would call an "aural musician," fully aware of the music.  I want my non-musician dance partner to have sat down next to Pugliese on his piano bench even though she cannot play piano.

Regarding "hitting all the notes"Imagine a piano competition in which all musicians must play the same piece.  Then imagine that they all play every note perfectly.  The judges do not have a hard task.  They look for one thing to acknowledge the truly impressive musician:  Musicality.

The "Player Piano" plays all the notes
 perfectly,but wins no musicality contests!

The winner of such a competition did something SO MUCH MORE than pounding out the notes.  It is all about the dynamics (changes) within the music.  The transitions within the music were poetically expressed.  The player piano which plays all on its own from a scroll of programmed paper has no mother that will be outraged that her child did not win even though "he hit every note perfectly."

The Musicality Moment
Nearly everyone experiences a "musicality moment." Isn't it wonderful when you and your partner listen and dance some special nuance in the music?  Isn't it magical when when you intuit what is going to happen next--when the music takes over even though you have never heard a particular piece.  Musicians experience this all the time, and it is truly wonderful.  Sometimes, it is even mystical.  My improvisational jazz experience may be wonderful, even mystical.  Yet, nothing is as powerful as my tango experience with this intuition.

Okay, if you know my blog, you know it is now time for a video clip.  Maybe you are waiting for an example of some great musicality by an awesome tanguero couple, right?   No, sorry.

I have something better--removed from tango--so that you will pay attention to the subject at hand. The dancer below demonstrates musicality very well, in spite of the fact that the dancer has very stiff legs.  This artist is not known for dance.  But you will be amazed at his musicality.  Watch how his body moves, and you see why it was more than just the steps that makes even a dancer with stiff legs so much fun to watch.





More Reading:

This list of ideas were shared in July 2013 by Terpsicoral Tangoaddict Facebook, which really point out eight well-written aspects of what it means to "dance musically":

1. Choosing vocabulary to suit the musical colour (I often like to think in Murat's terms of kiki and bouba vocabulary, i.e. more rounded steps for more legato musical moments and more abrupt, lineal or spiky movements for more staccato moments -- but this is only one possibility).

2. Choosing to dance to unusual rhythms within the tango instead of just stepping on the main pulse: offbeats, syncopations, 3-3-2 patterns, etc.

3. Making minute differences in what dancers call "cadence" (I'm not using this term as a musician would) that is slowing down or speeding up within the step -- i.e. choosing to glide or flow through the movement evenly; to suspend or delay it slightly and *almost* arrive late for the beat you want to land on; or to hurry and change weight *almost* early. This is subtle, but it can feel really great.

4. Changing the quality of your movement to suit the music, i.e. dancing the same step in very different ways to reflect what you are hearing (smoother, more abrupt, cleaner, more unrestrained, stompier, bigger or smaller in size to reflect dynamics, etc.).

5. Dancing to submelodies played by non-dominant instruments or secondary voices within the music (which might be shared between several instruments).

6. [Editor's note:  Good concept but poor word--"polyphonic" means "multiple tones."] Dancing polyphonically with leader and follower emphasizing different levels/voices/instruments/rhythms, etc. (The fact that leaders and followers often have different steps and timings in tango, rather than dancing as mirror images of each other, makes this very possible at some points in the dance. And decorations can also help to achieve this).

7. Choosing to not dance to everything but use pauses judiciously, omitting to dance to some notes in order to emphasize others. (Although trying to catch every last note like an insane dervish can be fun too).

8. Marking the changes in the music with changes in your dance. Music has a tendency to divide into sections, which are parts that sound different from each other (apologies for stating the obvious). One of the easiest ways to dance musically is to reflect that in your dance: when the music changes within a tango, you can change the way you dance by altering such things as your choice of vocabulary, quality of movement, amplitude of movement, amount of decoration, etc.

In all of this, the follower's musicality is at least as important as the leader's and the musical interpretation is created together, as a couple, by listening not only to the music itself but to how you each hear it (which requires excellent somatic listening and communication skills from both parties). And led-and-followed moves and decorations and other solo movements are complementary ways of expressing the music.

___________
Musicality Glossary Definition
for tango teachers only (Really! Everyone else, this is boring -- so do not read it): 

Teaching "musicality" through the "you-know-what-I-mean" method, as it often is taught, is misguided.  The assumption behind "you know what I mean" is often that musicality is knowing the music.  But it is not.  The player piano "knows the music" (plays it perfectly), but is not "musical."  Another assumption is that musicality is led/followed or just done on one's own with adornos.  But it is not.  If I dance with a woman who is not listening to the music, then my musical expression is limited.  In reality, the musicality starts when the leader is the music and ballroom concept of leader/follower disappear.  It is true that men and women have specific roles to embody and interpret the music's lead, but leader/follower terms indicate a responsibility on the "conductor" that is not true in my experience.   Who would say that musicality has it genesis in the conductor's baton?  Musicality is not expressed by simply following the conductor or directing another person to have it!  What is true about musicality for musicians is just as true for dancers.

I am not suggesting a curriculum for your musicality classes; however, the three M's are a good place to start: Music, Movement, eMbrace.  If there is a huge gap in the embrace, the potential for dancing musical nuances between strangers is less likely.  If you students are focused on steps, then Music is only a backdrop, and the true leader is not leading.  Movement includes axis and grace.  All three M's are needed.  If music, the true leader, is conducting the couple, something marvelous appears.

If you are a musician, go back to you instrument and pay attention how tango may have transformed your growth in musicality.  If you are a dancer, I suggest you return to dancing after you have joined a tango orchestra as a "aural musician."  Become the auditory-musician, and when you return to being a dancer, you are all the better dancer for it.  Please then, help your students learn to embody and interpret the phrasing, rhythms, timbre, melody and ensemblic expression of the music.


Photo Credit for the harp (and a very good resource for hearing/listening):
http://www.tomatis.com/en/tomatis-method/areas-of-application/improvement-of-the-voice-and-of-musicality.html

Photo Credit for the player piano:  http://www.williamsmithandsonspianomovers.com/wspm_quote.asp

A great resource:  Here's a blog on aural skills, which is very enlightening. (http://tobyrush.blogspot.com/2008/09/aural-skills-is-funny-thing.html)

Music Embodied

Her life is being a dancer.

As a little girl, that is all she wants to do --

Ballet and jazz and Latin dance.

But then she finds the dance from the Río de Plata.

She enters into the music, an honorary musician,

Sitting next to Pugliese on his bench, as he plays.

She watches his fingers, the violins pull at her heart.

The bass throbs, the bandoneón makes her weep.

She returns to her ballet -- for fun she says.

But she is changed.  Music possesses her body.

Oh, had she only met the grace of embrace earlier.
She knows now that to dance is to be a musician,

And a musician, a dancer.

My life is being a musician.

As a little boy, that is all I want to do --
Orchestras, big band jazz, Latin percussion.

But then I find the dance from the Río de Plata.

I enter into the music, dancing out the notes.

I dance the vibraphone and harp in Fresedo.
I dance the clave rhythms of Africa in Di Sarli.
The lyrical percussion pounds at my soul.

I live in the Kingdom of the Rey del Compas.

I return to my instruments -- for fun I tell myself.

But I am changed.  Music possesses my body.
I wish that I had met this dance earlier.
I know now that to dance is to be a musician,
And a musician, a dancer.

Her path and my path converge one evening --
The dancer who is a musician,
And the musician who is a dancer.
We dance our first tanda.
A feeling of forever overtakes us.

We are the music, the music is us.

Photo Credit for ballet dancer drawing:  http://dj-music92.deviantart.com/art/Ballet-shoes-183540534

PS:

This poem is a prelude to a post on a the term "musicality," to follow in a few days.

Also of note:  If you went to the link on clave, perhaps I should say a word or two.  The concept of a "clave" in tango (3/3/2) is disputed by those who do not hear its mystical voice, saying "dance!"  So if you do not hear it, it is not because of a lack of musical training.  It may be that you do not have the same auditory hallucinations as I do.  :-) 

Tango's Musical Terms: "Chicharra"

The Chicharra is a sound effect that violinists, cellists, violists in tango orchestras create by using their bow on the "wrong side" of the bridge right below where they usually bow the strings of their instrument.   (Below, you will see and hear how the sound is made.)

Tango composers use this unusual sound very much like the popular percussion instrument used all over Latin America, the güiro, a little gourd washboard instrument.  

May I put a bug in your ear?  But please listen to what the cicada has to say.  She sings out a variation of an often implicit rhythm in tango, and she predicts how the whole tango piece is going to be played out.  

If you love tango, you will immediately notice this sound, but now let's see an example in a live orchestra and then in a following video clip, we will see exactly how it is properly made by the violin, viola or cello:



This second video is rather technical but the clearest example you probably will ever see!
 



Some believe that the chicharra is a more modern invention, but of course it was used in the Epoca de Oro (Golden Era) of tango as well.   Here's an example of Alfredo D' Angelis, using the chicharra very much like a typical güiro rhythm.  (Start listening at about the 70th second mark.)  And at the very end of this post, I have a picture of how arranger notated the chicharra and it's typical rhythm.

The bug in your ear: 
Dancers can learn a few things from the wise cicada. The chicharra seems to know the 3+3+2 rhythms of Africa and Middle East.  This morning I played the first video clip above for my 14-year-old son and asked him to tap out the rhythm that pervades the song.  The chicharra gave him the best clue, and he continued with that (until he got bored and left).  He and his brother are musicians, too, and sometimes we play together.  In tango, at least, the chicharra always sings out or plays around with the same ancient rhythms (sometimes called syncopations) that have their center around 3+3+2 rhythms.  I am not sure who taught the bug her wisdom, but please noticed that the first video plays on the upbeat of this rhythm and then the melody follows the same pattern throughout the tango.  The second video demonstrates this essential rhythm of tango but on the downbeat.  (If you actually count 123-123-12, the "upbeat" is just to clap on all the 2's and the downbeat is to dance on all the 1's.)

This rhythm does not belong to tango alone.  Middle Eastern music often features this rhythm as well.  One could argue that the European Jewish immigrants brought this rhythm to Argentina (along with the German made bandoneón), but that is not entirely true.  Even the melodies to some tangos came directly from Jewish songs.  Isn't it interesting that the Jews were slaves in Africa and their heritage and stories are centered in Africa?   Please enjoy this video below, an example of sacred music using this essential rhythm:

Here's the a photo I took a live concert of the violinist's score of "Canaro en Paris," with the notation of chicharra, playing off the 3/3/2 rhythms mentioned above.  The chicharra is at the very bottom of the photo.

• Photo credit for the singing cicada illustration
• Photo of violinist's score from Beltango by Mark Word

Tango: Thinking in Six not Three Beats

J.S. Bach:  Handing over a minuet to Francisco Canaro
to add the cruzado (cross rhythm).  See the smirk on his face?

Today's musicality workshop is on the vals.  It will take some concentration, unlike many blog posts aiming for an easy reading experience.  If you are serious about musicality, then stick with me. Go slow. It will be worth it.  Dancing the cross rhythm is like flying, and partners will love it.

Our goal in this workshop is to improve our ability to improvise away from the pulse in three, and understand the African cross rhythm (cruzado also, called criollo) that makes the tango waltz so unique and fun for dancers.  Important:  Many people already briefly dance the crossrhythm, and I hope this workshop will expand your ability to dance longer in this crossrhythm feeling.  

History:
Thanks to Francisco Canaro, the expansion of the modern milonga includes both the vals criollo and the milonga. These "criollo" influences came from Peruvian, indigenous, and African influences in the music of South America.  Few dance teachers are aware of what these influences are.  As a result, we have whitewashed these African influences out of the music.  The true vals criollo is not to be heard in many vals tandas at milongas, but even if the vals is clearly a Viennese waltz, one still can use the concepts we are covering here. OTV and Canaro are your best sources for the vals cruzado.  Let's get into it.

A waltz or "vals" in Spanish has 3 beats per phrase, right?

Well, that is the smallest view of what the vals is.

Six beats better describes the vals crillo.

If we were to compare vals to a language, then a word is 3 beats, a phrase is 6 and a sentence is 12 beats. Just like in language, when you first went to school and learned about words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs, you were already practicing these things without knowing what they were.  Similarly, you may be doing very complex steps in your vals, but perhaps it will be helpful now that you are more advanced to understand more about what you are doing.  The more long-range goal is for tango dancers to construct poems and short stories that delight their partners via knowing musical phrasing. Followers can also influence this feeling; so it is not information for leaders.

Before getting into all the details, I want you to dance the melody (this is called musicality) of even a vals, something that I rarely see on the dancefloor. After the melody in the below vals, you will hear a very clear cruzado rhythm.  Dance on this clear rhythm. If you don't get it, just keep listening.  Feel it in your body as a child does.  I see people hiding behind cool figures and endless turns to hide the fact that they are just pounding out the downbeat of the vals.  So dance by yourself.  Feel the cruzado before we break it down and expand your future use on the dancefloor.  This is by OTV.




The European Example
The vals cruzado is a waltz within a waltz from Africa (3 beats against six), but Europe had a similar phenomenon that did not make it to Argentina: The Baroque dance and music (below) is also in danced in six-beat phrases. In the following example, if one thinks in 6, notice what happens on 2 and 6!  This is a common form of Baroque dancing in which dancers bob down on the beats 2 and 6 of each phrase--clear six-beat phrases!

As I mentioned earlier, if you count in six, they are bobbing slightly down on 2 and 6.  That is the typical cross rhythm of their dance.  The "cruzado" (meaning cross) is a sub-rhythm of the Argentine vals that at times is found also in Baroque, but Baroque was not the "cruzado" (cross rhythm) influence -- Africa brought that influence.  In Latin percussion we call this counter rhythm the "trecillo" -- a part of the Afro-clave rhythm of nearly all of the forms of music in Latin America, including tango.  The cruzado started in 6/8 sacred rhythms in Africa.  I will write more about that later in a blog in which I will demonstrate the African influence with instruments and the Afro-clave in other forms of Latin American music as it relates to tango.

Many people, including musicians, are not aware intellectually of this sub-rhythm; so let me explain: The vals cruzado has a waltz within a waltz.  Sometimes it is very explicit, sometimes subtle, the cruzado (cross rhythm) is always there, and is the distinctive element of what makes the vals the "tango waltz," coming from its African roots.   To be sure, many musicians do not seem to know this, but it is nonetheless the fact.  They often feel it, but are not aware of its origins.

Percussionists (tango dancers) need to know about these rhythms.  You are percussively expressing yourself, striking your instrument (the floor) as a part of the tango orchestra.  So my fellow percussionists, if you think in 3, a waltz has its emphasis on the first beat of each group of three (1**/1** etc.).  If you think in 6 beat phrases (as the above dancers above have to), the same emphasis is 1**4**/1**4**).  You will feel he musical phrasing more easily if you feel this in six.  Practice counting at times when you are listening to the vals.

Now let's add the African influence, also called the trecillo, by dancing on 1*3*5*/1*3*5*/1*3*5*/etc.* You must feel this first before being able to eventually feel the upbeat of this. I call this the upbeat cruzado).

For those used to watching young, flashy dancers, the following clip with very few views on YouTube will not be immediate appealing.  However, this older couple are truly dancing 3 against six many times.  I found this video clip because I was looking for someone dancing to Anibal Troilo's "Un Placer."  I discovered Héctor and María Eugenia, dancing in this clear example of a very explicit cruzado rhythm in the vals.  Check this out!




Now, go back and start a little before the 1-minute 30 mark.  Here you will see how Hector performs not only the cruzado against what she is doing, but he has a very nice poetic pause in the middle of it all. Wonderful!  Then keep going until the end of the song which ends with the cruzado being slammed out by the orchestra throughout the whole last phrase.

Okay, one more?

Here is a wonderful example of this within a vals with "percussionists" Julio Balmaceda and Corina playing the dance floor.  Please focus again, just for this workshop, on counting in six.  If you pay attention, you will observe many times when they both dance this cruzado, the cross-rhythm, together or when one does and the other stays with the bass (1**4**/1**/4**).




I recommend that you go back and look at watch him at the 56-second mark stay in the cross rhythm (1*3*5*/1*3*5*/1*3*5*/etc.) for a long while as she stays in the normal vals rhythm (1**4**/1*34**/1**4**/etc.).

This weekend, if you are out dancing, pay attention to the Saints watching over the dance floor -- all the dead musicians that have made your world of dance and music so enjoyable.  Among the many friendly spirits will see many great Argentine musicians.  Behind them you will see a guy wearing a really cheesy wig.  That's Bach.  And if you really pay attention, when he watches vals cruzado he is smiling a lot more than usual.  Among the friendly spirits, please pay attention to the African drummers who are playing the cruzado rhythm -- the three African beats playing against the six European beats of the vals cruzado!


___________________________________________
*Musicians only:  The cruzado rhythm came to Argentina via Peru.  The val cruzado's other feature was also borrowed at first by Canaro, and copied by others, which was to have two singers with a statement and response.  I am not a musicologist, but I sense that the vals cruzado came first from Africa to Peru before being imported to Buenos Aires via Canaro.  But the Africans and indigenous peoples of South America have Bach and Mozart and so many others also discovering the "organic" cross rhythm.  In Europe it is called the "hemiola," a European concept of the same thing.  The Peruvian cruzado is often an upbeat crossing rhythm 3 against 6 beats.  The downbeat cross rhythm is (1*3*5*/1*3*5*/1*3*5*/etc.) and the upbeat cross rhythm is (*2*4*6/*2*4*6).  The reason this upbeat cross rhythm is so danceable is that the downbeat lands on 4.  The regular rhythm hits on 1 and 4: (1**4**/1**/4**).  Extremely wonderful genres of dance music have these elements: Reggie uses exactly the same upbeat curzado feel) but in 4/4 time (3/3/2 on upbeat *2*/*2*/*2). 

Others are examples:

• Traditional jazz in 4/4 time:  (1**4*6/1*4**6/1**4**/etc.).   The down beat (1) is played, but the 2nd beat is clearly in the feeling of jazz.  The above rhythm is the cymbal rhythm of the drummer. (You must count fast to get the sense of this rhythm, but start slow.)  
• The jazz walz is full of these cross rhythms on the downbeat or upbeat cross rhythm.  I will give you an example I immediately found on YouTube, with the sheet music notation!  Please notice that since the piece is written in 3/4 it takes 6 beats (two measures) for the cross rhythm to be represented.  The cross rhythm (on downbeat) example starts at measure 41 and is a regular theme:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3KTlZND0uc&list=RDP3KTlZND0uc&index=1
• Hip-hop and Kizomba are the down-beat cruzado rhythm (changed to the 4-beat feel, called the "trecillo" in Spanish.  Tango dancers know this as the 3/3/2 rhythm, which they rarely danced but dancers have heard of it.  (If you don't believe me that dancers do not dance it, watch what happens when Di Sarli, D'Arienzo, Troilo, or Pugliese play 3/3/2 rhythms (often on the upbeat 3/3/2) but no one, even professionals stomp out the pulse.)  Let's not fool ourselves--tango's great African rhythms have been whitewashed or "gentrified."  There are wonderful but rare exceptions.  Play this tanda from Troilo and watch what happens on the dancefloor with experienced dancers.  It doesn't have to be this way, but teachers have refused to learn and teach rhythms, unlike tap dancers and many African and Latin American teacher-dancers.

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Photo credit:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach.jpg