The Grace of Embrace

Image and Likeness of Grace

I once tried to understand religious grace.
I watched the cruel ones claim salvation's grace.
The cruel bully at work, proclaims his salvation:

"Not by works, but by grace we are saved,"

He announces--in all of his proud gracefullness.

I find heavenly moments at the milonga.

A refuge from the the cruelties of the world.
I ponder how a dancer embodies grace --
Its essence, not given but striven for.
Do not angels work on their grace of flight?

The Grace of Embrace is my heaven on earth.
Its warmth is the likeness of celestial grace,
Movement in tandem with the divine.
It is not Soul alone who embraces me
But dual grace, a duet, a harmony of two.

Spirit's grace stays on axis when I wobble.
She doesn't leave me when I stumble.

She directs the heavenly choir of dead musicians,
Beating out canyenge rhythms on my soul.
This is truly Amazing Grace.

Photo Credit:

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/martha%20graham 
Artistic notes:Martha Grahm would not have been caught in a tutu, but I liked the photo. 

Post Script:
Before I was the "tango therapist," at work I would send out a few friends messages of "tango theology."  So this is another part of me -- the Tango Thelogian: 

Notes on Tango Theology:
Christian theology, the idea of God's grace is that it is an unmerited gift of God, from a letter written by St. Paul.  Ephesians 2:8:   "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. .  I do not think Paul is saying this in the way that it has been misused over the centuries.  The context is talking about "works" and the discussion is that the new believers had to be circumsized  -- good that he cleared up the issue of "works."  That would have been a bloody problem.  James 2:18 addressed the misuses written after St Paul:  "But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."  Grace is not given even though not unmerited!

So my definition, as I have learned from tango's help is this --Grace:  An awakening to our merited divine beauty.  Divine grace and the grace of a dancer are expression of the same thing:  Elegance and refinement and movement before and with God and her creation."  Don't look for this definition in any dictionary.

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: "Dynamics"

Today's musical term for dancers is "dynamics," and how they may be applied to musical dancing.

A visual expression of decrescendo and crescendo in nature.

The musical terms glossary for tangueros/tangueras slowly is growing.  So far we have

• Chicharra:  A cricket-like percussive sound, made by violinists in tango.
• Pizzicato:  The use of plucking strings, often used in tango orchestras... and now...

Dynamics in music are generally considered the decrease or increase in volume, but they can be changes in tempo or switches between lyrical portions and rhythmical portions of the music.  The the singular of the word -- "dynamic" -- gives a good sense of what dancers can do with each other because of the music.   Dynamic, as an adjective, means "that which is characterized by constant change, activity, or progress."  As long as it is good dancing, the dynamics of the music is helping the dynamic of the couple.   "Dynamic" is often referred to as "chemistry" between two dancers.  Although dancers think of dynamics as being just volume, one would never think of the dynamics between two people as merely the volume at which they speak to one another.  So it is with music.

The Dynamics of Dance
Can we dance the dynamics?  ¡Claro, que sí!  Tango's Golden Era (Epoca de Oro) featured tango orchestras as dance bands (as it was with jazz's golden era), but these bands both in tango and jazz used dynamics far more than is often recognized.  Perhaps this is because of poor quality of sound systems and/or DJs using MP3 recordings rather than well-restored, "uncompromised" recordings.  Dynamics require operating and optimizing a sound system, but this is truly a rare talent.  Without good recordings and presentation, the changes in volume, texture, tempos, and instrumentation can be very hard to hear.

Listen for sudden (subito) or gradual volume changes, and this will add to your appreciation and application to how dynamics can be danced.  The gradual way of making changes in volume are called decrescendo or diminuendo, the sound trailing down, and the crescendo, the sound growing louder (fortissimo).  Dancers should consider how they are joining the orchestra with the "dynamics of movement" that reflect auditory dynamics in the music.  Progressively smaller steps, for example, might represent a diminuendo and progressively larger steps might represent a crescendo.  Dance bands often play at an even volume, so paying attention to the dynamics in a piece allows the dancers to be honorary members of the orchestra.  (And for this reason, may I ask those not dancing to speak quietly?  Teaching on the dance floor or talking-while-dancing is the greatest enemy of Señorita Dinámica.)

The earlier post on "pizzicato" is another kind of dynamics.  Pizzicato is usually done in a section of the music that is low volume, such as behind the soloist, and give balance to the long, lyrical lines of a violin or bandoneón soloist.  It is hard to see, but just as the first violin begins a solo at the 1:38 mark, the back-row violinists are in pizzicato in the below video clip.  This video will raise the hair on the back of your neck because of the amazing dynamics just begging to be danced.



Here are some example of of how composers indicate changes in the dynamics:

Notice between the connect lines the dynamics: "p" is for very soft and
"cres - cen -do" is the cresendo slowly growing to "ff" (very loud).

Photo:  Mark Word, Blechammersee (Tin Hammer Pond), Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Other resources:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_(music)

You dance in my heart

Joined hearts create their own infinity ... 

A premonition of my imminent death awakens me.
My dream plays out on Autobahn 6. I swerve ...
Thrown from the car ... others around me ...
A woman holds my head. "Help's on the way."
Light fills me and I am gone.  Yet, I never died.

A premonition worries me that she will die.
Though she's younger, I see myself mourning her.
I dance with her, worried it might be our last tanda.
Till one day, I opened the door to my heart;
She dances there throughout time, two united.

Who will leave first? I will never know, but one will.
So everyone I hold at this milonga is for the last time.
I will not tell them goodbye out loud, but it is our last.
I hold her tight, and tell her from the depths of my heart:
"I am glad you're here in my arms and dance in my heart."

I say to those I love, "I am glad you live in my heart";
With whom I dance, "I am glad you dance in my heart."
My premonition now is a life lived in a present place.
This and every dance is our last -- forever lasting.
Joined hearts create their own infinity.

Photos and concept by Mark Word

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

Dancing without Legs

I can dance without legs, dancing as my soul imparts.
I can dance without ears, but not without my heart.
I can dance without eyes, yet I still see your face.
I can dance without you, but still feel your embrace.

Tango's Musical Terms: Pizzicato

While building a glossary of musical terms for tango dancers, I will feature a few important terms in separate posts.  For the very first musical term for tango dancers, a musical effect that tango violinists and bassists often use is:

Pizzicato:
Pizzicato is the plucking of any stringed instrument (especially any stringed instrument that is usually played with a bow, such as the violin). This is probably the most important sound that tango aficionados start recognizing and understanding.  Sometimes the pizzicato part can be danced (see the example below), but it is often a sprinkling of glitter in the air.  So please watch carefully as Troilo's orchestra plays "Quejas de Bandoneón." You may click here to go directly to Troilo's solo and the start of the pizzicati (passage of pizzicato) in the background, but I highly suggest that you watch the whole video clip, especially before and during Troilo's moving solo.  Notice the violinists playing the pizzicati standing behind him.  Tangueras/Tangueos, please note:  One can dance the pizzicati!  I think I would dance the melody in this example.  Often dancers, even professionals, trudge along on the pulse in spite of the melody and the pizzicati.  However, if you have a playful partner with good reflexes and a good ear, try listening to the "queja" (complaint) rather than being the complainer.  The "listeners" are the violinists, playing the pizzicati saying, "¡No me digas!" as Troilo complains of lost love.  Then you and all of Troilo's friends can gather around him later in sympathy with the sweeping bowed passages after the solo.  An example of dancing the pizzicati follows, but watch this first!




I also highly suggest you view a wonderful demonstration of pizzicato at this link,which will allow you to better understand why pizzicati can almost sound as if a banjo is in the orchestra.

Now here is the best part for dancers:  How do you really dance the pizzicati (plucked passages)?  Listen carefully to the video clip for the pizzicati, but please notice that these dancers to not always dance every fast passage or pizzicati!  A beautiful melody often has the pizzicati sprinkling glitter in the background; so dance the melody or pulse!  Pay attention to the many pizzicati and one of the clearest passages at about the 70-second mark, which Horacio Godoy and Magdalena Gutierrez playfully dance with little-bitty steps.



The king of pizzicato in tango
Who in the orchestra is most often in pizzicato?  In tango the violinists are often playing pizzicato, but the bass is king of pizzicato, although the bassist uses the bow often.  But the bassist tends to be a mischievous band member (since the drummer usually has this role); so the bassist in tango is known for even using the wooden back of the bow for percussive effects.  Naughty!  Let's not leave out the one instrument in a tango orchestra that has more strings than anyone else (230 strings on the average piano).   Rarely does one see the pianists plucking their instruments, and they tend not to be mischievous like bassists!   However, some pianists (especially when drunk) are known to get up and pluck their instrument.  See the pizzicati (pizzicato passage) by the Piano Guys below for a good example of how even the piano can be played pizzicato.



Note that the above piano is being played in three major musical categories:  A keyboard instrument, a percussion instrument (struck with hands and hammers) and a bowed string instrument.

No, don't order a pizza... pluck your strings!
Here is an example of 4 musicians playing tango with bows (arco) and pizzacatto (pizz).  The cello is the bottom line and is already playing pizzicato, others are starting or stopping the pizzicati.  The top two lines are violins and the second line from the bottom is the viola.

Obscure but interesting information you'll need before going to a Baroque cocktail party: Plucking can be done artificially. Technically speaking, the harpsichord is a "plucked" instrument because the strings are plucked by a quill after the harpsichordist strikes the key. The piano is considered a percussion instrument because the hammers hit the string. Of course, both are played exactly the same through a keyboard. While doing the same thing (playing the keyboard), the keyboardist can be a "plucker" or a "percussionist." But I wouldn't make these accusations to a harpsichordist in public. :-)

Photo credit of woman plucking her A string:  http://violinfromscratch.com/learn-violin/holding-the-violin-and-playing-pizzicato

After I posted the above blog, I found a better quality video clip of Troilo that I will add if time allows:  http://youtu.be/y32Gn-Z4DFk 

"This is NOT tango!"

I discovered tango while working at a medical center in the United States. One day at work I met a colleague, a psychiatrist from Argentina.  I enthusiastically wanted to show her a tango video, which I thought was pretty darn cool at that time.

Please don't attempt this at home (or anywhere else)!

But after I showed her the
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.   

Tango and Quantum Physics

Have you ever experienced a time warp while dancing?

Start Here:  With your own Spark

Bending time lately?  Acceleration of time is easy.  That happens to everyone dancing tango.  How about experiencing a century of bliss -- or so it seems -- in a minute or an hour?  What scientific experiment could we possibly do that would be more profound or more fun than slowing, stopping or reversing time?

Our human expressions of time often minimize the magic of each moment.  People often like to use clichés about time: "It seems like just yesterday," or "Life is short." How about saying, "It seems like a century ago when we first met"?  Why not be amazed at how many things have happened even just a moment ago?

Time Warp Experiment Directions:

Agree with someone who is present -- really present -- to try an experience in Time Warp.  Since expectancy (through human language) is clearly skewed towards acceleration of time, you will need someone who is is has the expectancy (open mind) for time to go slowly and maybe even stop or reverse.

Choose a person who is musical and present -- but more than with the music.  Choose someone who is with you as you are not as they would like you to be. Then, agree to slow down, stop or even reverse time.  Experience Quantum Physics or the Divine (however you would like to express your world view).

Since doing this time-warp experiment with a yoga-teacher tanguera and a tanguera who came up with the phrase, "Minutes in Eternity," I swear I have made a Quantum (Physics) Leap in my tango experience.  (Will my tango-epiphanies ever stop exponentially growing brighter?)

For those who feel as if they have experienced a time warp--cool.  Go find someone to measure the Time Warp's depth, intensity and duration, just so that you know for sure that you were not deluded by feelings.

For those who feel as if they have experienced the divine, I have a passage from the Holy Canyenge Scriptures (also known as the "The Tanguero's Bible"):

"One moment is as a thousand years in thy arms, and a thousand years, as one moment.  So shall it be for all those who touch the hem of the Divine, for those who dance with the soul they embrace."

-- Saint Mark* 


And...

"Blessed are those who connect with their own divine nature and who dance with the Divine Spark within others for they will experience minutes of eternity on earth."
-- The Sermon on Mount Muse 

And from the non-dancers Bible:

II Peter: 3:8 (I did not make this up):

 "....With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."

Experience with me Namastangó:  Divine sparks, dancing in tandem.

*The Saint Mark who dances with Angels


Photo Credit

The Lady Weeps Too

A woman reads snippets out of the life of Ástor Piazzolla.
Then Violin sings the songs that only a tanguero gypsy can.
Piano has the voices of ten fingers, dancing as African immigrants.
Cello pours out the words, my soul had sought but could not find.
My eyes fill with tears for no damn reason (like the lady next to me).
And life seems right in that moment, when beauty brings me to tears.
I know I am alive and I am not alone.  The lady weeps too.


Photo credit: Cello Chick

Warning Label on Wearing the Pants

Since this post seems mostly misunderstood please read a definition of Lady Lead first. Also, be aware that the term "leader" as used in ballroom and by many tango teachers who speak English is often challenged.  Understanding these two things is important to understand the context of the following  post.

A favorite partner just asked me what my take was on Leading Lady Classes.  Ms J reported than men in the class hurt her back and tend to want to dance with smaller women.  If I were a woman, I probably learn both roles, but I would hope before my first class on "leading," I would hope that someone would present me with a warning label on the product about to be purchased:

"Warning:  By taking this class, you may never be able to really be present with your partner ever again.  You may force steps, especially with beginner men instead of allowing them to learn to be true tangueros; you may force their submission, harming them and your own dance.  Please sign here that you assume all responsibility and liability for what this class may do to your present love of dancing tango."  

A warning label does not mean that something will happen, but once a person knows the risk of a product, they can take special steps to protect themselves for the effects that are possible or even likely.  Let me introduce to Ms J.  She has collaborated in a huge number of movements which have become the basis of how I dance.  She was dancing for three months when I first danced with her.  From the start I did new things in her presence.  Another musician friend says the same about her.  Because of her I learned that the music is the true and only leader and that the woman can create opportunities for me to dance in new ways, just as I can do the same for her, although we stay in our own roles.  In Spanish the phrase that describes this is: "El hombre propone; la mujer dispone" -- the man proposes and the woman makes it happen.  Ms J has systematically denied her powerful role of making things happen.  She tells me that I am the one who created the dance.  (Thanks, but I know this is not true; we collaborated.)  Because of her, I started naming new movements after the woman who inspired that new movement.  Now, Ms J wants to learn how to "lead" (meaning, learn the rol masculino).  Okay, but she should read the warning label on role cross-over classes. 

The most important thing to me personally is that if a woman is on the dance floor in my role, that is absolutely okay as long as does not cause risk to me or my tanguera.  May I be just truthful here? I hope not to upset the lady leaders who dance responsibly and mostly dance in the man's role.

My answer to Ms J's letter:

Dear Ms J:

My take on leading ladies is that they tend to be a danger on the dance floor.  The female with her left hand out can even appear talented in this role, but too often she fails at taking care of the woman with whom she is dancing.  The "better" lady-leads race around the dance floor, weaving in and out.  They fail at the first rule of being a man:  Protect your dance partner from harm and cause no harm to her or others because of the woman often going backwards.  That is the first thing to start with in his role.  If you can do that, then you are already ahead of many men, who have not learned this "first step" in the classes they have taken. 

Secondly, do not dance with anyone bigger than you.  Men should dance with men not women if they want to learn to follow.  The main reason for this it to avoid hurting yourself.  I learned a lot from Stephen [in Austin, Texas] as a follower.  Why would I have a woman lead me, especially if she is a beginner and/or smaller?  No comprendo.

The third issue:  From my experience with women and men who learn their partner's part are often not present because they are taking mental notes.  I feel as if lady leads are paying attention on being able to do what I do, rather than dancing with me.  Even a very advanced follower and great leader fought me in vals as I danced the "cruzado."* I had to silently insist that she allow me to wear the pants -- on being a man.  The music indicated a wonderful cruzado explicitly, so I was silently telling her " Just come with me, please!"  At first she was insisting on the typical val pulse step.   I danced with her several times that night and eventually she returned to being present, but some ladies never return to being present.  This is the the great sacrifice of being a teacher:   The "teacher problem" is to risk being in your head too much, never truly dancing again but thinking about what your partner is doing.  When this happens, dancing has ended, and movement analysis has taken over.  Dancing, in my opinion, may never return for that person.  So there should be a "warning label" on learning the partner's part.  It should read:

Ms J, what will you gain?  Surely there is value to learning something (like becoming a teacher?), but what are the losses?  Did you actually create an even larger gender imbalance in your community when new men come and see that women don't need them?  Did you just increase the risk that beginner men will give up? 

--------------

Added note for men:

The warning label is also for men learning the rol feminino.  Speaking for myself, I know that I have lost a bit of patience with women since learning their part.  I at times feel as if am not being present with her, asking myself why is she taking huge steps as the one default for every step.  I start wondering why she is not listening to the music and too much too me.  I wonder why she stands so straight, even though she loves close embrace and has been dancing for 12 years.  I have to fight knowing her part and how these little things are so easy if she would only be present with me, and stop listening to teachers who tell women to follow the man, rather than the true leader, the music.  Why isn't she listening? I have to hear and empathize with her movement and mood, her little steps when the music leads her to take them, or give her the time to make her "little drawings" (dibujcitos) on the floor.  Now, I have to fight being present with her because perhaps now I know too much about her role.

Regrading the cruzado:
*Cruzado:   The cruzado rhythm is from Peru and most likely Africa before that.  Please read my earlier blog/workshop called, "Thinking in six." Vals cuzado or Vals Criollo is not a Vienese Waltz or a Boston Walz, althought these have influenced the "tango waltz" too.   Note for musicians only on the crurzado:  Think in six (not three): The cruzado is on *2*4*6 (an upbeat hemiola) and mirrors the very dance-friendly clave of both the Epoca de Oro and Regge).  The cruzado can also be danced on 1*3*6 as it by advanced dancers almost always at certain parts of the vals.  It seems that most advanced dancers seem to be unaware how often they dance the cruzado.  Watch carefully any YouTube video of any vals, and you will see this phenomenon. Tango/milonga/vals cruzado all have the basic roots of the African clave rhthm.  All clave rhythms were once in six according to expert musicologists in the area of music in the Americas.  Here is a playful vals cruzado that plays around with the cruzado that is so strong in the music.  Watch the danced hemiolas on the downbeat (1*3*5*) and upbeat hemioloa (*2*4*6), which is the true cruzado rhythm, and the essential tango clave rhythm for most Golden Era tangos and classic reggae songs.

Other indications (not proof) of the power of staying in one's role:
In one of my first therapy sessions with a man with post traumatic stress disorder, I theoretically felt that his wife should be in the rol masculino, but at the last minute I changed to have him close his eyes and be in his own role.  I guided the couple when needed.  The resolution of early childhood trauma dissolved faster in that session tan anything I have experienced as a therapist.  Later, combat trauma also resolved itself.  The couple went on to join a tango community.  I am convinced, now, that we don't have to experience Yang if we are Yin, or Yin if we are Yang.



Photo credit and blog remarks on women in rol masculino

Lady Lead

Photo by Romanlily

Lady Lead  

She gives herself fully to best tangueros.
I watch in awe of her animated femininity.
Her grace deserves a partner better than I.
But tonight she catches my adoring eyes.
With an upward whip of her gaze, an inviting nod,
I know that I must escort her to the dance floor.
I have no choice but to obey her lead.
Feigning my confidence, I approach with open hand.
My body and hands vibrate the frequency
  of not being sure of myself.

She embraces me and says in a whisper:
"Listen only to the music. I have watched you do this.
Hold me. Wait until you can feel my heart beat with that rhythm.
Then we will walk as one -- the music leads us both to move."
Her words will haunt me, I know, for all my dancing life.

She melts into me, and I can feel my heart slowing to hers.
And the music takes away the need to impress her
Because we both now stand in awe of the music together.
Our breathing becomes one,
Our walk follows as if from one heart.

Between songs, we shift deeper into the embrace
Tonight she has become my Lady Lead.
She brought me to the floor.
She calmed me with her embrace.
She showed me how to let the music lead us.

She led me to the life-long path --
The way to make tango with a woman.


The above poem, now significantly edited here, first appeared as one of my first tango poems in May of 2010.  The original was called, "The Older Woman."

Photo Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/romanlily/201646/lightbox/

Being Present through Tango

Translation in German

Being present.

That is what tango gives us more than anything else, perhaps. Being present in our bodies is the result of allowing ourselves to be in the Now through the embrace, tandem movement, and the music. These are the trinity of being in the Now with tango.

Embrace, movement, music: These, united, are the vehicle to arrive and linger at the Now.

What, then, stops us from arriving at the place under our feet?  What blocks us from arriving to this place that is closest to us, but too often seems so far away?

Perhaps the biggest obstacle is worry about what just happened or what is going to happen (past and future issues).  If I were a painter, this is what I would put on canvas to describe worry:   I see worry as a psychological shouting match between the past (the land behind you) and the future (the ocean before you).  The present is neither, but both.  The sand below your feet, dry and wet, cold and warm. Always a paradox.  Being in the present is not watching what is before our feet or what is behind us.  Being present is feeling what is under our feet -- the Now.  Tango helps us with this wonderful task of being present.

In psychological trauma therapy, it is important for people to be in the Now, even when reviewing the horrific past.  The Now is your body.  Be in your body.  Be aware of your limbic system -- often felt in your heart, neck, back and stomach.  Be fully aware of your breathing:  Make it deep, musical in its phrasing.  Tango becomes therapeutic (good for you) when this happens.  Sure, tango can be like an amusement park ride, but it can be much more than that if you are present.  "Enjoy the ride" is not the tango I am talking about, although it is a phrase I often hear tangueras say.

Nervousness happens to me only when I focus on how I imagine my partner wants me to dance.  The solution for me is that I dance the way I know I can.  For women, however, this may be different.  Maybe this would help: I notice women saying "sorry" or obviously upset with themselves and I don't even know why or if I do, it is not important.


Some say that the Now is small. The future and past seem to be infinite to the human mind.  But try looking at just a slice of how gigantic the present is:  Biagi brought you to a nice side step. You are on your right foot.  Under your foot is a hardwood floor and an entire planet, teeming with life. Above your foot is a graceful stance, and directly above your head is the Andromeda Galaxy tonight.  But that is only the first galaxy, there are many more above your head.

Being present is very big -- bigger than the universe.  Doesn't the Now encircle and permeate our being and the universe?  But we have to be present to see it.  Tango takes you there.



Photo Credit of wheels of thinking
Photo Credit of land and sea
Photo Credit of closest galaxy to ours

Dancing for the Gods

Milongas can be a long dive for me here in Germany; so last summer sometimes I would go down the street to dance salsa instead.  One evening was particularly magical.

Traditions all over the world:  Dancing for the gods is normal

Inessa and her boyfriend, a young couple who live near me, would sometimes call me up and say they were going to a local hole-in-the-wall salsa place.

I am remembering one particular night:

The salsa floor clears after the music stops for a moment.  I stay on the floor with Inessa and a salsa starts.  No one comes out to dance for some unknown reason, and we end up dancing all alone for an entire song.  I try to block this fact out.  I know the piece.  My tango instincts take over:  Every step has something to with the music in tango, as I best understand it.

This night, I realize something:  It's not just tango, but each dance can be danced in such a way that the music dictates what will happen next.  My salsa is not street salsa or schooled salsa: it's salsa that hears the music.  If there is a turn, it is because the music says to turn.

We join the band on stage.  I imagine that we are the unpaid members of the band.  I know this feeling as a musician.  It was a rare moment that I loved as a musician when I felt as if a dancer gave me the feeling that I was controlling his every move, or was the dance controlling my every move?  Perhaps neither.  In the mambo, son montuno, guaguacó traditions, the dancers are possessed by the gods, and the dance just happens.  In this ancient tradition from Africa, improvisation is what the gods do with you through the music.

When the music stops, we catch the ending as if we had practiced a thousand times -- bit of luck, really.  The Cuban conguero asks: "Señor, ¿Qué quieres oir ahora?"  [What do you want to hear now?]  I have never heard the band ask for a request.  I asked in Spanish, "Play a chachachá."  Although I have never head this band ever play a chachachá, they do it for us.  Everyone, it seems, in Germany learns at least a little bit of dance, and chachachá is on that list of dances they learn.

The floor fills with dancers now -- more than any other moment all night.  This is what I wanted from the start -- not a show, but people inspired to dance together.  I want them to dance because the music and the gods demand that they dance.

A German woman who has been dancing all night stands at her tall table.  I drink a tall glass of water after the chachachá.  She asks, "Are you on tour here?"

"No," I tell her.  "I am just possessed by the muses when they play their harps."

Not understanding me, she says, "I mean, are you professional?"

I don't know how to make her understand,  "No, I just dance because the music tells me to."  She looks at me strangely.  Yes, I am possessed.

During that song when no one joined us for the entire song, I tried to dance as if no one were watching, but of course there are those who are watching.  I put that out of my mind because I watched my partner and her every expression to see if she was ready for the next surprise parada or able to go into a moment of slow motion.  She, too, was watching me and my mischievous mind.  And, of course, the gods are always watching.

I really am not a practiced or a very good Latin dancer, but the magic of dancing salsa now is only because what I have learned in tango to improvise and move to the music -- that makes it appear that things were choreographed.

Addendum:
For some sense of the power of the chachachá, here is the music and its dance (below).  Although this dance is choreographed, the music is chachachá and for me very inspiring.  (For musicians:  The clave is always 2/3 in chachachá.)

Dance: The conduit to creativity?

My 19-year old son told me I had to listen to this TED Talk.  "It's about dance, Dad," he said in order lure me into watching it with him.

This TED Talk, by Sir Ken Robinson, is as inspiring as many of the TED Talks--and funny, too.  The concluding remarks bring together his thoughts on education's propensity to kill creativity, and he used dance as the example of how lopsided our educational system is.  Another point is that creativity itself  is just as important as literacy.  His lecture, "Do schools kill creativity?" ends with an anecdote from a book he is writing, called Epiphany, which is a collection of conversations with successful creative souls who accidentally discovered their creative centers (very much in spite of teachers and schools).  What would an academic professor say about dance?  That it is important?  It is!

Tango, I feel, has helped me rediscover my creative center in many areas outside the arts, and many whom I know through tango will say the same. Sir Robinson is an educator and is not against schools or teachers but methods that kill creativity.

Click on the video clip below, or you can go directly to the concluding remarks about dance by clicking on the link I provide at the very bottom of this post.



This is the LINK or cut-and-paste this link into your browser:  http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY?t=8m37s


Now you may think this is merely interesting, that dance might be important as an aside, quite separate from the "hard sciences."  Perhaps the bottom of education will be the foundation!  You must now take the time to see this next video clip, "Dance your Ph.D."   I watched this video a while back, and both videos together have a very powerful synergistic effect.  

Before you watch it, consider my life mission:  Tandem improvisational movement, as expressed in tango, may lead to the solution or amelioration of many somatic and psychological disorders.  I don't know.  You tell me:  Have you found a cool dance hobby, or has dance allowed you to discover yourself?  I believe that tango is not merely a nice hobby and is certainly not an "addiction."  It is a key to something very mysterious and marvelous in discovering yourself and those around you.

Plato is your Tango Teacher?

Plato is setting up a tango studio in your town.  Everyone is talking about Plato teaching tango.  His classes are full of students, eager to learn.

He is supposed to be the wisest and most knowledgeable teacher in your country.  You sit at his feet.  He has diagrams that show you where the students' feet should be.  He talks about classic tango music and how to dance musically.  You learn cool moves:  Volcadas, sacadas, colgadas, enrosques and pivots.  There is no end to the sequences of beautiful moves you can learn from Plato.

But you notice something.  He doesn't enjoy dancing with any woman.   When he dances you see him looking at the door, the clock.  His face is one of sadness or boredom when he dances.

Sorry, that is not Plato, but a counterfeit teacher.  Perhaps, he's really good at molding students to look just like him.  He creates others in his image and likeness
-- fantastic dancers who are unhappy to the core because no one is good enough to dance with them.  I say this not out of disdain.  They too can return to basics or go back to their day job.

Plato is truly a great teacher.  The real is eternal.  Each step on earth may be wonderful, but still is mutable and mortal -- only a shadow of the eternal idea.  Plato's goal for his students is to get closer to the human condition in relationship with true eternal substance.  His goal for you is to find the connection of soul, body and spirit.*  The volcadas, sacadas, colgadas, enrosques, and pivots are the shadows on the wall of the cave.

Distance yourself this counterfeit teacher!  Otherwise, his end (unhappiness) will become your destination as well.  With the teacher who dances without soul, you have no one to model the joy of lifelong dancing.

Tango is three simple things.  The warm and natural embrace, two people embodying the music, and tandem harmonic movement.  The overall goal is to find peace, closeness, to be present with your own inner world, and to respect the souls who have assented to walk with you on this wooden path to the immortal truth.

Go find Plato.


* Soul (psyche = the spectrum of knowing/feeling), body (embodiment), and spirit (pneuma = wind or breath:  phrasing of breath is musical phrasing, musica humana).


Plato's bust: photo credit (click here):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

We Dance the Body Electric

Steel Engraving of Walt Whitman
by Samuel Hollyer (1854)

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was not a tanguero.

He was an iconoclast poet.  In his poems, he spoke of the beauty of the male and female body in a way that shook conventions of his time -- and perhaps still today.  I think he knew something that tangueros and tangueras know about the distinct roles of tango.

In a time in which the practical use of electricity was rare, he wrote the poem "I Sing the Body Electric."   In this poem, he provided remarkable glimpses of men and women.  Tangueros and tangueras describe these differences in the rol masculino and the rol femenino.


An excerpt from this poem says this so well:


The female contains all qualities, and tempers them—she is in her place,
    and moves with perfect balance;
 She is all things duly veil’d—she is both passive and active...

...The male is not less the soul, nor more—he too is in his place;
 He too is all qualities—he is action and power;
The flush of the known universe is in him..."


If Walt Wittman had danced tango, perhaps he would have written something like this:

We Dance the Body Electric
  by Mark Word

We hear the music and it charges us fully.
We come to the milonga, seeking to recharge
Our body's need of touch, of human warmth.
The music magnetizes the room,
Filling each pour of our bodies.
Her charge and my charge are different
But together we are Yin and Yang --
Polar opposites creating a me that becomes we.
Without her energy, I am isolated, half of what was before.
I hear the music through her body and she, through mine.
We dance the Body Electric.

If not for me, then for them

I just watch at the milonga -- hardly dance anymore.
My cigarettes slowly bring me to my end.
Her absence is a cold replay of a closing door.
Oh, how I wish I could reach out and send
One last message from earth to her above.
How I would give anything to hold her and dance --
Anything to have grown old with my Love.
Too late? Love can have another chance.

If not for me, then for them.



A tanguero's notes on the film:

When I discovered this film, I thought it was fairly new, but it appeared in 2010.  I was so moved, that I immediately wrote the poem, "If not for me, then for them."  I later received a message from Marco Calvise regarding my comment on "Milonga" from his YouTube Channel, saying that he was pleased that I had noticed little details, including that the woman was pregnant.

These are some of symbols which were I immediately saw:

The cast:
o The non-dancer Observer:  He is smoking himself into oblivion, a slow sort of suicide.  He is cheap with his first tip, but is extravagant -- 50 euros ($70) to help to give the couple a chance to reunite. 

o The married woman:  She is not only married, she is pregnant.  Twice her husband holds her stomach in a non-sexual way.

o The older man and woman:  It is not clear if they are a couple or not, but I think they symbolized to the Observer the growing-old-in-love that he did not have.

o The Tango Tomcat (flirt):  Great dancer, with whom the married woman first dances, attempts to kiss a woman and she resists.  The Observer sees this, and pays to get him out of the picture.  Also, notice the too close for comfort looks he gives the married woman.  I rarely see this at a milonga and find it creepy when I see it.

The props:
o The cigarettes are not only a way to slowly kill yourself, but here the one that he allows to burn without being smoked represents a life that suddenly seems over.  It burns the Observer's fingers because of his lack of attention.  Pain wakes him up to the pain of the moment:  The realization that life is running out (abgelaufen) without his own psychological insight and observation.

o The pocket watch:  Notice the loud ticking?  Mortality:  his own.  The woman pictured inside the watch is dead.  Ashes fall on mortality?  --  that's death.

o The Dead Lover:  The woman in the watch resembles the married woman.  Now, that makes us realize that the Observer was not looking her up and down sexually in the way we first thought.  She reminds him of his own losses and he wants to give the couple a chance (thus the name of my poem:  "If not for me, then for them").

Sounds/gestures:
o Clearly fluent Italian.  A friend told me that some critics of the film said it was not realistic for Buenos Aires.  Both the language and the gestures are fluent Italian.  Why would anyone think that this milonga is supposed to be in Buenos Aires?  Milongas happen every night of the week in Italy.  Chiaro?

o The sounds of dancing on the floor:  The sounds of grace come out more during the married couple's dance.

o Pauses are times to think and are not realistic for a milonga.  For those who like realism, go to a real milonga.  This is a film with a message to make in 13-minutes.  What appears to be a second tanda is only a pause -- the longest pause.  A cortina would have distracted the Observer's need to think.  The last dancers on whom the Observer fixes his gaze is the old couple -- a melancholic moment and a hope -- his loss and his hope for the couple's gain.

If I had three hands, I would give three thumbs on this short film.

P.S.  3 January, 2013  
As a reassurance that I wasn't reading too much into his film, Marco Calvise (pronounced kahl VEE zay) shared my poem and analysis on his own Facebook page.  Also he said "the best description of my work" on my Facebook link to this post, so I hope that means that I mostly picked up his intentions in the film.  Indeed, I may have read too much into things, but I think it more probable that I have missed a lot.  Comments are welcome if you see even more.


Photo credit:  One of many backstage photos the director sent to me at my request.