Follower: A job without promotion

Tangueros, would you dare try to lead this woman without knowing her power?

Revision of original

Definitions:
The Willing Follower:  A person willing to be lead and is not interested in a promotion or future leadership position.  [I don't know anyone like this, except in theory -- dance pedagogy.]

Female warriors have it better off in the military than many female tango dancers (in theory).

Females in the corporate world have it better off than many tangueras (in theory).

Okay, now I have said it.  I didn't want to.  But it slipped out.

Intelligent, talented women don't like being followers outside of tango under the same definitions of "follower" within tango -- people without the chance of promotion. This is especially true in roles that would stop them from ever having a chance to become a leader. They do not like being in a position without hope of promotion.  Tango, one would think, should be the worst dance in the world for intelligent, talented women.  Women do not want to be perennial privates in the Army or mail room clerks forever.

Notice, I have said above that the military and the corporate world are better for women than tango is for many tangueras.  Not for all.  Some women know instinctively how terribly deficient the word "follower" is for their role in the most magical dance of all partner dances.  The true role of a so-called follower gives her 50% of the responsibility of the dance of a Duet of Introversion.

So why haven't women spoken up about this problematic military analogy, called "follower"?  My theory is that women put on their tango shoes and feel the magic.  They shrug their shoulders and say, "Let's make tango, not war."  Or they just say "so what?" or they say "stop talking and let's dance."  The power of tango shoes.

Really, ladies, followership is a concept of subservient, mindless obediency, as it is expressed by many  tango instructors -- especially women instructors, who give lead-and-follow validity.  Why do you keep coming up with ways to protect a terrible term for something so beautiful as the rol femenino (the feminine role)?  How interesting it is how this term causes concern because of males who do a great job in the role.  If you are going to be sensitive, start with the most offensive term and work your way to the least offensive.

Why to you keep using this word, "follower," and then come up with excuses for it?  Imagine using a any rude, rank, and meaningless derogatory word and then trying to tell people its good side and philosophical uses!   Why is it that so many English-speaking dancers have decided to use this term to describe the nearly indescribable role you have in dancing tango?  Of all words, why the "f-word" -- "follower"?

Let's think philosophically for the next generation of dancers.  Leadership is a military concept.  Yet followership is not a military ideal.   Please trust me on this; I have over 20 years in the military.  Leadership is central to the warrior ethos. If a soldier is in a following position, it is only with the idea of learning to lead, learning what a true leader is.  Ever see a promotion ceremony at a milonga:  "Now she's a leader, first class"?  No.  Women do not need men leading them, and there is no need of promoting "followers" because they are not in reality followers.  They are women doing magical and wonderful things.  Intelligent things.  Creative things.  They are women.

Sure, some of the best teachers in the world use poor words to describe what they are doing.  But why are they good teachers?  Well, for one thing, we learn by doing.  If we relied just on their words -- we might learn the wrong spirit of what tango is, that is,  if we had only words like "lead and follow" to go on.

So what is the solution?  It is primal.  Easy.  You don't need a book.

Sex is the solution
Start using the words feminine role or simply "lady," "gal," or "woman."  "Lead-and-follow" has neutered tango.  That is something you might do to a cat, but please not tango!  The masculine role and feminine role are roles of the sexes.  Let's not take human sexuality out of tango!  Should we really desexualize the roles of tango?  God save us all!  What would the old milonguero ghosts say?  Surely this must be a sign of the world truly coming to an end! 

The True Leader
Also, we must have a philosophically sound way of describing the beauty of tango.   Lead and follow are dead-end terms because men are actually not leaders.  The music is and always has been the true leader which both roles must follow.  We form up like soldiers on the dance floor ready to march around in circles when the leader (the music) tells us to.  We go fast or slow because the leader tells us to.  And the true leader is a woman:  La Música.

The masculine and feminine roles are magical and mysterious.  Yin and Yang.  One is not powerful and the other not.  One is not creative and the other not.  Sharna, a local Washington DC, instructor calls the feminine role "the keeper of possibilities." 

Okay, all you "keepers of possibilities," can you lead the way here.  The lead in this issue cannot be a man!   I am getting tired of hearing you line up and call yourselves "followers" with only a slight cringe on your faces.

But perhaps I should just surrender in your arms.  You will take me out for a spin, and I will do things I never have done before.  I will sense how you hear the music and the music will sound all new for me.  At the end, you will tell me I'm a great leader. Because I have surrendered fully to you, I will politely agree, knowing that it was you who brought me there.  It was you who truly led me there.  Now, we both can be wrong together.  It was us with the music who led us to that magical place. 

 I just put on my tango shoes just now.  The power of tango shoes fills me.  I surrender.  You win.  Let's make tango, not war!  I will let you lead, and I will call you whatever you want. 

More on this subject: "The End of Leading is Near"  http://tango-therapist.blogspot.com/2010/11/end-of-leading-is-near.html    

Photocredit:
http://www.eaglefilms.com/despiser/Beserker_brochure1.htm  

What is your Floorcraft IQ?

He drives a lot better,
now that he's asking.

You may have never seen the above sign on a truck, but this is common in the US.  The sign on the back of the truck reads: "Tell me how I am driving" and then it lists a toll-free number.  


You can bet that the truck driver with that sign on his vehicle drives a lot better now.  Perhaps he used to be a bully, but now the toll-free number rings on his boss's desk.  Suddenly the driver he behaves very politely on the road.

How do you like my driving?

Imagine having signs on the men's backs at a milonga like this -- but don't do this.   Could you imagine the floorcraft improvement if we had how-am-I-driving signs on everyone's backs?   At the end of the night each tanguero would receive some advice from the others.   Again, DO NOT do this.  You might have fights, hard feelings and demotivate a bunch of tangueros!  But mentally every tanguero should be thinking about how other might rate them.

Imagine how other men and women might answer the below questionnaire.


Floorcraft Intelligence Quotient (FIQ)


On a scale of one to five, how was tanguero #?? in the following.

No extra credit for playing
bumper cars!

5 = very true  

4= mostly true     

3=sometimes true     

2= Often not the case.  

1= Not the case at all.

You would answer "0" if you did not experience a particular thing.

The best possible score is 5 points for each item, multiplied by by the number of items answered x 2 =  TIQ.

1. He enters the dance floor, leading the woman in a safe way (not led by her).
2. He kept with the flow of the dancers in front of him (not a "rock in the stream").
3. He danced near to me but without tailgating.
4. Never backed up into me -- and no close calls either).
5. Never bumped me or my partner -- or even came close to bumping.
6. Never ran his tanguera into me or my partner.
7. Stayed in a lane one or two but when it was crowded; never changed back and forth.
8. Appears to have his number one job as protecting his dance partner.
9. He can dance very well in a small place on the crowded dance floor.
10. If there is a mishap, he is pleasant and apologetic even if it is not his fault.

Extra credit info:
My best advice to this tanguero to help him and others enjoy tango in this milonga is:

Examples (write in or circle below):
1. Ask men you like to be frank to you about your floorcraft.

2. Keep up the good work.  I like dancing near you!

3. You are a great dancer, but please lead the way with your floor craft as well as your great dancing.

Photo Credit:

http://www.whytraveltofrance.com/2007/09/04/franco-american-conversations-how-am-i-driving/

Tangueros with signs:  Washington DC milonga "Cococabana."  José, Ruth, Mark and Deborah.

The Assertive Female Cabeceo

"As she slid across the table and looked into my eyes I realized she wanted to dance.  In fact I found her gaze irresistible."

I cannot argue with the majority of women who are sure that the cabeceo* is a male-generated requested to dance.  Recently, I even heard the words, "I hate the cabeceo" from a woman who is an advanced dancer.  If not the cabeceo then what?  But the argument goes on and on with the ladies who are sure that the cabeceo is for men, their egos and for women to be submissive.  ¡No comprendo, de veras!


All I know is that I dance with women who make it very clear that they would like to dance with me by their eyes and posture.   Who exactly is in charge of the initiation of the cabeceo is often an enigma.  I would even argue that any man who is in touch with the social skills of a primate, will be very aware of a woman's willingness to spend time with her -- even if it is just for one tanda.  And the same is true of a man's eyes.  Primates are awfully sophisticated with this sort of thing, you know. 


The argument comes back from women, "I can make it clear that I want to dance with him, but he still doesn't respond to my communication.  So it is clearly up to the man."  Not true.  How is that any different for me or any man?  I can show interest all night to a women and she may not respond.  Just because a man wants to dance with certain women, she can look uninterested or even off in another direction when he comes near.  Please tell me how is this "up to the man"?  


So to fix it all, some would stop using non-verbal cues to request a dance.  Does that mean I should now start asking all the women who have been looking away?  God save us, if men and women start asking everyone with whom they would like to dance.  There would be a wave of discontent at the milonga.   Let's try it for a night for the women who hate the cabeceo.  That would put an end to the controversy!


*Cabeceo:  From the word "cabeza" (head), a nod of the head, indicating a desire to dance.  For more on this and tango etiquette, please visit this link:  http://tango-beat.blogspot.com/p/los-codigos-tango-etiquette-made-easy.html

Photo credits:

Find some great cartoons about dance at

 http://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane/2011/06/07 .

Finding the Missing Self in Tango

The Freedom of Dance has a Dark Side

Tango Dialogues

This is the second of an ongoing series of dialogues with friends who have found a spiritual or philosophical meaning in tango.  This dialogue came out of a conversation from a tanguera whom I have never met.  She privately responded to an blog post in January, an article entitled, Tactical versus Strategic Tango.  She took to heart the wisdom I am learning from veterans of war and what helps them get better. "Teresa" (her pseudonym) took this warrior-wisdom to the next level-- life practice and the milonga dance floor.

Tango Therapist: Teresa you told me that your tango life seemed to take you away from your usual self. First tell me what is your "usual self?"

Teresa: I work with impoverished and downtrodden peoples, and it makes me truly happy -- to give of myself, to honor human dignity above all else and do what I can to make other people's lives a little easier. That is my usual self.

Tango Therapist: So how were you were you different in tango?

Teresa: My experience so far has been largely "receiving" from those better than me. I find it a bit confusing because by nature I tend to be a giving person, but tango brought out another side of me, a self-centeredness that I was not comfortable with. So why was it that with tango had I become so addicted to perfecting my dance that I put aside my nobler self? I am a bit disappointed in the months spent in this mode. But I am at same time thankful that I confronted my ego now with just two years into the dance instead of much farther down the road. I do not place blame on anybody as I let myself be led down this path.

Tango Therapist: So how has this changed? What did you do to return to a philosophy of tango that reflected your life philosophy?

Teresa: Well, I realized that I had to change this path or tango and I would have to part ways. So I went to our next class/milonga with a totally different focus. Honestly by night's end I had such peace in my soul, I was elated. I tried to stay committed to my focus on community versus performance. This is for me, at this time, I am not suggesting to anyone else how they should be. So I showed up at the beginners class to be a follower if they needed one. It turned out that they desperately needed a few more followers. This was my first big test. I danced with beginners. It felt good to GIVE expecting nothing in return. I gave my self at the class and I did it with all my heart, that when it came time for the milonga I was so peaceful inside that the dance came from my soul and it was everything I strive for it to be. Gone was that perfectionistic nagging, the performance mind. From this mental place my inner self and soul at peace with herself .

Tango Therapist: I think your story is important for all of us. Tango will help our life philosophy, but also our life philosophy influences our tango.

Teresa: I feel like this is a new chapter in my tango journey. I want my actions to speak for themselves. Then if others ask about this new peace, I will feel free to share my concerns and the changes I am making.

Tango Therapist: Thanks for sharing this with us. Your "beginners mind" helps me and I think it will help many.

Comment or "like" Tango Therapist's Facebook page at this link or Comment at Google+ Link to posts

Photo credit:
Woman reflecting on herself drawing:  http://www.squidoo.com/Psychotherapist?utm_source=google&utm_medium=imgres&utm_campaign=framebuster

Enslaved Tango Blog Writer

"If you finish your blog, you can come to the practica."

September 2012

Margarita and Elena let me have the keys to my cell today, and they are now allowing me to tell my friends and family where I now live.

Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I like it here.  I dance a lot.  The community is caring.  I really did not mind being enslaved by two tango-hungry women in their basement for over a year.

Well, let me explain.

It all started back at the Denver Tango Festival in May 2011, more than a year ago.  I was dancing with Margarita.  She was sure she knew me.  Then it dawned on her that she had been reading my blog.  She was introduced to my blog through her friend, Elena, who had danced with me in Austin, Texas.  Elena shared my blog with Margarita back in November 2010.


So Margarita had been reading my blog for a while, and knew way too much about me:  My tango philosophy, my military service, my passion for music, and how I was using tango as therapy.  Suddenly she found herself dancing with the guy who was writing the blog -- the Tango Therapist.

We hit it off, and danced several tandas over the course of the Denver Festival.  We sent each other a few messages on Facebook, but then I never heard from her again. 

A month after I returned from Denver, unexpectedly Elena and Margarita announced through an email that they were coming to DC, and I agreed to introduce them around at local milongas.  What I didn't know was that they had decided to enslave me.  Tango slave.  Human trafficking.

Elena drugged me with Ambien and I slept in her back seat all the way to Santa Fe.  They put me a basement cell.  But to tell you the truth, being a free slave (slave to tango) and a captured slave was very much the same.  Really, it was an easy transition.  

Okay, this enslavement thing quickly developed into the Stockholm Syndrome.   I started siding with these criminal dominatrices.  It was brainwashing I am sure.  But at the time the washing felt cathartic, you know.  Sure, I considered escaping the prison they had made for me in the basement, but then I was unsure what freedom would bring me.  It wasn't so bad.  They let me out sometimes.  They were kind to me at times.  


So it didn't look too suspicious, they allowed me to dance with other women.  It was just like living in DC.  I was dancing a lot.  I only came out from my apartment to go out to dance.  Really, nothing new at all to my regular routine.  They even would take me to tango festivals and one trip to Buenos Aires to be their tango-slave-taxi there.  Life was good. You would have never caught me humming Negro spirituals, or mumbling about freedom.

But what about all the rest of the time?  There's more to life than tango, right?  Well, they gave me a TV . . . but I never turned it on.  They allowed me to continue writing my tango blog from the basement cell.  They edited everything I wrote before sending it out on the Internet.  This was great.  Yes, they were checking to see if I was giving out my whereabouts to family and friends, but the positive side was that I now had two editors.  They caught typos and awkward sentences.  All in all, I was gaining more than I was losing, although I did miss my children.  Elena and Margarita let me talk on the phone with my kids.  On Skype, Ben and Toby even said they liked the way I had fixed up my cell.  

This is my first unedited blog since being enslaved.  So now you know my story, and why I disappeared from DC.  I will tell you later about how I was finally freed.  The short story:  My blog readers started a "Find Tango Therapist Committee" on Facebook. Some wonderful tangueras from Germany, Santa Monica, DC, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio came all the way to Santa Fe to free me.  They all showed up at the same time, and Margarita and Elena invited them in for tea.  We all went to a milonga that night.  One of the committee freedom fighters is offering me my own second floor room, better food, two trips to Buenos Aires a year and the same freedom to dance with other tangueras at milongas.  She says she adores me, but I am not sure.  You see, most men just have one loving dominatrix and I don't know if I can go back to just one now.  Two make it easier because they sometimes get into a fight, and take out their frustrations out on each other rather than me.  It works quite nicely.  I am starting to understand the Mormons.

By the next blog, I hope to make a decision about my future enslavement.  Your comments are welcome. Should I go with the adoring slave-owner, or the two rather frisky tanguera slave-owners?  I'd appreciate your opinions, dear Readers.

Sincerely, 

Esclavo Tanguero

a.k.a Tango Therapist

PS:   I am going to try REALLY hard not to write anything more bizarre than this story in my blog.  I promise.  And for a few who didn't look carefully at the dates:  No, this did not happen.  Yet.

Photo Credits:

From Tango Cell Block  http://www.cinemaobsessed.com/2010/07/memorable-monologue-chicago.html 

Simplicity in not Complicated

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leonardo da Vinci

This poem for some reason came out in Spanish first.  Translation in to English follows by the cheapest translator I could find -- me.  The original is below in Spanish.

Simplicity is not Complicated

The milonga, yes, is as life goes.

In life I look for explanations for everything,

But life is so simple that I do not find

The answers to all my questions.

Tango knocks on our hearts,

And your embrace as we walk

Changes into a a path of light

Which leads me to the truth:

The milonga, yes, is as life goes:

Connection, whether spiritual

Or through your embrace

Contains all the profundities of simplicity.

La Sencillez no es Complicada

        por Mark Word

La milonga, sí, es como la vida.

En la vida busco explicaciones para todo,

Pero la vida es tan sencilla que no encuentro

Las respuestas a todas las preguntas mías.

El tango toca a la puerta de nuestro corazón,

Y tu abrazo mientras caminamos

Se transforma en un sendero de luz

Que me lleva a la verdad.

La milonga, sí, es como la vida:

Una conección, sea espiritual o a travez del abrazo

Contiene todas las profundidades de la sencillez.

Tango in Hell and Heaven

No sore feet.  Be good.

Heaven's angles dance tango.
Hell's angels dance tango.
But heaven's angels dance
All night without sore feet.
So be good. Live well.

It will all be worth it.

Cathedral Organ Tanguera

Strike a key and then wait for the sound.

Dancing with some women is like playing a cathedral organ.

Let me explain: Lately I have figured out a way to dance with women who are chronically behind the beat. I have to have body language that is 1/2 beat ahead of the music, which is okay musically, but very complex for a tanguero.

However, if the woman is actively in her feminine role, my role is easy because she is following the true leader -- the music -- whom I too must follow.

If the woman is fully aware of the music, the tanguero does not have to pretend he is playing a church organ, which has to be one of the hardest instruments to play. First of all, by itself a cathedral organist is using all ten fingers and both feet.  That is hard, but the most challenging musical challenge is that what the organist hears is often delayed from what all the fingers and feet are doing!  In some cathedral the pipes are so far away that the delay can be a full second off!  It is unfathomable for me to think of the training and discipline to play in this way. Yet as a tanguero, I have insight to a degree of the task of the cathedral organist because of some women and their delay.  Click here on this mind-blowing video link that demonstrates the sound delay at St. John's Cathedral in NYC.

This is not God's Design:  Delayed Tangueras

A tanguero should not try to fix a woman who does this at a milonga. In a practica he can at least suggest that it feels as if she is listening way too much to the tanguero and not enough to the music. I have seen huge changes in women after saying this.  And they sometimes say, "Free at last!  Free at last!"  It's a holy cathedral moment.

I will fault no tanguera or tanguero for not being in the music because they have been taught to lead or follow each other.   This is a teacher problem not a student problem.  Once we begin on the leader/follower analogy we are already on the wrong path.  No wonder musicality is such a chore sometimes and in mostly in "advanced" classes because we have to go back to being new tangueros/tangueras and start listening with the "beginner's mind"!  Why not have the beginners mind even while you are a beginner and learn from the start that the music is the true leader?

Women who depend too much on the man will slow him down and make his musicality miserable or very difficult.  (Ladies, don't complain that men who do not follow the music if you are not following the music yourself!)  On the other hand, too often men who are not listening to her sense of the music and her abilities as a tangera end up "dancing" but not to the music.

El Rol Femenino y Masculino
The following tango training video is incredibly illustrative of this concept of delay. The teachers use the "military analogy" of leader/follower, but they really have caught the spirit of both people being active. I am in a job that has me surrounded by female colleagues. Much of my work is intuitive as a therapist and I regularly have men and women crying in my office. Not a typical "man-job." However, in tango I am fully in my male energy. On the other end of the spectrum I know tangueras who are surrounded by men in their work, and they love tango because they feel fully in their feminine energy. Lead and follow is really a very poor analogy, but it is here to stay. I like "yin and yang" or "male and female energies" to explain what is going on when the Leader (la música) takes us out onto the dance floor to follow "her voice."

So watch this video and notice the terrible delay of a woman who is far to passive, relying on the man too much and dancing behind the "compas" (pulse) of the leader's bidding (yes, that's the music).



Thanks to Modern Tanguera who introduced me to this video.  Visit her blog at:  http://moderntanguera.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/leadership-and-followership/

Photo credits:
Organ console http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/nyregion/26organ.html
Lady on organ:  http://churchorganist.blogspot.com/


Extra Credit:
Just for the fun of it and if you are interested, here is another video (secondary to the organist link above).  Watch this organist at Notre Dame in Paris. The delay on this central organ is not that bad, but he must play ahead of the beat because the choir is standing by the pipes.

An Open Letter to Tango Musicians

The Pan American Symphony Orchestra (PASO)

Some musicians may be open to hear what their most attentive audience wants.  What would you say to them if they would only listen?  Below is a letter to tango musicians and more specifically to the director of the Pan American Symphony.  I did get a response, which was basically, "thanks for writing."  So the letter goes unanswered.

If you have been following my blog, the series on musicians "killing" tango came from my first draft to the director of PASO (below).  In my very first post in which I mentioned PASO, I included a video of clip of the Pan American Symphony Orchestra, but I realized something in talking with my dance partner after posting the video clip and article.  I was lamenting to her that I would have liked to dance to such great live music. My partner countered that not everyone wants to dance but just "intensely listen" to the Orchestra. The words "intensely listen" hit me. I realized that if I am dancing, only then am I really listening intensely with my whole brain.  She agreed that this too was her experience in tango.  Sitting and intensely listening to tango is only valid for musicians actively playing tango.  I know this feeling of intensely listening in two ways only -- playing music to any kind of music or dancing to tango.

I can only speak for myself, but when I am dancing to tango more than any other dance music, my mind, body and soul are engaged, not just my ears and brain.  Perhaps this phenomenon could be called, "intense listening-via-participation."  I make pauses as a dancer because the music does when I dance tango; I may have been stepping only once per measure at the start of the song, but during the variación at the end of the piece, my steps may become only a blur, mirroring the virtuoso bandoneón's climax.  Sitting could be intense, I suppose, but it is not participatory and way too cerebral for a music born out of the African canyengue clave (tresillo).*

Musicians often want people to stop and listen to them and "fully enjoy" or "to fully take notice" to their art.  However, I believe that this is a mistake with tango and most Latin American music, which is both a psychological and a somatic experience.  Latin American musicians distinguishes themselves by wanting people to be moved to dance to their music.

So it is not just one person or orchestra tipica, but to all modern tango composers and musicians for whom I write this appeal:


Sergio Alessandro Buslje,
    Artistic Director and Conductor
Pan American Symphony Orchestra
125 Michigan Ave., NE
Washington , DC 20017
panam.symphony@gmail.com


Estimado Director Buslje:

I fully enjoyed the quality and passion of the Pan American Symphony Orchestra's performance I recently attended.  Your mission statement on your website and the breadth of what you are doing to promote Latin American music is impressive.  More than having a mission statement, your fulfillment of this mission is highly esteemed by critics.  You are with out a doubt influencing modern tango composers and musicians.  For this reason, I hope to appeal to you as a life-long musician and a dancer that you change your presentation slightly.  I suggest that at some point in your concert you allow common people to dance to your music.

I think this is really the spirit of tango -- the people's dance.  Tango has survived especially because of dancers, as has been the case with other Latin American music.  Jazz is no longer a dance "in the street," but tango, cumbia, salsa and samba are.  A dancing public demonstrates something essential about Latin America.

My experience from living in Latin America, being a dancer, and from being a Latin percussionist is that Latin Americans hold their music close to their hearts but "listen" through their bodies as dancers.  I hope that whenever you perform in the future that at least at some point you invite the public to dance.  Doing so would teach the unknowing public a great deal about what Latin American culture and music has to offer the world:  A music that moves the soul and body.

What are you thoughts about this?

Sincerely,

Mark Word

Washington, D.C.

PS to my readers:   Since I received no response to this, perhaps some other musicians you know would benefit from reading this and the series, Musicians Killing Tango:  Click on the links -- Part One; Part Two; Part Three (part 3 included DJs as proxy musicians).  I believe that if musicians read these articles, they will get insight into a great business plan for themselves.  Musicians who value the dancer are doing themselves a business-wise favor and at the same time keeping the music they love truly alive.  My experience has been that modern tango ensembles and composers too often are influenced by Piazzolla or other composers who were not thinking from the dancer's perspective.  Then these present musicians get a gig to play live tango and wonder why people don't like live musicians.  It isn't the live music so much as the musicians not knowing what is danceable and loved by dancers.  Those who love to dance need to help out the sometimes unwitting musicians who want to please dancers but do not know why they are not invited back.  Dancers must find a way to tell them how to please the audience-that-moves!  I hope these blog discussions help create a better musician-dancer alliance.

*The tango clave is denied by many musicians and ignored by most authors.  The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clave_(rhythm) is an example of forgetting tango's clave, while mentioning even the tresillo in Middle Eastern music and southern Asia!  However, if you love tango and know tango, the tango clave is clearly there and omnipresent even in silence.  More on this subject will follow with videos of each of the claves.

Photo credit:
http://www.panamsymphony.org/about2.html

Tango in one word?

A place to embrace, a place to walk and be soothed deep in one's soul.

Try to describe tango in a single word.

That's hard.  Maybe a hyphenated word, like "soul-soothing"?

But the "walking-embrace," is my often-used noun and my best description.  The walking-embrace is more than soul-soothing.  It is the way that we can let our souls go out and play, like children who too long have been sitting in a classroom or inside because of bad weather.  Tango is the soul-play dance while walking embraced.

That's it.


Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/archivalproject/5472070619/
Also see:
http://tangocorazon.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/tango-whats-your-adjective/

The Psychology of Musicality part 3

Music and dance are primal to the human soul.

The First Dance

What is true of your first dance is true of all dance.  Music inspired it.

I now speak as a poet.  If this is not true scientifically that music comes before dance, it is true poetically.  I feel this more than I know it.  Music is the foundation of the human soul and it moves our bodies.  Music pries open our souls and makes us dance.  We know that we are alive, and we know something about our souls.  Alzheimer patients can be at a stage of total loss of their own biographies and deeply distressed, but music, especially music from their childhood, can restore them to joy which can last for hours.

I asked the question, "what came first, dance or musis?" to a group of tango teachers on Facebook last week.  Some felt that the answer would be different if one is talking about tango versus if one were talking generally about dance.  However, most agreed that music is first when it comes to tango.  I am perplexed by a perception that there should be any difference.  In both cases -- human history or the history of tango -- music comes before the dance.  For example, unique reggae movements were inspired by the inverted downbeat of this music (on 2 and 4 not the usual 1 and 3).

One tango teacher, Ilene Marder, felt it was music that came first, but also pointed out that human movement is the start of music. She said: "The first music was our heartbeat."

From the same Facebook tango teacher forum, Jay Abling, a veteran dancer, musician, conductor, tango instructor and DJ from San Diego said, "When the dance swing, first came into being, I doubt that the someone just started creating steps and said, 'There should be music to the steps I just created.' Swing originated with style of jazz music . . . and people started experimenting with movement to the music, creating different styles of swing. Eventually, musicians started riding the popularity and started creating music for those particular styles."

So one could argue that movement indeed precedes music, starting from the beat of our Mother's heart and then our own.   And, yes, one could say that a drummer's hands "dance" on the drum heads or a guitarist's fingers "dance" on the strings. Movement and music are at one truly, but movement is not dance.  Music is the stimulus for dance, and is still primary because it is created in the musical-mind.

The 9th Symphony: Written in deafening silence

Let me demonstrate: A man is walking down the street just moving and then a song comes to his mind. He is walking his dog, but his dog is not going to come up with music from its movement. The internal ability to create music in the human brain predisposes all movement to inspire music within our unique brains.  From this perspective, movement seems to create music.  But movement, whether a heart beating or legs walking is not dance or music. Music is an an internal disposition in musical brain (human brain).  This same concept is evident in the life of Ludwig van Beethoven, who wrote one of the greatest musical masterpieces of all time from what he "heard" internally.  He was entirely deaf when he composed his last symphony.  Music in a way is implanted in our brain, making music as one of the the most distinctive markers of what makes us human.

Oliver Sacks, a world-renowned neuroanthropologist and psychiatrist has this to say about the wiring of the brain that makes music primary and dance the response to music.

Being human adds up to being a lot of positive and negative things, but one thing we uniquely possess (among mammals) is the ability to make music and the human body's unique response to dance.  If you want be essentially human -- then return to what you did as an infant and allow yourself to feel the music and dance.  

18th Dynasty Egyptian Tomb Fresco with musicians and dancers

External expression of music, such as with clapping, sticks, drums and logs quickly is united with an automatic response from our cerebellum (motoric center of the brain) in the form of dance.  Take a closer look at the dancers and musicians which appear on an Egyptian tomb fresco from the earlier post (part one).  Notice the oldest of percussion instruments on the far left?  Clapping hands.

In some ways the closer we come to both music and movement being one and the same, the closer we are to being truly at one with music, and it does feel as if dance and music are parallel. 

The Influence of Dance on Music
I acknowledge that dancers can inspire musicians to create new things. There is a symbiotic relationship, a synergism, that happens. For example, chachachá’s name came to out of what dancers were doing. The inventor of the chachachá said he heard the dancers’ feet on the floor making the chachachá sound, but again the stimulus was music. Have you ever seen anyone ever dancing the waltz without music? Imagine musicians watching dancers and saying, “We should make that into music!” Or as Cherie, a tango teacher and correspondent out of Buenos Aires, wrote me back in 2009: “Can you just see gauchos around a fire dancing a tango without music? Yeah, right.” And I would add to that: “Imagine musicians being inspired to invent tango music just by watching people dancing at a silent milonga!” Maybe in a different universe?

We have chickens and we have eggs. Maybe one or the other came first. That is pretty mysterious stuff. My brain cannot get around the chicken/egg question. It is like rocket science. But music and dance? This is not rocket science.  Music, then dance. The power of music at a milonga routinely makes my body into a musical instrument, playing a song called, "Dance."

Photo Credit:
First dance fire http://khalednoorblog.com/?p=431

Connection and Vulnerability

Music moved me...towards you
by Mark Word

I told myself I would not dance.
I was afraid I would make myself foolish.

I told myself I would not prance,
Like that drunk friend of mine, over-smiling.

This time I would not allow the chance
Of vulnerability and the taste of hurt again.

The music started and I caught your glance,
And I saw how it moved you to be just who you are.

My mind took us back--a bonfire and chants,
To my ancient need to touch and be the music.

Music pried open my soul and made my body dance,
Music pried open my heart and inside I found you.



This poem was preparation for this "story telling" video clip (below) on the search for the meaning and value of vulnerability.  What does it means to be "whole-hearted" and vulnerable to you?

I told my son recently that if I were a terrible father he would not mourn my death in the future.  If parents want to spare their children from the pain of bereavement and loss, they should be aloof and avoid being vulnerable to their children or even avoid love altogether! 

The way of love expects hurt, and does not search ways to numb the pain of love -- drugs, food, avoidance.  This is the paradox of life, that those who engage in life expose their hearts and truly live a life worth living, a life of connection.  Do not be surprised by the words of tango -- they are messages of love and the normal hurt of the vulnerable heart.



This post was both a "break" from "The Psychology of Music" and a preparation for the last installment of the series. Tomorrow: "The Psychology of Music, part 3," subtitled:  "The First Dance."  Insights from tango instructors and a short film by a neurological anthropologist, which should put the whole subject together nicely.  ¿Hasta entonces?


Photo credit:

shutterstock.com

The Psychology of Musicality part 2

A classical dance from India:  Precision of drums and dancer.

In part one of "The Psychology of Musicality," I reasoned that music came before dance.     Click here for part one.

Ask anyone, including avid dancers, and it seems that nearly everyone has strong opinions about dance preceding music or music preceding dance.  A tango friend, Lisa, using her observation of her children, came to the conclusion that dance and music happen at the same time.  Her daughter was moved to dance with or without music, and her son made every common object into a drum to make music. Maybe that is the solution -- making dance and music parallel, not one or the other first.  She concluded:  "Dance was created by those who needed to move and they did so to their own internal music.  Music was created by those who needed to feel the vibration and they did so with whatever objects were at hand. Dance and music were created parallel."

These are good points.  However, is it possible that the dancing without music we see in small children is the result from the baby's ability to remember the music she had heard earlier? The ability to remember music includes the ability to dance to remembered stimuli, just like remembering where food is gets the whole body reacting by movement to find food again and even have stomach acids ready to receive it. Food is the remembered stimulus, which creates food-searching movements. Music is the remembered stimulus for dance movements.  Also, playful animals "dance" around.  Human beings dance for joy (as some animals do) -- but is this truly dance?  If it is, it is the rare exception to what dance is as a response to music.  An exception does not make dance first and music second.

There is no right or wrong answer to the question of which came first, perhaps. Or the solution is that both happen simultaneously.  At least this is not a question that will cause the end of the world.  However, I would argue that indeed putting dance first has consequences for adult learners.  I believe that the philosophy of Dance-before-Music is exactly how tango is too often taught, and this has negative implications for learners.  A series of steps learned will make a great dancer?  Let's choreograph this song and then add music?  No!  Music first, then dance.

This post was about to be published today, but I called my 17 year-old son and asked I asked him how his dance lessons were going.  He just started a month ago.  He said he loved it, but he does not like that the dance instructor has her adolescent students learning steps first and then she introduces the music!  That's right:  She goes through the steps and then turns on the music, belting out directions of how they must move.  Ben said, "I now know why you like tango, Dad.  There are no steps that you are forced to do."  I couldn't believe how perfectly his complaint fell in line with these articles on the psychology of musicality.  He gave me permission to mention his experience.  Dance before music is poor pedagogy if nothing else.

In the psychology of musicality we must return to the simplicity of stimulus and response (music and dance). Secondly, we must return to being childlike. Among a long list of motherly anecdotes, Lisa, my tanguera friend said, "Although I waited until age 7 to sign [my daughter] up for ballet lessons, [her ballet dancing] was never as wonderful as her spontaneous dancing. Now, at age 14, she will only dance when no one else is home." Lisa's daughter is already learning how to control herself so much that she is losing the innate ability to dance with natural musicality (see Part One for the discussion of why we lose our innate musicality). Later, she might tell a dance teacher when she is in 40's, "I have two left feet." No, sweetheart, you have a brain that has forgotten how to be and do what it was made to do:  Dance spontaneously to the music.


Next: The Psychology of Musicality part 3. I asked a group of tango teachers if music happens before dance, and a few responded back with some insightful answers.

Photo credit on Indian dancer and drummers from the New York Times:  http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/spoleto-festival-usa-dance-of-two-worlds-different-yet-vaguely-similar/

The Psychology of Musicality

What came first, dance or music?

What do you think?

The Solo Performance

A couple of weeks ago I had free tickets through my work to go to a ballroom competition dinner. This extravaganza included social dancing, a finalist competition and a show. I am used to dancing, but this was something new, being surrounded by the ballroom dance competition crowd. Afterwards, I planned to go with my dance partner to a milonga -- our more usual routine.

A few days before the dinner, I mentioned to my partner that we could actually sign up to compete as novice first-time Argentine Tango dancers. But she responded: "No way! Remember, you are the guy who has a blog that talks about tango being a connection between two people, and you are always saying, 'It is not what shows, but how it feels!'" she said wisely.

Of course she was right, but my appeal to her was to go and just improvise as a statement that dance is all about letting your soul play on the playground, and just dance with our hearts.

But she again countered with, "No, competitive ballroom is another world. People pay lots of money -- classes, costumes -- and learn to perfect each level in a curriculum, gradually moving from first timer, to novice, to bronze level, silver level and gold level. Judges would be looking for perfection in just the moves at your competition level. Nothing more and nothing less counts."

"Well, it would just be for fun," I said.

"Yeah, and if you do it once and have an ounce of success it is so easy to get sucked in and want to do it again!"

"Yes, the Dark Side. You're right. I know the Dark Side and its allure." My face has a distant stare of delusions of grandeur. I enter a trance. I imagine myself at the tango alter, giving up my Holy Grail Philosophy of dancing just for the one person in front of you, breaking to bits my Stone Tablet Philosophy of connection -- especially the First Commandment to have only One Connection and not to worship the pagan gods of Cool Steps. I hear Darth Vader's artificial lung regulator sucking in and blowing out air. His voice says, "Mark... Mark...Come to the Dark Side."

The trance is broken by "Mark! Hey, are you okay?"

"Sorry. I was just spacing out. I thought I heard an important announcement over the P.A. system."

"Yeah, it was me talking!"

She pulled me away from the Dark Side. "Yes, that‘s right," I told myself. "I am a social dancer. What would I accomplish competing?"

Nevertheless, we still have a story to tell. . .
Sure enough, after dinner had been served and a chachachá, a waltz and a foxtrot had been played, we hear a tango--an authentic tango--being played. The following video records the wildly different styles between our milonguero style and our distant cousin dancers, doing a ballroom rendition to the same music! Just play this for the first little bit, and you will get the idea.




Then later they played a milonga. My partner, with her eyes closed, didn't even realize until the end that we were the only ones on the dance floor for this one. We, of all people, the social milongueros, ended up unwittingly performing solo before wannabe show dancers -- and they applauded us!

In the video that follows, we are dancing to a milonga played by a mere duet--piano and bass.




That was when it dawned on my partner: "You know if we had competed, no one here would have even competed against us in Argentine Tango. We could have won gold!"

But wait a second. Is that Miss Tango Purity speaking now? How the allure of performance beguiles! Interestingly enough, that night we both lamented that the ballroom extravaganza was a lot more fun than the milonga that followed. Perhaps the Dark Side is always there lurking, ready with the next temptation!





 

Death of my Tanguera

When love exceeds the beauty of heaven

La Muerte de Anabel, mi Tanguera
by Mark Word

My friends were sure our souls entwined.
   They saw us dance as one,
That we, our love, had surely defined
   a love bright as the sun.

Our purpose was to love each other --
   two souls, two lives on the run.
The gods, envious of a love so pure,
   placed her in her coffin.
A tragic death, the papers said,
   a life not yet begun!
They took from me a love so true,
  forbidden a mere human.

Milongas without her presence now
  are songs all spent and sung.
No spring to my feet and no place to hide,
  I'm Adam alone in Eden.
I wait not for heaven or a better place.
  Our heaven was a beacon,
Whose beam shone brighter than heaven's light,
  so they sent death's coachman
On the path of light that led to us
  and a love they yet have known.




This poem is a dedicated to my son, Benjamin and a tribute to Edgar Allen Poe.  I was delighted to read through some of Poe's work with Ben, who is 17 and in an English class in Germany.  We discussed a paper he was doing on Poe, and I was struck with his thoughtful exegesis on several of Poe's works.  One was a poem, "Annabell Lee" (below).  This sad poem references the untimely death of Poe's wife.  Although the poem was dark and painful, it was also a tribute to the human experience -- that human love and life are so precious that even the seraphs were envious.  The ancient Greeks believed that human life is far better than the bleak existence in the shadows of the afterlife.  Today's religious belief makes out human life as a mere shadow of that to come.  Personaly, I see God's love as far more benevelent than E.A. Poe and today's popular theology, but just in case the world does come to an end on the 21st of May (as perdicted), I thought I would get this out! 

Although I do not believe that things get worse after this life we know, please imagine seeing the value of our present life as being so precious that it even the angles are envious of what we have!  I do wonder if the angles are envious when I dance at times.  Also, this sense of "it doesn't get any better" describes my love for my children, Ben and Toby.
Here is Poe's poem in its entirety:


Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of Annabel Lee--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
  I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me--
Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we--
  Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
  In the sepulchre there by the sea--
  In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Photo Credit:  

http://titania86-fishmuffins.blogspot.com/2009/10/edgar-allan-poe-part-2.html  

Musicians/DJ's killing tango, part 3

Musicians/DJ's:  What is the mission -- make us sit and listen or make us move?

As a recap from part one and two of "Musicians Killing Tango" the basic thesis was:

Musicians who forget the dancer kill the very music that they love.

This thesis was not my thesis. I just borrowed the idea from two Latin American musicians. Some musicians will cringe at this added thesis (which is my own) here in part three:

DJ's are proxy musicians, and as such they can be just as effective at killing the very music they love as musicians have through time.

DJ's, whether we like it or not, have taken over the role that too many musicians have abandoned -- keeping people dancing. However, DJ's are susceptible to falling in love with the music and forgetting the dancers just as much as musicians are susceptible.

Let's assume that great musicians and their proxies do an excellent job of working the crowd--sensing what the crowd wants and taking them there and beyond:  When to go slow, when to go fast, when to play to tradition, when to be an iconoclast, when to introduce a new dimension to the dancer.   This is the Art and Science of the true performer. We have all experienced this magical evening when musicians or their proxies make this happen.

When does the magic stop and why?

• When musicians do not practice or do not know their stuff; when DJ's just don't do the work of getting a play list together that honors the musicians and dancers.  For example, the DJ plays the same songs more than once without even knowing it.  The worst example of this was a DJ who thought fast tangos were milongas.  To be a proxy musician means learning about la música de tango from good DJ's or local musician-tangueros.
• When musicians get tired of their own "best hits" which the crowd is waiting for; when DJ's forget the dancers' favorites and start playing scratchy old tangos or a very cool bossa nova to which it is easy to dance.  What happened to di Sarli, did he go on a vacation in Brazil?   
• When musicians do not understand the importance of the cortina for dancers;  when DJ's come up with their own bizarre ordering of songs that is their "signature," causing chaos on the floor (milonga/vals sets together or rarely playing a milonga); when DJ's do not follow the general idea of featuring one orchestra or composer at a time.  
• When musicians play something that will catch everyone's attention so much that they will sit down waiting for the ballet dancers to appear because no trained dancer can follow the legato wanderings of the tempo; when DJ's have learned so much about music that now they are self-deputized musicologists playing artifacts for a "dancing music appreciation class" that sounded interesting while the DJ was in the hospital with a broken foot.  (See the Music Appreciation Assumption in part two.)  For example:  Why would you play a guitar-bandoneón duet at a milonga that does not have the power to go over the din of the milonga crowd?  It worked while bed-ridden in a hospital bed, but now the dancers are all visiting the snack table, hoping the next tanda will have the dance-power of an orchestra tipica.
• When live musicians play so loud that dancers have to wear earplugs or suffer at least a small amount of hearing loss; when DJ's set up their equipment at ear level, blasting you every time you dance by one of two speakers.  Some DJ's play louder than any musical group would.  "Musician proxy" does not suggest trying to emulate the biggest mistakes that musicians make, hurting their own art. 
• When musicians forget or even despise the dancer by demonstrating (for example) how one can tangoize a Bach fugue  (the Serious Music Assumption, mentioned in part 2);  when DJ's play this music just because it is "serious and deeply meaningful tango." 
• When musicians play with poor equipment and distortion; when DJ's have poor equipment or do not know how to use good equipment.  The biggest DJ mistake in this area is a different sort of "distortion":  Using recordings which have poor fidelity to the musicians' performance.  What is the opposite of fidelity?  Infidelity (adultery).  DJ's who play music with low fidelity (just because it is cool to play that old record) are committing adultery!  :-)  And of course, they are living in their own world because they have (...OMG...) forgotten the dancer!

A good business plan for musicians and their proxies:
Let's forget about the "calling" of musicians and DJ's to make dancers happy.  Let's talk about just being successful in the music business.  Let's say that musicians want to play what moves their souls, and DJ's want to play what they most like.  Do your soul work at home and leave the public out of your search for real meaning.  We all really want you to find your Holy Grail (seriously), but this search is a a personal matter.  The art of playing music in public is to NOT forget the public.  A great business plan is to nurture and develop this skill and present music as an art to the public and all the while feeding your own soul.  That is truly an art all by itself.  Picasso did this.  He did not have to die to become famous and all the while do what he wanted.

Isn't it clear now?  Musicians and DJ's who truly love their music will never forget the dancer.

Photo credit:

DJ:  http://www.foolsparadise.co.uk/foolsparadise2010/fools_acts_detail.php?recordID=148