DJ Self-Assessment Card

Tango Jockeys put the dancer, not themselves, in the limelight.

How a DJ becomes a TJ

Over the years, I have learned what makes a disc jockey good from many examples of ruined milongas.  Mostly DJs who ruin a milonga are not evil, they just are inexperienced and do not know the depth of the task they have taken on.  The worst DJ possible is one that wants to reinvent the milonga in their own image and likeness, throwing out tradition, form and predictability.  

Originally, I wanted to help DJ's, but I think this is the role of an entire community to support the DJ's.  We can all be advocates of having the best music to dance to.  The entire community needs to be educated and advocate for the best dance music at their own milongas without being too passive nor aggressive.  I have helped some DJs that were open to help.  One woman was an outsider in the city.  I took her aside, and told her about tandas and cortinas.  I wanted her to be successful because she was trying her best, and she just did not know.  She took my advice.  Others in town had never taken the time to tell her, and just did not come to her milongas after one try.

I hope that this Self-Assessment will help you if you are a DJ to become a TJ (a tango jockey*).  I am inspired to write this post from the knowledge and ideas that Christian Tobler and Monika Díaz bring to the German-speaking world of tango.  They are self-taught tango musicologists in Switzerland. They have made it clear to me why TJs are rare.  Someone who knows how to make a milonga more than just a tango dance party; the TJ creates a wonderful dance event.  Updates to the post now include four appendices with more TJ's who truly have great milongas.  The appendices support what is in the self-assessment, and give more depth to things briefly mentioned on the "report card" matrices:

• The TJ's responsibility to buy or influence organizers to have high quality equipment.
• Resources for buying quality music.
• How a TJ deals with listeners' wildly different views of volume.
• How a TJ deals with tempi during a milonga.
• A video documentary by musicians/recording engineers condensed recordings (MP3's).

One day your or I may be forced into the position of being a DJ out of the need in the community.  So now is the time to start being educated and know what makes a DJ become a TJ.  I do not want this to be a tango-arrogance enhancing tool.  It is to help our little, fragile tango world; so use it it in this spirit.  Send improvement suggestions to:    Mark.word1@gmail.com

DJ/TJ Report card values (1-5):
1 = Describes the “still learning” inexperienced DJ (bless their hearts).
5= Describes an experienced TJ very well.  

Color Code

Signifies “essential” TJ element

Tanda Architecture & Music	1	2	3	4	5
Plays excellent dance tango with a conscious success formula (below)
Understands traditions of tanda structure with cortinas. (see below)
Features a single orchestra in most tandas.
Tandas with longer tunes are still limited to 12-15 minutes.
Plays tango hits, but also knows many lesser-known, high-fidelity, danceable tangos.
Plays milonga tandas that have a warm up phase (slower).  Late-night milonga tandas are also slower.
Plays non-danceable cortinas that clear the floor.
Plays cortinas long enough to clear the floor.
If there's a nuevo tanda, it does not replace the milonga tanda.

Christian Tobler prefers a formula like this:
1928-37 ~15-25%
1938-47 ~65-75% (Epicenter of the Epoca de Oro)
1948-57 ~5-15%

Common structure of a complete set of tandas, recommended by Tobler:
4 tangos = tango tanda (or 3 instrumental tangos)
3 milongas = milonga tanda (a BsAs standard)
3 Valses = vals tanda (I often hear and enjoy 4, but 3 is the standard in BsAs.)
Start-up of evening tanda structure:  Tango/Vals/Tango/Tango/Milonga
The rest of the evening is: T-T-V-T-T-M = about 1 hr. 

Here is a good resource for tango structure too:  Tango DJ (Blog)
And in German:  Christian/Monika

Technical knowledge	1	2	3	4	5
Uses the best recordings, reproductions, avoiding MP3s (see below)
Is attentive to changes in volume between recordings, and changes in room noise.   Never blasts or plays too quietly.
Understands how to operate excellent equipment and actively influences organizers to provide excellent equipment. (Appendix 1)
Understands how to equalize the sound system to the room or has equipment that does this (this can be an add-on to permanent equipment).
Knows how to adjust a microphone so it never squeals (not rocket science).
Insists on speaker placement that is not harmful to hearing on one side of the room (placed below or above two meters) if possible.

Extras for the TJ who is dancer-centric	1	2	3	4	5
Projects or displays the composer/orchestra/name of song/name of vocalist.
Knows and chooses the best versions of tangos for dancing (not just something that they "discovered").**
Announces the last tanda before the penultimate tanda and plays the Cumparcita so that couples who came together can dance the last dance.
If the DJ is also a passionate dancer, he/she has remote equipment.
Understands some traditions about what tangos are not played at milonga.  (If you do not know, ask someone from BsAs.)
Listens to the organizer, who knows the expectations of those at the milonga. The crowd expects mostly Época de Oro tandas?
Is a DJ, avoids being a hobby "musicologist" playing all the music we have never heard but should.
Provides short silence pauses between songs.

Appendix One for curious DJ's:
Regarding owning equipment:  A TJ does not necessarily have to own their own equipment and move it around to each milonga.  Ultimately it is up to the DJ's influence organizers on equipment that allows them to serve the dancers better. If I am a pianist playing at a piano bar on an out of tune upright piano, maybe I need to have a talk with the owner/organizer and suggest getting an 88-key Steinway or a 97-key Bösendorfer.  A "DJ" with  keeps coming back to the same milonga with poor equipment; a "TJ" refuses to come back to a place which makes him/her create a disservice to the dancers.  Ditto for musicians that rely on a place that provides a piano.

Appendix Two:
Resources for high quality music:  www.tangotunes.com, Japanese CDs imported by Bernhard Gehberger (http://tango-dj.at/shop), and Buenos Aires Tango Club at http://buenosairestangoclub.com/.  (Thanks, Teresa Faus, Munich, Germany.)

Appendix Three for curious DJ's:
All about volume from Andy Ungureanu, Wiesbaden, Germany:
Musicians and DJ's have the same problem with dancers who widely disagree if the volume correct: Andy's tips:  "Loudness is a very difficult topic. If I get complains, it is about loudness, but in all directions; one guy complains it is not loud enough and 10 seconds later, before changing anything, another one complains it is too loud. My solution is to have a good loudness compensation in the software to keep all songs equally loud and the other one to keep the overall level at 85-88 dB (A). For this you need a measuring device, or a calibrated app. In a recent paper several apps were tested and the result is that you can forget them all, except one for iphones.  The sensitivity of the public is also very different. Argentines and Italians want it extremely loud, Germans a little bit less loud. It depends also on the quality of the recordings. Almost all are mastered in such way that the range 1 - 6 KHz is pushed up. It is the range where the voice clarity is (2,5 to 3 KHz) and the overtones of the bando (3-8 KHz) but also where the distortions become very annoying. When you hear it at home you think this is a good recording, because it is brighter. But if such a record is played too loud and you are unfortunately near or below the speaker, the violins go straight through your brain. The solution is a band compressor and limiter. But this is a very dangerous tool if don't know what you do. Since most DJs have problems with a simple equalizer, it is better if they don't use such thing."

Appendix Four for curious DJ's:
The issue of tempo from Harry Wohlfart:
"There is another issue: changing speed within a tanda. Many of the available tanda sets (especially those from well known Argentinian DJs) don't change speed (measured in Steps per minute or Spm for me) at all. Or they go, say 60/62/64/60 Spm, thus, ending with the same sped they started. Many even get slower. Do so, if you want to finish the usual weekly milonga earlier. If you want it lively, get people excited, speed them up. Not every tanda, of course, but the idea is, don't make people sleepy. Be aware of the speed of what you play, measure it. Simply count! I never encountered a software that does this in acceptable quality, so I had/have to do it manually.
Who said DJing is just going ahead and play? There is work to be done before you really start. Some forget this.   To make a long story short: Know your music!"

Appendix Five for curious DJ's:  Learn from musician's frustrations with compressed sound (MP3's).




* For Europeans only:  “Jockey” is not a gender-specific term.  Europeans like to say “Disc Jane,” for women.  The term “disc jockey” started in the US.  The term “jockey” is not gender specific in English.   There are no Disc Jacks, therefore there are no Disc Janes.

**Example:

"Yo no sé que me han hecho tus ojos" by Alberto Moran, rather than Miguel Calo's version.   Thank you for playing another version, but I prefer hearing a great band rather an honorable mention version or even worse a garage band play the same song.

Photo Credit:  I cannot find the source of the "great" DJ photo.  If you know, please inform me.

Print-out DJ Self-Assessment matrices from above, are at this link.  Or for the version in the MS Word format:  Go to this link.   I will be updating this from time to time.  You can edit for yourself and your community norms.  For now, I suggest just giving this page link to DJ's if they need or really want help.   Note:  This information is for the good of milongas worldwide.  Of course permission is granted for copying.

When we both were three

The blessed father ...

My son danced at three years of age,
And I remembered, too, when the music enchanted,

When the music took control of my body,
The time when sitting was not possible.
I remember when we both were three.

But now, as a teen, no longer dancing, he asks,
“Dad, how would you dance to this music?”
I dance. The most fatherly thing I could do.
He danced, too, a return for us both,

To a time when we both were three.

... never stops dancing with his children.

Art work: Isn't this artist great?  Find his work at this link:  Brian T. Kershisnik.

Tango: Man Talk / Woman Listen?

Photo by Johann Stadlbauer

One of the most important discoveries for myself early on in tango was to reject the "leader-follower model" for what I believe is the more enlightened "music-as-leader model."  I am sure that I am not the only one who prefers this model to explain the magic of tango!  Recently, I have met other like-minded people.

In 2010, I shared my ideas on a teacher-only Facebook page, and I was mostly criticized by teachers, especially one in NYC.  Also, I found a weird opposition that I did not expect: Women who loved closing their eyes and being followers!

What I did not mean to say was the woman's experience of closing her eyes and yielding herself over to her partner was wrong, but that the experience was not best described with the word "following."  "Entregar" (yield/follow) is for both partners give ourselves over fully to the music and to each other.  Both of us.  Yielding is not a function of "following" or of "leading."

I can only speak for myself. Women do not need me for advocacy.  Early on I was always surprised when a woman would say, "You are an amazing leader."  She had just led me to new realizations and vistas.  I would protest with something like, "What happened has more to do with us than with me."  But these words were taken as some sort of modest acceptance of her praise.  I wondered why she did not listen to my words of inclusion!   Why would she not believe that the magic was very much the synergy of two becoming one, of the two of us being equally responsible for what happened?  How is it that I had some new break-through ideas while dancing with that special tanguera?  Where did this magical interaction that took the breath away from both of us come from?  I felt as if she were responsible yet she was pointing at me!  Really, it is funny to consider this positive finger-pointing blame.

Recently, I spoke with well-known, self-taught tango musicologists, Christian Tobler and Monka Dias from Switzerland.  We agreed that the music is the leader.  Finally!  Surely the magic of dancing with such a talented tango musicologist, Monika, was the result of both of us allowing the music to lead.  The level of musicality that ensued was in part from knowing the music together but also allowing the music to be the true leader.  Wunderbar!

My first article on this belief (The End of the Leading is Near") raised a few eyebrows.  A follow-up article stirred up a few tangueros/tangueras as well:  "Follower: A Job without Promotion."  But, I have not repented from my heresy.  I think the idea has been sound, but it needs practical tests by teachers.  At a practica,  I have time to time introduced the idea to beginner women who dance behind the beat and they immediately jump forward about two years in their dancing skill.  Teachers, I am afraid, who teach women to follow that man are having them pay too much attention to body language and close their ears to the music!

Over time, the philosophical idea has matured a bit from its inception nearly two years ago.  I now suggest four elements that change in their importance from song to song, partner to partner, night to night:

• Partners must listen to the music.  Bodily clues are important, but as much as 90% of the lead comes from the music most of the time.
• Both dance partners must "listen" and respond to each other's bodily cues.  One may have more flexibility, quicker reflexes, extended endurance or experience than the other.
• Both need to have some basics with the embrace, stance and traditions of tango vocabulary.
• Finally, partners must listen in order to do something with the embrace, stance, and vocabulary.   The tango vocabulary is simply words.  The embrace and stance create a particular accent (salón or milonguero accents, for example).  Speaking in tandem needs roles to work as we have in tango.   Again this is not speak/listen roles!  I know when I take the first step, the woman does something with it, and already we are using syntax, rhetoric, intonation, pauses and phrasing to build ways of expressing ideas as poetry to to the music we hear.  This body language is simultaneously a bodily and musical language -- as is the unity of yin and yang, musical note and musical rest.  One cannot exist without the other.

The most unfortunate outcome of women saying, "I just did what you led," is that it is a false humility or automatic thinking.  Upon deeper consideration, "I just did what you led" is simply false and parroting typical teacher talk!  He just danced with ten women before you and did not dance as well as he did because of YOU.  No one else but you made that tanda possible.  If a man is that responsible for good dancing, then the other side of this double-edged sword is that men are responsible for the abundant, mediocre dancing that goes on, too.  Men don't deserve the more than 50% of the praise or more than 50% of the blame either!

Women inspire me to new heights and their aura helps the next dance or stays with me forever.  Please don't make me responsible for everything.  Ladies, men form the word but YOU make it lyrics and music!  Tango is at its best an analogy for a tandem creative process of making music, or making poetry, or sculpting the beauty of the human soul -- all while touching the hem of the divine.  Tango is not well served by the military simile of lead-and-follow.  Tango is not tantamount to a monologue or even a dialogue (taking turns).  Teaching tango requires a better vocabulary than stealing from the ballroom community or the military academy to get across a point of masculine and feminine energies in tandem dancing.

Lead and follow is not the tango I dance.  Nor have I ever danced with a woman who just took orders, sat in the passenger's seat as I took her for a drive.  Nor have I ever had a dialogue on the dance floor with a woman who would just listen.  But these are the analogies I hear others use to talk about tango.  Tango has always been something more mystically profound than these.

That is why I am still dancing tango.  My hunch is that this mystical embrace and inexplicable tandem movement to music is what draws you back as well.

Photo:  I got this from Johann Stadlbauer, via Oskar Pankratz.  Location:  A milonga and tango music workshop in Sankt Valentin, Austria.  Monika Dias and Christian Tobler  did an excellent job in their presentation on the music on tango's Golden Era.  Later Christian tortured us all with the highest fidelity recordings available (none from MP3's) and the most intuitive tanda architecture I have ever experienced.   He would not let me sit down.  Pure torture. 


Pictured:  Astrid Lehrner, Mark Word.

The Tango Anthropologist

Perhaps you started as an anthropologist and now have joined the tribe?

We are all in some degree tango-anthropologists.  The beginner comes into Argentine tango with much of the same questions that any anthropologist does as she or he goes out on a field trip.  But after we join a group, it is easy to forget our most basic skills.  However, the questions still need answering that you had at the outset!  Don't forget your skills as an anthropologist!

How are your observation skills as tango evolves before you?

Tango Anthropology Self-Test:
Gauge your own skills.  Below I list some basic anthropologist skills.  How are you doing at getting better and more observant?

Origins.  Are you curious about the origins of tango in the group that you are in and tango itself?  Do you accept the myths of tango as a brothel-born dance or do you know about the readily available historical context?  Do you know the other tribes outside of the studio-tribe from whence you came?

Language:  Tango has its own languages.  The language of the music, the language of how it is taught, the analogies of how we explain complex social behaviors or movements.  Do you know these languages? Can you communicate it when new blood enters the group?  Is the language used to help people enter the group or used to keep them out?

Epistemology:   This is the science of how we come to know and understand our state of being.  What draws you and those around you to tango.  Is it negative, addiction language that you use?
Is it eros, philos or agape language that best describes our personal or the group's "way of knowing and understanding" our state of being within ourselves or with the group?  Are there limited foci or compartments rather than a broader based understanding of tango as fulfillment of human need on many levels?

Ontology: This is the science our being within time, space.  It starts with what happens within us when we dance or interact in the community, but grows to include others' experiences in our growing tango tribe (group).

Ecology: Tangueros in their "environment" is the ambiance of their classes and social gatherings.  Are they sustainable?  Does the group allow beginners to grow and adjust to the group?  An advanced tango-anthropologist may reject outright or even like a teacher from out of town perhaps emotionally abuses people -- as long as the information is highly valued. Either way, they are aware of the toxic or harmonious ambiances each tango group.  If it is toxic, is it worth it?  If not, the group is doomed.  An advanced tango-anthropologist will differentiate between praticas and milongas.  Are people are talking, teaching and working on things in both venues?  Here is where beginners usually are not aware, and ask for instruction on the milonga dance floor.  They do not yet know (as some "advanced" tangueros should) that talking on the dance floor is tantamount to talking loudly in a theater about the movie that you are watching:  It is not only bothersome to the recipient of your observations but to all those in earshot of your pontifications.

Religion:  Unknown to tango atheists, anthropologists of all kinds do not wonder if there is religion.  They find it, if they are good at their craft.  So the question in tango is:  What is spiritual, magically inexplicable or divine for you and for the group?   Many find the epicenter of the magic of tango in the embrace.  But for me there is a "Trinity":  Music, Embrace and Movement.  Religion also includes definitions of ethical behavior.  In tango there are the códigos (tango etiquette rules) which can have some of the feel that the Ten Commandments have.  Not knowing or respecting rules of a community can lead to ostracism, and having no rules at all creates chaos.  Of course, there are always "Protestants" and "iconoclasts" who by their very nature do not like social norms (mostly without even knowing if they are indeed practical or helpful for the group).  After the iconoclasts break all the rules, they tend to realize later how necessary they are in perhaps some other form.

Traditions and Ritual:  Some things are very traditional in tango.  In Buenos Aires, no one is going to dance to "Adiós Muchachos," but if a tango tribe did not know it was linked to the death of a tango icon (Gardel), that group would be easily able to decide to use it as the last-song "benediction" at the end of each milonga in which we say goodbye instead of the Cumparsita (which means "parade of sorrows").  A song of "adiós would seem appropriate as a last son on the surface, while a a song about a parade of sorrows does not seem very much like a way to say goodbye.  Not playing Adiós Muchachos at a milonga is a way of standing in awe of the unknown -- tragic and sudden death of "a prophet" of tango.

Love and Hate:  A good tango-anthropologist can easily become a director/producer of the tango play going on in town.  Good tango-anthropologists start slipping over into the practical applications of tango-sociology.  They (as producer/directors) may enable a community to unite because they have a larger view of love and hate, and are not mere participants in the play.  The tango-anthropologist, as any anthropologist, needs to look at the question of love and hate:  Why are we compassionate toward some humans while capable of hating (even killing) others.   "I love this teacher; I hate that one."  "I love tango nuevo and hate traditional tango."  These antipodes are not in some communities; it is a part of each community.  But there are civil ways of dealing with differences. Why does this group never dance with the group which meets across town?  Why does that teacher mention the teacher at the other studio with contempt at every chance?  Certain communities are so bogged down in love and hate, that even little towns nearby have better and more diverse tango scenes than the much larger city.

There are other basic questions, such as self-determination and power.  But you get the picture.

Are you getting better with time as a tango-anthropologist?  My guess is that you are, otherwise you would not be reading this.  You may have noticed if you read this blog that we are both on a path of observing from outside all the while we are drawn into the epicenter of the group at times.  Is isn't it amazing?  Thanks for joining me with your great curiosity for this most amazing thing called "tango."


Cartoon:  http://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/anthnote/fall97/anthnote.htm

If you like the evolving tanguero, you can get this graphic on a t-shirt at:  http://designsbymike.net/shop/dance.cgi

Acknowledgements:  For more on the essential elements of anthropological study, I suggest doing a search of anthropology.  I liked Dr Rodney Frey, Professor of Ethnography's course syllabus for Anthropology:  http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/220culture.html#key

Dancing in your safe place, part II

The spectrum of vision probably does not include seeing your soul

Pablo Casals, considered by many the greatest cellist to  have ever lived, was known for playing soulfully.  At times he would play and weep.  I think he got into his inner safe place.  That was his "zone."  Can you dance like that?  Find your zone and walk there with another person?  This is your safe place, the epicenter of soulful expression.

This post is part II of a meditation about dancing in your safe place.  As any meditation of value, it has changed my opinion about this subject of being observed as a dancer.  Many of my reflections in the past have eschewed "dancing for the crowds."  Although that is generally a good idea, there is in fact a spectrum of being observed.  However, on both ends of the spectrum one must remain centered on one's very intimate safe place.  For example, whether Pablo Casals was playing alone, in a duet, or before thousands of people, I believe this great artist could quickly find his safe place.  He was confident in all settings.  There are some performers who do not start from their soul but from their need to be watched.  I believe that one cannot find one's soul from starting with the joy of being confident in front of the crowds, but one can start from one's soul and feel comfortable in front of crowds.

I have used the word soul, which is very problematic, because the modern mind is ignorant about the soul.  I have learned (late in life) that "soul" is a very concrete part of being human.  The Greeks knew this, but we modern people find it hard to define.   I would have never thought of one's inner safe place as being our sense of "soul" until I started working with combat veterans as a therapist.  Veterans of war often say "I lost my soul" and it means to them:  "I no longer feel safe, anywhere or anytime."  Feeling safe inside is what puts you in touch with your soul.  Without it, you have a soul, but you are unaware of its presence.  A person who does not feel safe lives like a wild animal, not knowing whom to trust and having no recollection of the tender care of others who helped you survive before going off to war or being traumatized in some tragic event in your life.

Psyche (of psychology) is "soul" in Greek.  So if you want to say that finding, maintaining, and knowing about the epicenter of knowing and feeling is "psychology" instead of "the science of the soul," that is okay with me, but why hide behind big words?   It seems natural to me that the study of the soul is often required course work by higher learning institutions all over the world.

Why do tangueros keep coming back to hold another person, to move to the music, to find our "zone" in which we are safe to laugh or cry?  I believe it is because we want to study our soul, to know more about it.  What a terrible misunderstanding it is to say, as many do, that we are "addicted" to tango.  Are we addicted to the thirst to find joy?  To seek the "water" of touch in a modern world which fears touch is addiction?  Or is it our deprived "addictive" self that hungers after another moment in which our soul finds a moment of safety?

Feed your soul.  You do not have an addiction.  You have a hunger, a thirst, a basic need at the center of your psychological well being.

Photo credits:
Spectrum from eye:  http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/308365/enlarge

Dancing in your Safe Place, Part I

Dance in your psychological safe place.  This is good for your soul.  Taking care of one's soul requires courage because one must take off one's persona (mask) and know oneself.

I love the following commercial clip of a British drugstore chain.  It's the stuff of which common stress dreams are created:  Everyone is watching.  Click on the video below:

Here's the description if your Internet is slow:
A woman shows up at a very crowded beach, and as she is about to take off her shirt to tan herself in her bikini.  Everyone stops to watch -- babies, mothers, fathers, the young, the old.  Everyone in the world, it seems, is watching.  After she faces the awkwardness of this moment and takes off her shirt, everyone goes back to what they were doing.

I like how the woman faces her fears.



Although it may be a human tendency to imagine that everyone is watching, it is just not the case no matter how good or bad you are at dancing, or how attractive or unattractive you are.

In part two of "Dancing in your Safe Place," I will suggest more on the psychology (study of the soul), but for now, here is the advice I give myself:

Dance and being yourself is soul-work

• First:  Being present with whom you are dancing is something your partner will feel at some level.   It is bizarre to dance with someone who is skilled, but not present: Watching the mirror, who came in, who is leaving, who is sitting down, who is drinking a glass of wine.
• Second:  Dance who you are as best as you can, no matter your skill level.  The greatest lesson I have learned is that when I dance who I am, then I are truly doing my authentic best.  My partner will feel and appreciate me best when I am comfortable with my own center.  Skill can help me to eliminate worries, but not guarantee that I are present in our dance, that I am soul-centered.  Skill can also allow any artist (and dance is art) to hide from themselves.
• Third:  Probably no one really truly is watching, though you may feel they are.  If you are sure they are watching (going by their eyes), what do they see of your soul?  Isn't it nice that your soul is outside the spectrum of visible light?
• Fourth: So what if people watch out of awe or disdain?  You have a right to be in your psychological space for two.  Dancing as if no one is watching is an act of courage and discipline.  Psychological shelter (your safe place) is where you can dance and create in a way that your soul applauds.  The crowd just doesn't know you outside your mask.

Querido Tanguero, querida Tanguera:   Nourish your safe inner space as often as you can.  I cannot think of a better place than a milonga to practice finding and staying in one's psychological safe place in spite of a public setting. 

Trailer for Dancing in your Safe Place, Part II:
An excerpt:
"Tango, for many people, is a place to build psychological safe-place experiences.  Many of my posts are about creating a safe place by using tango etiquette to create a safe place to dance in the community.  However, there is something that no one but you can do to create a safe place:
Are you nourishing your soul and allowing it to develop?
Are you entering and developing you center of safety in your inner world, the center of who your are?"

SUPER-ficial Tango Relationships

I knew she was an angel
because she left a few feathers behind.

Superficial moments -- whether we like it or not -- shape our personal destiny and even world destiny.

But humans don't like this fact. So we bring order to the world with our well-groomed gardens and well-organized kitchens. And we define our meaningful relationships as having real depth to them, which takes time to teach others what we want from them and learn what they want from us.

But that is not the way of world or even the cosmos.

Face the fact: Tandas may give you better clues to the nature of the universe than the friend you have known for 30 years. You see, just like "superficial" tango relationships, angels also often do not dwell long in our lives.

Angels dance on surface of time, and then leave, changing our entire lives, introducing us to our life partner, leading us to an article or book that changes the direction of our professional lives.

No one will argue that "real" relationships -- family, friends and colleagues at work are far deeper than "superficial" tango relationships. After all, the connection you feel is ephemeral, superficial, and maybe delusional.  At best, you must be naive, especially to people who do not know.  But if you decide to argue that these superficial relationships are somehow magical, I will join you as one of the few who seem to know that superficial is not necessarily ... superficial.

Let's dare together to be naive.  The world will laugh at us.  I recommend you not even try to explain to others what you feel in a tango connection.  It's ridiculous!  It doesn't make sense!  But you and I know something that others do not.

You know -- or perhaps better said -- you feel something is more than superficial when you have danced and felt a connection to someone.  Maybe you find it hard to find any words for it.  "Real" relationships are healthy, and your feelings must therefore be "unhealthy."  Maybe you even should be properly ashamed that tango connections have more power than you should allow.  So you call your experiences unhealthy by laughing at your tango "addiction" -- just as the cigarette smoker laughs as she takes a deep drag from her cigarette, all the while telling you she is enjoying yet another nail in her coffin.

Your tango relationships can indeed be superficial, but are probably not:

• You may feel the natural attraction of Yin and Yang (male and female) again, even after having been hurt to the core from an unfaithful spouse. 
• You may feel that the embraces are more genuine than they are at your place of worship.  
• You may feel you communicated more of your essence to someone without words than you ever have with words. And received more of their essence as well.  
• You may feel that the mastery of music is more satisfying than playing in the community band.
• You may even feel that after watching the news and having a sense that the world is a terrible place that the milonga's order and culture brings back a hope that perhaps the Universe is not such a bad place to be after all.

This thing, called tango, is an addiction?  Superficial?

Each person you meet has a message.  Because of this I define a true friend as an ἄγγελος, an angel.  Angel in Greek is not a theological term but simply means a "messenger."  The way I am using the word is for relationships, however brief or long, that influence us in positive directions.

Tango friends have a good chance of being angels.

So if we go by influence -- the influence to be better people -- those who save your life in a brief encounter, and even those whom your rarely see and who try to harm you may influence you to be a better person.  These are the deep relationships of life -- superficial only in the face of time.  Spotting angels takes patience, like the bird watching.  But after one Angel comes and goes, others will surely come.

When I am 90 years old and I have outlived all my friends, and perhaps even my family, will I still have the ability to recognize the deeply important relationships that briefly pass through my life?  If I am dancing tango, I will.  Or will I feel abandoned in life because all my "deep" friendships have come and gone?

Cherish your SUPER-ficial relationships.  The next angel you meet may be someone you are holding for just one tanda.  So listen.



Photo Credit:  Maurio Moreno from Argentina.  Please visit this artist's on-line studio at this link.

A Scorn Star is Born

Here's a good reason for teachers to become better at teaching floorcraft:  The world of technology will eventually hit the milonga.  The tango police are watching every gancho, every bump, every heel you dig into another person at the milonga.

In the new world order, Teachers who do not teach floorcraft and tango etiquette may be financially liable for irresponsible teaching!  Some tango dance studios produce excellent social dancers.  Other studios focus on flashy steps.  We don't need any more tango stars, especially X-rated "Scorn Stars."  Despite many years of lessons, Scorn Stars cause injury to others and torture their partners, whom the "stars" use as WMD's (weapons of milonga destruction).

A case in point:  Argentine Stars Studio: It is really no fault of the good intentions of the owners of  Argentine Stars Studio (ASS), who built their studio to be a world-wide chain.  How would Rosa Fuentes and Manuel del Gallo ever know that they would create so many menacing dancers, or the many infamous Scorn Stars of Tango?  Technology in the new century will cause many tango teachers to be financially ruined.  As history tells it, Rosa and Manuel were the first to experience this.

2015:  The first overhead surveillance cameras at milongas start.  Bloopers of bad dancers are featured on TangoBoobTube.com.  ASS students are often featured.  And Scorn Stardom is a household word.  Business plummets at ASS, but its students just blame others for getting in their way.

Once it was hammering in lots of cool steps?
Now, you are getting the Hammer of Justice.

2018:  The once popular TangoBoobTube.com bloopers now has hungry lawyers tracking accidents and contacting the victims.  Some students are in court too much and cannot come to classes.  The many ASS students are complaining on FacelessBook.com.  Some lawyers find new business even from former ASS students, creating class action litigation.  It is in 2018 when the first after-milonga late-night TV ads start appearing:  "Have you taken classes from this person?  If you have and your floorcraft has caused you shame and lost income, then you can sue for damages and the return at least some of the $37K that you spent on learning how to be a Tango Scorn Star."

2019 is the momentous year that the first year of the reading of the Tango Miranda Rights Advisory.  Jennifer Stigmata, a DJ, had her left and right foot nailed by the same woman.  Ms Stigmata couldn't dance for six months.  The poor woman was only the weapon, wielded by another Scorn Star.  A bloody mess.  Ms Stigmata, once healed, had her lawyer write out the Tango Miranda Rights Advisory, preparing for the day that a Scorn Star might injure her again.  No mercy:  Being the DJ that night, Jennifer stopped the music with her remote and continued reading very loudly:

• You have the right to dance simply. 
• Any move you make can and will be used against you in a court of law. 
• You have the right to a responsible tango teacher. 
• If you cannot afford a responsible tango teacher, one will be provided for you at the free practica at the library on Saturday afternoons.”*  

After the first tango Miranda rights reading, sensible Tangueros restrained the offending Scorn Star, and he was sent off to Tango Jail for a year. (Tango Jail: Piazzola tunes played without any cortina for one year, night and day.)  The news spreads. The Tango Miranda Rights cards are now passed out at the door by volunteers. Citizen arrests skyrocket across the world, causing CNN to interview tangueros in the streets.  "Are Milongas a Microcosm of a New World Order?" the Washington Post asks in the International News section.

2020: Scorn Star gets out of Tango Jail. By now each dancer wears a GPS device. From the many fines that ASS students have received, they now can be tracked as "dangerous objects approaching" and cause buzzing when the dangerous tangueros/tangueras get near a more careful dancer.  Milongas sell pins at the door "Don't be an ASS, Tanguero!"  Proceeds go to bunion reduction research.

2023:  Milongas have police who are speed-radar for risky tangueros, and giving out speeding fines and points.  ASS students mostly have lost their tango licenses, and are on the Most Unwanted Posters at the post office.

We don't have to wait for cutting-edge technology in the year 2023.  We have it now.  The future is already here.  We have tango etiquette, coming to a milonga near you.  You can bring your children:  No violence and no Scorn Stars.


*Thanks to a L.C. Inthesky, a tanguera in Washington, D.C. who came up with the Tango Miranda Rights after reading a draft of this post.  Print out a copy and give one to a friend.  The New World Order surely will come out of orderly milongas.


Gancho King photo credit:  Please go to this link to a creative t-shirt designer who is a dancer.

That was IMPRESS-Sieve!

Have you ever watched Impress-Sieve dancers?

They pull off amazing moves that you probably will never do.  If you try to copy them, other dancers most likely will wish that you wouldn't have tried (at least on the social dance floor).  That is what we can call very "Impress-Sieve."

I wish I had more tango wisdom as a young musician.  I worked too hard at being Impress-Sieve -- straining out the soul and body of art, leaving only the mind to be in awe of accomplishment.

You see, I wanted to play to impress others, but I did not know what art is all about until I learned from tango:  The Way of Tango, at least for me, is to be present within your own body and with the person with whom you are dancing.  Impressing others is a distraction from true art.  

One way to think about art is to consider the early Greek categories of Mind, Body and Soul -- three circles that entwined themselves.

• Impressing others is an expression of art that expresses technical genius -- this boggles our Mind.
• Deeply moving others is the area we call Soul.  If art moves one to sigh in awe, or if tears come to your eyes in spite of not wanting them, art has moved your Soul.
• Moving others so much that they wish to move or to dance out their feelings of joy or deep love is what we could call the area of art touching the Body.

A friend of mine told me that her daughter sang in church and she heard someone let out a sigh during the song.  Another person wept.  That same weekend she had seen musicians playing at an outdoor festival and some audience members just had to dance.  These are examples of art without a "Sieve."  They all can be technically wonderful, but that is not nearly as important as the balance of Mind, Body and Soul.

Just today, my sister-in-law sent me a video of my old self -- a drummer playing a solo that was truly impressive.  Well, I would have been impressed, but I wasn't.  The term, "Impress-Sieve," came to mind.  I guess that I have grown in wisdom from dancing tango.  The drum solo was truly Impress-Sieve.  I looked up the definition of a sieve:  "A sifter that separates wanted elements from unwanted material using a woven screen such as a mesh or net."  While being Impress-Sieve, he strained out the soul and body of his art.

I asked her, "Did anyone feel closer to their center (soul), or is anyone dancing because they are so moved by his drum solo?"

Musicians, or any artist who creates to impress, forgets what art really is -- something to move the soul, the body, and lastly, the mind. 

Gene Krupa

Any of those who know about the history of the big band period will know the great drummers and band leaders, Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.  These two men were known as the best drummers of their time.  Buddy Rich was an incredible technician, but Krupa made the people go wild with solos that made them want to get up and dance.  He often played far more simply than Rich did.  Please watch and listen to this Krupa video clip:  Notice that he uses silence and is not constrained to the drum stool in this video -- the man dances around!

I once emulated a Krupa solo* as my younger son, then age three, was with me in the music room, and he was dancing around.  He finally pleaded with me to stop because he wanted to stop dancing.  What a tribute to the power of art!  He had to dance.  His mind had lost its own volition to the power of art.  

I have said all of this for one main message to dancers-as-artists:  Dance from the soul and be totally present in your body.  This will not be Impress-Sieve at all.  Although I have watched many technically perfect dancers, only a few speak to my soul and body.  Most teachers have an eye for what appeals to the mind.  Only you can be in your own body and dance from the soul.

*Krupa solo:
http://www.drummerworld.com/Sound/GeneKrupaSingSing.mp3 

Photo Credit:
Sieve drawing

Da Vinci mind body soul

Gene Krupa

Dancing with a Porcupine

I am a porcupine, some have said.
At the milonga, I go where I want.
The bear tangueros leave me alone.
The prowling tigers choose their prey.
The hyenas circle, laughing at imperfect moves.
I walk them by, taking her by the hand.
We needn't give them a thought.
I am the porcupine!

I am not vulnerable to their glaring eyes.
The bear would not dance with her lower level;
The tiger would not prey on one so old.
The hyena waits for the day her technique betters.
But the Porcupine takes her by the arm, entering before her
Into the dangers of the dry swirling stream.

In the current of the room, we dance a vulnerable dance.
I am impervious to my wild friends' growls,
So I can be fully present, vulnerable to her.
I have no spines on my chest.
She melts more than close to me:
Through me, into me, a part of me.  Apilado.
Her face touches mine; I smell her essence.
I am fully open -- vulnerable with her.
She knows how the music moves me,
Revealing who I really am.
My soul has no spines.
I cannot hurt others but feel their hurts instead.

Sometimes I see a bear, tiger and even a hyena
Become a porcupine too.

Deep down they all wish to be ...
Vulnerable but impervious too.


Photo Credit link.

PS:
I asked my favorite milonguera if she would allow me to share a picture of her.  Ella es tan adorable.  ¿No?