Here is a reference in the archive to head snaps:
http://pythia.uoregon.edu/~llynch/Tango-L/2005/msg01347.html
John Ward
Bristol, UK
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Get up to £150 by recycling your old mobile - visit www.tiscali.co.uk/recycle
While often a popular topic of discussion, its actually very difficult if
not impossible to try to isolate the roots of a dance by identifying a
particular place of origin or with a particular historical dance. It seems
much more appropriate to discuss influences rather than roots. As far
Yes I can confirm everything Richard says us is correct. As to websites
on
Finnish tango, try:
http://www.tangomarkkinat.fi/english/etusivu.htm
http://www.fimic.fi/ (search on tango - there are no direct links to
the
articles)
and my blog
http://www.finnishtango.blogspot.com/
John Ward
Thanks for the comments on tandas. I don't find them surprising.
Huck, I totally agree that we dont cater to beginners, that we generally
hold the codigos more important than any compromise. As you said, our
approach is to favor those with (ten) years of experience.
As far as asking
Steve,
You wrote:
From the dancers' perspective, the success of this strategy depends
critically on the dj playing well-constructed tandas throughout the night.
Absolutely. And I would go further to say that the ability of a dj to
choose an appropriate sequence is just as critical, if not
When Shahrukh Marchant created TANGO-L in the '90s I participated in it for
several years. I just returned to it and began by scanning Lucy Lynch's
archive of the last couple of years.
I noticed that people are still making the silly claim that tango is the
sexiest of all dances. Get real,
I have absolutely no trouble watching, learning, or doing nuevo tango - and I'm
an old geezer in his 60s. And I certainly don't shave my head or grow a
goat's-beard beard or dress in cargo pants.
In fact, I usually wear a vest and tie and dance dress shoes and an Armani suit
or jacket - NOT
The second Tuesday there starts here in L.A. a practica hosted by
CasaDePractica.com for ladies who lead. I intend to go as a follower.
When I first saw women leading (mostly) other women I was annoyed. It meant
that TWO women were taken out of the pool of women dancers. I was also annoyed
Nina Pesochinsky---
So where did the men get the naive idea that following is not having to think
or be responsible or anything but just float along and enjoy the music. ?!
[followed by some of the problems women have dancing]
THE men? Gotta watch that generalizing
There is a lot of sense in what Ron says. After all, you never see
anyone dancing ballroom tango at a milonga. At least I never have.
Perhaps it is time to rename nueveo Argentine Ballroom Tango to go
alongside International Ballroom and American Ballroom, and to have
special events devoted to
Finding tango in small towns is hard. There are several ways to go about it,
aside from TANGO-L and such which usually don't work too well.
One way is bring up Google.com, select Maps, and enter city state milonga.
Put the city and the state in double quotes if they are two or three words.
Recently I went to Lynn Lewin's practica here in L.A. for ladies who lead
(www.casadepractica.com). There were six women and two men, counting me, at
the practica, which is held in a garage turned dance venue with a beautiful
wooden floor which has just enough give to feel soft but not like a
If you come to LA feel free to contact me for advice about where to go dancing.
But first check out a couple of useful websites.
The first is mine, the second by Vladimir Estrin. Each has its advantages.
Among mine, if you click on the address of a milonga a map will pop up showing
its
A useful guide to tango in Greater Buenos Aires is
maintained by the government. Among many web pages on the
site is one that lets you find milongas for any day and
locale. Clicking on a milonga name brings up a window with
info about it, including a link to the milonga's web page
if it has
Several people have emailed me asking for the names of the milongas I
went to. It was several years ago; I don't remember. The curious might
look at my writing web page for some specifics. It has a link to a
diary of my visit, written when I got back home, and expanded from
daily posts to
Darlene writes- I never went to Confiteria Ideal (and it was
only mentioned as a place tourists go).
The person who told you that was wrong. Certainly tourists go there,
but the place is hardly deluged with them. It's very popular with
Argentines, for several reasons.
It is centrally
The wonderful thing about tango is that there is no official organization to
define what tango is, with tango police penalizing someone when they see them
doing in-authentic tango.
Of course this doesn't keep those with an officious mindset from setting up
their own tastes as the One True
Can you be homesick for a city you only visited a couple of weeks
several years ago? It seems you can. I got tears in my eyes as I
watched this video, and it seemed as if my heart hurt in my chest.
In it a modern tango orchestra plays El Huracan and shows many
photos of Buenos Aires.
Don't pick on whoever-it-is for his posts and their number. If they get really
excessive the moderator will step in.
Meanness like this is why some people never contribute to TANGO-L. And drives
some away.
Larry de Los Angeles
Have you learned molinetes, also called giros? If so, you know what
many Argentines consider the real tango basic. The linear pattern of
the 8CB and its cousins are derided by some as tango for foreigners.
Mingo Pugliese was one of the foremost champions of the molinete.
Molinete means
Jack Dylan wrote
Right foot front cross to left foot back cross;
Right foot back cross to left foot front cross;
Right foot open step to left foot open step;
Left foot front cross to right foot back cross;
Left foot back cross to right foot front cross; and
Left foot open step to
Jack Dylan wrote -- Astrid, These concepts are only of any value to the
man, as leader; they have no relevance to the lady, as follower. So don't worry
your pretty little head about it :-))
Oooh, are you in deep shxx, at least if any of the women you want to dance with
are on tango-l. And
Every few weeks, it seems, a brawl takes place in this and other like
forums over what is REAL Argentine tango.
You will never see such over what real British tango is, except maybe
its name. The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance about a century
ago renamed it International tango to make
Jack Dylan writes - Larry, are you suggesting that tango is
NOT sexy? I can dance with a lady who might be middle-aged and 20
pounds overweight. But if she really knows how to tango, man, when
she's in my tange embrace, she's the sexiest woman alive! :-)
Erh, Jack, your ideas of unsexy
Every dance is a language of the body. Some dances are very limited in
how many words they have, ways to pronounce those words, and how
they can be combined into sentences and paragraphs and so on.
Some have more range.
What's unique about tango is that the range of its language is a full
The discussion of the volcada which Jean-Pierre Sighe pointed out
http://www.tangomagdalena.com/Newsletters/vol11_july08.html
totally misrepresents what a volcada is (as well as being confusing in other
ways).
Volcada comes from the verb meaning to tip over, or pull off balance. It is an
Anne Atheling asked me to give some links to videos showing volcadas. So I did
a YouTube search which returned 625 videos. After about an hour and maybe 30
videos I gave up. Even the tutorials don't help. Why?
Because they don't break the volcada combinations down. (Well, two did.
Poor camera
Jack Dylan wrote I [took] some time and trouble to explain
[the difference between an 'open' step and a 'crossed' step] but
received no feedback. I hope you found my comments useful.
They were useful. Thanks!
Part of the difficulty understanding what open and crossed mean is the
Re: [Tango-L] Leading with arms or hands
There is absolutely nothing wrong with using one's arms or hands to
help lead a figure. What often is wrong is HOW some people use those -
as a primary lead rather than a seconary helping one.
There is a hierarchy of leads. Most important is the upper
Tom Stermitz wrote -
Many people think boleo is a kick of the leg, when in fact the kick is
a decoration of the boleo. The basic boleo is (usually) a spiral at
the waist, that results in the supporting leg pivoting and the loose
leg floating behind and perhaps wrap before coming
Carol Shepherd writes - I compare dance 'styles' to dialects of the
same language.
Beautiful analogy. Or maybe more, a fundamental reality. Thinking of dance as a
language of the body puts a lot of matters in perspective.
The special nature of tango is that it has an enormously bigger
Nina Pesochinsky writes - You can read the archives of the
tango-l. There is a story in detail about how Susana Miller invented the
term milonguero when she began teaching in the early 1990s. The reason
that Puppy and others didn't say that they danced milonguero style is
because they
Trini writes The video [showing Puppy dancing with Geraldine
(Rojas?)] also takes place in a large hall with plenty of room. In a
more crowded room, Puppy might dance quite differently
The distance between him Geraldine was only 2 or 3 inches, so perhaps
not. But a good point. I
Barring emergencies I will be in Ireland the last two weeks in September.
Anyone here with pointers about traveling there that I (and others making
similar trips) might not already have come across? Or about the Irish milongas?
My schedule allows me to go to Los Bohemios del Tango in Dublin on
Announcements of classes, festivals, and such do not go in this forum. Use
TANGO-A for that. You will get much more attention there.
TANGO-L is for discussions.
Save on Trade Schools - Click here.
Shahrukh Merchant writes -- One learns elements, figures and techniques at
classes, but one learns _how to dance_ at the Milongas.
Exactly.
Every time you do a movement, whether in a class, practica, or milonga, you are
practicing. But the focus is different depending on the context. In
In Spanish as every other language the same word can have several meanings.
Salida means exit, but also beginning. The second meaning comes from the first
- you begin a voyage by leaving a house or train station or the sidelines of a
dance floor.
So with cadencia. One meaning is a general
that the danzon and tango have similar roots (both are based on
the habanera), this delayed start would indicate some commonality. The
danzon is still danced in Cuba and Mexico, particularly Veracruz and Mexico
City.
Original Message:
-
From: Jack Dylan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date
Jean-Pierre Sighé writes in the following link --- The Cruzada MUST be
lead
and not just assumed.
http://www.tangomagdalena.com/Newsletters/vol12_august08.html
Actually ALL parts of a volcada combination must be lead. The volcada is just
the extreme lean. Lean + amague/front boleo +
My reaction to Laurie's statement was different than that of some on this list.
I simply took it as a statement of fact, acknowledging that women are active
participants in a dance, not puppets.
Most of the time they seek to relax into the direction the leader supplies, but
IN AN EMERGENCY it
The answer to this question is: all of the above!
Both methods mentioned so far work: suspension and placing a woman's free
foot
behind her supporting foot with a slight twist of the leader's upper body as if
about to lead a backward ocho or a back boleo.
A third tactic (which no one has yet
I've decided to spend a month (or I hope two) in Buenos Aires. When is the best
time of year to go?
Just judging from weather.com it seems that mid-summer, January and February,
is
the worst time, especially for tango lovers. I have heard that many milongas do
not have air conditioning, or do
Nina Pesochinsky wrote --- So what is the value of an over-explained tango?
One or two people seemed to take this as a put-down of some sort. I thought it
funny: a clever play on the words that David Thorn had just used, when he was
talking about an over-turned ocho (one that turns more
[part 2 of Lead and follow]
(2) A man must know very clearly what he wants his partner to do. The
certainty alone gives a woman the confidence to surrender her will to
his. But his knowledge will also communicate details of his desire to
her in a dozen subtle ways, many of which he is not
The milonga Mario cites
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d70Zz7j2m90
is an example of different people perceiving the same activity in
very different ways. I thought it charming and expressive.
It is also an example of how you might dance in the literally shoulder-
to-shoulder very-popular milongas
I went to the welcome milonga held here in Portland Oregon at the
Tango Fest. There were several hundred people so, despite the large
floor, the crowd was tight. Not as much as the most popular milongas
in Buenos Aires, but not much looser.
Which brings up the question - what can you do to
Barbara Garvey, another voice of clarity and common sense in this forum,
pointed out something very important in the examples of tango nuevo given by
Sergio. Chicho and Fabian dance very differently even though both were
supposedly dancing the same tango style.
Chicho, for that matter, seems
Boy, you guys are tough! The performance by Pablo Rodriguez Noelia Hurtado
in Zagreb down-thumbed because of their arm and head positions. Whew! Glad
there are no videos of ME dancing.
I wonder. Are there ANY couples these critics consider near perfect? What
about the rest of you? Who
The year after Fabian Salas was last here in L.A. Chicho Frumboli came here
several times. One of his classes covered under-turned and over-turned ochos.
Up to then, despite having maybe three dozen teachers face-to-face
(though most just for a few hours) and seen lots of videos, ochos just
Lois Donnay wrote - I am currently in Buenos Aires, and am seeing
more and more tango performances in the milonga that have less and
less Argentine tango in them, and more Dancing with the Stars.
Completely choreoghraphed, lots of lifts, less musicality
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It
Charles wrote - [Observing Chicho] for a number of years now ...
ten years ago. If there was any open space at all he would be flying
around the room passing people, dodging in and out, spinning like a
washing machine.
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My observations were in 2003 and 2004. I
Charles wrote - Last time I was [in Buenos Aires] (eight months
ago) I noticed that crowds and styles varied from night to night, even
at the same location, according to who was the DJ/sponsor.
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Excellent point.
The same location often hosts several different
Jack Dylan writes --- this is ... my opinion [only] on his dancing; Chicho
might well be a great teacher and choreographer.
I found him a middling teacher (of course he MIGHT have improved since
2003/4). A lady friend took one class and said never again. His
focus, she said, was just on the
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