On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 11:36:00PM -0400, WHITE 95 R wrote: > > This is only my opinion and I don't presume to correct anyone. I think > that the word "resistance" can be used to mean different things in > tango. For instance, it's common to find among new women dancers a > tendency to collapse the point of contact upon receiving a lead from > the man instead of taking the intended step. She leaves her body pretty > much where it started at the beginning of the lead....
For those with a physics bent, I have been considering the physics of tango for a while now. I would say the following about the lead-follow. You can imagine the system of two dancers as a two particle interaction with a force similar to the one between two atoms. The leader moves towards the follower, and initially the follower does nothing, but as the gap closes, she rapidly accelerates to match the leader. Or alternatively, with a back step as the gap opens, initially she does nothing but then rapidly accelerates to match again. However, this is not mediated by actual forces transmitted through the arms or the chest, but rather by an awareness that the follower needs to have. The result should be a slightly oscillatory motion which has a frequency closely related to the frequency of the musical beats. Similarly, with a boleo or other torsional movement, the follower and leader must wind up like a spring, the torso and legs out of sync. A super stiff follower will turn like a pencil, whereas a relaxed follower will stay behind too much. In order to keep the tempo, the implied stiffness of the system must produce a natural frequency of oscillation similar to the tempo of the music (or perhaps a harmonic multiple of). According to the tempo of the music, the interaction must appear to be more stiff for quick movements, and less stiff for slow movements, so that the tempo of the music and the frequency of the oscillations in the interaction of the two bodies are related. However, I must stress, it is not solely via the transmission of actual forces between the arms or the chest that this stiffness or looseness is mediated. The bodies act 'as if' a force is acting between them, but not because the leader is applying a physical force to the follower. -- Daniel Lakeland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.street-artists.org/~dlakelan _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
