"Tango for Her" wrote: >Occassionally, I have led very advanced followers who, >when I lead a boleo, for example, pretty much, take >over the dance. No room for conversation.
You mean there's no longer room for the conversation that you direct. An exchange of lead and follow, with or without a change of embrace, is a different way to converse--one that is less dominated by the so-called leader. previously Mario wrote: >[D]o I have to know exactly what the follow is to do >at all times? Is there no 'creative space' where the >lead can open his stance and just let the follow invent? Yes. Such a space does exist. You have to find it between yourself and your partner by listening to the her movements and creating space in the lead. One natural place for such a space is in turns. The direction of the conversation typically must be handed to the woman during turns. Yes, she can be led into turns, but she is mostly responible for the the timing of the turn. This responsibility creates an easy opportunity for the woman to freeze the man to do embellishments, change direction of the turn, or even shift the man's weight. Of course, the latter requires that the woman have some knowledge of the moves. By the way, I prefer to identify the two roles in tango dancing as the man and the woman--not the leader and the follower. Renaming the roles leader and follower (or lead and follow) may create an appearance of gender neutrality, but it also tends to put tighter constraints on what might be expected from the two dancers. For some related thoughts see Richard Powers' writing on ultimate partnering http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/partnering.htm With best regards, Steve (de Tejas) _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
