--- Keith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: demonstrations - other than to send everyone > to sleep :-). I'm not saying they > should be dancing choreographed show routines but at > least they should be of a high level > of excellence and difficulty to motivate and inspire > their students and others. What these > demonstrations say to me is ... "learn from us and > achieve a high level of mediocrity".
Hi Keith, I'm not going to flame you because you bring up a good point - whether demos motivate and inspire. The Alanta Festival is specifically close-embrace, which means that its focus is on social dancing. Tomas and Brigitta are the only couple that are also do show tango. The Ann Arbor festivals didn't have any demos on that same principle for a long time. But I have to say, that I was very glad that Alex Krebs and Luciana Valle talked the organizers into letting them do a demo, which was indeed inspiring. Perhaps organizers of festivals events should consider whether demos are appropriate. The teachers at the Altanta festival are chosen for their teaching ability. I've studied with most of them and and found them all to be excellent teachers. I don't think the demos showed them at their best, perhaps they were too conscious of it being a close-embrace festival. (I wish, though, that they hadn't spread themselves all over that huge floor). It seems to me that we may now be at a crossroads. The close-embrace "movement" began as an answer to more show-style teaching methods (complicated patterns, open-embrace, etc.). As close-embrace became better appreciated, taught, and practiced in the U.S., it started to incorporate some nuevo elements. Both styles encouraged vocabulary that was organic. However, the close-embrace that I see most of the time is different from the style that I see the milongueros do. The milongueros do a lot of basic steps but add a lot of footwork for musicality. But now that close-embrace (in whatever form) has become more of the norm, are we now interested in it becoming more showy? I've noticed that it's the beginning women who want to do the showy steps (boleos, volcadas, leg wraps), and the men oblige them. And I can see it heading back to where we started - show tango. A few thoughts. Trini de Pittsburgh PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburghs most popular social dance! http://patangos.home.comcast.net/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
