Ok, given the clear posting of the relevant rules, I will be more specific about my experience of Geraldin Rojas & Ezequiel Paludi's workshops at the Aus International Tango Fest.
I am Myk Dowling, and I am part of the Canberra tango community. I am not a Tango instructor, though I do date one. I attended two workshops by Geraldin and Ezequiel. The first workshop was: Techniques for Men & Women (Geraldin Rojas and Ezequiel Paludi) Techniques to be explored include: axis, posture, pivot, articulations (knees, shoulders, and ankles) ideal to make adornments for men and women Recommended Level: Available to all levels What actually happened in the class was: The demonstrated a sequence, then vaguely indicated that we should partner up and reproduce it. Now, one of the reasons I like Tango is that I don't need to memorise long sequences, and I had no idea which particular move they were expecting us to attempt. After a minute or so of everybody dancing pretty much randomly, they stopped the music and demonstrated a particular move, then got us to attempt that particular move. After another minute or so, they picked a couple to show how they were doing, and then vaguely asked us all if we thought the couple had done the move correctly. This pretty much set the scene for the rest of the class - Show a bit of move, get everyone to try, pick on a couple who were struggling and then not clearly describe what they were doing wrong (or even really if they were doing wrong). At no time did they discuss technique in general, but were very dismissive of milonguero-style dancing (performing comically bad examples as if to say that elegant dancing Milonguero-style was impossible) Other than that, it was very difficult to tell what they were suggesting that people ought to do, as opposed to what they were suggesting people should not do. Anything I learned from the class, I learned in spite of their explanations, not because of them. I also fopund their smoochiness towards each other highly unprofessional, and Ezequiel's posturing and strutting annoying. Although billed as "All levels", I would not say it was in any way accessible to beginner dancers. The other workshop was: Class 10: Milonga (Geraldin Rojas and Ezequiel Paludi) Techniques to be explored include: turns, sacadas and boleos Recommended Level: Intermediate Okay, an Intermediate level class. This was supposedly a milonga class, but they were unable or unwilling to clearly define the difference between tango and milonga, were again teaching a sequence, and spent absolutely no time out of an hour and a half talking about how the moves they were showing us were supposed to work with the music. The sequences didn't seem particularly suited to milonga any more than to tango (or even vals). A 90 minute class that ground to a halt for an infuriating half-hour spent incoherently trying to get some point across. It was something about hip disassociation and leading with intention, but they never really made it clear. Half an hour spent talking and smooching and prancing about, doing such highly exaggerated versions of alternate walks that we were never really sure what was supposed to be the better option and which the worse. Half an hour where none of us participants were dancing to show whether or not we had grasped their point. In general, their teaching method seemed almost non-existent. They were almost attempting a socratic-style "teach by asking questions", but their response to every answer was either non-committal sidestepping or rejection, and they rarely gave their own answer to the question. They almost used a demonstration/copy/correct method, except they replaced "correct" with "vague harangue". Their demonstrations sometimes contradicted their rare declarative statements. Geraldin's lack of English only hampered matters, especially since Ezeqiel seemed unable to adequately translate the comments she did make. (I was told by a Spanish-speaking fellow student that what she was saying was not any clearer than Ezequiel's explanations, anyway.) The two classes (especially the half-hour incomprehensible lecture and prance session in the middle of the milonga workshop) were enough to make me decide that I wasn't going to go back for the vals class that I had paid for. Unfortunately, there was no other class I could swap into for just the session I missed, due to scheduling limitations. Myk, in Canberra _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
