On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 7:46 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > The first question Blas asked me was “what is the number one most > important thing about dancing tango” ... “The Music” first you need to > learn the music second is “The Heart” you need to feel the music in your > heart only then can you dance Tango >
Thank you. This is true. Tango is first and last a very special form of music. The dance grew out of that music and the music grew with the dance. Argentina is a culture of warm feelings. So much more open and expressive than Anglo-American culture. To focus on the dance and the steps is to get it entirely wrong. It is why there is too often so very little depth in the tango danced in the states. I fault the culture but also teachers who don't educate their students to this core truth of tango. Once the dancers are listening and hearing and feeling the music in their hearts and sharing that with one another then they understand the dance. Until then it can be an elegant posturing to tango but is not what tango is or is about. Getting the externals perfect and missing the inner feeling is missing it entirely. To much tango is being danced missing it entirely. I listen to the music now. A music so rich and full of depths. Struggling to find the truth of tango I found it in the music. The dance brought me to the music, but having found the music given the aridity of most of the dancing in the United States I stopped dancing. Beginners should be told to listen to the music and helped to understand the music and should be given to understand that their dancing can only develop as their understanding and appreciation of the music grows. I must confess I am pessimistic. There is currently another thread discussing tango music. In case there is anyone on the list who has not seen "Si Sos Brujo" I cannot recommend it strongly enough. The documentary demonstrates the specialness of tango and music like jazz that needs to personally transmit the music and techniques from generation to generation. It is not enough to write in down. The written music can only serve as a notational aid but doesn't capture the music. I do hope that if you see yourself as a tango dancer you will come to see yourself as a lover of tango music first and then a dancer. Jonathan Thornton _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
