Guest post by Miles Tangos
What follows is very a strong opinion. It is just one opinion. If you take offense to my opinion, my sincere apologies, really! I speak with a strong voice for one so young in the tango world, that can easily be mistaken for arrogance. I am very adamant about my view point for a variety of reasons. In my mind I see that tango is a dance between strong equals, both parties showing up.
Meaning that in order for the dance to function on any level that’s actually enjoyable, both parties have to be emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually, universally present and intentionally listening to each other. Failure to do that, and someone is being pushed around by a brute, or is dragging around cement! See? Strong opinion, proceed at your own risk…
The Default Vocabulary
A Follower has 7 basic moves. Note I said ‘moves’, and not ’steps’. Let’s review just what those ‘moves’ are so that we can have a vocabulary of understanding each other a little bit.
Those moves are:
1. Forward
2. Side
3. Back
The next 2 moves, comprise the first 3, with one minor difference, the judicious application of the principle of disassociation:
4. Forward Ochos
5. Back Ochos
And the 6th comprises the first 5 moves:
6. A Giro, or Molinete, or ‘Grapevine Turn’ to the left or right
Ok, so what’s the 7th?
The 7th is the Argentine Cross, if you’re ‘classically’ trained then you’ll think of this as steps 3 through 5 of the linear ‘Argentine Basic’ (there is another version of the ‘basic’ that works in the line of dance and curves).
The Leading Fallacy
The leading fallacy is that the leader is doing all the ‘hard’ work, or the heavy lifting. In my opinion he’s nothing more than wallpaper, very fancy and pretty wallpaper, but wallpaper none the less.
To validate my point, do the following with a partner the next time you are at a practica: As a couple I want you to perform the following vocabulary – Walk1, Walk, Walk, Ocho2, Ocho, Ocho, Molinete3 , Walk, Walk, Walk. Now, I want you to walk both sides of the vocabulary without a partner, just as if you were doing with a partner. Assuming you’ve completed the task, ask this question: Who did all the physical work, leader or follower?
1 walk is one step forward on the right and one step forward on the left.
2 ocho is a complete ocho to the left or right.
3 molinete is one complete turn of forward, side, back, side, forward.
Let’s break this down a bit, note what I asked Who did all the PHYSICAL work?. You’ll hear leaders and followers respond to that question with:
He’s leading her, he’s choreographing, navigating, interpreting the music, and dancing all at the same time, that’s so hard!
My response to that is as follows:
So you’re telling me that the car, horse, buggy, golf cart, train you’re driving isn’t doing anything at all? That without you, the magical leader, you’d never get anywhere? Really? Ok, next time your ___________ (fill in the blank) is taking a day off, just try getting anywhere without it! You my friend are going to do an awful lot of walking that day.
At this point there’s a lot of eye blinking, looking at of watches, checking cellphones, and a general sound of cricket’s chirping if it’s the right time of year.
For those that are paying attention, someone will submit and say:
What about Musicality?
My reply is:
Tango is a conversation, and what most leaders state as ‘musicality’, is nothing more than a monologue in script! There must be a dialogue, and the space for that dialogue to occur! Otherwise its just someone speaking AT you. To be fair there are some people that like being led around by their noses. Its much easier for them, they don’t have to think or to be an active participant… they just want to let someone else do the driving.
A leader’s job in my opinion is to show off the follower. Create opportunities for the follower to be presented in the best possible light at all times, especially on a social dance floor, and that means dropping the antics and vocabulary and presenting the follower’s best attributes. Always!
In case you haven’t done your homework and are wondering what the answer is to who is doing all the physical work; the answer is the follower, not the leader! As you’ll discover when you do the exercise, he’s doing nothing more than walking forwards, to and fro, and turning in place.
The follower is walking backwards, in heels, disassociating clearly and cleanly, extending her legs back behind themselves, and, oh yeah, then there’s that little detail of a molinete. OY! And the lead is doing what? Hmm… yeah, lots of work there.
Summing up the absurdity of leading:
The better I get as a lead I realize the less that I actually have to do.
This validates the old axiom that less is more!
Putting it All Together
I am not minimizing the importance of a leader – the leader has a role – I am simply putting him in his place; this includes the author. The leader is a guide, a shepherd, and a gentleman in the best sense of the word.
At the same time, I’m not elevating the follower to take over the dance. I am, however, empowering the follower to take control of their side of the embrace through their defaults. To expand a bit, the follower’s role is to perform those defaults mentioned above with an ownership of those movements.
Take responsibility for what you do!
Example:
As a leader, I may ask for a side step in time to the music, however, the follower takes that request and responds to it to the best of the follower’s ability with ownership and control of the movement.
That means the follower is responsible for the execution, timing within the musical selection, application of technique, and possibly an adornment of options to add a finishing touch!
What ends up happening is an amazing dynamic of gender roles personified, and simultaneously elevating each other to a greater prominence together than by themselves; the sum of the parts is greater than the parts by themselves!
By doing nothing, a leader becomes prominent because the leader is allowing the follower to perform their defaults which in turn makes the leader look like they’re being amazing when in fact, it’s an illusion.
About the Author: Miles Tangos is an up and coming force of wonder in the tango world. After 4 years of dancing socially every day and night, he’s been religious, almost fanatical, about his tango. Check out his beginner video series, Two Minute Tango, and other wild rantings of his particular tango madness at www.barefootango.com.
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{ 35 tango-induced comments… read them, love them, and add your 2 cents! }
Tango has three steps. No moves.
The steps are:
-forward
-backward
-sideways
Everything else is twitching to these steps.
Remember, tango is a walking dance. It is made of steps, not moves.
Ricardo.
Its funny that you say that. I had a private with a student this afternoon, and she had read your comment to this post, and said to me the following, “You’re talking about movement Miles, not about the steps”. Yes, there are ’steps’ Ricardo…which is why I state very clearly this is not about ’steps’ or patterns…but movements. And I call them ‘basic’ moves, because the follower will end up doing these movements all night long…over and over again. Which is why they are defaults. How she executes those defaults is where things gets interesting.
I’m well aware that tango is a walking dance, watch my videos and you’ll see that I state this fact very clearly several times. Especially in v3 and v4 of the walking series.
Thank you for your feedback and your viewpoint.
One of the “car, horse, buggy, golf cart, train” thanks you for this post. Illuminating!
Stephanie, are you related to Raphael ? Sister, Mother, Cousin ? When you see him next, give him a hug. Tell him I miss his leading!
Sister! I will tell him
You may not be minimizing the importance of the leader, but you are minimizing tango to technicalities. This is evident in your breakdown of the “moves” (walk, ocho, etc.) — and your placing importance on who does “physical work” — to me this has nothing to do with tango.
If you truly believed that tango is a dance of strong equals and that both lead and follow need to be emotionally, physically, and spiritually present, I imagine you would write an article about that, not about “moves” or “making the leader look amazing when he is really doing nothing.”
This is all superficial, but I suppose you apologized for this at the beginning of your article.
I have seen many good couples who follow this rule – lead, follow default & execution. Their technique may be OK, but the truly amazing, beautiful, phenomenal tango dancers are interpreting the music together. It becomes less about acting in a role and more about the connection which makes you whole with your partner.
This is what I aspire to — the beautiful connection which blurs the lines, not the technicalities of interpreting a lead and executing a default, in time with some music. Your dance will suffer in the end.
Juju,
I think you are being a bit harsh. I think the point that the author was trying to make is that the terms lead and follow are deceiving. It makes it sound like the lead is just dragging the follower around the dance floor, where in fact the follower has a more active role, she has to feel the leader’s intention and then execute the step or move (however you want to look at it) with great precision in time to the music.
The terms lead and follow come from other dances but tango is different in that there are no set basic steps that everyone starts with. The lead can ask the follower to do anything at any given time and the follower has to be able to interpret what the lead wants. In other dances there are set steps that can be guessed at and pulled off quite well even when the lead is not that great or the follower isn’t paying attention.
Anyway, I agree with your point that musicality also plays a role in the relationship between the lead and follow however I think it is a good point as an addition to what the author stated not a that the author is completely wrong in what he said.
Beth – I think the author’s interpretation should be taken into account, and he makes a point that is refreshing to a lot of people.
You also make a point that I was a bit too harsh, which, now that I read what i wrote this morning, I agree with — I must remind myself not to respond to these posts in half-delirium tango fury at 5am, when i’m in tango withdrawal… Forgive…
That said, I still believe that too much emphasis is placed on roles and the idea of “execution of defaults” in tango, when, if we focus from the beginning on musicality and interpreting the dance alongside your partner, not before or after him, we would be having very different dances.
Juju,
I didn’t take your tone as harsh. I took it as another viewpoint. We don’t have to agree with each other. My emphasis in this article was not so much on defaults, but rather ownership of motion, and leveling the playing field. Too much emphasis in a lot of the classes, workshops, and what not I’ve taken over the years that I’ve been dancing, is all about the leader and very little content is given to the follower. When the dance in my interpretation is all about the follower. Without her, there is NO dance. Period.
I’m not minimizing the importance of the music, because without it, there’s no dancing, unless you’re dancing from musical memory, which I do sometimes.
Nor am I minimizing the import of ‘interpretation’, quite the opposite actually. Following the pathway that I’m suggesting actually ensures that interpretation can happen on BOTH sides of the embrace, not just one.
Thank you for your note though.
Miles.
No problem you are forgiven. It was probably 5 am or close to it when I responded as well. I work nights in a hospital.
Miles- Thank you for articulating your perspective on the DIALOGUE between dancers. I couldn’t agree more!
Two comments.
1)This is pretty much a regurgitation of what Miles’ mentor Daniel Trenner has been preaching at his workshops for a while. This is not Miles’ original thinking.
2) Since when has Miles been “an up and coming force of wonder in the tango world.” I know people “wonder” about Miles, but I don’t think this is what they mean. But I do think Miles’ use of such words as religious, fanatical, and wild rantings about himself are pretty accurate.
Tanguero,
You may be right about Miles repeating what his “mentor” says, but how is that relevant? There are no original ideas. Ideas are past from generation to generation for thousands of years.
This comment of yours is way out of line due to its harshness. If there is a legitimate reason for your hatred why dont you say it? Because you are just being petty. And I’m no fan of the cult of “milongueros”.
Miles,
I liked your article a lot. Too often, classes focus so heavily on the leader’s role that followers become like props. In the process, followers never really learn lots of useful following technique (or they learn it very late in the game), and the whole dance suffers as a result.
Just a point on the movement vs walking/steps issue. When we walk, we use our whole body to take steps. When we dance, we dance with our whole body, not just our feet. Our feet just catch us and give us some of our power by pushing off of the floor. That’s why I like your emphasis on movement over steps.
When I teach, I always try to boil the figure/step down to its fundamental movement. When I do this, students invaribly can relate the tango “step” to some other type of physical activity that they’ve already done or mastered, be it a sport or a different dance. And once they relate it to something they already know, they learn faster than they would otherwise. When this happens, it’s always cool!
Loved the intro to your post. Glad I took the risk!
Jackie Stahl
Hola Miles, como te va? Mira, hermano, I read your article and checked out your website. I like a lot of what you have to say, especially about lightness and connection. Of course we all know how hard the followers work on their technique and in stiletto heels, respect!
So…to blow off a leaders job as easy and imply that walking as a leader doesn’t require some work, I strongly disagree. Posture, balance and intention are powerful techniques that even the most talented leader must cultivate.
The old school notion that “Nobody is looking at you, they are looking at her…” is why so many guys look like a bump on a log when they dance. BOTH leader and follower moving as ONE is quite beautiful when the leader has great technique and flexibility.
When you set her up for a nice calesita and do a molinete around her as smooth as the one she just did around you, now that’s smooth!
It’s a subject that is often talked about, but rarely beyond the surface. How refreshing to see an actual discussion!
One thing I would like to share: I found when I began placing an emphasis on compassion in the Basic classes I was teaching a few years ago it became much easier for the students to understand their role in the context of the dance.
The first class in the 4 week series we would spend the first hour going over connection, taking steps forward and back, side to side. The follow was asked keep their eyes closed. With each new segment the students were to switch roles. In this way everyone knew what a responsibility it is to lead and everyone knew how vulnerable you really are when you are following. They’d experienced a bit of it themselves. They knew right away that the connection requires constant communication and negotiation.
It made teaching the rest of the class much easier because I wasn’t having to always stop and answer questions about whose job what was and who was in charge, etc. It was understood that a lead and follow are 2 halves of a whole.
Anyway, thanks for the post!
The gentleman who originally taught me the tango stressed the same points constantly from day one of my lessons. I was pretty much just nodding along with what you were saying. I can’t imagine it being taught differently.
Hola.
You’re making a major mistake in telling people they have ‘moves’ to make… There are only three steps and the pivot. There are four upper body leads.., not just three. Plus a few sub-leads involving the feet. Leading just those, alone and in combination.., a leader can perform any, any, any, possible ‘move’ you can imagine.
You are wrong to have them memorize an ocho or even the salida… Once any bit of memorizing gets into it, it becomes ballroom and not improvisation. You have followers going on their own idea of what is to happen next as their ankles come together.
There is only the front, side, and back step… Interspersed with pivots to whatever degree they are necessary for what the leader has in mind at the time.
I have been cutting off loose ends from a lot of instructors for over 15 years now… And have if simplified down to what I know it had to be as it was being developed… With the transient workers.., and the no lesson taking working ladies… It was based on the very MINIMUM of what one has to know to dance it… It has to be so, in order to be so improvisational… To fit into any music, tempo, dance surface, gender mix, mood, sexual attraction, etc. Nothing that needs memorization… Which changes from teach to teach, city to city… Tango is supposed to be a social dance, dance-able by any two people who come together anywhere in the world. Not restricted by any thing they each learned differently…
Please take a look at 15 years of summation of all teachers, movies, books, actual dancing, etc. have given me…
http://www.buffalotango.com/html/l_-_introduction.html
If you don’t agree.., please tell me where I’m wrong… No one has been able to yet… And I’ve asked several times on the L’s…
Thanks for reading… This.., and the How-to-Tango pages…
Abrazos…
Floyd
Obviously it takes two to tango, everyone knows that
In French we refer to the roles as “guideur” and “guidee” – literally “guider” and “guided” – which I think makes a lot more sense than “leader/follower”. You’re not leading the way anywhere, you are moving together, and communicating with your partner to facilitate this. One person is choosing the path, and the other is riding the wave, but both are equally attempting to dance, to communicate, and to express their musicality and personality.
Taken from the learning perspective, however, one difference I find is that the man’s role takes about a year of consistent work in order to reach a basic level of feeling that you can dance, whereas with the woman’s role it is possible to feel the dance much sooner (given the right partners etc). I think it’s just this start-up – i.e. learning – energy that people refer to when they think leading is harder. When you get to more advanced levels all bets are off …
I’m not sure if you’re reffering to Ballroom Tango (American Tango) or Argentinian Tango. I dance Argentinian and while the leader may not be quite as physical as the follower they do have to do all of the thinking and are certainly not decorative. It is the responsibility of the leader to make the follower look good and, as Argentinian Tango is completely improvised, (with a series of universal “moves” that are strung together spontaneously) the leaders task is often quite challenging. With a good enough leader the follower need not even know the names of the “moves” as they are guided into and out of them seamlessly by their leader.
I would daresay you are setting up a strawman argument with the idea that people are arguing that the lead does all the work, and that the follow does little to no work.
In the two years I have been studying Argentine Tango with various teachers and at various workshops, as well as attending practicas and milongas, I have rarely if ever heard this opinion stated. If anyone _might_ have that idea it would be the neophytes, newbies, initiates, and not those with a little bit of experience under their belt from well-versed maestros/as…
Hola…
A good leader does do most of the work… The follower follows the leads as best they can.., and embellishes as the mood strikes them…
The original followers did not have to take lessons. They never did. They had no time nor desire. It is a simple dance because of that. All the follower need do it pay attention to the leads… One of three direction steps, and pivots as required…. Also to the lesser foot leads at times and to be ready to stop and reverse at any instant. All involving just enough body control and smoothness of motion to enhance the forces of mother nature that make the dance so beautiful…
The barrida for instance is nothing that the follower needs to know about. There is no ‘barrida’ mode for them to go into… It is simply a leader’s embelishment and the follower should only continue to step and/or pivot as they would have one without the leader performing that extra footwork. It’s all an ‘illusion’ and has no need for the follower to ‘help’ make it happen…
For the most part followers should be able to simply close their eyes and enter the ‘zone’… The land of Zen… The Tango Trance…
And I have done that too… I am not exactly a newbie…
All the other thoughts have come from ballroom teachers needing to make Tango a long silly bus ride…
There are more of them than us… So we now have ‘American Argentine Tango’… :-/
Abrazos…
Floyd
Wow! What an amazing discussion. I hadn’t checked up on it in a while….
@Johnny. I have to say thank you for coming to my rescue. You said it better than I would have and with far more eloquence, thank you.
@Tangeuro. What difference does it matter if its a regurgitation ? That doesn’t negate the fact that these are truths that I have witnessed first hand, and have been my experience. And in fact I would submit to you that actually that’s not all Daniel in there. There’s a lot of ME in there. Those ideas are not original. I don’t own them, nor do I claim to.
@Jackie! Thanks. You’re a peach! Thanks for taking the risk. I liked yours too!
@Joaquin. I don’t. There is a companion article in the writing. One that speaks to the leaders roll as well from the other side of the equation. A lot however, has been said on this topic. I just figured it was about time to talk about the followers PROMINENCE for a change. There is a companion article. I wanted the fires from this one to calm down first before Pete and I posted the next one. But its coming…
@Gustavo. Thanks! Really.
@Floyd. Oy. Calm down, breathe. Dude. There are three sides, to every argument. Your side, Their side, and the truth! Take this article as a point of view which you may or may not agree with. And as a student of mine recently said after reading this article, and a comment that was made about it which was rather inflammatory, “they’re getting stuck in the language of ‘moves’ and ’steps’ instead of focusing on the meaning of what you’re saying…” I submit to you that you’re doing exactly the same thing. We’re saying similar things Floyd.
@Hoai. RIGHT ON!
@Simon. Argentine. And I while I have done Ballroom Tango…I now have to go wash my mouth out with soap, and you should too! I would like to submit to you that there’s more there than you think. A lot more. A follower who has been ‘properly’ trained will in fact end up controlling the dance and making her lead look 10 times better than he actually is! And if you are lucky enough to get a follower like that my friend, that’s a whole different ride. If she’s doing her job right, you will think it was effortless and easy for you, that’s because she’s got your number my friend. There’s a whole cadre of followers that I know that will repeatedly tell me and show me exactly that! When I have a follower in my arms and I give her lots of space, trust me, she’s leading me, not the other way around…I’m just pointing the way. Its her show, not mine. And if you’re thinking that conjours up images of legs going everywhere and it being a ‘wild ride’, THINK AGAIN! Some of the most satisfying tandas I’ve ever had were incredibly graceful and her feet never left the floor and she was controlling the dance the entire time! Made me look like a million bucks. Truth be told, that same experience happened in NYC with an amazing follower out of the DC/Baltimore area. She apologized for it the whole time, and then I told her to really run with it…it was a amazing, she just lit up and I knew the less I did the more she wanted to do….people watching it were stunned!
@enanotango. I’d argue that in my travels, and I travel A LOT for tango, Im on the road nearly every weekend and have been for 4 years. And have taken a lot of classes (as you have to to get to that mythical place of ‘teaching’) and workshops, the language that I hear and the perspective I am repeatedly presented with is, “THE LEADER DOES THIS….THE LEADER DOES THAT…” and so on…very rarely, do you hear the class/workshop taught from the follower’s perspective in the United States. There are only 3 teachers that I know of that do that on a regular basis: Eric Jorissen, Daniel Trenner, and if you catch him in the right mood, Robin Thomas. There may be others in the United States, but I haven’t seen them yet. To be fair, you will run across a 2 hr session on ‘follower technique’ as an after thought taught by a follower. These classes are usually packed. Ive attended a few myself. Its like these dirty little secrets that women pass along from one to the other. When they should be out in the open and talked about a lot more than they are! That’s the point of the article. The follower has a role and its incredibly important.
So then are we both talking the truth.., or not… There are only *two* sides… The right one.., and the wrong one.. The people themselves only get on one or the other…
My little terminology bit was a minor part of the response. But not a minor part of the concept of Tango. When one walks they take *steps*… They do not make moves. You may think you can say so but the dictionary will tell you I am more precise.., as the words apply to walking.., and to what is happening in Tango.
Beyond that the only ‘moves’ or ‘patterns’ that exist in the dance are in the leaders head. They are only given names for the reasons I believe I expressed above… They are the blueprints for the house the follower will live in… As I say in my online ‘How To Tango’ lessons… Link above… And below…
An ocho is only an ocho *after* it is done.., and one can look back on it and say.., hey.., that looks like an ocho there on the floor… ? A follower should never think of names like that… They shouldn’t be mentioned in mixed company…
The major portion of your statement is that the leader was pretty much ‘unnecessary’..?? I’m afraid you’re becoming convinced that the lady needs to know how to do all the moves herself… That’s the ballroom coming through… You also make some inference that with the molinete the leader needs no part in it… That it’s maybe always.., l, s, b, s, l, s, b, s, etc… I happen to lead a molinete in various combinations at time.
You also make a point of the follower doing all the physical work.. The follower may be doing more or most of the actual moving of body and parts.., but you’re missing the point that this is the reason of the dance… The ‘rush’ of it… To be lost in the motion.. To trust the leader and just let your energies flow… It is not work for the partner… It is absolute joy and satisfaction to be able to follow all leads ‘perfectly’…
Why do you think it’s necessary to say that she may be more ‘tired’ afterward..?
I am always calm btw… My possibly vehement sounding come-backs are simply because they have been needed to be said so often before. But unfortunately ballroom has taken over Argentine Tango.., so the follower NEEDS to take lessons now… In order to follow all the “moves” that are given her..
That is terribly sad to me…
Here is how I know Tango to be… If you find something wrong with this understanding., please let me know… I have asked for this type of critique before but have never gotten anything but compliments…
http://www.buffalotango.com/html/l_-_introduction.html
I speak with the passion of Paz…
Whom I loved to ‘debate’.., read ‘get flamed’… 
, in the beginning of the resurgence…, when I was still not knowing. I accepted that passion as part of Tango, and so I listened to it. And I know I’ve learned more from it than could be had in any other way.
Tango on…
Floyd
I didn’t say that leaders to all of the work, in fact I stated that they’re less physical than the follower, by a long shot, and so it should be. What I did say is that leaders do much, much more mental work than the follower as they are the ones that construct the dance on the spot. In the four years that I’e been doing Argentine Tango it is usually the case that the most important thing for the follower to do is to learn to not think about what they are being lead into but simply to move as the leader leads them. If the leader is skilled enough than the dance operates on the fact that the follower has no idea what will come next but moves with fluidity and grace and that the leader is there to support the follower, direct her and make her look beautiful in the dance.
This is said as being an invitation. Not a FORCE of will. Yet the problem with most people i have seen, Is the bounds of “steps” that control them.
The leader is just as important as the follower, in all aspects.
I like your “moves” therom. It is concise, and clear. But perhaps the emotion of the dance is the part that will lead to better dancers, both leaders and followers.
I have also found the fans of Argentine Tango, to be zealots, and fanatical about the dance. Same goes with most w.c. swingers. So i will place the opinions of those fanatics in the same catagory as anyother fanatic.
I hope you take this same approach to all dances, and not just this one. You can replace the specific names of this dance, and its moves with anyother, and still be correct.
If you would read any of my how to Tango chapters, you would see I have things as they should be… That leader and follower are equals… That the leader does not employ power or force… It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and downplay people as ‘zealots’ as a negative innuendo, but quite another to nail down as wrong anything they say. You should try that with what I have for all to see…
Have you learned Argentine Tango from a ballroom instructor too..? And of course as you say you are not a fan of Tango.., so your opinions on it will be uncaring… It will be easy for you to accept anything that anyone says.., not caring if it is wrong… As long as it ’sounds’ good…
As I said.., we now have ‘American Argentine Tango’…
Next time you walk down the street.., watch your ‘move’. You may ‘move’ into a puddle or pothole… haha…
Abrazos…
Floyd
Dancing is ethereal. It happens in the moment and then is gone forever. There is no analysis, there is only the dance. One cannot “teach” the tango nor “learn” it. You either get it or you don’t. It’s like the blues, you either got em or you don’t. It all comes from the sole anyway, and even the Greeks couldn’t agree on what THAT was! The argument of who is “more important”, “who does more work”, leader or follower, is ludicrous. Dancing the tango is not “work”, it’s a joyous expression of being human. There are certain truisms in the world, and one of them is “it takes TWO to tango”. Two hearts, two soles, two bodies, coming together in perfect harmony ( if they’re lucky) to create something which, for the moment, is unique and perfect in its mutual expression of love… and then it is gone. Someone once said that art is the attempt to express that which cannot be expressed with words. And so it is with tango. If both hearts are open and honest, for that moment they are enjoined, they can both express themselves, AS themselves, and in doing so create a thing of simple beauty, not for anyone else but for each other. If someone else happens to be looking and is moved by what they see, then they should feel lucky. Anyone trying to analyze the tango would be better served trying to analyze their stock portfolio instead! Who would presume to be so pompous or audacious as to try to explain what the tango is or isn’t? I have been dancing for over ten years, there is one thing I DO know about tango, and that is that I don’t a damn thing about it. I only know what I feel when I hear the music, and with a woman in my arms, and get lost in the moment. If I am lucky, we melt, and strike a perfect chord. And when it is over, I can thank her and walk away satisfied, and hopefully she does too. Like the surfer who waits for the perfect wave, so it is with the tanguero or tanguera. Always looking for that one perfect dance,,,,, that perfect combination of elements which allow for the perfect expression of that which cannot be expressed with words…………….. follower or leader?? who cares?? what difference does it make?? to quote a phrase…” just do it” .
I tell all my students at the start. Some will love it.., some will ‘hate’ it.
Or more precisely.., some will not ‘get it’… Tango is not for everyone.
I go so far as to say it is ‘not a real dance’…
It is what you have described above.
You have said it well…
Floyd
I respect people with strong opinions because I expect them to take a bout of reality standing up and benefit from the experience.
I invite you to find out why the use of “leaders” and “followers” are foreign to the essence of the Argentine tango.
http://gottatango.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/to-hug-or-not-to-hug/
Alberto…
Gracias por mi muchas dosis.
Mucho respeto….
Floyd
To all, the missing term is “invitation”…and ALL leads in any form of couple dancing are, appropriately – “invitations”…
Hello Anne…
I know you know that’s what I say in my online writing and how I have thought since early on. Followers are invited to take the ‘leads’ the leader has in mind. And they take them their way.., or perhaps not at all. It’s their job too.., to look Tango lovely.., and to put their heart into making it happen.
Then the leader follows…
Abrazos…
You are overthinking the whole thing. Just Dance the Tango. Get a tan and go! At the end of the day, it’s just a dance. LOL.
For some it’s just a dance.
For others it’s a way of life.
And still others it’s a way to make money…
And so every group’s opinion of Tango is meaningless to the others.
Never over-think… Simplify… To what Tango was meant to be.
Ciao… (Yes, I know that’s Italian. lol)
Floyd