Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Recently, a student of mine asked me about people bumping into one another on the dance floor. She was interested in problems that occur with international competitive dancing. In answering her, it occurred to me that the same difficulties apply to Argentine Tango, when leaders think of this dance as a series of figures rather than as lead/follow. With that in mind, I'm going to share with you what I wrote to her. I'd love to hear what you think about it.
Here we go.
One of the most difficult subjects to deal with in any discussion of social dance is the whole area of couples bumping into each other on the dance floor. It seems to me that anytime you have two couples dancing today, they'll find a way to crash into one another -- even if the floor is the size of a football field. This may sound a bit cynical, nonetheless it seems to happen with considerable regularity. And in my opinion the very nature of contemporary competitive ballroom dancing of all types (more about this later) greatly exacerbates the problem (although even if we were to limit our discussion to Argentine Tango -- particularly in this country -- I would be of the same opinion).
When I was growing up during the 1940's and '50's, social dancing was commonplace in this country as a form of recreation and social interaction. In general, the way people learned how to dance was to go to dance venues, get pushed out onto the floor by well-meaning friends or relatives, and either sink or swim. If a male dancer (leader) had an instinct for dance, he'd eventually learn a few steps by imitating others who were more skilled than he, and along the way he'd also learn not to bump into other people. No one would teach him this skill; he'd just "pick it up" over an extended period of time. Men who had no particular knack for dancing would not
pick up either a vocabulary of appropriate steps or the skill of avoiding collisions, and were routinely looked upon by the better dancers as lesser mortals. Over a period of several years, a decent male dancer would get much better at maintaining his own space on the dance floor, even in progressive dances such as Foxtrot, Waltz, and Peabody, where everyone was more or less vying for the same real estate.
As with men, women learned to dance by actually doing it rather than by being formally trained. There was very little -- if any -- formal training available in any case. Furthermore, most women seemed to "take to" dancing far more than most men did. The result of this -- coupled with what I am ultimately persuaded is the superior ability of women to learn pretty much anything
-- was that for the most part women were able to learn how to dance far more quickly than men. In my own experience, this seems to remain true today with few exceptions. In fact, in the man-centered universe of that time, women were simply expected to be good followers as a matter of course --not to mention a few other skills such as cooking, cleaning, raising children, and only speaking when spoken to.
In today's social dance universe, things have changed rather substantially. The overall population of social dance enthusiasts has shrunk significantly due in part to the fact that dance venues have become impossible to sustain financially, and, perhaps more importantly, social dance itself has gradually been replaced by other more man-friendly pastimes -- such as bowling in the 1950's, watching sports on television while eating popcorn in the 1960's and beyond, and playing with electronic toys such as Blackberries and cell phones today.
In my opinion, another very important factor in the decline of social dance -- a decline which actually began in the 1950's -- is the more or less exclusive reliance on dance teachers
in our efforts to learn anything at all about this rapidly disappearing social art form. Because there isn't a vibrant, knowledgeable dance population to provide a reality check, dance teachers now represent the only game in town. Want to learn how to dance? You can't go to the local dancehall anymore. You've got to find yourself a dance teacher.
Okay, what's the problem here? Theoretically, the upside of learning from an expert teacher is that you can get exposed to a great deal of information and dance technique quickly and in one place. You don't have to spend thirty years, going from one dance venue to another in order to get the material you want and need. And, of course, there are very few dance venues left to go to even if you wanted to. With a good teacher, you can learn fundamentals (the most important part of learning how to dance) accurately and efficiently -- rather than having to go through years of trial and error. In principle, these are major advantages in learning the complex skill of social dancing.
Which brings us to the down side. From what I've seen over the years, the overwhelming majority of dance teachers simply do not know the first thing about social dancing
. And even if they are aware of what actually constitutes social dance, they consciously choose to teach something completely different instead -- often, trying to convince their students that what I would call social dance is actually bad for them!
What am I talking about here, and how dare I say this?!
I think the story begins with a nice, married couple who either don't know how to dance at all, or are unsatisfied with what they're currently doing on the dance floor. Maybe there's another couple they know who seem to be so much more skilled, more graceful, more polished -- and they seem to know lots of really neat steps. "Why can't we be as good as they are? Why can't we be better?"
Along come Vernon and Irene Castle.
The whole "dance teachers know everything, students know nothing" thing really began in earnest in America with the huge popularity of Vernon and Irene Castle in the early part of the last century. Now, before I go any further, let me state categorically that I really admire the Castles. Vernon was a tall, ungainly-looking man who weighed next to nothing. And, frankly, he danced in a kind of amateurish way that professionals today would characterize as, shall we say, less than perfect. But I absolutely love going to YouTube and watching the Castles dance. I mean, this is the history of American dance here! If you haven't seen them yet, you should stop reading right now, and go check them out.
Getting back to our nice, unskilled couple, they saw at what Vernon and Irene were doing, and they thought, "If we could do that stuff, we'd really look like good dancers! Right?
Well, actually, wrong, but I'm just reporting what they thought.
In fact, the Castles convinced many nice couples that as dance professionals they (the Castles) were indeed possessed of a better way to dance -- which, of course they felt (or maybe it was their accountants who felt) we should all learn. What they were teaching (or perhaps the better word might be "selling") was for the most part overly florid, somewhat obsequious, and unquestionably unfit for the limitations of the social dance floor. For these reasons, the majority of seasoned social dancers didn't really buy it -- but beginners -- like our nice, unskilled couple -- sincerely believed that learning the Castle style would enable them to dance just like the pros. And so they signed up for lessons in droves.
That's when serious bumping on dance floors all over America began.
Over the years following the success of the Castles, other self-appointed dance experts entered the social dance arena. The most famous of these were the Arthur Murray Organization, the Fred Astaire Organization, and, of course, the biggest franchise of them all -- the huge and immensely profitable world of International competition. These organizations ignored the way social dance was actually being done in the ballrooms, and created a new paradigm which transformed what had been a skill that was relatively easy to learn into a highly complex, extremely stylized, and very difficult to learn form of performance-oriented, competition "dancesport." Over time, simple social dancing became less and less popular on the dance floors, and these more elaborate excursions into fantasy dancing -- which most dancers found very difficult, if not impossible, to master -- ultimately became the norm.
The result of all this was that bumping has been permanently replaced by take-no-prisoners crashing.
The nature of competitive "modern" (read: progressive) international dancing is that the couple generally moves along fixed travel lines. Furthermore, the leader specifically trains to execute fixed figures and amalgamations (sequences of figures) along any given wall. A truly expert leader with many yeas of experience can sometimes alter his trajectory during a planned sequence in order to avoid dangerous situations. But ninety-nine per cent of the dancers you and I will ever meet simply do not have the requisite skill to do this effectively. And so, lots of accidents happen all the time. Even in international competitions, the banging and crashing is rampant. Oh, and by the way, in that world, nobody ever apologizes.
Are there any practical solutions to this dilemma we find ourselves mired in as a result of choosing competitive over social ballroom dancing? For one thing, I think it might help just to be aware that we're trying to do something that very few people can do well. Competitive dancing is truly for experts, not mere mortals (like most of us). If we want to try our hand at this very demanding skill, we might consider doing so out of harm's way -- meaning somewhere other than a so-called "social" dance floor. Rent some space, and practice your figures and techniques with just yourself and your partner in the room. Such a decision calls for a substantial dose of humility, but it's a very good solution. Other than that, I would suggest learning how to dance socially. There are a few (very few, unfortunately) teachers who can bring you up to speed with social dance forms of all kinds. Then, you can have lots of fun on the dance floor, and not risk being the cause of dangerous collisions with other dancers. That's what Pat and I do. (But don't forget to watch out for those other dancers -- you know, the ones who have decided not to take my advice.)
If you absolutely insist on competing, put in the time to become an expert -- before you inflict yourself on the rest of the world. The work is very difficult, progress is extremely slow, but you can do it, if that's your ultimate goal.
Good luck.
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10 Must-have Tango Moves!
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Sunday, November 17
12:30 -- 3:30 p.m.
All levels welcome
For this one-of-a-kind, 3-hour intensive Tango workshop, Pat and I have picked out a special selection of some of our very favorite Tango moves. Once you grab these unique figures from the classic Tango repertoire, your friends will all be asking "How did you do that?' ... that is, when they stop saying "Wow!"
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·
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Purchased by Friday, November 15: $30 per person
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