Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Today, I want to talk about the way people are used to learning to dance here in the United States, and why this can often make it doubly difficult for us to learn Tango.
First, let’s recall how the process occurs in Argentina. As
we’ve discussed before, the now more or less defunct — but extremely effective — tradition in Argentina was that men learned in their social clubs by actually dancing with other men, serving as followers until their “teachers” felt they were ready to try leading. In this way, men were exposed to essential lead/follow skills in a very practical and profound way. At the same time, women were exposed to Tango in a more passive way, by interacting with relatives and
friends.
Here in the U.S.A., learning to dance has taken quite a different path. Instead of concentrating on how to dance, how to move, how to interact with a partner, our own system has focused on what people are supposed to do — in other words, the figures or steps that are arbitrarily deemed to comprise an individual dance. During the 1950’s, commercial entrepreneurs like Arthur Murray identified what
they saw as signature movements and sequences, which they observed in the dance halls, and created somewhat over-simplified, mechanical versions of these “basic” steps, developing rigid syllabuses, which consisted of ”bronze,” “silver,” and “gold” variations. In theory, the purpose of this pedagogy was to enable students to learn in a progressive way. In practice, it was actually a means of enticing them to come back for more, and more, and more.
Once again, (sigh), a stellar example of capitalism in action.
For students of Tango in our country, this significant different between the Argentine way of learning and our own homegrown methodology often poses a profound dilemma. When students attend a dance class, they expect to learn right from the start what the steps are, what they’re supposed to do — not how they’re supposed to move with a partner. When I first
started learning Tango, my teachers insisted that “there are no steps in Tango; Tango is a way to walk (with a partner).” In the context of such a radically different teaching/learning environment, it is no surprise that a student here in America might impatiently say “Just show me the steps; I’ll figure out the other stuff later.”
The fact is, of course, that there are thousands of identifiable sequences in Tango, which we might
define as “steps.” Furthermore, teachers both from Argentina and the U.S.A. (as well as other countries, of course) have become well aware that steps are what most people (read “people’ as “men”) really want. Perhaps more to the point, steps are what they’re willing to pay for. For this reason, attend any Tango workshop — anywhere in the world — and what will you get? That’s right: STEPS.
(Another sigh, this time, one of
defeat and resignation.)
With all this in mind, I personally do my best to keep my students focused on the how of Tango rather than the what. Most of the time, they repeat the complaint I mentioned earlier: “Just show me the steps, etc.” Oh well, I’ll keep trying. And the fact is that I actually think steps can be important in learning Tango. It depends on how you use them in your dance.
We’ll talk about this next week.
