Another Great Evening of Tango at the Firehouse!
Yes, we did it again, folks. If it’s Thursday, there’s no better place to be than Firehouse Tango at the Knights of Columbus
Hall in Maywood, N.J. This week, we burned up the floor to the offerings of the wonderful Richard Ariza, whose musical mesmerism rendered us unable to stay in our seats as he worked his own very special magic from his unique collection of Tango Milonga and Vals goodies. As always, it was a night to remember. If you were there, you know what we’re talking about, If not, put us on your schedule for next week. We guarantee, you’ll have a ball!
The Turi Report
Inspired by Rich Ariza’s fabulous music, these folks pitched in and returned the hall
to pristine shape………
Elena T
Barbara L
Shan
Jesse B
Lynn
Tsipoyra
Terri
Thank you all,
--Steve Turi
Tango Tip of the Week
Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Did you read last week's Tip? How does it feel, realizing that you already know how to dance Tango? Pretty good, right? No more sleepless nights, worrying about how long it's going to
take to learn. Just remember: If you're able to get up on the dance floor, hold your partner in a reasonably comfortable embrace, and move around to the music without falling over, you're a bona fide Tango dancer right now, this minute!
The really good news is that if you're happy with this way of dancing, you don't need to
progress any further. There are lots of people even in Argentina -- not to mention here in this country -- who dance at what I call the Stage Onelevel, and are very satisfied doing so.
However, if it happens that you're champing at the bit to start becoming a more skilled Tango dancer, it may be time to move up to the very important next
level: Stage Two. Getting to this stage calls for you to assimilate a fair amount of specific knowledge about dancing improvised social Tango. And this means overcoming possible "learning predispositions," which you may have picked up from exposure to contemporary ballroom pedagogy. It also means eradicating from your mind a secret illusion you may be clinging to -- and this will be really difficult -- that learning to dance Tango should
somehow be easy.
Let's talk first about “learning predispositions.” Basically, this refers to ballroom dance lessons. In the contemporary American/European dance-school model, progress is measured more or less exclusively in terms of choreographed "dance steps." A student is directed to move from one skill level to the next by memorizing a graduated series of sequences (usually ten in
bronze, ten in silver, and ten in gold). Within this model, there is, of course, an implicit assumption that overall skill development will occur as the student progresses from one level to the next. However, in my experience with this pedagogical approach, most students actually learn very little, if anything, about improvised social dancing. Instead, their entire focus is on memorization and choreography. A "gifted" student may somehow be able to "fill in the blanks" with his/her own intuited
accumulation of baseline improvisational skills. But, in fact, most students simply don't, and therefore remain hopelessly inept as they attempt to execute predetermined sequences of choreographed steps in an awkward manner -- which, sadly, tends to get very little attention by the majority of ballroom dance teachers.
Next, we come to the curiously pervasive -- notion that learning
Tango should be easy -- that under the right circumstances a student ought to be able to just snap it up within a few lessons. In one of my basic classes recently, a young woman whom I didn't know vehemently expressed her frustration that all the Tango teachers she had come across (including me) seemed to be committed to making the learning process overly complicated, probably (she conjectured) to keep their students shelling out for lessons as long as possible. She left my
class in the middle, continuing (I assume) to search for the instant gratification she knew must be right around the corner.
I hope she finds it.
What I really mean here is that I hope you get the point. Learning a bunch of choreography simply doesn't work in
learning Tango -- or, frankly, any other social dance -- and neither does living in a dream world where wishing will somehow make it so. In Tango -- just to put all this in perspective – those of us who teach are constantly up against the problem, which I call the "YouTube syndrome." All too many students are constantly scrambling to accumulate the figures, sequences, and adornments they admire in stage performances. In doing so, they make the absurd leap of
faith that if they watch something on YouTube a few times, they'll be able to master it right away, without first developing the underlying skills that make real expertise possible.
Not gonna happen, folks.
Next week, we're going to get down to exactly what I mean
by Stage Two Tango. I hope you just can't wait 'til then, because I'm very excited to tell you all about it!
In the meantime, take deep breaths.
Saturdays with Fran and Pat at Dardo Galletto
Studios
Please join us for our Saturday Practica at Dardo Galletto Studios, 151 West 46th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues), 11th floor; 2-4pm, $10 per person. (Bringing a partner isn't necessary.) Pat and I will both be on hand to answer any questions you may have about your dancing, and to help you with material
you're working on. Plus you get a new “must-have” tango move each week! If you’d like a private lesson, you can visit our website at www.franchesleigh.com, call Fran directly at 212-662-7692, or email him at franchesleigh@mac.com Join us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/franchesleighllc 