(Notes to encourage a student to make each step slower, with precision, with the music and with his partner.)
"When I first started to dance tango, a step was simply a step. I took
a step and my partner had to move with me. It had no connection, no
finesse, no inner conversation, no prologue, no texture. I danced
alone in an embrace.
Now a step is made up of an intricate and intense non-verbal conversation. Here is a transcription of such a conversation:
I make sure we are both standing on a single axis and encourage stillness with breathing and a relaxed embrace;
I listen to the music and wait for a significant moment;
I invite a step to the next safe space with a clear and precise
movement of my dance centre (think third shirt button - view illustration) which is
simultaneously felt all through my embrace by my partner;
My arms, my embrace move only as a result of my centre;
I wait on axis (I don't start to follow up with a move yet....) I wait for a reply to my invite.
At this
point, I ask myself "Does she understand my invite?" Can I feel her
respond through my right hand on her torso? If no, I return to "I
listen to the music" (above) and start again and give her a more
compelling invitation.
A
novice or disengaged follower will move away from me immediately and
leave an absence, an emptiness into which I fall, slightly off-balance.
If this continues to happen despite my best efforts, I adapt my dance,
resigned to the fact that this probably will not be a dance to remember. |
I wait for an
acceptance of my invite through a feeling of torsion in her back under
my right hand as she extends her dancing leg;
At the same time, my left hand and heart will tell me if she is
powerfully and almost defiantly retaining her standing leg axis in a
connection with me;
She does not yet move. If this happens, I know I am in for a dance to remember.
Now she is the centre of my universe.
I need to be at my most sensitive and empathic. A good follower will
not simply move, she will move how and when the music encourages her to
do so. When she starts her movement, I want to make her feel I am there
with her, heart to heart, with no disconnection as we step across the
chasm between our axes.
An
experienced tanguera will collaborate precisely as we move together
across the void so there is no moment when we fall out of control.
Together we make a bridge and cross it, heart to heart. We both listen
to the music and collaborate creatively to try to arrive together with
the compas, the beat of the music;
I move with her, heart to heart as though joined by a precious gosamer
thread that will break with the slightest disconnection until we reach
the end of our move.
How can I fail to be with her if I focus on how she is moving.
Inversely, how easy it is to fail in this most basic courtesy if I only think of my own needs, my own steps."
...and we have only take a single step.
Steve Morrall, March 2008
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