Reading The Tea

“Don’t put your follow where you want her [or him], open up space that you invite her to fill.” 

Last night D & I took Tango 2 from Adam Hoopengardner at Empire Dance. Even though I alread knew how to lead the steps themselves (ocho cortado and variations), Adam brought some really interesting thoughts about leading it to the class, ways of making it an advanced step. When first learning it, you can step with your partner, taking each bit as it comes, in traditional timing. Later on, you can start to play with the rhythm, hearing the music. To really make the step advanced, you play with the dynamics, and give the follow room to have a voice. To me dynamics are different than timing. Timing is long or short, 1 count or 2. Dynamics are feeling — stacatto, legato, playful, melancholic, nostolgic. Then you are really dancing. Someone once said to me (referring to ballroom) that beginning dancers want to dance intermediate steps, intermediate dancers want to dance advanced steps, and advanced dancers want to practice the basics. I would take it a bit further and say that there are no advanced steps — just advanced performance of steps.