“Do you like this song?” he asks hesitantly, the slightly crumpled lines of his face betraying the timidity of a man who has received many rejections. I have been gazing up at the DJ, whose handsome, dark eyes are visible over the top of his eyrie, as he lines up one more out of a seemingly endless series of intensely romantic tandas. I cannot quite bring myself to tell the anxious foreigner hovering here at my elbow, that I do not like this track. In fact, if there is a tango dancer in the world who dislikes this song, I have yet to meet them. The singer is still expressing, in rhythmic speech against a backdrop of plaintive bandoneón chords, his nostalgia for a world that no longer exists: the Buenos Aires of his beloved “Café Dominguez”. “I don’t feel like dancing right now, thanks”, I lie, forcing my eyes to stop roaming the room for a second, in their longing search for a leader. But I cannot dance with him. D’Agostino is my favourite orchestra. And I have already danced one reluctant tanda with this leader, in recompense for accidentally occupying his seat — which he relinquished to me with a gallant flourish — at this very informal, foreigner-heavy milonga.
I don’t remember what orchestra was playing when Bagels-with-Lox† and I danced. But I remember the experience well. His eyes were fixed on our feet. Mine were wide open, anxiously aware of the many other couples we approached precariously close to in our zigzag progression around the floor. I remember my feeling of mild panic as he cut a weaving path among the dancers, his body a slightly hunchbacked column bent towards me, moving always in one single, slightly teetering block, leaving me often at right angles to him: both of us facing awkwardly in completely different directions. His arms — luckily soft and flexible — steered me from one place to another in big circles, like a man stirring a huge vat of soft dough with a giant wooden spoon. For ten minutes, I was that spoon. His own body would move always as one wobbly column, turning abruptly away from me and then gently manoeuvering me around till I caught up with him, in an approximation of a giro. Occasionally, with his lanky body completely still, he would gentle shake and turn me back and forwards with his arms, his face a picture of intense concentration, waiting for the high boleos which never came (I pivoted stubbornly on the spot, keeping my feet close together — since our path around the floor was so erratic and unpredictable I feared injuring other dancers). I cannot tell you what music was playing. I could not focus on either the music or my own movements. It was an exercise in damage limitation, in avoiding other couples. I felt oddly lonely, abandoned and unloved. His upper body rarely turned towards mine. And I just kept thinking, How can he have been dancing so long without discovering the advantages of dissociation?
I am musing on this still, as I listen to him confess his difficulties in finding dance partners. His accent is beautifully evocative of a dozen Woody Allen films. I am fantasising about fast-talking Jews, low on serotonin but high on wit, inhabiting a tough, vibrant city I know only from the movies and have always longed to visit. But what he is asking me is hard to answer. “I don’t get it,” he sighs, “the women here seem eager to dance. But then when I ask them, they say no gracias. Why?” He looks at me with big, brown puppy-dog eyes. “Is it because I’m a foreigner?” No, I want to tell him. But how can I let him know that the problems with his dance are fundamental, not superficial? Dissociated movement is not an added extra in tango. It is not the mayonnaise or the slices of dill pickle adorning your bagel. You cannot say, one tanda of tangos, please, but hold the dissociation. So much ink is spilled over connection, the magic of the embrace, the feeling, the spirit of tango. But that connection is manifested, above all, in the attempt to stay together at torso level, to move as one person within a sweet enveloping embrace. And part of that is simply technical. It’s not just a question of a magical and intangible chemistry. This is how we sustain that chemistry, how we make that connection possible. Without it, I may be moving, but I don’t feel that I am really dancing tango. Staying with your partner while moving your feet independently of your upper body is clearly a challenge for almost every beginner dancer. But without it, however many fancy moves you believe you master, you are still a beginner. Even if you lack the freshness, the openness, the humility — in short, the Shoshin — which characterises the best beginners.
While sad-eyed Bagels-with-Lox is still hovering by my chair, I witness something sweet. A young Argentine approaches a female friend (this is a very informal milonga, where anything goes as far as invitations to dance are concerned). She tells him that she has already changed her shoes and signals, pouting sadly, her dainty feet encased in a pair of sky-blue plimsolls with ridged rubber soles. “I can’t pivot on this floor”, she tells him, shrugging. “Never mind”, he says gallantly, “we’ll just walk”. And, true to his word, he walks with her: forwards, occasionally backwards for a step or two, and to the side, varying his pace and the cadence of his steps to suit the changes of tempo of this lovely orchestra. But even in his simple dance, there is dissociation. As he strides along on her right-hand side, his feet point towards the line of dance, but his torso is subtly but unmistakeably twisted towards her. He is walking, but still embracing her. I turn to look at Bagels-with-Lox, but he has wandered away, to my regret. I wanted him to see this. It is the essence of tango.
†Name and identifying details may have been changed.
I’m not at all sure I’m right about this, but it has occurred to me over the last few days that followers technique is much more focussed on what you do with your body – axis, dissociation, how you position and place your foot, the arc of your boleo etc. Conversely leaders is much more focussed on relative positioning – where do I move her to? Where do I need to be to do that? Floorcraft etc.
Obviously there’s crossover, but I find when I’m practicing following there’s much more detail about what I should be doing with my body. I wonder if that was his problem. He’s focussed on the external movement rather than all the internal stuff that makes it work.
And given that the internal stuff is practically invisible if you don’t know what to look for, I can fully understand that.
There’s definitely something in what you say, Ghost. There seems to be a misconception among some that leaders don’t require technique. And you’re right, leaders work far more on positioning issues in general. Also, leaders have to multitask and have the issue of floorcraft to deal with, while followers don’t, and that enables us to focus much more on the body, as you say. And you’re right that you have to know what to look for and it’s your teachers who need to point that out, consistently, repeatedly, and right from the very beginning.
Leaders often have moves where their dissociation is more subtle than that of the follower. But it’s vital. It’s an integral part of your movement as a leader. And it also means that you don’t have to worry about an extra element to your movement called “the lead”. It’s in your upper body and the embrace that you have contact with the follower. Therefore, if you are initiating your movements in the upper body, you are automatically leading. I’m not sure if I’m explaining this well, as it’s hard to do in writing, though very easy to demonstrate.
Don’t overestimate the ‘floorwork’. It’s just one of the lines inside of which we have to color, together with the music and the partner. It’s like driving a car in a major city: at first you get scared of each car, and once you’ve internalized it, you just steer without thinking.
Nice post. I see that every now and then, typically I refrain from taking pictures then, because it makes the follower look bad.
Good point, Peter! Even in my really limited experience as a leader, I’ve started to get a feel for how intuitive the floorcraft can be. And that does seem analogous to driving (although I don’t drive).
To this regard (dancing on a crowded floor) I read an interesting conversation one day where it was pointed out how the leader is in two completely different states of mind depending on the amount of crowding on the floor. In particular he tends to be ‘pro-actively determining a path for the couple’, in a sort of ‘serial/linear’ way of thinking when having not many couples around, being the number of variables at play easily manageable. While switching to a ‘parallel’ way of thinking when the crown is such that the variables are not individually manageable so he starts ‘flowing’ with the crowd itself. In this situation it is noted how the man would dance much more similarly to a follower than a leader, in the sense that he has to be extremely receptive, reactive more than proactive. Accidentally it may even happen that in this receptive/parallel mode the leader becomes even more attentive to the music and to his partner, greatly improving the enjoyment of the dance. This would maybe explain why I enjoyed so much my evenings at Cachirulo, dancing never more than five centimeters away from other couples but never bumping nor even fearing to bump into anyone else, in a stupendous, welcoming flow. (Apologies for the length of the post!)
I think you’re talking about the same thing my teacher was when she said “Stop leading me and just move where you want to go”.
I also think it’s really tempting for guys to put dissociation in the box of things that only women and show dancers have to use. Or at the least in the box of stuff I’ll come back to at some later point in time….
Yes, I think your teacher and I are probably talking about the same thing. I also, personally, don’t believe in men’s technique and women’s technique. Leaders do some moves more frequently than followers and vice versa. But basically tango is made up of the same elements whether you are leading or following. And dissociation is fundamental to most of those elements. Leading the woman to walk to the cross is a good place to start when it comes to demonstrating how the leader’s dissociation works. Of course, I can’t explain this here in words very well. But the point is that dissociation is absolutely fundamental for the leader, too, even in the simplest movements. And it’s much easier to get used to the concept right from the start than to try to add it later when you have been dancing for years. (Although that can be done, too: I speak as one who was an exceptionally slow tango learner).
Yes, and conversely relative positioning is important for followers. You can’t just step, you have to step where the leader actually wants you to go, especially in turns
Exactly! So solo technique practice is really important, but there are some things you can only get right by practising with a partner.
I imagine every one of us can relate to his situation, even if we were not quite so far out of our league. Who hasn’t at some point asked “What have they got that I do not?”. You can’t know what you don’t know, and sometimes you cannot see a difference either.
On a related note, in my dabblings with nuevo style, the dancer may not always be oriented toward their partner and yet maintain a feeling of connectedness. However, I prefer the more personal and trusting feeling of the “normal” dissociating embrace. I feel that it has a much greater chance of the dance ascending to tango heaven if there is shared stability at the core of the dance.
Absolutely! I could relate to it, too. I was very slow to catch on with many tango-related things (which is one of the things that motivates me when I teach tango; I want my students to catch on quicker than I did).
I think the connectedness doesn’t necessarily always come from being oriented towards your partner. But, even in nuevo style (as far as I understand it, at least) you always turn in a dissociated way, i.e. from the upper body first. You are not always facing each other at all times, but if you do separate, it’s so that you can seek each other again. I’m probably not explaining this well. It’s hard to do in writing. But, for me, Chicho is a master of this kind of dissociated movement. And Gustavo Naveira & Giselle Anne also teach and dance all turning movements in a dissociated way. But this is getting too difficult and technical to discuss here on paper. But I do think dissociation is fundamental to tango movement in all styles of tango.
Considering that both leaders and followers essentially use the same technical elements of tango in different dosages, I am often surprised about the lack of technique classes for leaders (in my case, here in Germany). There are many technique classes and workshops for followers, but men are often denied admittance because women tend to generate a different kind of “energy” if they stay among themselves. And that’s both OK and true for classes for men.
What I don’t understand is why there are so very few technique classes for leaders. Leaders use dissociation, forward ochos, back ochos, etc. Why aren’t they given the opportunity to learn these techniques in detail? In standard group classes most teachers don’t go into that much detail and leave the student with just a fuzzy idea of the correct technique. Private lessons are the only way I found to be given insight into these fundamental elements. It’s a pity really…
I totally agree with you on this one, Mason. I would like to see a lot more mixed-gender technique classes. Yes, I can imagine that there can be a different dynamic to technique classes when men are excluded: among other things, it can be a little galling to watch men doing all the balance exercises with ease: because they are in flat shoes, while we are in very high heels… But I am always surprised by how many men don’t realise that they dance forward ochos, for example. Men need technique too!
A wonderful post includes some important techniques, also the essence of tango: maintaining the connection. I Totally agreed that dissociation is important to keep your upper body toward your partner. But if you got all those techniques in tango walk, when thinking or looking at other person, your partner would ‘feel’ losing that connection. That’s why sometimes, your torso is not toward your partner, but you are still oriented toward your partner, and still connected.
Really love your posts.
Thanks for your comment, TangoHolic. I’m really glad you enjoy the blog. I’m a little confused by what you mean technically, though. But it can be difficult to explain those kinds of things in writing. And I’m not always good at understanding the finer points of technique when stated in writing, either.
Wow what a jerk. He would have been better off getting a “hell no you smell like smoked fish you god forsaken (insert anti-semitic epithet here) loser”, or perhaps something more politically correct like “get the hell away from me”, than dancing in her stanky energetic wake.
The joke of it is that this person is probably way better at writing hate mail than dancing tango, definitely better at it than being a gracious human being.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that she didn’t get many dances that night, (or most nights). Most people can feel harsh and judgmental energy from a mile away, and tend to steer clear. It takes a little while for rank beginners to figure this one out but it happens eventually it’s part of the natural selection in tango. When you’re young and pretty, nobody cares about your piss poor attitude and bitter energy, but once the young and pretty part wears out, you’d better get a bit of personality if you want to keep at least a few dance partners.
Last bit, if she were that hot, her eyes would not have been ‘roaming the room’ as she put it looking for a leader. She would just have one, or several waiting for for her to be free. Just an observation here, but it’s better to just keep your mouth buttoned up if you’re going to out yourself as a narcissist and a racist in the same blog post. I mean who’s going to want to risk dancing with her now? lol
Thanks for your comment, Luis.
Actually it is normal practice to get dance partners using cabeceo. This involves looking around the room as the first tango of the tanda begins to play (hence the ‘roaming eyes’). If you catch the eye of a leader you wish to dance with, they then signal to you, using a subtle head movement, that they would like to dance. You can find more details about this here and here.
I am not particularly young and whether or not I am “pretty” or “hot” is something of which I am not the best judge. I make no claims to be a sex bomb anywhere in this blog. I am certainly neither a racist nor antisemitic (there is no correlation that I know of between being Jewish and dancing either well or badly). I chose New York Jewish for the dancer’s identity (to protect his real-life anonymity; he is not a New York Jew) mostly because I had just watched a Woody Allen movie. I have romantic ideas about New York (a city I’ve always longed to visit), find the idea of the Jewish community there appealing (perhaps I also romanticise it) and enjoy eating bagels with lox. So it didn’t occur to me that this could be viewed as antisemitic.
OK, maybe I am a little more narcissistic than the next person. After all, I write a blog and that involves lots of self-analysis and gazing at my tango navel, as one reader put it. But basically I care about the quality of my tango experience. I know very few dancers who do not. This doesn’t mean that I am “bitter” or have “harsh and judgemental energy”. Most people I know make choices about who they do and do not enjoy dancing with. If you enjoy dancing with absolutely everyone, then I congratulate you, but I think this is exceptional.
Abrazos milongueros. Wishing you many happy dances.
Oh my! We have all been in that moment (as a follow and perhaps as a now-enlightened lead).
In classes we often all practice (leads and follows) our ochos against a wall and in exercises. Men are notoriously stiff unless they have done something previously (karate, yoga, tai chi) that has awakened their sacrum. It is so hard for the men to feel comfortable doing contra body/disassociation movements but once they get it they love it.
There is no rule that says I have to dance with everybody, especially if what they are leading is harmful or hurtful to me.
Abrazos to you and many sweet dances.
Thanks, Corazon! Everyone struggles with dissociation. Personally, it took me a long time to realise that it was lacking in my dance. And I do think it´s often harder for male tango learners. Men have a few physiological disadvantages — a higher centre of gravity, less flexibility, etc. — and are often less accustomed to dancing in general. And then they have to take on the leader´s role right from the outset. And almost everyone finds it hard to relax when dancing, especially at the beginning. Sweet dances to you too, my dear!
You don’t have to tell him (or anyone) anything about what he is doing wrong. Eventually he may give up and just leave tango forever. Him and many others.
But hey, if that’s the kind of tango world you want to inhabit that’s your choice. You’re not responsible for teaching him or anyone else. But if that is how you wish to be don’t be suprised when there are so few leaders around.
@Boltar The way I see it, the milonga is not a good place to teach. I give and receive criticism and feedback at classes (I have been both the teacher and the student); at the more informal practicas and when practising with friends at home. I do what I can to foster good leading when I am teaching myself. And, when I’m working with practice partners, we learn from each other. But the guy in question didn’t ask me for technical feedback on his dancing and it would not have been appropriate to offer it unsolicited. Especially as I would have had to show him what I meant and that’s just not practicable at a milonga, even if I wanted to do it. And, in the case of this particular leader, who has been dancing for a long time, surely someone must have tried to tell him about dissociation already? Finding an approach that would help him to understand the concept might not be that easy. And, of course, unlearning his bad physical habits and developing and incorporating new muscle memories would probably involve a long process. And it would be a process he would have to be willing to embark upon; you can’t teach someone against their will.
As for the gender imbalance, I do what I can to ameliorate the situation by a) leading women myself b) teaching as best I can. But I don’t feel responsible for the entire tango world. That’s way too much responsibility.
And the evil Jeffrey Tobin tries to teach us that too good lead is effeminate LOL
Anyway the quandary of this post hasn’t ever been solved … how to hint a dancer what one may need to improve, without commanding one to go jump from the roof. No help here; I don’t think anyone knows.
But I have a different question, OT. In this post, and in several others, you describe the familiar scene of a tanguera changing shoes. Never once it is a guy changing shoes. Do they, like, take a cab to a BsAs milonga to enter the floor with their dancing shoes already on?
Who is “the evil Jeffrey Tobin”? There seems to be a gap in my cultural education there.
And you are right: it’s a difficult one. How do you tell someone their dancing isn’t as good as they think it is? Especially if the reason is because they lack a fundamental skill despite having danced tango for years. That’s a tough one. But I do think the milonga is not the place for this kind of conversation. But, sometimes, at a practica or lesson, you can communicate this to someone (even if you’re not the official teacher). See this post. I don’t think I could have helped this guy without showing him what I meant: which is impossible to do at the milonga. I would say, the onus is on him. He should be going to classes and practicas and asking the teachers and his practice partners for help, advice and feedback. In fact, everyone serious about their tango, whatever their level, should be doing some version of this.
I can’t recall offhand anywhere where I talk about anyone changing shoes other than myself. In fact, I can’t think of a single post where I “describe the familiar sight of a tanguera changing shoes”. But maybe I have forgotten somewhere. Can you give me an example of this?
But let me try to answer your question. I don’t know anyone who takes a taxi to the milonga. People arrive occasionally by bicycle, or foot, or (less commonly) by car. But overwhelmingly they get there by bus. That’s the most common mode of transport here in BA. At the more informal milongas, men change their shoes at their tables, just as women do. At the formal milongas, they tend to change them in the toilets, I imagine, or (at El Beso, for instance) on a free seat towards the back of the venue, well away from the dance floor. For men, changing shoes is more of a production than for women (slipping out of my sandals or flip flops and into tango heels doesn’t take long) so they tend to be a little more discreet about it.
A tanguera changing into and out of her dancing shoes, I should have said? Like in this piece, the gal who had to be lead – beautifully – without pivots.
Jeffrey Tobin, huh! A very eloquent and very provocative tanguero sexanthropologist, probably best known outside of the milonguero circles for the course he read @ Occidental which has been rated #1 for weirdness (the course has been entitled simply The Phallus). Dr. Tobin spent quite a bit of time in BsAs studying both tango and machismo, and his papers are both beautifully written and, at times, quite disagreeably creepy. Stripped of extremes, his main thesis seems to be that a BsAs tanguero plays macho with a great deal of self-irony, and even the poignant lines of the letras are understood and recited with a cynical smile. Interesting stuff, but it only gets weirder from that point on. Along the way he claims that in the eyes of Portenos, dancing in beautiful moves is unmanly (the ideal leader ought to move as little as possible, making her move instead! Sounds a bit obsolete huh?). Then by extension of course dancing for any purpose other than immediate sexual satisfaction is unmanly, and pretty soon the tango men turn out to be a faux-phallus fraternity of (primarily) gays, (and to a lesser extent) pathetic monogamists, and exploitative predators. Whew!
My goodness, how interesting! Thanks for this! Although, I must say, I feel I don’t need to read Tobin himself now, after reading your wonderful summary. “[T]he tango men turn out to be a faux-phallus fraternity of (primarily) gays, (and to a lesser extent) pathetic monogamists, and exploitative predators”. 100% correct.
It’s true, I do mention women’s footwear more than men’s (it’s much more interesting). Though I don’t think I actually describe the process of changing shoes, except my own. Actually, since I lead, I’m always changing in and out of heels.
Tell him! Tell him he needs to take lessons in disassociation and floorcraft. He will then feel better because he will know what to do to solve his problem of not getting enough dances. This way you will give him hope, let him know that the rejection is not personal, but related to his technical proficiency.
Honest feedback when requested is kinder than politeness.
Erik, perhaps you are right. At that moment, I didn’t see an easy way of telling him, especially without *showing* him (which there wasn’t room to do). But in future I will try to speak up.
“You are a good dancer with a lot of potential, and I want to give you a valuable gift, but only if you won’t be offended”
Alas the stuff like that can only be effective if done with a good deal of sincerity and creativity, so it won’t work if you are really irked by the leader, and can’t see any bright sides in his skills
It’s hard. Especially when the “you are a good dancer with lots of potential” part is a white lie. But, especially, I don’t think anyone can understand dissociation from a five-minute explanation. Especially not without any possibility of demonstrating it physically. The moral of this story is: seek feedback on your dancing not at the milonga, but at practicas, seminars, classes and practice sessions.
Nice post, as usual. I agree it’s hard to give unsolicited advise, but in this case there was an explicit request for help, so maybe you could have told him the story of one of your friends with similar concerns that confessed to you how he had all his questions readily answered just by dancing few hours with an exceptional woman tango teacher during few private classes. I strongly believe that as men we grossly underestimate the extremely precious amount of feedback we can get from a woman teacher, that we may too often believe is there only to teach the ultimate boleos or ganchos techniques to other woman dancers.
Saludos! Ale
Good idea, Ale. Yes, I didn’t think of recommending a teacher and that is exactly what I should have done — and what I’ll do next time.