It’s almost impossible to avoid tango abierto. You need time for doubts and time to compare and double check the knowledge that comes with good, regular practice. In fact, it’s enjoyment that moves the learning process forward, a process which is not linear, but two steps forward and one back. That doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy the journey. You need about 10 years to dance it properly. It needs study and time, just like an academic career. The difference between this dance and any other is that you can’t learn it by going to the milongas, watching the dance floor or by studying a DVD. It’s never been a massive practice either, not even during the so-called “golden age of tango” in the forties and fifties. As in any other discipline, knowledge of tango is shaped like a pyramid, with a large amount of beginners at its base and the few chosen and ambitious elite that will never stop studying at its peak. A small part of these go on, trapped by its passion, dancing in classes or on the stage or teaching it. This is the type of tango that attracts many students to class. Can anyone possibly resist the match between great technical display and romanticism? Inevitably, it’s ‘love at first sight’. It is what people see all over the world, in Buenos Aires at the theatre and on TV. The so-called tango abierto, based on the spectacle and glamour of its moves, is the gateway to tango. My dream/fallacy/lamentations of Austin moving to become a more "close embrace" estilo milonguero community.(not sure what I meant to continue to say here.the draft post just trailed off with this.)īy the way, thanks to Joe Grohens over at The Topic is Tango from bringing this to my attention on Tango-L. Close embrace might not exist without it. The point is that I needed to hear this - that open embrace is fundamental to close embrace.
#Landfill tango instrumental update
I also recently posted a status update on Facebook that read something like this: ".uh, I dunno.something like "looking forward to the day when I can NOT think about tango". I'm still trying to wrap my head around what's going on in my head. I suppose I'm maturing in my tango - or focusing on higher priorities in life - or a combination of the two. I've even pondered the possibility that my tango fix may take the form of a trip to Buenos Aires every four or five years. Lamenting to myself or convincing myself. I've been lamenting to myself that if I am able to dance a few times locally each year once or twice a year at a festival, or every two years - that will be enough. Delving into the why's and science and psychology of it.another time. Aspen is, or was, a close embrace community, much like Denver. My teacher in Aspen taught us close embrace almost from the get-go. I can see the former very clearly, and I am hopeful the latter does hold to be true over time.įor me, I have absolutely no use for open embrace tango. I needed to hear that there is no close without open, and no open without close. Susana's essay came along at just the right time for me. I was telling my close friend Rigoberto the other day that "I think about tango every day, but I rarely dance anymore.". Not so much distinct phases of development, but the continuous evolution of a person and the tango in their life and soul. close, and her lucid brevity in verbalizing the various growth phases of tango. But that's not what really resonated with me in reading this.
So, I'll freely admit that I machete'd her words to draw in a few more readers. If tango entrenches itself in one style we’ll end up alone, dancing a virtual tango, seated in front of our computer, and we’ll lose its essence: the risk of both enjoying and suffering with someone else in your arms. I was reading Susana Miller's essay "Tango Abierto y Tango Milonguero" and the last line plucked me like a guitar string. Please accept my apologies for the sensationalist headline. Here's an unpublished draft from July 3, 2010.no not that suffering.not suffering like it's a really bad dance suffering.but suffering suffering.human condition type shit.at least that's how I'm choosing to interpret it.Ġ2/28/18 note.I'm dancing a whole helluvalot more tango abierto with The Divine Miss Sugar G.and having a helluvalot'o fun.hell, I might even end up buying some white tango shoes.(grin).