Last week in Tango was very a bit different but I had fun actually dancing as if we were at a milonga. I'm finding that keeping in the line of dance is very hard. People stop and go, and I'm often unsure of what to do when the line of dance isn't moving. Back ocho's are an easy way to do 'something' but after a while, I'm not sure what to do. I feel that the back ochos may get boring sometime, and I don't have much style when I dance.
I'm getting nervous about this upcoming research paper. 20 pages seems like a lot to write, and I'm nervous about finding information. I'm thinking about doing my paper on other cultures that had an influence on Tango, particularly looking at Tango's African roots. I'm wondering what other influences that Tango has, if any.
Recently I got a part time job working for my cousin at a restaurant he manages. Unfortunately, though, I'm unsure if wI will be able to attend tango club anymore. I'm glad that I'm taking this ASEM, because without it, I'd probably have to stop learning tango. At least there is another four weeks!
What I want to blog about this week relates to what I found during some research I was doing this week. As I was researching a few of my potential topics, I was on the tango Colorado website. I was playing around and came across the “Tango Etiquette” page. It is an entire (and rather lengthy) page dedicated solely to the codes of the Tango. The codes seemed so intimidating to me! That was my initial reaction. I thought it my head, “gosh how could I really enter into the world of the embrace if I’m worrying about breaking one of the many codes! Yet, as I read on, I really enjoyed what I was reading. I googled some other dances and their codes such as cha cha, rumba, salsa, and ballroom dances. When researching each different dance’s codes, I found there to be many differences from one source to another. There were obvious similarities such as “No socializing on the dance floor” for Salsa. Yet each source had certain imperative rules of the dance that other sources didn’t even mention, or one source had a different take on a certain rule compared to another source. Tango, on the other hand, seems to have a very consistent set of codes and multiple sources seem to all agree on this set. I really enjoyed this because it seemed to allude to the cohesiveness of the Tango community. There is this mutual respect and understanding among all members of the Tango community and the codes are a symbol of that. Additionally, other codes of other dances really emphasized your affect on the other dancers. Tango was really the only one that has codes focused on you so that you are able to have the most enjoyable dance or the most enjoyable milonga. For example, one code focused more internally on the two partners rather than externally on what not to do so that you don’t screw up their dance. This specific code says: “Good leaders always dance at the level of the follower. It is rude to dance above her level to impress her, show off to others or boost one's ego.” I loved this when I read it because unlike other dances’ codes, it doesn’t use the word “DON’T” and it focuses on what the pair can do to make the dance most enjoyable for each individual dancer.
ReplyDeleteSo back to my original statement about how my initial reaction was intimidation because of the lengthy and very specific codes of Tango. After thinking about it, I realized that the codes are one of the reasons why the Tango is such an enjoyable dance and the milonga is such a fun and fulfilling event. The codes were created for a reason: to avoid problems that either were problems in the past or to avoid potential foreseeable problems. Each code, no matter how specific or long, enables each dancer and thus the community as a whole to enjoy the best possible Tango. Additionally, the consistency of the Tango codes among different communities eliminates any confusion when dancing with different partners or in different parts of the world or at different milongas. Again, this helps to that every individual dancer plus every couple plus the entire group of people at the milonga all focus on one thing only: having the best Tango dance(s).