Movement Awareness Exercises for Tango del Centro
Defining tango milonguero in terms of a close hold is taking a single aspect of the approach out of an organic whole. Doing so allows the style to be integrated into the standard process of salon style tango, as a sort of sub-genre. So teachers of salon style tango are more than happy to accommodate… Continue reading The milonguero manifesto
The tango walk is the first thing that you are taught when you start learning tango. You are told to slide along the floor and push into it. If you go to a milonga del centro, in which dancers exemplify tango milonguero, this walking technique is not viable. So, with very few exceptions, no one… Continue reading The tango walk is the main obstacle to learning tango milonguero
I am in the process of completing a book on movement learning for tango milonguero. I was planning to continue with a method which I based on the Feldenkrais Method. The goal of this approach was to promote a “long-spine” mental image which I thought this was preferable to the kind of movement into space… Continue reading Paxton’s Material for the Spine for tango milonguero
What a great idea. I sort of remember having been to one in South Korea. He mentions listening bars in Japan. I'm planning a possible move there. If that happens I'm going to look for them. If I make it in the markets it's on my bucket list as a hobby project, with emphasis on… Continue reading Listening bar in New York
Like everyone else I used to think that in tango the most important thing was the movement. I believed that as long as I had some music and a place to execute the movements, I was good to go. However, over time, I came to the view that this was completely backwards. I now believe… Continue reading Music, movement and space in tango milonguero
I am currently back to working on classical guitar technique and learning sight-reading, which means playing directly from written music without memorising. It is quite a challenge as the exercises are quite boring, in a way that meditation is boring. You spend a couple of minutes totally focused playing random notes from the sheet of… Continue reading Mindfullness and multi-tasking
I have been working on some tango guitar pieces but have been frustrated. I just could not get them to sound as good as I would expect. I tried different techniques but still they sounded rather flat. I tried playing in different ways, with different amount of power, and different techniques. At some point I… Continue reading When you are looking you are not listening
A conversation with tango dancers with a performance orientation has been very thought provoking. It is pretty amazing how people who apparently participate in the same activity could have more divergent views on the practice. I am not really surprised because I see it all the time. The problem is articulating what precisely is the… Continue reading The spatial organisation of the milonga
In the last few days I have been listening a lot to the 1935-38 D'Arienzo's orchestra recordings transferred by Tango Tunes. These records are really the essence of tango. I am not saying that the others are not great or important. But this is really where the tango journey needs to begin and it remains… Continue reading Giving golden era tango music room to breathe
Why do audiophiles prefer jazz recordings? Why is Miles Davis Kind of Blue the classical recording that warrants high quality reproduction? Reflecting on these questions can inform our understanding of golden era tango recordings and why they warrant spending money and effort to get the highest quality reproduction possible. https://youtu.be/O53K5X7aX04
Planned obsolescence is a feature of products so that companies can sell more stuff. If things were designed to last people would continue to use the product they bought and not buy the new one. Companies design products to break or become obsolete even when they continue to function perfectly well. A good example is… Continue reading Why inefficiency and obsolescence is not a bug but a feature of tango classes
“I'm a natural dancer.” Tango teacher My very first tango teacher was an Argentinian who was an above average dancer. In addition to teaching he did performances in restaurants and singles events. He taught in the standard way for the time: paso basico, cross, ochos, ganchos, high boleos. When a new teacher appeared on the… Continue reading Naturalness in tango dancing
Ki of Milonguero 