Right and wrong

I met and danced in swapped roles with a guy, a beginner.  I shared a story about the contradiction in terms of teaching an embrace (third paragraph) in an “open hold”. He told me in reply that indeed, he had seen in milongas men "driving" women as though driving a tractor. He illustrated what I have seen so many times, in class and in the milonga, by class dancers. 

In the photo above there are no embraces.  You could pretty much drive a tractor through the huge gaps between the guys and the girls.  So what are they doing if not embracing?  Steps.  They are practising steps learnt in class.  People who do this move like zombies.  Typically, they take one step, together, pause, then they take another.  Then he tilts his chest.  She obediently pivots.  Lead (pause) Follow.  Their dance mimics the roles they have accepted.  Obviously, the music - if there is any - is irrelevant.  Speedy zombie version here.   You could argue that music like that doesn't help at all.

It could be so easy.  If only they would embrace, listen, not think.  Not listen hard, not try to walk on a beat, not even listen - just allow themselves to hear the phrasing.

In fact this practica (in photo above) was more like what we in Britain would call a class. There (ART. 13) I saw only one couple embracing. You can see similar things by browsing the photos of milongas near you or that you are thinking of going to on e.g. Facebook and comparing whether what the dancers are doing looks more like the photo above, or more like the embraces here at the Encuentro Porteño in Amsterdam.  Of course the EP dancers are more experienced, but it isn't that. What they are doing is in essence a different dance.

The instruction model based on right and wrong ways of moving means you get class types who (if you were to let them get that close) would "drive" you the way my friend described. Meanwhile, such dancers insist or imply you're “doing it wrong” or that you're not really good enough for them. Inexplicably they still want to get their hands on you. No surprise then when they inherit from class this perspective of “right” and “wrong” steps. This “rightness” and “wrongness” is a strange idea.  The dance is improvised and social, we do it for pleasure. It is not sequenced, choreographed or for performance where “rightness” and “wrongness” of steps or technique might be more relevant. 

But class dancers are quick to criticise “wrong” movements - even on the floor and to lecture you in how to fix them.  At that point you might as well give up.  Many do - the healthy ones. Or they go to the milonga instead.

But many, sadly, do not. They assume the problem really is with them, that they are impaired in some way, that they are wrong and this is what gets to me. Women do this more than men in my experience or maybe more of them tell me. They feel terrible, inadequate.  "I feel so rubbish, so hopeless" they say, over and over.  "I can't do any of what they want me to do in class. The steps and technique are so hard.  It doesn't make any sense to me."  They doubt themselves in just the same way as when the teacher says "Just a few bad habits developing - keep up the classes and you'll be fine".  They don't realise that most people have - sensibly - dropped out because they all felt like that.  In fact they have been wounded.  With many women I meet it's as though they have been wounded in their backs but they don't know where. They just know that they're hurt but they don't even really know why or how or if they've been wounded because none of it adds up.    

The man they dance with who might tell them they're "doing it wrong" - or (more often) the teacher says "Well if you trust me, come back next week and make sure you do the whole course I can fix everything.  And there are always private lessons you know..." Even children know that anyone who says "Trust me" or "Honest!" is as trustworthy as this.

Enough said?

Someone told me once that the dance is made of feelings.  I think what happens in the dance is some kind of indescribable, nuanced thing that is to do with the couple and the music.   But at the same time I often feel that the tanda is self contained - a clear beginning and an end  - to everything. Nothing needs to be said because things are said, wordlessly and understood in the dance.  

The tanda ends and despite that we may have been deep inside the music and the embrace, moving as one, it is easy to walk away.  Metaphorically, I mean, even if sometimes I feel a bit rocked from, well, I’m not sure what from, the whole thing.  At the end of a tanda with a great guy dancer my occasional silent disorientation must be evident because guys usually seem to understand and unsurprisingly are pleased.  At least I take it that’s why I see them grinning as they take me back to my seat.   Besides, they seem to know it’s not just good manners, but that I need the escort ‘til I come to.

Grotesqueries

Historic orchard (name unknown) Carse of Gowrie

The Carse of Gowrie is a low lying area of land that stretches along the north side of the river Tay between the Scottish towns of Perth and Dundee. It is famous for its soft fruit particularly raspberries and strawberries and is home to a number of historic orchards. Some of these orchards are no longer maintained as previously but, like the one above and others at Megginch (private) estate and Elcho castle they are the focus of revival by the excellent Tay Landscape Partnership.

Espaliered and fan trailed fruit trees at Megginch estate

Apple picking, Elcho castle, Perth, September 2015

I went to some of these orchards last summer, in one case to look at diseases and problems in fruit trees and to see how some of these could be prevented. It was surprising to see how damaged some of the trees were often early in their growth and by what variety: disease, such as bulbous cankers, parasites, accident, storm damage or where domestic livestock or deer had eaten away the bark or rubbed against the trunk. In some cases an older tree had continued to grow but twisted and deformed.

Damage and distortion to fruit trees

A propos the idea of teaching of teaching how to embrace I received an email recently from an (I think) dancer-led tango dance group. The source is nameless because with any luck I’ll continue to receive these emails.  They are one of my favourite mines of grotesqueries: distortions of what I think dancing tango is like.  To my own mind it is not unlike the damage done and often avoidable to those trees.  

A recent crop from the latest email is mild but I saw the “teach you how to embrace” idea rephrased recently:

“The course will cover posture, connection [my italics] and the 'tango walk'”  

I’d  love to see that described in print:  How to "connect”....Perhaps there could be a follow-up:  “How not to disconnect - your guide to avoiding divorce.”  

How would you describe "how to connect" in words, exactly?  I mean in a way that doesn't sound ludicrous and does feels like the kind of embrace you want to stay in for dance?

I can't remember how it happened in my lessons, except being told repeatedly, class after class "Embrace him" and being pushed into the guy or my arm pulled more around the guy. Patently, there was no desire to embrace whoever that particular guy was. It was probably because being a beginner, he couldn't dance and why would any girl want to embrace a guy in the guy's role who can't dance? Besides, I just didn't want to embrace those guys. And that's mostly why I stopped going to class - because in the milonga you choose and are chosen.

Other gems from this edition were:

“the key elements of tango that together make up the ‘tango toolkit’.”

You’re going to need such a toolkit because in places like that dancing tango is work, you’re  going to build your dance and when, like this wall, it inevitably breaks down...

Darn Walk, Dunblane to Bridge of Allan

....you’re  going to need to repair it.

“Each class will build on the previous week’s lesson, so ideally participants will attend all sessions.”

I’ve become a bit better at reading between the lines.  On the surface, it’s straightforward:  miss a session and you’ll make things harder for yourself (because - apparently - you build a dance….).  But what I hear is the controlling tendency:  this is our way and you have to do as you’re told.  It is supplier-focused - the product or service is oriented around what is easiest for them and around class management.  It is not about the person for whom the service is intended, because that would mean people who can dance dancing one to one with people who are new to dance.  

The other problem is that the didactic habit is catching among people who do classes generally.   Since in this sort of “tango”, men “lead” and women “follow” - the women have to do as the men say.  If then something goes “wrong” then it becomes invariably the more powerless, more vulnerable one, the mere “follower”, who is apparently at fault: “you didn’t follow what I led”.  Unsurprisingly,  I didn’t last long in class when I started “having my own ideas”.

But this week this is my favourite:

You can come with or without a partner.  We swap partners regularly so you get to know your class mates as well as have the chance to dance with a wide range of people – one of the joys of tango.  

I suppose that’s laying out their way.  But it will put off couples who like to stick together, people who are unsure, people who don’t necessarily want to dance with lots of people, people who would just rather watch for a while, as you can when you go to the milonga.  Not everyone thinks dancing tango is about dancing as much as you can with as many people as you can.  The message here is clear: these people think that it is and those who don’t agree to fully participate in the spirit of swapping  need not (really) apply.  I think that’s a shame, but, well at least it’s clear.

They do say…

If any class participants prefer not to swap partners this is fine...

but add:

although we can guarantee by the end of the course you will be swapping along with everyone else!

...no matter what you actually had in mind. You can see there’s only really “one way” here.  I find again that implication of control off-putting.  It tends to lead to that kind of dance.

The sad thing is that a dancer-led group which might so easily rather focus on the music, the dancing, the milonga instead of endlessly pushing these classes and workshops - presumably in an effort to expand numbers.  Fortunately another group in that town has done just that - they run a weekly milonga in a bar, that’s all.  If they send out emails I don’t get them.  I haven’t been because it’s far from me midweek, but I’ve met some of the organisers, nice, relaxed people, nice dancers and I like their approach.  I think any group is more likely to expand when non-dancers see and hear about people there having a good, relaxing time in a bar with dancing.  What would you rather do - pay to go to class and work at dance, with other beginners, or go to a milonga and learn to dance by dancing with people who can?

Standardisation and individuality

Social dancers, taken by multi-talented Adam Szczepański, based in Aberdeen.

On my bedroom wall a “handbag" hangs on a hook.  It is made from two pieces of paper stapled together to which is attached a paper strap. On the front my my elder son has drawn a picture of a bridge, a river, fish jumping, ladders up trees and a flying fox over the river. On the front it says "To Mama".  In this I keep all the the little notes full of love (and bedtime procrastination) that they have brought me.  They are probably the most treasured items I have.

When I think about what is precious in life, it is the time I have spent with family and friends. It is also in things I see or hear that have been created and are original, particular, individual, personal. 

 I see it also in nature, or in the games we play. Both of these use something like templates but each time the game is played it is different, each time the seed grows into a plant, it is similar to others of its species but different in its variety.

I see asimilar quality in museums and historic properties and in the performance of drama or music:

I believe it is in the gardens people create, in how we decorate our homes. in the learning we choose to do and in the food we make.

In material things, I find it in the architecture unique in its design or setting. It is in art, in sculpture, installations, in photography, graffiti, design. 

It is in the cards and presents and costumes we make. I see it even in face-painting, tailored to the child.

I feel it part of the milongas and dances we go to and the parties we throw...

I see it in both simple things made by people I know and love or in rustic things made by others... 

 ...as well as in elegant or sophisticated things made by strangers:

They all seem to me individual in some way.

I do not find this in chain store shops or in chain-type attractions.  Whatever was originally created in these mass produced material goods has lost its charm somehow. I find it in things that are not part of a general trend towards process, control, mould-made and standardisation.

What is dancing tango? So many class advertisements today scoff now at teaching moves or steps, let alone patterns or sequences. That I think is a good thing.  So now they focus on "the basics".  If anything though this can be worse since it usually seems to include teaching "How to embrace" or the slightly more subtle versions: "How to connect" or just "Connection".  Sometimes it comes under the conveniently vague term:  "Technique".  However it is phrased I see it as an attempt to standardise and interfere with something unique between two people.  How could anyone have the sheer face to industrialise something special that happens each time a couple chooses one another and embraces?  How could anyone in class hope to achieve such a thing through partner rotation where indeed there is no such choice at all?  How could people in class even have any inkling of what that kind of improvised, individual dancing is really like given the conditions in a tango dance class?

I think some things can be imparted, shared, implicitly learned better than they can be explicitly taught and I think this is true of dancing tango. Otherwise, tango dance class is like trying to industrialise, to fabricate something where the value is in its handmade quality. It can be no coincidence that “fabricate” has two meanings - to make, especially to make something inauthentic, but also to lie. 

"A man is generally what he feels himself to be."

There is an exchange in Sam Peckinpah's hellish film, Cross of Iron between Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell) and Sergeant Steiner played by James Coburn, who manages to pull of laconic, careful, disillusioned and dangerous all in a look or a word.

Stransky: May I suggest to you that you do not underestimate your present company. Everything you are and may become is dependent upon this present company.

Steiner: No, I will not forget that, sir. But I may add that a man is generally what he feels himself to be. 

This, said to the visible discomfort of the people around him.

I like people who are themselves and not what they think they ought to be or what someone else tells them they should be like.

I look for a musical connection with a real person.   I like people who dance the music simply and without ostentation, who feel the music, not who think the dance.  These (for me) "real" dances can come from the most unexpected quarters, not least because they are often so unobtrusive.

I appreciate nice clothes or someone who smells lovely but these things aren't essential, even less so with people I know.  I dance with the guy with unruly hair I have to push away because he has a great embrace, with the girl who dresses quietly because it suits her and no-one else dances like her, with the guy whose stubble burns my cheek if we dance more than a tanda because he's fun and original and still the right side of respectful.

I like to dance with people who are light-hearted, who smile and who look as though they are enjoying the dance.  Perhaps playful people dancing in the guy's role bring more equality to the dance. If that's true maybe it’s because there's more opportunity to respond.  I like people who share their personalities in the dance. I don't know that you can see so easily whether people do that especially because they are often small and discreet in their movements.  The milonga is a visual place, superficially but necessarily.  After that it's about what you feel.

When I am in the embrace I like to know whose embrace. If you were to put me into someone's arms with my eyes closed I would like to be able to tell who it is right from the start in the many ways that you do know.

Before I danced the other role, back when I assumed along with most everyone else that classes were the way to learn to dance tango, I must have been complaining to a friend about not wanting to be being pulled into the embrace by a guy in class or about how the teacher encouraged me to really embrace a guy I didn't want to.  My friend, sympathising, said how awful it must be to embrace someone you don't really want to and that luckily few women were so obnoxious that guys did not want to dance with them in the embrace. Now I find it to be true! Most women I invite I find are lovely to dance with. I do not find this true in quite the same way with all guys. I love to dance with women who are relaxed,  unafraid, who love the connection and who I can feel responding to the music.

Sometimes young guys are as inclined to propel you around as to embrace you. But not always.  I think  sometimes that just comes with time in life and in the milongas.

I like to dance with guys with a great embrace, a place I like to be, where I feel relaxed and happy and where I can trust him not to do unpleasant things. I think I most like to be in the embrace of a guy who I can feel has experienced life and is relaxed and at peace with himself, self assured, quiet, understated, sensitive to the music and to his partner.  I like to feel in a guy's embrace and his dance, looked after, cared for.