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. 

Being unique: learning from children

“Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly. “ E.B. White

This gives children their due.  Children are often told to do this and be that and have all natural joy shaped and moulded into the ways others want them to be yet in a heartbeat they can spring back to an apparently boundless natural optimism and creativity with a speed and resilience not generally matched by adults.

Recently I went to help six or seven year olds with Chrismas crafts at our school.  On the table allocated to me the teacher had prepared an example of a Christmas card with a Christmas tree design and the material to make it.  Here is a similar version.  

To make the cards, there was a triangular template made from card, Christmas wrapping paper, pre-cut into strips, glue and scissors.  At the table there were spaces for six children at a time.  When they had finished they rotated on to tables with other activities. Few children asked what they had to do.  Most, must have, I suppose, glanced at the card but plunged straight in.  A few hesitated for a moment, looking to me for guidance. “Guidance” it turned out just meant in most cases, showing them where to start by pointing out the pile of coloured card so that they could choose from the selection, and sometimes passing them the tree template.  

The lovely thing was that nobody just copied the example card.  Some made their strips all one way.  Some used the card to cut out other pieces of card to make tree decorations.  Somebody decided to make a border to their card using these strips, someone else decided to use a spare cut-out star to decorate their tree’s pot, someone asked how to curl the paper like ribbon to make curly decorations for their tree like this..

All the children's cards were very creative and completely individual.  Sometimes, one of the ideas would live for a bit among the other children.  For a while a few people did borders, then there was a ribbon curling phase.  I loved how the ideas appeared and were shared, lived for a while and gave way to others.

Everyone completed a card with little assistance, more a sense of support, of being, as Tango Commuter put it recently “pointed in the right direction”.  One boy folded his card the “wrong” way and like one or two other boys seemed generally hesitant and so uncertain I thought he was going to struggle with many things.  In fact no.  We just made his card into a unique, tall card, he took his time and was happy with the result.  In this expressive activity there were no “mistakes”.  

How these children learned seemed to me so different to the overthinking that happens when adults are taught improvised social dancing in class. Simple Scottish country dancing of the kind danced in ceilidhs is different because it is a series of sequences though I and most have learnt them socially. But Argentine tango and also swing - from the little of it I have danced - is improvised and best learnt socially by dancing with experienced people as it used to be. In fact, I danced swing (of a sort) with my elder son yesterday in the kitchen and was delighted when he, who dances tango, immediately initiated entirely different swing sorts of movements that he had not seen from me.  

In the craft classroom the children obviously were not paying anyone or expecting anything in return.  The children were as focused as you see adults in dance class, but only because it is a natural state for them, not one caused by intent on an ROI. The children were relaxed and natural and happy,  brimming with creativity and experimentation, like my son when he dances who has never been to tango or swing dance class; like most children  in fact and some untrained adults when they feel moved to dance.

Local cafe

It was the same later in the week at the school Christmas concert which for me is when Christmas really feels like it begins.  Each class sang two Christmas songs.  There were traditional songs and party songs.  It was the variety that I enjoyed.  The ones that were nicest to watch were those where you could see those same qualities I felt in the craft class - the ones where the children were most happy, having fun and relaxed.  These tended to be the younger classes.  Even within the cohesion required for group song you could see the individuality expressed in the children’s faces, their Christmas clothes, the instrumental moments in the songs when they all danced - in all the ways in fact in which they expressed themselves.

In craft class, a cd was playing.  The children spontaneously burst into favourite Christmas songs.   How they were in themselves directly affected what they made.  They did copy an example, but it was only an example - a basis for their own ideas.  There was no forcing it on them, no exactitude, no repetition, no oppression, no right, no wrong.  The cards were all individual, very loose interpretations of the example and all the better for it.