Next week Tuesday, on the 28th of July, we are running the first of three Refresher workshops designed to keep everyone up to scratch between terms. The purpose is to repeat everything we have done and possibly go a bit more indepth here and there. There will be no new material per se, but new insights might still be had. We hope everyone will manage to come.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Coming Up: Refresher #1
Next week Tuesday, on the 28th of July, we are running the first of three Refresher workshops designed to keep everyone up to scratch between terms. The purpose is to repeat everything we have done and possibly go a bit more indepth here and there. There will be no new material per se, but new insights might still be had. We hope everyone will manage to come.
Looking Back: The Taunton Milonga
The downside first, shall we? Not everyone was there, which was a bit sad.
With that out of the way, I must say how damned proud I was of every single one from the Taunton group. There was a perfect line of dance. I didn't see a single collision. And best of all: each and every one was dancing to the music. Makes me giddy thinking about where this group is heading.
With that out of the way, I must say how damned proud I was of every single one from the Taunton group. There was a perfect line of dance. I didn't see a single collision. And best of all: each and every one was dancing to the music. Makes me giddy thinking about where this group is heading.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Thursday, 2 July 2009
The Tango Triad, #2 & 3: Milonga and Vals
Milonga and Vals have their firm place in every proper milonga. We will do a bit more specific work on both dances in the future, but for now my advice is just to keep it simple. Here are two very nice examples of good dancing, one milonga and one vals.
See Thorsten Zörner and Adriana Duré dance the milonga "Saca Chispas" by Julio de Caro here.
See Martin Ottmers and Alison Dobson-Ottmers dance the vals "Acuerdate de Mi" by Carlos Di Sarli (with Jorge Durán) here.
See Thorsten Zörner and Adriana Duré dance the milonga "Saca Chispas" by Julio de Caro here.
See Martin Ottmers and Alison Dobson-Ottmers dance the vals "Acuerdate de Mi" by Carlos Di Sarli (with Jorge Durán) here.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
The Music of Lesson 8: Tanturi
For dancers of sufficient skill and a love of rhythmic dancing, there is little better than the orchestra of Ricardo Tanturi. The insistent, almost frantic beat urges on, while the rather complex rhythmic sub-structures invite a variety of syncopations, hesitations and changes in step frequency. Tanturi, despite often being labeled mediocre, was very popular in Buenos Aires in its time, and continues to be beloved today. The two great singers of Tanturi's orchestra were Alberto Castillo with his unmistakeable slightly nasal (and typically porteño) style of singing and Enrique Campos (best known, perhaps, for his wonderful rendition of "Una Emoción") with his straightforward simplicity.
See Ruben Harymbat and Enriqueta Kleinman dance to "Recuerdo Malevo" here.
See Ruben Harymbat and Enriqueta Kleinman dance to "Recuerdo Malevo" here.
Lesson 8: Revisiting the Cross, plus Milonga Primer
In our final lesson of the Groundwork course, we revisited the cross, which was introduced in lesson 7. Refer to that entry for pointers.
We then proceeded to talk about the upcoming milonga on 7th July, discussing the How and Why of tango etiquette. Things to remember are: use the cabeceo (catching your intended partner's eye and confirming with a slight nod, possibly involving other slight head gestures) as soon as you have decided you want to dance this tanda. A tanda is a set of (usually) four tangos, valses or milongas, usually all by the same orchestra from the same era and with the same singer, if any. So for example you might hear the tanda start with Carlos di Sarli's 1939 "Corazon" (there is a later version with another singer...). You would then be correct to expect the next three tangos to be Di Sarlis from roughly the same time (1939-1940) and featuring the same singer (Roberto Rufino).
After the tanda you will then hear a cortina ("curtain"), a short piece of non-tango music, during which the men walk the women back to their tables (after profusely praising their dancing as well as their beauty, of course...). Time to relax, get a drink, look around for other partners, sit down, walk around etc.
Feel free to dance as much or as little as you like. There is no need to dance to every tanda.
Finally, we quickly checked the boxes on milonga and vals, the two other dances of the "tango triad." Both have a fixed rhythm, thus urging us not to pause, never to stop. Remember to keep it simple. Use weight changes, and especially with the milonga, short steps expressing the rhythm.
We then proceeded to talk about the upcoming milonga on 7th July, discussing the How and Why of tango etiquette. Things to remember are: use the cabeceo (catching your intended partner's eye and confirming with a slight nod, possibly involving other slight head gestures) as soon as you have decided you want to dance this tanda. A tanda is a set of (usually) four tangos, valses or milongas, usually all by the same orchestra from the same era and with the same singer, if any. So for example you might hear the tanda start with Carlos di Sarli's 1939 "Corazon" (there is a later version with another singer...). You would then be correct to expect the next three tangos to be Di Sarlis from roughly the same time (1939-1940) and featuring the same singer (Roberto Rufino).
After the tanda you will then hear a cortina ("curtain"), a short piece of non-tango music, during which the men walk the women back to their tables (after profusely praising their dancing as well as their beauty, of course...). Time to relax, get a drink, look around for other partners, sit down, walk around etc.
Feel free to dance as much or as little as you like. There is no need to dance to every tanda.
Finally, we quickly checked the boxes on milonga and vals, the two other dances of the "tango triad." Both have a fixed rhythm, thus urging us not to pause, never to stop. Remember to keep it simple. Use weight changes, and especially with the milonga, short steps expressing the rhythm.
The Music of Lesson 7: Don Osváldo Pugliese
Osvaldo Pugliese was the foremost proponent of the avantgarde of tango musicians. He followed in the footsteps of Julio de Caro, the creator and early figurehead of the avantgarde movement who tried to "push the envelope" of tango music from the 20s on.
Pugliese played the piano and had a sizeable number of hit recordings, some his unmistakeable arrangements of other composers' creations, some composed by himself. He composed one of his greatest hits, "Recuerdo", at the age of... well, accounts vary, but he was no older than 19, possibly younger.
After the fall of the military junta following the Falklands war, his orchestra became the first to perform in the prestigious Teátro Colón, the opera house of Buenos Aires.
Pugliese is usually played towards the later stages of a milonga. It is romantic, refined and of great emotional depth, demanding total immersion.
See him play "La Yumba" at Teátro Colón here. Or click here for the short version.
See Pocho and Nely dance to "La Tupungatina" here.
Pugliese played the piano and had a sizeable number of hit recordings, some his unmistakeable arrangements of other composers' creations, some composed by himself. He composed one of his greatest hits, "Recuerdo", at the age of... well, accounts vary, but he was no older than 19, possibly younger.
After the fall of the military junta following the Falklands war, his orchestra became the first to perform in the prestigious Teátro Colón, the opera house of Buenos Aires.
Pugliese is usually played towards the later stages of a milonga. It is romantic, refined and of great emotional depth, demanding total immersion.
See him play "La Yumba" at Teátro Colón here. Or click here for the short version.
See Pocho and Nely dance to "La Tupungatina" here.