Too much of a good thing?
As sort of a follow-up to my thoughts on technique, I've run into a little snag I'd like some feedback.
When I get compliments about my embrace, I'm absolutely elated. When someone compliments the way my walk feels, I feel accomplished. Compliments about my musicality - ditto.
When I start getting lots of compliments about my foot work, however - I get worried. I shouldn't right? A compliment is a compliment, and should be taken graciously. It's certainly meant as a positive thing. It's a good thing if a dancer's feet are pretty - why else would everyone wear those silly, yet gorgeous, shoes? But like Richard Dreyfuss staring down his plate of mash potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I can't help thinking it means something.
Something not good.
I don't mean like a backhanded compliment - but more like a fear that my priorities have unintentionally shifted. Maybe it's a community thing. Online I very often read leaders' complaints about followers' adornments and suggestions that women who adorn are "dancing for the tables", or secretly want to lead etc. etc. Yet, when I'm dancing in the milongas here, I've noticed that my increased effort on foot work has resulted in a greater number of invitations to dance. (Of course I'm very aware that how you look can get you that first tanda with a dancer - but how you feel determines if you get any invitations after that.)
So at the last several practicas, I've been asking leaders - how do I feel? Am I too "noisy" in the dance? Do I feel like I'm disconnecting? I asked leaders who I knew would be freer with criticism of my dancing and got a lot of good feedback - which was reassuring. I still felt connected, some leaders said I felt even more so lately. My walk was still strong, grounded and mostly smooth (which is pretty much par for the course.) Okay, so that's a bit of a relief.
And then more questions.
So I experimented a bit (again at practicas - not in the milongas.) I tried "turning off" the embellishments and particular foot placements, but found it much harder to do than I thought it would be. Even when I dance very, very quietly, I'm careful and deliberate in how I place my feet. Deliberately not moving my feet that way felt like I was sucking the life out of the music - and not really answering my partner's musicality.
One leader told me that when he could feel something that could be categorized as an embellishment, it didn't feel like something I was doing on my own, but an answer to what he was doing - which is how it felt to me. So what about the leaders who say when a follower embellishes, she's dancing by herself? Where is the line? Is it just something that varies from leader to leader, which would be understandable, or are there really some embellishments and adornments that leaders find noisy generally?
And where is the line between an embellishment and simply how someone moves? I was told that an embellishment or adornment was anything a follower does that is not led by the leader. Which sort of makes sense, and sort of doesn't. After all, the leader leads me to walk - but not exactly how to walk. He leads the length and speed of the step, but how I place my foot is up to me. I choose according to the music and the style he is leading. And choose is really the wrong word here. I'm not weighing my options and choosing the best one. I'm responding to what I feel from my leader and how he moves. If he moves softly and smoothly, I try to move softly and smoothly in return. If the next leader dances more sharply and rhythmically, with sharp collections and taps, and I adjust accordingly - when am I embellishing, and when am I simply following?
For example, the partner that I quoted above and I were dancing to a milonga. One thing that I do that had received compliments (and bear with me, it's difficult to describe) was rather than just collecting my feet, if the music was right for it, I would slow my foot down as I collected almost like building momentum and then at the last moment on the sharp beat, snap my feet closed. When done at the same time as my leader, who collects in a similar way during that particular milonga, it creates a great connectedness when marking the end of the phrase. It just plain feels good to do it. When I didn't do it, it felt sort of flat to him and to me - like I was muffling the music and the lead.
I'm sure there are lots of very strong feelings on the subject (pulling on my asbestos knickers) - and I look forward hearing some feedback (really). What I would like to avoid however are blanket, black and white judgments about the character or motivations of dancers who adorn or don't. Those kinds of statements, like the ones I quoted above, don't really further the discussion. I'm much more interested in hearing from dancers about when or how adornments add or take something away from the dance experience. What makes a dancer (leader or follower) feel "noisy"? Where do you draw the line with interpreting the music? When it's a problem - is the problem with the adornment, or could it be an issue of poor technique while executing the adornment?
I do still allow anonymous comments, so should any local dancers like to weigh in on this, I strongly encourage you to do so. (Even if the feedback is, "damn chica, you've been going too nuts with the feet lately.") Try not to swear too much since my grandmother reads this blog. :)
Comments
As a blanket statement, I generally don't like adornments because they confuse the hell out of me. Apart from when there is deliberate separation and we are dancing as if apart. But in the middle of tango, when we are one, adornments confuse me. The energy for them has to come from somewhere and if they end up in some adornment, the energy is lost. I can't help think that my partner is bored.
From what you describe, it seems to me that you follow well, and match your partner's style. I like the idea of a movement that I can feel, and thus the energy is returning. But I detest when my partner just grabs me and uses my grounding to conduct some kind of move all by herself -- apart from when this is "allowed" when we are two separate dancers.
Hmm... I think it comes down to how... much of a tango you are dancing... how deep. In your previous post you mention a heartbeat through a jacket... for that level of depth, adornments are... for what purpose?
Oh dear.... my post is nowhere near as eloquent as yours. And I hope that the comments that appear below do not fulfil any of your nightmarish expectations towards the end of your blog....
There are moves that the leader may intend the follow to take, but it is only an invitation, and the follower may do something that the leader did not intend. That may be due to the lead not being accurate, the follower not being skilled enough, or the follower simply having a different interpretation of the music or something like that. The leader then has to go with it, accepting responsibility for it, and pretending that is what was led.
Even beyond this scenario, I would say that despite what many leaders seem to think, the follower is not a marionette with very short strings, and the dance is not about leading and following, but it is about two people dancing together. The fact that we have a convention that there is one leader and one follower is mainly an expedient. If there is any doubt about this check out Los Hermanos Macana on YouTube.
I like a follower to express the music in any way she or he feels it, so long as it does not interrupt or block the dance of the leader. A follower who makes these kind of movements puts a lot of joy into her dance. As a leader, I can't actually see what she's doing, but I can feel that there is something going on down there that gives her a special connection to the music, and I like that.
Sure, there are some leaders out there who are egomaniacs who don't like the idea of their partner improvising, and some followers out there who put in so many extra movements that are not connected to the music or their partner, but between these extremes there is a very nice zone of creativity for the follower.
This is typically a dance for two, and leaders and followers should be dancing for each other, above all.
On the one hand, I try to pay attention to how the leader is hearing the music and to adapt to that and match the cadence and style of my movements to his (which I can do much more easily if I am listening too). But there are also moments in the dance where I have the opportunity to show him how I hear things. There are moments where almost every good leader is still -- at the end of a musical phrase, for example, or, in a different kind of example, when he is waiting for the follower to pass in a parada. And those are obvious places where I can do little decorations which express how I feel the music at that point (there are many other opportunities to do this, too). My aim with these decorations is not so much to look pretty (unless I am performing when this is a factor) as to express something the music inspires me to express and to share that with the leader. Leaders often smile or laugh slightly or make little sounds of enjoyment at those points and when that happens it's almost always a good sign. However, of course, it is also possible to get carried away and overdecorate and you need to be especially wary of this temptation if the music is very dramatic. And if the leader is leading a lot of complicated steps, it's often overkill to decorate as well. It's a question of taste, judgement and experience. I write more about this here http://tangoaddiction.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/musicality/.
www.tangoaddiction.wordpress.com
I like the idea that the Lead leads the 'what' and the follow dances the 'how'. Does that make sense?
Adornments can be beautiful jewels put right at the right moment or they can be a hot mess. Beautiful jewels = good technique.
If a Lead leads us to do something where we have a moment which neither distracts from the music nor the leader then go for it.
I think the music should speak to you and your footwork is an extension of your musicality (as a follow).
My thoughts about adornments are that it is important to be able to do or not do them deliberately - rather than let the muscle memory take over. We dance to much familiar music, and in a rather small community. I work hard on getting away from "this how I always do this step to this music with this leader". I want to stay in the moment, and to be able to improvise - without the automatic movements getting in my way.
Adornments are a part of the dance, and while they are not directly led, they are still part of the couple's communication. Doing an adornment can be a not-so-subtle way to pull control (read: lead) for a bit or two. This can get to feel noisy or irrelevant to a leader if done too often or at inopportune moment. However, when done well it makes the dance so much more interesting for both people.
An adornment can also come from following a suggestion from the leader - a suggestion that is not as strong as a lead ("do this"), but an idea along the lines of "here's some space, do something cool". Marking the end of the phrase the same way as your leader would fall into the second category.
For me some movements feel so natural in a piece of music, it's hard to leave them out when the opportunity presents itself. (Conversely, a movement can feel completely unnatural and forced - slow lapis during a fast milonga for instance - that even though you might be able to fit it somehow into the music - it doesn't seem natural there.)
Your comment reminded me of an email I got on the subject which simply said, if tango is a conversation, why is the leader the only one who gets to talk? I think that's precisely the feeling I would want to avoid.
Thank you again for commenting, Jane - I always look forward to your feedback.
even if a movement feels natural, it is not necessarily the only movement that *could* feel natural. In order to explore the possibilities a dancer needs the freedom to move deliberately.
But the question remains of how much and when to decorate and that is a question of the follower's musicality, judgement, taste and relationship with the leader (there are some leaders who I know love me to decorate a lot and others who don't).
Recently watching videos of Ney and Jennifer I've realised that my perspective has changed.
Tango music can have many things going on it in. For me, tango is largely about choosing which notes not to dance on, but I'm quite happy for the woman to decide that actually she would like to pick them out. Say there's a weak double time rhythm and a strong single time melody. And I decide to just lead a single time walk; I'm perfectly happy for her to adorn the double times.
:50
... If you've received compliments lately from someone other than who you were dancing the tanda with, it may be more due to people noticing your technique is looking great while they're hanging out watching everyone...
Mary,
I agree with the statement above. I have paid you a compliment lately about your footwork; I now realized that I should have talked about your technique. Something about the way your unweighted foot passes the weighted one at the collection point, in a front/back ocho for instance seems caressingly soft, light and musical at the same time. You do the same think just before you collect for a pivot. All of this happens in an instant. Difficult to describe.
As I write this, I think that it is more than technique, it is an embellishment of the technique, and you are taking it to another level.
I can see you do this when I am sitting down and watching the floor.
I also remember complaining to you about followers doing "adornos" that were taking me off my dance, and felt like a lot of things were going on "down there", and I could feel them up to my torso, with the result being that I couldn't tell what foot she was on. This is very annoying. I dance with you as much as I can, and I can guaranty that if you have ever performed an "adorno/embelishemnt" while we were dancing, I have never felt it, except when I lead them and know what to expect, and you have never taken me of the music, no my axis.
Seeing you dance lately, I realized how much you love this dance, and thought about the amount of work that I have to do to keep up with you.
That's a marvelous comment, Dieudonne. Generous, gentle, precise, humble, and strong. I'd shake your hand if I was ever witness such words in person.
Will we ever have milongas where we talk in the way that this blog evokes? Then we would not only be dancing with partners, and I think the movement of the whole floor would become more... articulated.
Yes, being late for the beat, disrupting your own or the leader's movement, using the leader's axis, etc. are technical problems. But I don't agree about them completely disappearing and quickly becoming total non-issues. If you're good, yes, but a significant fraction of dancers will never get to that point - at least that's been my experience of every community I've danced in.
I agree with you about it being each person's preference though - and I think that people having different preferences is a good thing. But I'd far rather dance with a woman that adorns well.
I can't thank you enough for all of your comments, for your generous feedback, and for dancing with me since the beginning of my tango journey.
I just wanted to relate something that I think about nearly every time we dance. The first time I danced with you was when I could still only follow a cross lead about half the time it was led. (And back when a "cross lead" meant "leader takes two steps outside - follower crosses.") I was nervous because you read my blog and I was afraid you would be disappointed in my dancing. And I was stressed about not being able to do molinetes well, or, as I wrote above, even follow the cross lead reliably.
You embraced me, breathed deeply, and then (much to my complete and utter astonishment) led me to cross only by swaying slightly and rotating your chest what felt like a couple of centimeters. I had no idea at the time that such a thing was even possible - you hadn't even taken a step! Yet there I was, in the cross - giggling like a drunk person if I remember correctly. Once I realized I actually could follow a cross, and not by just trying to remember the sequence, I was so much more relaxed.
Anyway, that doesn't exactly relate to what you wrote - I just wanted to share that. Because it was really hugely important to my dancing. It still is. When I tell people that the most important things in tango happen between the leader's heart and mine - that's what I think of.
Mary, you are welcome. You and a few other dancers helped me understand what is meant by "Tango is a feeling that we dance", you had "feeling" from day one, and still do. I have learned that I would rather dance with a beginner who brings feeling to the dance, than with a seasoned dancer who is totally engrossed in technique and looking good on the floor.