Now Im a little confused.. Modern tango ? as in Intern./ Amer. or T/Arg ?.

lets discount the last one. This leaves us with 2 dances of the same root, and, several steps that are tied into the original form, but each modified.

having established that, then, we may safely say, that the " walks " and Progessive side steps ( even a rock turn ) are synonymous with both styles .

Put technique to one side, and looking at the bare bones of construction, then the 2 are virtually identical.. the major difference ? the music.
if one can accept that premise, then the dance does become the easiest of the Smooth/ Standard ones .

To remember, I,m speaking about an ABSOLUTE beginner , as was Len.

Okay....on all of your points we agree :~}

For an absolute beginner...yes Tango is quick and fun and easy.

Actually, they are Lens, Im just the " messenger "..

Im involed in another debate on another forum about hips " touching in Tango ( Intern./Amer. styles ).

This was one of Scrivs big no no,s.. it kinda bothers me that some people are teaching this,and its reflected in the way that they dance .

One cannot "dance" from the left side in tango if you force your right hip ( Man ) into Lady .

I guess its about illusion .

terence,

I think that some dancers can't seperate out illusion from reality and overcomplicate things, or conversly oversimplify.

A lot of beginning student are taught the hip thing to simplify teaching the technique and I don't suppose it hurts anything at the beginning levels of dance aside from teaching lousy technique. The problem comes when no one corrects the bad technique as the dancer matures.

(I know you already know this)The point is that as you dance the woman should never be in front of the man down the line of dance. A few steps force her there for a split second but she must get back to position almost instantly. As the dance moves the position of the lower body must change. If the woman is moving backwards, her hips actually pivot slightly back and away from the man (without losing connection which happens higher on the body than the hip) to allow for greater movement across the floor. Then they must instantly come back and as a top coach explained to me, imagine the left hip closing the zipper on my partner's trousers. It gives the repositioning an upward and curving motion that it needs. At this point his body should not be in a position where my hip runs into any of his 'parts.'

People can and do take things too literally on this board, but then to be good at ballroom dancing you do have to be a little obssessive and nitpicky.

Its kinda ironic that Len made that statement... sic "easiest"..
( which holds true ) but... as he would be the first to say, understanding the dance conceptually, is much more complex.

The number of people over the yrs that I have coached ( even Pros ) do not realise, or were never told, that tango is danced from the LEFT side.. Hip and leg drive the fwd action ( no hip contact due to body position/ alignment ) and the right leg and body, continue the fwd progress.. the hip obviously, being part of the body, is used in conjunction with leg/body.

As len pointed out, Tango is a BODY dance.. NOT legs.

Even ,and especially when creating a Prom position from a walk , the position of the mans body should bring the lady into Prom with her body position slightly behind, again proving that the 2 hips do NOT connect.

The lack of rotation danced into Prom. by Man, can/may cause the unenviable position of a side by side action thus causing an untenable position from which to move thru the Prom.

Incidentally, I wonder how many realise, that there is a very slight " Hip lift " of the L side man, R side lady,as the Prom position is achieved .

"I've never struggled with the Foxtrot "

Then you've never really danced it.


It won't remain a struggle after thorough training is accomplished, but no one is able to do the ultimate form of this dance without some period of learning struggles.

anymouse,

I'm not saying it wasn't work or I didn't have frustrations...heck...still have frustrations with this and every other dance I have ever worked on. I don't always get the footwork 100%, I sometimes don't like the way footwork flows and I have to fight with myself to make my feet do what my head knows is correct. My head may sneak the wrong direction, I might be having a bad day and not have enough tone in my arm or enough stretch in my torso. Heaven forbid, sometimes I don't even pull/roll myself backwards...I just step and wonder what the hell is wrong with me when I know better. I do all of these things...yes but I have indeed truly danced a foxtrot.

Learning ballroom is a matter of degree of struggle...degree of frustration and natural ease of picking up a particular dance. My grandfather has danced foxtrot with me since I was five. Because of this I had a super smooth learning curve and I would never pretend I'd gotten to the ultimate form of this or any other dance.

It would be very funny to post THAT on Dance Forums' Tango board and see what response you got!

Actually, its comeup in the past , and most will agree.

even in T/Arg, not all songs are written the same, tempi varies considerably over the range .

Add to that, the new styles of music which are becoming acceptable in some quarters ( not by traditionalists ).

Wow, and I thought nobody knew one thing about tango here...Anyway, here is my understanding. I believe modern (Argentine) tango refers to the music started by Astor Piazzolla in the late 50s. As opposed to the tango my parents used to dance back in the 30s when Carlos Gardel was the biggest tango star. Then in the middle came the "orquestas tipicas" such as D'Arienzo, Biaggi, De Angelis, Troilo, D'Agostini, Stampone, Pugliese, Firpo (to name just a few). All these tipicas would feature a singer famous among which were Polaco Goyeneche, Alberto Moran, Jorge Vidal, Susana Rinaldi, Lydia Borda, Lalo Martel, Alberto Marino, Ribero and hundreds more. To understand the lyrics would be difficult as all these sing Lunfardo - Castellano (Spanish)with strong Italian (and other languages) influence. Piazzolla almost eliminated the singer and composed beaufiful tango which is not made for singing or dancing. Or, if you try to dance it, you'd better have ballet training.
I have been looking for a female tango partner of any age. Drop me a note if interested.

Hernan