Structural Approach Rooted in System of Turns: Argentine Tango Dance.

"A Structural Approach Rooted in a System of Turns"

for Learning the Argentine Tango Dance.

Taught by Fardad Michael Serry since 2005,

guided and inspired by the teachings of the world's preeminent tango couple,

Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne,

and of the late Alberto Paz.

For people who want to learn about Argentine Tango dance in depth ... Welcome!

Contradictions in the tango encyclopedia, and the role of good fortune in avoiding the handicap they inculcate.

When I started taking Argentine tango dance classes in 2003, and for a good two years afterwards, I often got confusing and contradictory information and instruction, not least from very famous teachers, including from Buenos Aires. Going to each class was like opening a new page in a thousand-page encyclopedia; randomly, haphazardly. The entries on different pages were inconsistent, confusing, and often contradictory. Most of my classmates did not care. Today in many places the situation is not much different. Fortunately for me, I was frequently travelling on business, and wherever I went I looked up tango teachers. During a fateful trip to New Orleans, I found Alberto Paz and Valorie Hart, who showed me how easy it is to become handicapped in learning tango dancing, and what the dancer needs to learn to avoid it.

Consider these two quintessential tango clichés:

"Tango is a walking dance; if you can walk, you can tango."

"Tango is a walking dance; learning to walk is the hardest part of tango."

Many teachers say those things, and many students repeat them without thinking about what they hear and repeat. The teacher and the student take those types of phrases literally, and together diligently practice this. That example of contradictory talk about tango, often in equally poetic language, without an understanding of the intended meaning behind the words, explains one reason why the tango dance has one of the highest attrition rates of beginners among all partner dances. Other examples abound. Southern California is home to some 20 million people. Since 2003 no less than five hundred teachers, local and visiting, have taught group and private tango lessons here. Do you think there are five hundred good tango dancers in Southern California?

Tango is powerful!

It is a curious thing that otherwise clear-minded, rational people rarely question the incoherent, inconsistent information rampant about the Argentine tango dance. For example, they start out (as I did) by learning that walking, and that they should do it on the outside "lanes". I taught that in 2004. That shopping cart walk video is from one of my early classes. If I could find them, I would go and pay all the people in that video their money back and apologize for taking their money and wasting their time. At that time there wasn't, but today there must be dozens of videos on the internet of people dancing at milongas in places like Buenos Aires and where nobody does that. People even travel to Buenos Aires and see with their own eyes that nobody except for a few tango tourists does that at a milonga. They see that there are no "lanes" in a milonga, like there are in a highway, and that not just the really good dancers, but also the dancers with limited experience are turning, and turning most of the time, they rarely walk in a straight "lane". Yet, when they return to the US, they get back to doing the same thing so they can "refine" their tango walk, on the outside "lane". Then, after some time when they are no longer beginners, they spend countless hours studiously duplicating step combinations (with numbers identifying the steps) even though the very teachers who teach that also tell them that tango is an improvised dance. If it is an improvised dance, why does the student say "I can't remember the next step"? Why does the student say "I can't remember if that was 7 or 8"? Once a dancer gets used to this way of thinking and doing, it becomes difficult to change it. Difficult to remove the shackles off the feet, and difficult to take the dogma out of the beliefs about what tango dancing is and what tango dancing is not. That is an example of the inexplicable power of tango, in this case to instill handicap where there wasn't one before.

But the power of tango can also be positive.

Knowledge-driven Learning.

In one class a dancer learns one thing; in another class, perhaps from another teacher, (s)he learns another thing, ... Do these "things", even when they seem disparate, have a common thread running through them, a kind of glue that pulls and holds them together?

Can these "things" be unambiguously and clearly articulated in unmistakably comprehensible language with definitive pedagogic utility for learning other "things" in the tango dance too?

Is it possible to see several different aspects of the dance as emanating from a few core, clearly identifiable elements and ideas? I don't mean from a few step, like "front, side, back". Does a blueprint exist to facilitate advancing a clear, consistent understanding of the dance, from which then creativity, originality, and pleasant surprises in a truly improvised tango dance may derive? Frequently?

The answer to all these questions is yes:

The Argentine Tango dance has a beautiful and equally utilitarian structure. We articulate it in easily comprehensible language. We use clearly-defined concepts, and correspondingly-clearly teachable fundamental corporal, technical, and musical elements to introduce and work with this structure.

Every tango dancer can learn and understand this structure. From that understanding (s)he can gain amazing insight into the possibilities of the dance and the music for expression and for connecting to other human beings; and find his or her (or a couple's) dance transforming in ways that reflect a unique identity. This is unapologetically knowledge-driven learning. It takes some time, and it takes engaging the mind for sure, but it is here and you can learn it. It is a lot easier than many things most people do in their daily lives! But you must first believe the dance is worthy of respect, and give it that respect. Then you can learn it, then you can own it.

Many precious intangibles in tango dancing are highly subjective and personal. Romance, passion, and elegance cannot be taught in a tango class, not least because different people have different ideas of them. What one dancer may consider a stale, inflexible, and frozen-in-time form, may be considered elegant and smooth by another dancer. More importantly, whatever the subjective qualities may mean to a dancer, they usually cannot be enjoyed without first learning to dance well TO THE MUSIC.

Some parts of learning this dance are NOT subject to interpretations and opinions, because they are subject and subordinate to FACTS. Learning the tools to dance tango well need not be a subject of mystery, secrets, and vague and loosely outlined half-baked ideas.

A tango dancer gradually develops his or her unique voice in the dance as (s)he first learns, then comes to own, those parts of the dance that are NOT subjective.

The structure of the tango dance is not subjective. Learning it requires no decoding of confusing or contradictory information. Equally important: it is not style-dependent.

The structure of the Argentine tango dance is rooted in a system of turns. It is universal; it is "style"-independent.

Why is learning the structure important?

Technique, musicality, navigation, partner connection, sequences of steps, and even styling and embellishments ..., they all become integrated through understanding the structure, and understanding the imperatives and the alternatives that the structure encodes into all aspects of the dance. This starts with a clear, unambiguous articulation, and clear, unambiguous understanding of the clear and unambiguous role of each partner. Understanding the roles is the opposite of trying to make sense of bits and pieces of vague, often contradictory information and subjective ideas about leading and following which plague the progress of too many tango dancers, many of whom unfortunately sooner or later give up. It does not have to be that way. There is a clear, accessible, enjoyable, and fulfilling alternative.

Benefit of the structural approach rooted in the system of turns to learning tango:

First: Clarity replaces confusion, sensibility true to the human instinct and experience starts reasserting itself, ... and bit by bit, you start feeling really good because you can understand tango, not just duplicate its steps and figures. From this follow many other things. For example:

Learning and progress become easier, independent of personal stylistic preferences. Partners will progress and advance together faster and easier.
As a man or woman, a leader or follower, your dancing becomes more refined, and more enjoyable, with more partners who also know the structure; these are some of the best tango dancers and they dance all over the world; and most of them do not give a hoot about entering a tango competition, including in Buenos Aires.
You will learn anything from anyone, easier, faster, and more efficiently.
You will be able to explain your own or other dancers' ideas unambiguously in ways that facilitate learning and the dissemination of tango knowledge, in the process also removing some of the enigma in tango for other dancers.
You will see the logic that underlies technique and fundamental musicality. But make no mistake: There remains infinite possibilities for personalized individual musical, corporal, emotional, and intellectual expressions that can neither be taught, not learned, ... rather, you invent them, articulate them, dance them, and mature them over time. That is the magical power of the Argentine tango!
You will see that musicality in the dance is not entirely subjective (any half-serious musician will tell us that about music, too).
Neither improvisation, nor navigation, nor styling and embellishments are exclusively the domains of one partner or the other.
As your understanding of the structure advances, you will also gradually free yourself from memorizing steps.

Don't settle for handouts from the tango encyclopedia; in the long run, it will cost you in time, money, good will, and it will frustrate you, far more than it will bring you enjoyment. We can show you how to dance, and more importantly, how to learn how to dance. We can help bring out the best tango dancer in you.

Come dance tango with us!