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First let me introduce the six
Cs. These are elements that will confront and confound a novice
leader in Tango (in no particular order):
C ontrol (of body movements needed to dance)
C ommunication (of the eloquent, non-verbal kind)
C reativity (this requires proficiency in all other Cs)
C onfidence (even in the absence of all the other five
Cs)
C onnection (a synergy of mind, body and spirit)
C ompetition (the ultimate inspiration to better oneself)
For a male, learning to dance
tango is a house of cards. It only takes one of the Cs above
to fail and the house (the male ego) is in danger of collapsing.
Ego is inextricably linked to all the above Cs, and the addition
of female company in the dance only sharpens the knife edge on
which the novice dancer is precariously balanced.
It is vitally important for any
tango community to encourage and nurture its male dancers by
designing a curriculum around a skill set of the 6 Cs in addition
to more dance focussed techniques. Failure to do this can only
lead to a high drop-out of male dancers.
Observe your male dancers carefully.
Encourage even the smallest improvement and link difficulties
and failings to specific skill requirements. Most men are more
open to causal concepts and left-brain prevalent thinking so
the way you teach needs to balance both mechanical and esoteric
descriptions. How would you describe the colour red to a blind
person?
As soon as novice
dancers have acquired a basic skill of the 6 Cs, I have observed a
curious phenomenon. Generally speaking, male dancers are likely to
stagnate their dance. Once they believe they have acquired sufficient
proficiency, they stop learning. They may still attend classes and
workshops, but to a keen observer, they do not improve their
dance.
From a male ego perspective,
they don't need to improve their dance. There are usually more women
than men at UK milongas and if you can deliver a convincing set
of 6 Cs, women will come to ask you for a dance.
Which brings me to the heart
of the problem. Over the last 100+ years, the socio-dynamics
that evolved the dance have been turned upside down. We now have
more women than men. The competitive edge, the peacock strutting,
the machissmo essence that made men NEED to dance well to enjoy
the company of a woman is gone.
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Occasionally it re-emerges. I
remember a light hearted remark at a workshop we organised led
by a young argentinian who pushed the limits of all our dancers
and particularly wowed our ladies. "Hey Steve, stop bringing
in these great dancers, they are making us men work harder!"
Now women have to compete for
the attention of a male dancer which may explain why ladies are
first in the queue for our lessons and workshops.
The real problem is
the number of men who try the dance for a few weeks and disappear. The
real challenge for a teacher is to provide as much mental and physical
awareness of the dance using the 6 Cs in the first few weeks of dance
education and watch for the tell tale signs of a collapse of ego. In so
many ways, tango reflects the connundrum of life, and often there is no
single, simple solution to a problem. I try to use a creative and
lateral approach in my thinking and teaching. I have taught 'men only'
practicas to fast-track the 6 Cs, learning lead and follow 'mano a
mano'. I ask men at our lessons and events to respect the etiquette of
asking a lady for a dance in a respectful way, and also watching the
floor to invite any ladies who are sitting out a lot. We have not
advised our ladies NOT to ask men for a dance even though the logic to
do this is convincing. We are frequently inviting instructors who we
feel can inspire, energise and maybe encourage some old fashioned
competition and peacock strutting through their teaching.
This article is focussed on the
acquisition of dance skills by men. That is not to say that the
dance comes naturally to women. As a 'follower', at least to
start with, women do not have the extra responsibility of 'leading'.
We often teach using an exchange of roles of lead and follow
between men and women to encourage a better understanding of
the dance in general and each others role in particular. As both
man and woman progress in tango, the boundaries of leading and
following start to blur until both dancers share the dance and
become one dancer with four legs.
We have realised that we should
not try to impose values based on the way tango was danced in
Buenos Aires in the 1900s. We can respect its argentinian roots
but we are dancing tango in the UK in the twenty-first century
and our needs are different. The dance will evolve.
This article is declared open
source and free from copyright by its author Steve Morrall, 2005.
Please attribute extracts to to the author using this webpage
as the source. If you have an experience
of tango as a dance, social interaction, confrontation, reconciliation,
or enlightenment that you would like to share, please email Steve
at the address shown below. Thanks
Email Tango UK with comments about these
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