| Steve and Debbie Morrall's
teaching philosophy
"We believe
anyone can learn to dance
tango well enough to enjoy themselves and
feel a sense of achievement in sharing the dance creatively with
another person."
Our teaching experience
Steve is a life-long
musician and creative artist. Before tango, Steve
developed his teaching skills as an IT trainer for a national charity
and as a horse-riding instructor. Both roles helped him to evolve a
pedagogical interaction with people and an understanding that effective
teaching requires a development of a student's mind, body and
spirit.
Our teaching method
Steve
is a natural and
intuitive teacher who draws on strengths that
Myers-Briggs (MBIT)
would categorise as eNFJ (extravert,
iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging)
a rare mix of qualities only found in 2-3% people.
Steve is an advocate
of the possible,
a man
who will say 'half full' rather than 'half empty', a teacher who
instinctively looks to and expects the best in people. He inspires
confidence and self-belief because he is enthusiastically confident and
believes in himself.
As a
teacher, he encourages with positive feedback, celebrating the smallest
improvement. In mixed level workshops, Steve is at his best and can
spontaneously and effortlessly dream up activities and imagery that
will help students acquire dance skills.
He teaches tango as a
process of
engaging mind, body and spirit and will draw on all his life skills of
theatre, music, dance, clowning and art to help people bring out their
inner potential.
Steve and Debbie
prefer not to teach choreography which traps dancers in sequences and
makes them slaves to their memory.
Tango is about the
music and dancing from
the heart. In a recent class, Steve and Debbie were working on breaking
the dance down into taking one considered step at a time. In the class,
Steve said "....think of
tango as non-verbal
communication. A conversation with a
stranger will start simply and grow in depth and complexity as we learn
how they respond, what they are interested in, what moves them and what
they don't like."
To illustrate this, he showed the dancers exercises to apply
this
concept in the way mind and body could understand.
"Start every
dance simply - even with
a partner you know well. They can have off days too and need to refocus
on you and your dance. Don't hurry steps, savour moments of simply
walking together in an embrace. Ask yourself - can you feel her heart
beat? Can you
feel tension? Are you tense? Don't forget to breathe. A deep, slowly
exhaled breath in an embrace will encourage your partner to relax."
Read
other articles by
Steve on argentine tango in Pink
Papers.
Where can I learn to
dance with
Steve and Debbie?
We
teach group
workshops, weekly classes, private lessons at Bramshaw in the New
Forest. Directions
We also host
special teaching
events like
'Tango
at La Rogaia' in Italy. Occasionally, we lead
workshops and teach at festivals
and other tango events around the country which we publish on our events
page and via our 'opt-in'
email newsletter.
If
you are a beginner, you can learn to dance with us at our Studio
in Bramshaw on Thursday nights.
Our 8 week beginners' course will teach you how to dance 'walking in an embrace to
music'. This takes
place on Thursday evening from 7.45 - 9.00pm
When
you graduate from the first level 'walking in an embrace to music'
class, we offer an second level class which focuses on 'rotating
together in an embrace to music.' This takes place on Thursday evening
from 9.15 - 10.30pm. When you graduate from this class, we guide you
towards our supervised practicas, private lessons and week-end
workshops, advising each dancers on the format that best suits their
needs.
For all other levels, we offer a weekly practica on Monday night at our
dance studio at Bramshaw. This is open to all levels.
For more advanced dancers, we offer a 'by invitation only' small group
supervised practica using video monitoring for movement analysis.
This takes place at our Bramshaw dance studio on Tuesday nights from 8pm to 11pm.
Curriculum for our 8 week Thursday
night improvers class at Bramshaw
| Objectives: |
Secrets
of the tango embrace and the tango walk. Introducing floorcraft. |
|
Side
step or change of weight. So similar yet so different. |
|
Collaborative movement through non verbal communication.
There is NO lead and follow in tango! |
|
Walking
in an embrace to music. Tango is ALL about the music, so lets learn how
to dance simply to it. |
|
Learning
to dance tango is like learning to speak another language. Lets tell
each other a story in 'tango-speak'. |
|
Walking
the dance or dancing the walk - understanding the difference will help
you move like an Argentinian. |
|
Learning
4 different rhythms for walking tango |
|
A
review of all the above and gentle assessment of participants' needs to
improve their dance |
Other
workshops and classes that progress and augment our teaching philosophy
Tango
Bodyshop is aimed at
dancers of any level who feel their dance needs a boost. It uses the
latest video technology to give instant visual feedback to dancers and
is a very powerful learning and refining
tool for posture, style, axis and balance.
The Tango Tangk
is a weekend workshop organised by
us in three level. Teaching is provided
by visiting
maestros from around the world who we know and trust to provide the
very best tuition. Steve is available for private lessons during Tango
Tangks.
Practicas are sessions set aside for deliberate practice in a large
space without the challenge of floorcraft.
Small group video practicas are based on the Bodyshop teaching concept.
They are supervised by an experienced teacher, and use digital video
and large scale video projection on a 3 minute time delay so you can
review your movement and discuss how to improve your technique.
Our musicality workshops and seminars separate the processes of (a)
learning to understand tango music and (b) moving with understanding to
tango music. Using a grand piano and bandoneon, Steve Morrall teaches
these workshops using a mix of seated audience participation to
build an understanding of musical structure and movement to music. This
process draws on his experience of engaging left/right brain through
teaching techniques. |