For a lot of people, the idea of Leading a dance in Argentine Tango either strikes fear into their heart, and they psyche themselves out to the point where they believe that they can’t do it. Or they overthink the thing to death and reach the same point of thinking they can’t do it or that it’s exceptionally difficult. Or there are those that believe that they feel comfortable enough with Leading a dance. In all three of these types of Leads, regardless of the role (Leading or Following), there’s a moment of “What’s Next ?” right at the beginning of a song. For the Follower, the moment comes in the form of the Follower asking the question in their mind, “What do they (the Lead) want ?” over and over again in their minds. Even though they’ve settled into the embrace, until there is movement, until there is some kind of signal (resistance and compression based or intention based dancing) the Follower exists in a heightened state of hyper-awareness of asking this question. For the Lead, the question becomes “What am I going to do ?” over and over and over again until they’re either forced to move because they’re holding up the line of dance or they fall into their standard opening. In both cases, the dance starts from a place of confusion and cluelessness of “What’s Next ?”. What if as a Lead or as a Follower that state of confusion, that state of feeling dumbfounded were to completely disappear ? What would happen to your abilities as a dancer if you created a series of Openings (and closings) to the dance. Not a series of intricate patterns, no….but rather, simple ways to start a dance that put both Lead and Follower at ease ? That’s where today’s Tango Topic picks up. It addresses what to do at the beginning of the dance with 7 Ways to Start a Dance, as well as 9 Ways not to Start a Dance. So without further yappment, Tango Topics presents the importance of Seven Argentine Starters!
What Is A ‘Starter’ ? A ‘Starter’ is a bit misleading, no pun intended because one might erroneously reach the conclusion that an Argentine Starter was a specific piece of vocabulary, a pattern, that you can use. Unfortunately that’s not the case. It’s more of a simple primer, actually 7 simple primers, that you can use to create more complex choices. Think of an Argentine Leading Starter as something a Vaudeville dancer would call “Vamping” until you’re ready for something else. Which roughly translates from a Vaudeville perspective of doing the same thing over and over and over until everyone is on the same page, doing what they need to be doing, in the right key, on the right note, singing the right words, in the same steps, and then they can proceed with the next thing. The same thing is true in Argentine Tango to an extent. In it’s simplest form an Argentine Leading Starter is a series of simple movements to begin a dance with. That’s it, that’s all. There’s nothing grandiose about it but there is something calming about it. And that’s the important part. Calming both partners. We desire calm, rational, clearly thought out movement, as well as thought and creating a state of placid, serene, almost tranquil state of mind and body for three distinct purposes: 1.) Getting to a deeper state of integration with one’s partner. 2.) Creating a heightened state of readiness for all that may occur that is as much about awareness as it is about being delightful. 3.) Removing any and all nervousness and confusion because we’re employing simple things that can translate to more complex things later on. This is an Argentine Starter.
Follower’s Notation. It should be noted that if you’re a Follower, just because this topic sounds like “Leading…” whatever, that shouldn’t pay attention. When the reality is that you DO in fact want to pay attention to this stuff for a wide variety of reasons which we’ll get to in the Follower’s Perspective below.
The Nine Non-Starters. Let’s paint a picture.
You finally get the chance to dance with the parnter that you’ve been wanting to dance with all night long. You’ve been waiting for your chance, just the right moment when they’re available, the right tanda, the right…everything. You seize the opportunity with your best Cabeceo/Mirada! The potential partner responds with a hearty nod in your direction. You look around you briefly to make sure that they’re replying to your Cabeceo/Mirada, you look back at them and they smile and nod emphatically that it is indeed you that they’ve said “yes” to. The Lead walks around the dance floor, not across (tsk, tsk, tsk) it, to get to the Follower. The Follower waits for the Lead to get to them, and they stay seated until the Lead gets to them, so that they can extend their hand to the Follower. The Follower, in keeping in the vien of these things, hasn’t jumped up to meet the Lead, because they’re making absolutely certain that this Lead is was the one that accepted your cabeceo for.
They do so, and they then take the Follower by the hand walking to them entry point of the Milonga floor. And that’s when the Lead invokes the very needed and acceptable practice of: The Lead’s Cabeceo! Once the couple has entry to the floor guaranteed, they both embrace each other in their best, delisioso embrace that they can muster. It’s soft. It’s warm. It’s inviting. It’s lite but engaging. It’s inviting yet comforting. They feel their partner melt into them and vice versa. They match every nuance of their arms and body molding together. They’re both glowing from ear to ear. OMFG!!! They feel good to each other. It’s a delight of the senses. The first few bars of the music are finally breaking through their consciousness. And that’s when the Lead is reminded that they want to impress this Follower with their best move. So they whip out their finest Volcada right from the start.
NOT!!!!!
This was a lovely set up to a dance with a lovely partner. Lovely right up to the point where the Lead lost their damned mind and decided to use an Argentine Volcada to start their dance! The embrace setup was nice. The walk to the floor was almost bordering on the magical. Even the Lead Cabeceo was a nice touch. The Follower recognized this as the Lead taking care that they’re not jostled in any way. That they have time. And then….the lead had to go and ruin it with this jarring transition from a lovely experience to “Here let me try to impress this Follower with my utmost bestest move….”.
MAJOR ‘NOT’!!!!!
This is a monster no-no on multiple levels.
The reality is that as a couple you can start the dance any way you want to do so. But TangoTopics suggests that there are 9 pieces of Tango vocabulary that you do not want to begin a dance with, and the Argentine Volcada is one of those nine! Truth be told all the items on this list of Tango No-No’s all have one thing in common: They’re All Jarring! Meaning that they’ll all transpose from a lovely embrace starting point into OMFG…WHAT WAS THAT!?!?!?!? Poof….wave good bye to the magical moment.
Think of it this way, imagine that you’re waking up in the morning and you’re having the loveliest of dreams and then your alarm clock goes off with blaring loud music at 6 am in the morning! About the only thing that you can say in that instance is that you’re up. But for you peace of mind and the idea of gently waking from sleep….not so much with that. So without further yappment of what not to do, here are the Nine Ways Not To Start A Dance:
1.) Traveling Ochos. The Applied Disassociation, while seeming trivial is work for the Follower, no matter how you slice it. And if the Follower is engaging pivots instead of Applied Disassociation, it is still work.
2.) The Follower’s Molinete. For the same reason that Traveling Ochos are a major no-no. It’s work right from the moment go for the Follower. Even though these are both foundational elements…one of the Seven Basic Moves of Tango…it’s still a valid move, just too much work to start a dance with. Even though it’s very clear as to what has to happen, there are other ways to communicate this idea of clarity.
3.) Sacadas. Any Sacada. It doesn’t matter which one it is. Even a gentle Social Sacada which may result in a lovely backcross for the Follower…not.
Items 4 – 9 are all the same: 4.) Colgada (any). 5.) Volcada (any). 6.) Parada. 7.) Gancho (any). 8.) Boleo (any). 9.) Pasada.
They all jar the Follower from a state of “What a lovely embrace my partner has…” into “JESUS H. KAY-RICE-T!!!!! What on God’s Green Earth is THAT?!?!?!?!?”.
Not something you want to do.
At all.
Ever.
From A Following Perspective,for you Argentine Starters, if implemented properly should feel like easing you into the dance, like easing into a warm bath. At no point should you be pushed into doing X, Y, or Z. And if you know a Lead that starts the dance this way….here’s a very helpful piece of advice for you which you’re going to completely argue with and then ignore: STOP DANCING WITH THAT LEAD! The reason ? This Lead is focused on vocabulary and not you. This is akin dating someone that’s more interested in being seen with you than you in reality. While they may be lovely people off the dance floor, their vision of dancing is not one that has you in mind. The problem here is that you will keep enabling less than desirable social behavior by continuing to dance with them on a regular basis until you get them to a practica and explain it to them like a five-year-old. Because they need to have it explained them, clearly. This is not to say that you should never dance with this person ever again. But it is to say that you may have to have a few words with them, off the dance floor and/or at a practica and express what you’d actually like. Now to be fair there are some Followers that will view this advice as poppycock because they like jarring transitions. They like being challenged. They want to be pushed. They want to be shoved. They want to be …. whatever it is that they like. That’s the reality. But Tango Topics is willing to bet these same Followers don’t like rough playing 24/7 either but do like a wide variety of experiences. And there’s nothing wrong with that. All we’re suggesting is that there’s a desirable way to start off each and every dance and each and every tanda….and it is not throwing you around the room like a rag doll! To be certain that’s exactly what you’re encouraging each time you accept a dance from a Lead that starts their dances off using one of the methods outlined above.
That said.
There is a reason you do actually want to pay attention to this stuff. Yes, it’s “leading” and that generally isn’t of a whole lot of interest to you but the fact of the matter is that right now you’re hearing one side of a conversation. Ideally, you want to hear the entire conversation. And you can’t do that because you’re only playing with the Role of the Passive Follower. Mind you, you’re executing what your Lead is asking for to the best of your ability but there are times when you hear something in the music that you’d wish a Lead would do, or that you have an idea that you like to play with. It is for these reasons (and nine more actually) that you want to start to pay attention to how a Lead starts a dance with you. The tools that they use or can use to open the dance to greater and greater depths of a piece of music. (See: The Nine Spaces of the Active Follower).
The Follower’s Gotcha. Lack of Awareness. Uuuugh. Trust us. We know what we’re talking about. You just want to turn off, and be led. To exist in that space of just accepting what happens and going with the flooooow. We get it. We’re not blind. It’s a powerful space that is. To close your eyes and just be able to perfect and execute on demand and flow from idea to idea. We get it. That can be ooodles of fun…for about 20 seconds until the Lead jars you out of that state with some crazy fool move that they saw on youtube about 10 minutes before the milonga started while they sat in their car or were on the subway, and haven’t practiced at all in any way, shape, or form except right now in this moment with you…uuuuugh! That lack of awareness of what’s going on right from the get-go can make it appear like you don’t know what you’re doing and worse so you may stumble and never catch up. You’re going to blame yourself for this….when in reality the blame is the Lead’s and not you. But had you been aware, awake, eyes open, cognizant, conscious, active, engaged, instead of passive with your eyes closed just accepting what was happening, then you could avoid that little hiccup and be prepared for the Lead that wants to ‘impress’ you. 🙂
From a Leading Perspective, the one thing that every Lead overlooks is walking with your partner and the importance of it. We take classes on all sorts of vocabulary, and yet all that vocabulary, and musical interpretation of that vocabulary is absolutely pointless if one’s walk is not clean, clear, and consistent.
So as you can see from the video above, the first thing on our list is that we want to start a dance with is: Walking. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with starting your dance with a walk, each and every time and slowly, gradually transitioning into more complex vocabulary choices. However, the importance of the walk should not be relegated to leading into more complex vocabulary. Why is this so ? This is probably one of the only times that Tango Topics will use YouTube Tango Performances as an example of what you want to do from the start. Look no further than each and every Tango performance. What do they all have in common ? They all start out with a walk. This is done for several reasons from a performance perspective, most notably it is the foundation of the dance. Secondly, it is done to showcase what the couple’s foundation looks like. Thirdly that if they’re teaching, and they generally are, to show off the elegance of their walk, the gracefulness of it, as well as power and precision of their walk. Those three factors also apply in Social Tango as well but the focus being not performance but an opportunity to showcase what you can do before you do anything else! So starting with the walk is incredibly important. It’s also a way to get comfortable with your partner, to find out who and what they are, as well as to find where and how you fit together as dancing partners. If you can walk well together, then you’re on to something. As a Lead this aspect should not be overlooked in any way, shape, or form but rather you should look for numerous opportunities within the first song to walk with your partner. And to extend this idea even further, from a musical perspective, here’s a free hint…a great place to accentuate the walk AFTER the beginning of the song, is IF the song contains a singer, then walk to the singer. Why ? The singer is there to lull the listener into another place. So, let the singer do their job. This is not a time talk in your partner’s ear. This is a time to dance, listen to the song, and listen to your partner’s body moving in time to the music, and…the singer!
The next item on this list is Incremental Steps. While these look like Traspie’s, they’re not. They are in fact something else entirely. In the case of the Traspie there is a weight change, an incremental and gradual weight transfer from 10 to 50, to 100% but in an Incremental Step…there’s no weight transfer! None. 🙂 You’re welcome. Number 3 on this list is a Walking Turn. Go look at Walking Turns to see the full benefit of these ideas. Number 4 are Milonguero Ochos. Fortunately for you, you have numerous examples of Milonguero Ochos, however, what this video doesn’t go into a lot of detail on this point. You do however have an extensive video on this very topic: Lead Exercises. Item Number 5 is a Cross System Cross, meaning that instead of a parallel system cross here, which would step outside partner, you’d step in the line of dance and keep on coming. Traditionally this is one way to start the dance. Watch the video for a little history lesson on this one. Item Number Six is a Dark Side Opening. You have video on this one in the form of The Dark Side Salida! And last but not least is a Floating Cross. So named because there’s a point at which there is a moment of suspense between one cross and the next. Yes, you have video on this in the form of Floating, Rotating and Circular Crosses.
The Hard Part is overriding your instinct to dance big with lots of vocabulary, with lots and lots of changes to keep the Follower interested. That’s a Leading fallacy by the way. The Follower has no more interest to dance complex figures or crazy vocabulary than you do to swallow glass! They simply want a very pleasant, and musical experience that they can feel good about. It doesn’t need to get any more complex than that. That’s it, that’s all. It needs to be simple, clean, clear, concise and musical. What this boils down to is to dance in a more myopic way than you’re used to. It means to keep your vocabulary limited to four simple items: Walking, Ochos, Turns, and Crosses with an embrace that is pleasant. One which doesn’t constrict or constrain their motions. One that does not compress, or requires resistance. The rest of the potential vocabulary choices should be used as an accent, or as spice, or as a way to vary the dance slightly. That’s the hard part.
The Lead’s Gotcha! Truthfully there isn’t a gotcha to this stuff. Except possibly knowing it cold and understanding the Musical Pauses. Which is why we recommend the Dancing In A Small Space video and it’s companion piece Dancing In A Small Space – The Addendum. We also recommend studying up on the 5 Pause Types from our Musical Education Course.
The Soup. There isn’t a whole lot left out of this video, it’s more of a high-level food for thought video. The real toys are in the requisite videos that are mentioned in the article itself.
From a Leading Perspective while I glossed over the importance of a singular point, changing your habits, that is going to be hard. Really hard. To put a fine point on this, if your desire is to just create a dance from nothing, and to see what happens. Great…do that. However, more than likely what you’ll end up doing is repeating yourself over and over and over again. You’ll find that you’ll drop into the same patterns repeatedly, doing the same things to the same types of music. And the way that I know that to be true is because I had a thing with Patter for a long, long, long time…I saw Horacio Godoy do it in a class and then several performances and then took a few lessons with him to understand it more fully, only to realize that that’s just his thing. So I took what I got from him and made it my own and worked it into the flow of what I teach. What I didn’t realize until later was that it had completely infected my dance. It was everywhere. It had become my default movement. The same thing happened with Incremental Steps…that was my signature goto move for ages until Patter took over. Uuuuugh. It took me AGES, or what felt like ages, to unlearn what I had taught myself to do to get back to the simple things that I’m advocating you to do here. And in that “AGES”, I had to fight my instincts the entire time and place Patter and Incremental Steps in their appropriate places in the dance, as accent or spice and nothing more than that.
From a Following Perspective, you really do have to understand this stuff. I know for many of you reading this you won’t understand just how important learning to lead is. But the end result of that education, even though you may NEVER lead a step in your life, is that you will understand when something is being asked of you and be able to execute it on a dime. Why is that important ? Because here in this Argentine Starters the Follower must be Jane-On-The-Spot, and make minute changes if they have any hope of wanting to interject their own ideas of how they hear the music. So that means you absolutely need to understand these structures so that you can recognize them, plan for them, and then learn to work around them, through them, in between them!
About The Video. This video is 25m:13s in length in 4 sections. Both lead and follower technique are combined and integrated into the video.
Introduction – 00:02:43
9 Ways Not To Start A Dance – 00:06:08
7 Ways to Start A Dance – 00:13:59
Closure With Examples – 00:01:51