Expressions of follower musicality

I have had hard time trying to find the difference between a musical expression and an adorno. Both are part of the follower's musicality and so far the degree of independence of the movement is the most clear difference I have found. For adornos a follower takes own initiatives based on music and the time available. One of the most frequent adornos are the small kicks done every now and then. Another possibility is the marking with the toes on music.

Noelia is following fantastically the piano here!



The followers can find a lot of ways, when carrying out the lead and they have a lot of space to find a personal way to take the steps according to her personal musical taste.

Here you have one of Juana's! That planeo is fantastic!


But there is a beautiful area in between these two, where the follower just adds something extra to the lead.

Watch this, when Juana takes the step and goes down following the piano.



Or this one from Noelia when she divides the step to a series of steps; first slowly and then with two markings!

To recognize the musicality

Humans have an ability to recognize the rhythms and let the body react and flow with those impulses.

In our family history we have a story about me, one year old, hands on the radio table edge and moving the whole body to this song. This was also the moment my mother became sure about my musicality!

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I am touched

When I started to dance, there were no YouTube videos and I didn't have access to videotapes either. The skill and knowledge in our community was the whole universe and the local teachers were the only source of knowledge, our heroes and heroines. We were enjoying our dance!

Things have changed since then and today the best performances are always availble in the net, so my eyes are used to certain standard.  And that little voice inside me is always looking for mistakes, criticising. That little voice is keeping me on the surface, keeping me from experiencing anything.

There has been two situations where this critical voice has been shut up, repeatedly! In both cases the couple was dancing and in their dance the music was more in center than the steps. Suddenly I noticed that it was quiet inside me and I was deeply enjoying the dance.

The third one is this video where an old man is singing in an afternoon milonga. I discovered this clip about a year ago and since then I have returned back every now and then. When I am listening to his song, I get alive inside, somehow his song is giving me an anchor to the deeps inside me. I am touched.

Live Music with Kate & Roberto

My odd musicality

I have no musical education so the basic singing and some dancing are the only active experiences of music before tango.

For some reason I started to walk to music and I soon noticed that at certain times the steps got a deep meaning for me. Then suddenly I felt again how ridiculous it was to walk around to music, alone at home. I started to chase these meaningful steps because those steps must connect to the music in right way. I became an intuitive dancer and I mostly placed my steps according to the structures other then basic count.

I had also lost my childhood musical memory so I never knew what was coming next - I felt as if being an audio head in an old tape recorder. This forced me to dance without any plans, but just concentrating on the music sounding NOW. You don't necessarily need to know what is coming next; Followers are actually doing that all the time - they seldom know what movements are coming next. Leader's relation to music is similar as the followers relation to my steps.

For these reasons I was TOTALLY unaware of beat, phrases and the parts of tango.

How was I doing then?

In the beginning of a song I let my body move on the spot and find the music, find the feeling of meaningful movements and then go. Some times I was pointed out as the only (!?) one on the small pista who was stepping on the beat all the time. I got positive feedback on my phrasing and my dancing was great fun for followers too.

But to participate on a musicality workshop was a living hell to me!

Walk on beat .......? Walk only on 1 ....?? I was painfully aware of being different, I was out. I tried to look how others were doing and asked my follower. The last two years of that period I was aware of that others heard something very vital in music, but what? I couldn't form a question and nobody asked me how I was doing.

About two years ago a tango friend gave me Joaquin Amenabars book Tango:Let's Dance to the Music! I started to do the practical exercises and two weeks later I heard first time the beat - I was totally exhilarated! Totally! Several years of frustration was canalised in work with that book. I have done it several times alone and several times with tango friends.

But there is one big devil!

My early tango was magical, something between my body and the music. I did not have control of it, the first time in my life my aware brain did not have anything to say when the feet were dancing. Quite interesting, nice!

I was and I still am afraid of that the musical training changes my dance to some kind of mechanical step machinery. Therefore I try to balance the technical drills with other exercises to keep the magical, emotional side strong enough