The essence of tango, Andrea Misse and Javier Rodriguez

Andrea Misse and Javier Rodriguez are a young couple of artists dedicated to Tango Danza, with an extensive professional experience that has distinguished them Argentina as well as abroad. Talking to El Tangauta, they discussed their career, their teaching and the magic hidden behind its technique.

Does your style combine the roots of Tango Danza and improvisation?

Javier Rodriguez: Yes, it does. Today we are professional dancers, but in the beginning we were milongueros. To be able to show on the dance floor who you really are, you need to improvise and be natural. Just as the way you hold your body and the way you dance on a crowded dance floor should be when it's only for yourself. This is the reason we don't rehearse; at most we practice one or another sequence.

Andrea Misse: We move away from the technique, as we prefer to express what we feel in the moment.

How did you turn from amateur to professional dancers?

AM: I never decided to become a professional dancer. I started to dance with my brothers at the age of 12. Very soon after, we were invited by different milonga venues to dance and over the years the offers we received became more interesting. I was a student at university and I had other jobs, but my passion has always been dancing.

JR: I did not search for it, it happened to me as it happened to her. I started to dance as a teenager: in time milonga organizers asked me to perform here as well as abroad. In those days, professional tango dancers did not exist. Juan Carlos Copes was a myth and Miguel Angel Zotto and Milena Plebs, although they were not so much older, seemed equally out of my league. However, things just happened all of a sudden, I found myself on a speeding train that would not stop and that absorbed my life so entirely that the moment finally arrived when I couldn't imagine having a second job: I taught, danced and kept on taking classes. Tango Danza requires so much time that you end up accepting it as a career. But you have to give it your all, giving only hall of it does not lead to a good result.

How less becomes more

There was something she said that stayed with me. So well put. ‘When he leads a step, say backwards for the woman’, Graciela said, ‘then there is one possibility: going backwards. There are not three possible steps. Not three, not two. One.’

All the time I see so called ‘advanced’ dancers, throwing their partners around, the women looking like nervous chicken trying to guess the right thing to do for each and every step. It looks like they are thinking: Did he mean here, or here, or maybe here… .Waiting till the last possible moment before moving.

Then they teach ‘active following’, taking the opportunity to teach women to take over control, thereby totally missing the point. It is like deciding which step next is more important than anything else, so we have to make sure we decide 50% each, and to make sure we pass control back and forth all through the tango. Yeah, that sounds nice. My turn! Your turn! My turn!…

If the lead is absolutely crystal clear and makes the woman 100% confident she knows exactly what step is led, she will feel like she has all the time in the world to shape the way she makes that step, thus enabling her to express the music. This is what giving the woman space is about, not sending control back and forth. It is a simplification, but we often say that in tango, the man decides ‘what’, the woman ‘how’. And you have probably heard that in tango, the how is more important than the what, no?

If the man is actually listening (figuratively speaking) to the woman throughout the dance, he will feel her suggestions and ideas, maybe even before she knows it herself and vice versa. That is when the magic occurs. Passing a stick back and forth is not very magical. Well, maybe if it were a wand…

The trouble is, I am afraid you have to dance with some really, really good dancers to understand what I mean. Then you may feel how by taking away, you add something. Remove some possibilities and open up for others. Remove the noise and free the signal. Removing all unnecessary cruft from one’s dancing is one of the things that make tango a life long project.

And the magic that arises makes it totally worth it.
 
http://simbatango.com/2010/02/01/how-less-becomes-more/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SimbaTango+%28Simba+tango%29

Hold Me Tight & Tango Me Home

I almost forgot to let everyone know about this. There is a new tango-centric book out there, about to be released to the whole wide world on February 9th. Congrats to author/tanguera Maria Finn on this...no small task to conceive/nurture/write/publish a book. Much less experiencing the "stuff" of which the book is made. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Here's the "About the Book" from the website ::

Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home is the tale of surviving a broken heart. Maria Finn’s husband was cheating. First she threw him out. Then she cried. Then she signed up for tango lessons. It turns out that tango has a lot to teach about understanding love and loss, about learning how to follow and how to lead, how to live with style and flair, take risks, and sort out what it is you really want. As Maria’s world begins to revolve around the friendships she makes in dance class and the milongas (social dances) she attends regularly in New York City, we discover with her the fascinating culture, history, music, moves, and beauty of the Argentine tango. With each new dance step she learns the embrace, the walk, the sweep, the exit she is one step closer to returning to the world of the living. Eventually Maria travels to Buenos Aires, the birthplace of tango, and finds the confidence to try romance again.

And this, from the "Recent Reviews" section of the website ::

“A gracefully rendered memoir of a woman seeking post-divorce healing through tango.”
— Kirkus (Read Full Review)

“A lively debut memoir, brimming with tango history and lore.”
— Booklist

“This story of heartbreak and healing unravels the complexities of tango, which gradually becomes a source of addictive joy.”
— Sally Potter, writer and director of the film The Tango Lesson

“Beautifully told. Maria Finn relays her adventures in the world of tango with excitement, wit, and insight.”
— Robert Farris Thompson, author of Tango: The Art History of Love

“Along with her personal story, involving a trip to a wedding in Buenos Aires and documenting there the gay tango scene, she nicely elucidates the evolution of the dance, through the music of Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel, and traces briefly its flashpoints across the globe, from America to Finland and Turkey.”
— Publishers Weekly

Looks like it's gonna be a goodun'...order yours today...I just did.

Here's her official website :: http://tangomehome.com/

Here' a link to the book store finder on IndieBound...buy locally if you can :: http://www.indiebound.org/indie-bookstore-finder

http://alextangofuego.blogspot.com/2010/01/hold-me-tight-tango-me-home.html