Good habits for tango dancers
Spotify Check out Sophia's spotify lists: Tango (Trad) Best for practicing musicality - walking to single, double and half time. Tango (Neo) contemporary songs (good for practicing technique) Link to 250 songs The following link will download a fabulous collection of 250 of the most popular songs (tango, vals and milonga) played in milongas around the world! Focus for now only on the tangos. Also focus on instrumental songs as opposed to vocals as these are easier to find the beat. Di Sarli is one of the better orchestras to start with: http://www.muraterdemsel.com/250TANGO.zip This link goes to a zip file (little less than a 1 GB file). Here's a link to help you better understand tango music for dancing. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Week 7: starting July 9 In Week 7 we... 1. Tied all the moves together - showing leaders how knowledge of entry and exit point for each move enables improvisation 2. Increased focus on the embrace - with reference to the 4 connection points (one on the open side of embrace, and three on the closed side. It was stressed that we need to be active and engaged and present in our embrace, actively connecting at each of the four points. 3. At North Sydney and Glebe we also increased focus on dancing to the music (single, double and half time and pausing). Homework Practice Lapiz Walk (ideally to 'Cara Sucia' - see Spotify Tango Traditional list) and Pivoting walk (see videos for both) Review Lesson Review videos from previous weeks. Progression Level 2 starts next week at same venues and same times. Week 6: starting July 2 'Tango Vocabulary' We continued reviewing all moves covered to date, i.e.:
'Tango Grammar'
Musicality We included more emphasis on musicality - improvising the above moves to the different tempo of:
1 and 3 are down or strong beats 2 and 4 are up or soft beats Homework Practice Lapiz Walk (ideally to 'Cara Sucia' - see Spotify Tango Traditional list) and Pivoting walk (see videos for both) Review Lesson Review videos from previous weeks. Week 5: starting June 25
Week 4: starting June 18
Week 3: starting June 11
Leaders: the Parallel Cross and C-Step introduce the concept of 'Inside and Outside lines'. Homework Practice Lapiz Walk and Pivoting walk (see videos for both) Review Parallel Cross & C Step videos noting the first two steps are the same for both. Week 2: starting June 4 The focus was on:
Introduced pivoting walk - Forward - Side - Back Remember treat the wall as your partner. Forward step is with leg closest to wall. Back step is with leg furthest from wall. Homework Practice Lapiz Walk and Pivoting walk (see videos for both) Week 1: starting May 28 The focus was on:
The move introduced was the 'C Step': We also worked on musicality, walking to single time and pausing. We used the count 1-2-3-4 walking on the strong beats of 1 and 3. Counting can also be 'I and 1 and...' 1 here is for the strong beats of 1 and 3 while 'and' is for the soft beats of 2 and 4. We also introduced the 'Lapiz Walk' ('lapiz' means pencil in Spanish): Recommended to be done to the song 'Cara Sucia' by Carlos Di Sarli (see Sophia' Spotify list). The Lapiz is also used as an ornament to the walk in social tango dancing by both leaders and followers. Here's some end of class displays from previous Level 1 term at Glebe: |