Tango in the Desert | Dogs in hammocks
4~ Navigations: How sixty-five 5th graders changed everything for the better.
Tension is the enemy of movement.
The first time I heard this phrase was from Brigitta Winkler when she was in the studio working with us. I had also hired her expertise to learn how to be a better guide in tango. It was a game changing experience. She introduced me to Steve Paxton, an an experimental dancer and choreographer most known for developing contact improv. It was the same day he passed away, February 20, 2024. We warmed up as dancers using his dancing spine exercise.
It changed me.
I had already been challenged by Brigitta in May of 2023, when we first met and became friends, that I was missing my full potential as a dancer because I was exploring the dance only as I had been taught. I knew it to be true the instant she had the professional compassion to say it to me. I respect her and her honesty, immensely. It was the first time I felt spoken to as a dancer, pursuing Tango as an art-form, as a human, as an explorer of movement and potential. It opened the gateway to seeking with curiosity ways to correlate the music, the lyrics, feelings, emotions, sentiment, human codes, contexts, sense of being, sense of place and how to find the walking harmony between two humans collaborating in a ronda of other humans also in (hopefully) unplanned movement.
Dancing the spine
The way Brigitta introduced us that day, February 20th, was gathering ourselves into a circle and centering ourselves, individually, over our own relaxed feet. The exercise entailed roaming through our own bodies, exploring where tension may be found and releasing this inhibition into the floor by imagining our spines dancing between our feet. Key word is between, not over one foot. This video link shows it beautifully.
Reflecting nature –natural movement– Small Dance is a unique and succinct example of this idea. (YouTube Link).
Essentially we want to seek natural movements in Tango. To do so we need curiosity, exploration and self-awareness while we seek the tools to help us liberate our bodies from negative tension (restrictive tension). There is good tension, but I prefer to harness this in select moments of: coiling, spiraling, gathering into suspension and dropping into pre-motion (aka “the drop” which is a boss term coined by two nyc dancers, Thuy and MV). We will dive into these ideas in the weeks ahead.
But first, the spines need to be liberated… and the hips!
In the video link “Small Dance” those micro-movements are attainable because the body (spine and hips, especially) are liberated and working as one being. I use this exercise in classes to help us, as dancers, get into our own bodies, leave the day behind, connect ourselves with the ground (not the surface of the floor –sink deeper in) and then we physically connect with the persons to our left and right and thusly we are connected with the entire ring of dancers. The result is a sea-like flow… or like the reeds flowing in the breeze in harmony like in the Steve Paxton video clip… each one of us is still rooted to the earth, but still dancing in unison above it.
Begin by centering yourself over your soles.
Bring a small place on your body together that is under your sacrum, below your pelvis. For me on my body it is a tiny sliver of connection, una caricia (like a caress) between the inside of both of my heels. They lightly touch. Maybe for you it will be somewhere near your knees or perhaps the upper thigh… all that matters is that we find a point of light connection that feels like a breeze that can trigger in our brain –a comfort– that we are centered underneath us. There needs to be a physical connection for the nervous system to understand and relay to our minds “I know where I am because I can feel the connection.” Because I can feel that little caress on the sides of the heels touching, specifically it is the flexor retinaculum of the foot which covers the tibial nerve which sends clear messages to my mind that the eyes cannot express. I know where I am and know I am centered and then and only then can I honestly communicate with my partner.
Then we add three-fingers width between the balls of the feet. I highly recommend, and wish to say ‘never,’ bring your feet together in a way that the toes touch because this will cause imbalance. Try it standing in the centered position… with 3 fingers distance the whole body can decompress while maintaining form. If we bring our toes together we create imbalance. If the big toes touch there is no way to maintain natural, effortless equilibrium. If the balls of feet go wider (duck stance), we create tension on the knee, ankle and hip joints, tendons and stabilizers which can lead to injury. The military uses this stance for those individuals who have to stand guard for long periods of time without suffering.
It works. It feels good. It keeps us in the flow.
Find your center. Keep 3 fingers distance between the balls of feet. Wiggle your toes, soften both knees, release the neck so eyes can gaze (even if closed) parallel to the floor and seek to release negative tensions, holds in the body that restrict movement. Then imagine your spine dancing within the space opened between our feet.
How sixty-five 5th graders and 130 imaginary dogs in hammocks changed everything for the better
It was glorious mayhem and we loved every minute of the experience. My friend, Risa, came with me that morning to introduce Tango at the Manzano Day School Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had little context going in other than it would be 15 minutes and with 5th graders.
It was outside in a grassy courtyard with a fountain and a brick walkway. Risa and I found it quite fun to strategize what we could do… and where (grass or skinny brick walkway). The invitation was to bring experience of Tango and since I had lived in Bahía Blanca for over a year and spent over half a year in Buenos Aires, impart some of the cultural contexts for the dance. 15 minutes to show the dance, speak a little about the dance… and then teach the dance. Sounded like a good time to us.
Then the kids kept rolling in. It ended up, by our count, something like sixty-five 5th graders plus teachers all gathering into this grassy courtyard. Show time. Risa and I danced, freeform as always, to “Didí” by Roberto Firpo. The kids remarked that it looked fun and not what they expected. I briefly spoke about the dance in a context that in Argentina I loved how there was no age, no body type nor level-of-income that predicates the dance. It is more about community and expressing life… and the media rarely shows this. It is difficult to find any representation other than performance, choreographed, demonstrations.
With that many fifth graders outside on a beautiful day and dancing on the grass, I needed in the moment to find an element to give them so as not to manufacture a stereotypical connection of the dance or dramatically stepped movements. I wanted the kids to go into a place of collaboration, care and fun.
Dogs in hammocks
“Alright, find someone… pair up with a fellow explorer… one palm up and one palm down place your fingers at your friend’s elbows. Good! Now imagine those connected arms are each a hammock… two hammocks connecting both of you together and swinging from the shoulders. Excellent… now imagine there is a massive, friendly, sleeping dog in each of those hammocks!”
(they loved this)
“Ok… now let's move around in little plus symbols with our sleeping dogs… and let our arms sway like hammocks so these awesome dogs can stay sleeping.”
And off they went with relaxed arms, no leader and no follower, just little pairs moving around in lovely chaos… not a single pair bumped into another! It was hilarious to hear the dialogue of keeping the dogs happy in their hammocks. It was Tango. It was pure joy and Tango.
Dogs in Hammocks & the Tango embrace(s)
Imagine our arms as hammocks in tango. Each shoulder is where the hammock connects. There are two hammocks and our partner has the other two points. Now, I am not a fan of using a frame in tango. I don’t believe in having my arms and torso manufacturing a frame to maintain a form throughout movement. I don’t see the advantage nor the point of this. Too often I see dancers forklifting or truck-driving their partners with their arms while trying to complete movements. Why use the arms to initiate movement or usher intention? It’s a bit too handsy for me.
Truck-driving is when a “leader’s” elbows are pumping away from the body in a forward and backward motion so the hands look like they are driving a big steering wheel. They are basically truck-driving their partners, steering them with arms and hands around the floor. Please don’t do this.
Forklifting is when the dancers have so much anxiety or tension that their elbows are lifting up as if trying to float off of the floor in order to move. Once the other dancer is disconnected from the floor it will be very difficult to collaborate, let alone intuit intention. Therefore the forklifting “leader” will continue to lift up on their partner’s elbows to move them about. Please don’t ever do this, either. We need the floor to move. It is nigh impossible to dance Tango in zero gravity.
The elbows are best maintained quietly receptive at our sides and slightly in front of the hip bones. I am referring to only the forward and backward motion. It really is like a hammock. Hammocks are meant to swing and sway side to side, not pushed or pulled to either side. If someone comes along and starts rocking the hammock forward and backward (from connection point to connection point) this is also upsetting. The dogs will be very unhappy and disturbed from their state of bliss. I encourage our elbows to sway naturally side to side. We want natural movement, allow movement.
Dogs in hammocks and dancing spines.
This, essentially, opens the possibility for smoothly walking embraces, unencumbered embraces, thriving embraces. The same feeling we have in our arms in this practice embrace is directly translatable in essence to any style of closed or open embraces, and especially the centro-confiteria milonguero-style (my favorite, but not exclusively). The arms will not push and pull our partners off axis. Our elbows will not dig in, pin or trap our partners arms to their bodies, either. The tension, anxiety of being close will not translate as constriction or discomfort. We will be more at ease and able to connect ourselves with the ground, grounding ourselves as independent dancers responsible for our own equilibriums, contributions and collaborative spirits.
Next week will be tough to decide between the choices of:
Ipsilateral ~ contralateral conjugations
Honing sightless instinct
Tango is not serious, seriously.
Here are some links to see dogs sleeping in hammocks:
YouTube dog in red hammock
YouTube dog in white hammock
YouTube bluesy hound in a hammock