Zum Tangotanzen - 4

"
Thought is too slow for the state that one must have to dance. Those absent attitudes of "I am thinking about something important" while they look at their feet or of "I am relaxed" if you don’t know what you are doing, are a pose and a deficiency. You can check it by asking good female dancers who get bored when led in that way. It is sad to see young men engrossed contemplating themselves while they miss enjoying the beauties they have in front of them.

[...]

To dance thinking is the least advisable way, it restricts to the maximum every creative impulse. Dance is emotion, senses, instinct.
"
Pablo Verón, aus einem Interview mit  Carlos Bevilacqua für El Tangauta

Zum Tangotanzen - 3

"
Social dance and stage dance are two different skills. What differentiates them is intention and purpose.
The object of stage dance is to entertain the audiance. The dancer may be performing a chareography that is inspired by social dance, or may even be improvising, but the intention and purpose is to entertain people who are watching.
Social dancers may like to be watched. They may even dance better if they know someone is watching them. But the intention and purpose of social dance is to give pleasure to the person you are dancing with, and nothing else really matters.
[...]
Social dancers thrive on the comunication generated by improvised dance, inspired by the partner and the music, unpredictable and ever changing.
[...]
On the social dance floor it would be an insult to my partner to dance only for myself, or to dance for the people who are watching. If I have agreed to dance with someone, then it is my responsibility actually to dance with that person (not just to dance in front of and at the same time as them), and to dance in the way that will give my partner the most enjoyment from the experience. Getting involved with my own chareography or thinking about how I look to other people is fine, as long as it is not done at the expense of the person I am dancing with. That would be rude and disrespectful. To the dancers of the Golden Age it would have been inexcusable.
"
Christine Denniston, The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance

zum Tangotanzen - 2

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Tango is what happens between steps.
[...]
The pause is a pause; you don't have to fill it. But it's not a void; it's a silence, a tension, a bridge. The pause is the motor that is still running, that hasn't stopped. This is fundamental in the tango. Sometimes we fill a pause with just anything, any random movement. Why? Because we're afraid. What's wrong? You're not feeling well? What do you mean? Well, you've stopped moving. No, macho! I'm just pausing.
[...]
I dance the silence. I dance what comes before the music, and what comes after. I dance nothing. What I dance is like an intention. How can I explain it?
[...]
Let everyone dance as they like, but let them know that there is another way, a dance that does not mean running wildly in all directions. Let them learn what a pause is, that it is not a step, but rather what exists between steps.
"
Carlos Gavito*


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* Im Buch: Ricardo Plazaola, I wanted to dance; Carlos Gavito: life, passion and tango

zum Tangotanzen - 1

"
The leader's intention is a kind of persuasive argument he presents to his partner, and for which he awaits a response. [...]
Domination and Submission are powerful coordinates in the map of tango and always a ripple in the undercurrent of conversation among tangueras. [...]
The woman, in her submissive role, is really the more powerful in that her agreement to follow - to be submissive - is what makes the tango possible, and which leads, ideally, to the 'tango moment,' that sublime movement when leader and follower are in perfect balance and harmony.
[...] The leader, after all, offers a lead, but it is up to the follower to take the time she needs to perform a response, thereby taking control momentarily of the pace and tempo. The worst mistake a leader can make, in my estimation, is to rush a follower. His role instead is to wait for the follower to complete her response to his lead before offering another lead.
"
Irene D. Thomas, The Temptation to Tango