[HouTango-L] Why you should take Joaquin Amenabar's workshop this weekend

[A. Lester Buck III]

I have a long history of trying to understand tango musicality.
I won't bore you with the details, but it started with a 90 minute
class at Stanford Tango Week in 1997, and has run through private
lessons in BsAs, Helaine Treitman's online tango musicality course
(not particularly recommended) and classes in tango musicality
taught by visiting instructors.  I wouldn't consider anything
I had seen that good at practical value.  Then I ran across
this podcast episode with Joaquin Amenabar:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ubn-radio/tango-angeles/e/41920687

Oh. My. God.

I was enthralled.  I was enchanted.  Finally, a musician that was
spending a great effort to explain tango in terms that non-musician
dancers could understand!

I learned that Joaquin was teaching a weekend workshop in Austin
last July, and I made sure I was there.  Here are just some
of the things he covered.  I would like to say, "I learned",
but all these skills require practice, long after the workshp,
and my practice has not been very dedicated.


A typical tango workshop has some patterns from the visiting
instructor's deep repertoire, and they work with the students to
reproduce the steps.  Of course, those particular steps, and why
the music they played happens to match, or not match, the steps
they are teaching, is almost never mentioned, much less taught.
I rarely have gotten the impression that the instructors have
a curriculum.

In contrast, Joaquin Amenabar is the most organized tango
instructor I have ever experienced, bar none.  Joaquin is a man
on a mission.  A half hour before the Austin workshop started one
Friday evening, he is too busy to chat, or even say hi.  He has
his wireless mike on, with speakers around the room, and he is
walking to every spot in the room to make sure that all parts of
the room can hear what he will be saying. (!!)  He is testing his
wireless remote control that starts and stops various pieces of
music he will use to demonstrate his principles.  He has hung a
large piece of cloth on the wall with blank musical measures,
and he is preparing a small pile of "beats", which are little
pictures of shoes with velcro on the back which he pushes onto
the musical display.  This is how he demonstrates the various
rhythmic structures, and how the dance steps map to the musical
sounds.  So Joaquin is prepared to use every teaching modality
that exists: his voice, our voices (we sing and hum at times),
our hands (marking time in the music), all the music itself,
visual aids, and the kinesthetic learning of the dance itself.

Joaquin has a very clear curriculum, and he knows just how fast a
group of non-musicians can move as the concepts start to sink in.
He has been teaching this material to dancers since the late 1990s.
He has written a book with accompanying music and video clips that
expands and complements his workshops, but I would not consider
those a substitute.  The integrated experience of Joaquin guiding
the class through the material is crucial, and it needs to be
experienced live at least once.

Here are just a few random principles that he teaches:

1.  What is the basic rhythm, the fixed pattern, of tango?
Can you sing it, or play it on a drum?

2.  It is entirely possible to dance tango on the beat but
completely off the music.  (That's the history of my dancing...)
You might ask yourself if you even know what the last sentence
means.  I didn't.

3.  What is "Panama Panama Cuba", and when do you dance it?

4.  What is the basic rhythm, the fixed pattern, of tango vals?
Can you sing it, or play it on a drum?

5.  When dancing vals, there are two different ways to dance
double time.  The two different ways are not equivalent, and
the music is written for one of them.  Do you know which one you
are dancing?  Can you tell which one the music is calling?

6.  What is the basic rhythm, the fixed pattern, of milonga?
Can you sing it, or play it on a drum?

7.  There are three different ways to dance double time in milonga.
Do you know the differences?  One is not possible at higher speed.
Which one?


After the class is comfortable with the basic material, there is
a point where Joaquin basically performs a magic trick.  We have
learned to listen for the music and lead our dance to match the
first cycle of the repeating melodic pattern.  The followers know
what is coming from the repeated pattern in the next measures.
So Joaquin is able to lead his partner with her back to him and
no longer touching.  Yes, men, if you grasp these concepts, the
followers are completely calm because they can predict what is
coming in the near future.  No surprises, because the couple is
... dancing to the music!

You do not need a partner for this workshop, and while a lot of
the skills are for the leaders, followers need to understand the
principles to help the leaders improve.  This workshop is just
the beginning of a long journey to better tango musicality.

I give my strongest recommendation to Joaquin Amenabar, and I
encourage everyone to attend his workshop which begins Friday at
Cielito Lindo.

http://houstonargentinetangoschool.com/tango-musicality-workshop-with-joaquin-amenabar/


Cheers,
Lester