🕺💃 Welcome to Integrative Method Social Tango! I'm Yelizaveta, a tango dancer and teacher in Los Angeles. Join me weekly for easy-to-follow tango lessons suitable for all levels. Dive into the social tango lifestyle with the Tango Banter Podcast, featuring stories and interviews. Subscribe now and let's dance! 🎶✨
14:39 you really don’t have to complete the entire circle in just 4 steps. Right? It is to hold our place in line while we wait to move forward sometimes
Great episode! ... as usual 😀 Other festivals friendly to beginners: * Tucson Tango Festival, April 17-20, 2025: Mid-sized, mid-level festival featuring popular teachers. For the seasoned social dancer, there will be many of quality partners. For new comers, there will be plenty of adventurous dancers looking to make new connections. * Burning Tango, June 13-15, 2025: McCloud is a small rustic mountain village in far-northern California near the Oregon border on the lower slopes of Mt. Shasta. The festival is smaller-scale, with earlier hours, and has a rustic summer-camp vibe. Many spend their non-dance time outdoors, hiking and swimming.
Wait, you're based in Portland! I assumed you were in the LA area. I don't think I've ever seen you at Berretin. Not applicable to many people, but anyone who travels for work would benefit from taking a tango class or attending a practica when they travel to different cities. These are usually easy enough to find on either Facebook or MangoTango. After doing this for several years the jitters over introducing myself to a new community have _mostly_ gone away. The only time post-covid that I have bungled an initial introduction significantly enough to notice was at an after lesson practica in Toronto in 2023. My only other tip would be to go to your first festival with someone else; even if they don't dance tango. Give the trip a fall back option in case you need a break or its not working out. Speaking on Valentango specifically, you don't have to attend the whole event. The whole thing is nearly a week long and even at a reduced rate the DoubleTree gets expensive. Plenty of out-of-towners will come in for a Fri-Sun stint or similar. I'd imagine the same strategy could work for a lot of the larger festivals.
Wonderful episode! I love your very insightful explanation of really touchy, intimate experiences of any tango dancer ... The best ever channel about tango ! Thank you for your wondeful work !! It's really really appreciated 🎉
Thank you so much for this! You answered the questions that I always have trouble phrasing in classes. At some point, I chalked up all my balance problems to lack of muscular strength and felt discouraged because of that
Awesome video and instruction! I've been teaching kiz for 10+ years and it's awesome to see some of the overlap in techniques! Your audio quality is AMAZING! 👌🏾 What mic are you using?
Oh that's so great! There is A LOT of overlap with urban kiz! It's super exciting :). The mic! Yes, it's by Samson (samsontech.com/products/wireless-systems/airline-wireless/airlinemicroearset/) A bit pricey but a great investment if you're making a lot of content
When people from the community (your average social dancer) venture into performance for special events, as long as I can tell they both worked hard, I appreciate it. They usually make some small mistakes due to nerves/lack of consistent training, but as a perfectionist, I know how horrible it feels to stumble in front of a crowd, so I never judge or laugh. The preparation process also benefits local instructors because the performers often take additional lessons. When local or visiting instructors perform, I see it as a way to advertise themselves, which isn't bad at all! I only dislike it when they 'pose' as something contradictory to what they teach just to impress people who aren't familiar with them.
There is also another aspect. We, the women very often learn tango from male teachers. We want to be better and we take very seriously whatever they say. It's a real art to give a good, inspiring, useful feedback in tango. It takes some time to become an active student in tango and even being an open and active student doesn't guarantee a completely non-violent communication.
OMG totally! I'm so glad you brought that up, because yes, it's so true, a lot of women study with male teachers and trust every word they say because they are leaders and somehow that means they know better... That's how I felt for years! Very tough to break out of it
This is what I tried to convey to my partner. Our embrace felt floppy and I felt we could both improve on this. She became slightly offended and asked the instructor and he said nothing was wrong with her embrace.😢 I have felt this unison of embrace with others and it feels magnificent. Now it seems like it has caused a rift between us and we don't enjoy dancing together as much.😢
Argh, I'm so sorry. I definitely have been there. Very frustrating. Tango brings up a lot of insecurities, especially when it comes to embrace technique. Takes time to learn not to take things personally. But you know, everyone has to find their path to these insights on their own. So just because your partner might be resistant now doesn't mean they won't get there. What's awesome is that YOU know how it feels, you know how to experience it with other people, so keep pursuing it and developing it. The more people you connect with on the dance floor, the better your skills of connecting will get.
To your second point, it’s a been a struggle for me to know when to speak up. I usually try to keep my mouth shut and let the lead figure it out. I may be a new tango dancer, but I have a lifetime of other dance experience. So, I know how to memorize figures and weight shifts. But, it’s always hard to know which leaders are open to taking feedback or help during class. When it helps, it’s so amazing, but equally when they get defensive it is awful. Hard to find a balance. It makes the class environment a little anxiety inducing.
yes, so true, especially when you're working with multiple leaders in a class setting you never know where they're at mentally/emotionally. And I have found few things so fragile as some of the male egos encountered in a tango class. And, as you said, it feels awful when they get all upset and defensive (mostly because they are just insecure).
I started to learn the following role is because I was curious how close I could get to an ideal follower in my mind in two months. Later, my teacher actually did blend in leading and back leading in the same embrace. In the process, I had to do different body training to expand the capability and flexibility of my body without getting into a “muscle memory mode”. My next step is that I would like to expand the expression into stage dancing moves. However, I seldom see followers try to expand their expression to music.
What an amazing study! Very cool that you are exploring tango in this way. Yeah, there is a lot of misunderstanding for followers about HOW to actually do that and what dancing musically actually means.
Thanks for adding your personal insights to this all-too-common pattern of male-dominance in tango partnerships. My first teachers were a couple where the female had the dominant role, and it's also where I learned double-role dancing (I'm a leader), which should be introduced from Lesson 1. I look forward to tango becoming known as a double-role dance, bringing to an end the male dominance.
from your lips to saint Pugliese's ears haha! I think we are making some progress. And how cool that you had such a well rounded experience from the start of your learning! I hope that becomes more common
12 дней назад
Walking ochos are more comfortable for the follower, but the "secret weight change" of the leader is pretty difficult. And the better (= the more sensitive) the follower is, the harder it gets, because she either also changes her weight or misinterprets it as a cross.
Yes, it's pretty tricky to get at first. There is a point though where it will become second nature and you will be able to do it successfully every time, but it does take some getting used to the specific mechanics of slightly isolating your embrace from the rest of the body in that moment when you're trying to hide your weight change.
If he did this in front of the whole world to experience. I wonder how he treats her in private. What gives him the right. Someone needs to give him some of his own medicine. Muy mal criado. Clase bajo 😮
The incident related is the story of a msn who acted loudly. But the polite aggressive behaviour is much more toxic, and hurts much more. I understand the shock of sering this publicly. Tango world is very violent despite its "romantic" envelope
The violence of tangueros behaviour have always shocked me. It looks like moral violence a lot ... Actually it is. It is one of the reasons I don't like milongas anymore... I love tango, I love to dance, but I don't like pretentious people
Thank you for this video. ❤ You are absolutely right. I've had a similar problem with various guest tango teachers I've partnered with. Now I wonder how I survived.
Thank you for calling out the behaviour like it is: abusive. This type of behaviour does not happen in the salsa, bachata or kizomba dancing community. I believe it originates from the power men hold in tango where women are not allowed to ask men for a dance. In the Latin community both women and men are expected to ask for a dance; it is not exclusively a men’s decision.
Yes, the power structure is different in tango and the fact that leaders are the ones who learn the figures and followers typically just learn to follow the leaders, they don't learn the figures themselves. So it creates an asymmetry within the dance that doesn't really exist in other dance forms which are mostly dual role by default.
I've had the pleasure of seeing you at various festivals and have been watching your show recently for its insightful sound bites in the US tango communities. That said, I respectfully disagree with your comments on performances. It's difficult to generalize them as a whole, and I believe they play an important role when done tastefully and less frequent. Just like in any other dance, people admire and appreciate professionals showcasing their highest skill, which inspires admiration.
Thanks so much! I actually agree with your point about the importance of performances and that's what I emphasize in the episode - that they do have a place and should be a part of the experience
Maybe because luck of personality in the dancers. I saw many old milongueros from the 40's performed and I always looked forward to see them. Also social dancing is not doing justice to tango either. Very repetitive stuff done is a petitero style. I don't think pepito avellaneda, petaca, mingo pugliese, portalea, finito el turco jose etc will have a great time in the milongas now.
I don't really care for the vast majority of performances, because their choice of music is bad, they don't try to connect with the audience enough, and because their dancing places more emphasis on physicality and loud movements rather than musicality and subtlety. But the latter category wouldn't be appreciated by many dancers anyway. There is too much artificiality and contrived emotion in performances these days. They need more dirt (mugre!) in their dancing; perfection is inhuman, and therefore one cannot truly relate to it. It turns the few feet between performer and audience into an unapproachable void. Probably the only modern dancers I enjoy watching are Carlitos, Chicho, Lorena Tarantino (If Gianpiero wasn't her partner, I wouldn't be watching their performances at all), Noelia (Don't really like Facundo de la Cruz), maybe Maja & Marko if I'm in a good mood. I'm divided on Horacio Godoy; I like his choice of music for performances, but his dancing walks a thin line between making me chuckle and leaving me cold. Unfortunately, Tete Rusconi and Ricardo Vidort are gone, and while Coca Cartery is still fine and dancing at Porteño y Bailarín (from what I hear), Osvaldo Cartery has gone too. Carlitos, Chicho, Lorena, Noelia, Tete, Vidort all have an ineffable (though different, of course) quality to their movement that I find compelling and irresistible, which is sadly lacking in the vast majority of performers. Their performances actually move my heart, while others just make my desire to dance stronger. I think dancers these days idolise performers too much, anyway.
haha we have very similar taste! I love it. I think it's interesting that you mention the pairing... like enjoying Noelia but not Facundo... that also plays a major role in whether I like a performance or not. For example, I find it hard to enjoy watching Chicho dance with anyone other than Juana...
@@imsotango Honestly, I pay more attention to the couple as a whole! But when one stands out so much more than the other from my perspective... When it comes to the follower half of the couple, if their dancing isn't as distinctive as Noelia, my thought process goes like this: 1. Would I enjoy dancing with them? (If I even had the chance!) 2. If not, do they at least look good enough for me to enjoy watching them dance? (1 > 2) Like, say, Agustina Piaggio - I'd love to dance with her. I would describe the way she dances as the Mundial style, except she makes it look actually beautiful and not artificial and contrived; she adds her own little touches too, but she doesn't draw my eyes as much as Noelia does. It's different for Juana. I don't think I'd really enjoy dancing with her, but I still enjoy watching her some of the time. You're right, I recently had the chance to watch Chicho and Juana live, and I don't think Chicho with anyone else comes as close.
I also enjoy the improvised performances the most, however I really enjoy some of the choreographed, for example Vanina Bilous with either Junior or Roberto Herrera, I can appreciate their perfect technique and in consequence the effortless in their movement
Hey Yelizaveta, I love that performance of Viento Norte, I have watched many many times! I love that you focused on the musicality rather than on the steps! I
I was on a cruise recently and (stage) tango is much more commonly referenced in musical theatre, but it's mixed with ballroom tango for dramatic effect from sticking the arms out and doing head whips. Tango-inspired choreography was in evening theatre shows, referenced by singers with gestures, and performed by a professional ballroom couple who started with escenario-ish choreography that switched to ballroom tango. I hope Argentine tango becomes more popular on cruises and concert productions again because dancesport has overshadowed so many social dances.
When you meet your muze at the milonga and you experience the entire shared collective memory summarized in one smile of her, when you feel your chest sink in hers that little fraction more, when you start moving and feel immediate reciprocity...in that case you can let go yourself, being in the moment and becomming the extension of the other
I miss some important points in your good explanation Because the arms position in the embrace is different the mark for the first cross (woman left leg) has to be almost like a back step, not to crossed... not the same in next cross, towards the right of the man, when even a very crossed position is easy. Making it this way helps to correct the position in the line of dance when you're in the Milonga. And if it's possible for the woman's flexibility, the step in 8 is not a back step, but a crossed step, so she shouldn't do a 90° pivot with the standing foot, because this causes the loose of the front with the man's shoulders. Of course all these explanation is for the closed embrace. Because one rule in Tango is: the lenght of the step depends on the distance with the partner As a Tango teacher I can't help explaining... Saludo tanguero!!!
Good explanation that conceptually ties together two common ocho problems for leads: (1) travelling with deep ochos that demand too much pivoting, making travel uncomfortable, and (2) the tendency rotate the follower with your arms, by focusing on the axis shift you avoid getting bogged down in the details of the ocho. I've always had to explain and correct these issues as two separate mistakes. But in the future I will try and have people enter ochos within the walk sooner.
Love listening to you! I started tango after many years of experience in other social dancing and yoga and qigong and my experience was very similar to what you describe. These parallels between tango and qigong are on my whole tango way and more deeper I study tango new parallels are discovered. Thank you for sharing your experience!
She also happened to visit the most unfriendly milonga in New York. I've being a student of Tango for two years and I very rarely go to this milonga. Tango is also a very difficult dance. Thinking you can dance after a few beginner lessons is just not realistic. It's not nice to hear but it's the truth. It doesn't matter what other dance experiences you have. Apples and oranges.
Hi Yelizaveta, this happens to be my first comment, (from Oslo) partly because I don´t know where to begin after following your mind-blowing banters for a long time. I will start in a kind of loose end by telling you that I shared this episode today with a close non-tangodancer -friend (with five kids ) who spent all his money on a Ferrari instead of an appartment some years ago, I realized now, for the reasons that you are talking about; namely the embrace. He is not at all interested in showing off or being observed, but deeply feeling the cars organism and sensing the space around him. Thank you with pain and pleasure for what you are doing.
The first time this happened to me, I was very taken aback. It only happened when I stopped overthinking. In my internal dialogue, I said, “Kevin, dance with her like you’re in love with her.” So I tried, and my follower said it felt like I relaxed. I said I did, so we kept moving. And it got deeper and deeper to the point where it was just an amazing transcendence that happened. The way I describe being able to get to that place is, I choose to be present for a particular follower and to show them this is the quality of how I love through my movement. I am present, and I am willing to surrender to the intimacy of the moment and provide a safe place for that experience to be birthed. When it works well, it’s magnetic. I’ve had friends stop and have to watch me dance with someone because they see what is happening, and it’s so intoxicating, majestic, and beautiful.
I describe "connection" simply as: "the ability to send and receive information. Just like a phone call, a bad connection makes simple ideas difficult to communicate, a good connection allows people to exchange huge amounts of information instantly". The elusive connection that tango addicts yearn for; often called "tango bliss, tango nirvana, entraga, dancer's high, etc" I call "trandscendence" and I describe it as "when your souls touch". I've had the luck/pleasure to have experienced transcendence four times in my 11ish years of dancing and each time has been quite different. So my deifnition of souls touching has been the easiest way to describe it to a layman. I'm pretty sure I've given the experience to many people because I feel their breathing and heartbeat synchronise with my own, plus sensed that peace in their mind.
