I want us to talk a little about what is the dancer’s role in the context of the music ho or she is dancing with. This is, of course, a quite long and complex subject… Patience! And you might want to take a look at this other post that I wrote a while back to have some extra context and information on the subject. Today we’ll be focusing on understanding how dancers relate with the music we dance and what is our role in doing so, we’ll take a look at some of the more familiar ideas and a few less treaded territories as well.
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Clues on how to dance to the music in tango
As you might know, besides dancing and teaching how to dance tango I’m also a pianist and composer (I eventually teach piano and harmony). In fact, I started in tango dancing and in music more or less at the same time, and I see them as two aspects of the same thing… But I’m getting ahead of myself. The thing is I’ve been helping dancers to integrate music to their dancing a little better for many years now, and I’d like to talk with you about this today.
When I gave my first music course some 15 years ago, I organized how to teach based on some basic ideas that we musicians use to explain what we do, like rhythm and melody. Back on those times there were not that many people dedicated to this specific subject. But because nowadays it’s more common to see lessons and seminars on this, we can try to talk about how to approach music and the problems related to those approaches.