My short hour-long experience with Geraldine Rojas and Ezequiel Paludi at DIVO in Santa Monica was quite a humbling one. Geraldine and Ezequiel pretty much laughed at us and made fun of us for an hour. They poked fun at the way we walked, did ochos, and ESPECIALLY the way we danced. At one point they asked us, “Do you want to learn tengo? Or TANNNNG-O?” (mimicking the American accent on the latter pronunciation).

Everyone yelled in unison, “We wanna learn tango!” And so they began…

 

Shifting Weight 

First thing they did was ask us to change weight. Everyone collected their feet and started shifting weight when Geraldine and Ezequiel nearly died of laughter.

Alright, I was exaggerating but they laughed at us. “SEE?! That’s why all of you are falling all over the place! You don’t even know how to change weight!”

They started showing us how to change weight internally through the INSIDE of our body and inner edge of our bones, instead of the outside of our body and outer edge of our bones. Changing weight internally gave us more balance and kept us on two legs at all times even when one foot was lifted off the ground. This was the first of many more lessons in tango theory.

 

Dancing from the Body, Not Only the Feet

It’s impossible to move only the feet without moving the rest of the body. Just as your feet moves when you execute dance moves like the ocho, your upper body must move when you do ochos. It is impossible to move the lower body without moving the upper body. Even though, the upper body might not appear to move, you are still in fact applying force and movement through the muscles in your upper body.

If you do not move your upper body, you become a frame and always end up looking rigid and stiff. Not only that but your partner will feel like he/she is dancing with a stiff board.

 

Upper Body Movement in the Ochos

This was a big one. You must move the upper body to do ochos. It’s not about just holding a frame with the upper body. You have to move the upper body to move the lower body. It’s constant movement from both ends of your body.

 

Stop Trying to Hold a Frame, Letting Your Body Move

Stop trying to straighten your legs or hold a position. If it’s easier to balance with the knees bent, then do it. If your legs want to fall out, let them fall out. If your body feels like moving a certain way, then let it do it. At some point, the dance is moving with what the body feels instead of moving in a way that always feels like it’s going against your body.

 

Tango Theory vs Tango Technique

And that was pretty much the whole class. Them asking US the questions:

• What is tango?
• How do you change weight?
• How do you walk?
• How do you ocho?

Not many had the confidence to answer. Nobody felt confident enough to think they could dance tango anymore. Somebody yelled out, “Why don’t you just tell us what you’re looking for instead of asking all these questions?”

Geraldine replied, “Do you want to learn? Or do you want to be taught?”

Ezequiel explained that they could simply throw patterns of steps at us or teach us how to think for ourselves. “You can’t even change weight. How do you expect to dance?”

Hahaha, a great lesson in tango philosophy. What I really wanted to learn was some of their moves but I guess this will have to do for now.