June 21, 2016

Book: "Tango for Teachers: the Tango matrix" by Alexandru Eugen Cristea

This book will choose readers. The book itself is not very long (134 pages) and you probably can read through it quickly. But how much you will get out of the reading, and how much you can use the knowledge in the book, will vary depending on the knowledge held by the reader.

The title "Tango for Teachers" may be an appropriate title.


Appreciation for an art depends on the learner's level. For example, if you are learning 4th grade math, you won't comprehend nor appreciate high school-level math. A  high school math learner is unlikely to enjoy grad-school material.

It is the same for Tango.



[Following is my translation, and not necessarily what they exactly wrote.] 


This book actually tells you simple concepts, distilled from the experiences by the authors.

And the central concept they are trying to tell you is the Tango matrix.

What is the Tango matrix?

As Tango being a social-origin partner dance and a highly improvisational dance, every time you dance Argentine Tango, you will be challenged with a question; "With this partner, music, occasion, and current you, how do you construct/dance this Tango?"


We can see other people's answers (dances) to the challenging question. And we make judgement, "they dance like beginner" or "They are advanced" etc.


Come to think of it, how do we make that judgement?

We see how the dancers construct/dance the Tango.


And their concept of "the Tango matrix" is their version of explanation as to how the judgement is made.



Tango dancing is made with various elements, movements, options, etc that dancers can choose at a moment.

And the elements, movements, options, etc, each comes with a difficulty level that we can perceive.

In short, advanced dancer's Tango uses lots of these "difficult or impressive" elements.movements, options etc. They come back to back to back, not with much "easy fillers".


The way they see Tango is a series of a unit they can choose to use. When they use many units with "difficult" or "advanced" level in their Tango, and if they are executed well, connected well, and flow well, the Tango looks advanced.

(To be fair, the concepts they included as the "unit" are many more.)


Well, how many social dancers actually have given a thought on how they construct the dance, beyond weaving patterns? 

If you do not enjoy translating a concept to your dance, you may not get much out of this book.

If you do, this book should be interesting and may turn out to be useful.


It was an intriguing book for sure. 



[The book cover]



The grant has been submitted. The revised manuscript also has been submitted and I got an automated acknowledgement email. I have a day to prepare for a seminar. And I got a revision for a review article. Oh, my.