La Nuit Blanche

From a discussion that’s going on right now in New York Tango list — I really liked this. What do you think?

Copy-pasted verbatim:

(Wow, something that’s not an ad for a milonga on this list? amazing.
Perhaps we can see more of that in the future.)

Travis posted this here a few days ago:
> In the 12 years or so that I’ve been dancing tango I’ve always been
> knocked over by dancer’s who studied with Gustavo Naveira. Whether I
> was studying with a leader or dancing with a follower I was impressed.
> It seems like the followers dance in a different plane that the rest
> of mere mortals. Starting two years ago I became a student of the
> master myself and have been steadily learning what it means to be an
> “Active Follower”. He speaks about the role of the follower being an
> equal partner. When I dance socially for the most part I do not see
> that with followers. So I ask the community, what do you think it
> means to be a follower? thanks

That’s a bit of a challenge: “My teacher’s way is better than everyone
else’s, and why aren’t you all like that?” I think you’d be more
likely to get a constructive dialog going if you were a little more
oblique. (This is not, of course, a lesson I’ve fully learned myself…)

That said, I like active followers, but I have never heard anyone
describe what that means. To me, an active follower is someone who
occasionally decides that she wants to dance the music in a particular
way, and leads her leader to do so. It’s not back-leading, it’s not
forced, it’s true leading. And I can’t imagine how hard it must be for
followers to figure out how to do that without being unpleasant, which
is why I think very few do it well. Certainly it’s not often taught. I
remember when I was taking group classes with Robin Thomas once or
twice he asked followers to practice slowing down leaders at certain
points in the music, and leaders were supposed to follow this lead. I
have dome something similar in my classes a few times. But for a
follower to do more than that, she must be comfortable not only with
the techniques of whatever steps she has to be executing at the time,
but she also has to understand how her leader is leading it, so she
knows when it’s possible to alter the flow of his movement without
breaking it. I suspect that this is in general nearly impossible if
she is not also at least a competent leader herself, and I have never
danced with a good active follower who wasn’t one.

There’s another really big challenge facing any follower who wants to
learn to be active. Most leaders don’t know what to do with an active
follower. I know that it’s not uncommon for me to be dancing with a
good active follower and realize just a fraction of a second too late
that I really should have done something else in order to accommodate
her (this comes from my failings as a follower). Dealing with active
followers must be utterly confounding to leaders who aren’t very
familiar with them- which is most leaders. Even, I suspect, most
“good” leaders (and how you judge “good” goes way beyond what I’m
willing to get into here).

I do think that an active follower is a more equal partner in the
dance. When I teach about leading and following I try to get my
students to see it as a means of communication. The more active the
follower, the more it becomes like a two-way discussion, and less like
a stream of directions. This means that the follower must speak up
enough to be heard, but not shout: her intention must be conveyed back
to the leader through the embrace, not just executed in her own body,
but she can’t be rigid and forceful (any more than a good leader would
be). On the flip side, the leader must be willing to hear what she’s
saying: he must respond to the change of the embrace the follower is
creating. In other words, he has to follow. We should have a term for
this sort of leader to match “active” following- how about a
“responsive” leader?

You said that Gustavo talks about an equal partnership. I have a hard
time imagining a truly equal partnership. Even very active followers
spend the majority of their time following. Perhaps dancers far far
better than me dance in truly “equal” partnership, but I doubt it. I
don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing. Although perhaps “equal” is
the wrong word, because I don’t think followers have an inferior role.
Rather, I’d say that the leader is the person who creates the majority
of the dance, while the follower executes it, and that both are
equally necessary. (Hm, I seem to have recreated “it takes two to
tango” with a lot more words… oh well.) If the leader didn’t do
that, he’d be following, and his partner would be leading, regardless
of how the embrace was shaped.

To directly address your question… a follower does what you lead.
That’s all it takes to be a follower, even a good follower, and I’ve
had some really nice dances with women who do just that. But followers
can add a new dimension to their dance by becoming active.

For anyone who is looking to become a better active follower, or a
more responsive leader, my recommendation is that you make a serious
effort to learn the opposite role. It’ll improve all your tango, not
just this aspect of it.

/a