TANGO NOTATION FOR STEPS COLLECTORS

The purpose of dance notation is to document a choreography for preservation. As such, dance notation may include stage blocking, specific movements for the dancers, and references to the music used and its composer. Pertinent information concerning where and when the piece was performed, and who the dancers were, is also found in dance notations. It could be said that dance notation is like a script with notes for dance historians and choreographers. Another purpose of dance notation is the documentation and analysis of dance in dance ethnology. In Rasche Notation, the book which is the subject of this review, the notation is not used to plan a new choreography but to document an existing dance.

The primary use of dance notation is the preservation of classic dance documentation, and the analysis and reconstruction of any kind of body movement. It is used to document choreography and technical exercises in dance forms. Many different forms of dance notation have been created but the two main systems used in Western culture are Labanotation (also known as Kinetography Laban) and Benesh Movement Notation. Labanotation grew from Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958)’s interest in movement, which stemmed from his early travels. He studied architecture and philosophy in Paris and worked as an illustrator before becoming involved in the performing arts. His architectural interests led to his analysis of the spatial structure of movement itself. After publishing a shorthand system for his theories (Choreographie, 1926), he developed a more detailed and more widely applicable notation—one that spelled out the elements that produce movement patterns—and published it in the book Schrifttanz (“Written Dance”) in 1928.

The Laban system is an “alphabet” system in which symbols represent movement components through which each pattern is “spelled out.” In standard labanotation a vertical three-line staff represents the performer. The center line divides the staff into right and left columns, which represent the main body parts. The staff, read from bottom to top, is written from the performer’s point of view. Each direction symbol is based on a rectangle and indicates four movement factors. Its shape shows the direction of the movement. Its shading indicates level. Its length represents duration of the movement (the shorter, the quicker; the longer, the more extended in time). And its placement on the staff indicates the part of the body that is in action. Families of signs represent the minor body parts, and additional signs such as pins and hooks denote details modifying the main action.

When it comes to the Argentine tango, the improvisational dance par excellence, memorizing steps has always been the domain of those who approach the tango as the eleventh dance of the ballroom circuit. Even though teaching steps by way of memorization is an inauthentic way to help a student learn to dance the Argentine tango, it is a good source of repeat business. The effect of memorizing the way two feet move, without any context with relation to body alignments and sense of direction, lasts a day or two before all is forgotten. As early as the mid 1990’s many people carried notebooks around the room trying to write down the steps shown by the traveling teachers. Filming videos was not an option. The scribbled notes tried to capture as much as possible of the subjective elements of the dance regarding music, affectations, mannerisms, feelings, as well as the actual steps.

The modern teaching of Argentine tango has evolved into a logical, three dimensional structure based on the concept of the woman dancing around the man in the man’s embrace, and the man dancing around the room while embracing the woman. As the couple progresses on the dance floor the relative position of their bodies has one leg moving inside the embrace and the other one outside. As a result of that, there are only six fundamental movements: a) two openings, one with each leg opening away from the other leg to any point in front, to the side or behind without crossing the line where the standing foot holds an axis, b) two forwards, one with the inside leg stepping on the outside of the partner and one with the outside leg used as steering wheel, and c) two backwards, one straight back step with the outside leg and one diagonal back step with the inside leg.

The man learns to carry the woman, marking one of the six leg motions available to her, and to move, using one of the six leg motions available to him to travel in an orderly fashion around the floor. The woman learns to hold her axis on one leg, allowing the other leg to follow her body which is traveling in the embrace, and to acquire a new axis when the movement is completed . There are no leading steps, or following steps. By nature of the embrace the dancers move together in unison on one beat of the music.

Unfortunately the good teaching of tango is underrated. It has to compete with the urge for instant gratification: to run before crawling, and also with the eye candy temptations that sexy and voluptuous bodies provoke when dancing a choreography for the pleasure of an audience. The “show me the steps” binge leads to the “I forgot/I don’t remember the steps” morning after hangover, and the “toxic” cycle seems to go around like the common cold, with no cure in sight.

Enter German dancer and teacher Thomas Rasche and his new tango notation system ‘Rasche Notation’, which has just been published in a new book. Rasche Notation is a sophisticated dance notation for Argentine tango that makes it easy for step collectors to write dance steps. Steps are written for two dancers. Although it is not specifically expressed, it is assumed that both dancers are fluent in the high level notation language which uses familiar text symbols to describe the destinations of each step, so that they can then be written by hand or computer. This remarkable book closely resembles the tutorials that computer programmers use to learn new high level languages, like Visual Basics or Pascal.

The first chapter covers the basics of Rasche notation: the philosophy of RaNote (how much better it would be if there was a simple way of writing all the steps people learn), what RaNote looks like (four rows with a dividing line, two rows above for music and comments, and two rows below for detailed man and woman steps notation), and understanding RaNote (movement is described as destinations with symbols that represent abbreviated words, using assumptions and notating only unusual elements).

In the second chapter the four lines within RaNote are defined in detail.

The Compass line is used to notate and describe the music with three elements, a) form, the way a piece of music is constructed in various sections labeled A, B, C…, b) phrase, the equivalent of a spoken sentence, identifies one row of notation, and c) audible count, the timing of each step within a phrase.

The Description line contains notes and symbols that relate to the whole dance. For example, the name of steps and musical terms may be included to describe a feeling (vigourous/soft/strong/smooth/accented/sad/joking). A fundamental misconception of the tango (that the shape of the embrace is the origin of various styles) is nevertheless described at the start in terms of open, closed, or milonguero, with additional details about the nature of the lean, and the position of the head. A step sequence or dance phrase also goes into the description line. A summary of symbols used on the description line provides a blueprint for the faithful choreographic imitation of the way somebody else dances, or the perception by the step collector of what s/he thinks s/he is watching and understanding.

The Man and Woman lines carry the step symbols, describing the destination of each step taken by the dancers. Essential symbols are M(an), W(oman), L(eft), R(ight), 1… 12 (directions on a clock face as if drawn on the ground around the dancers), # (close feet), % (step between partner’s feet), C+ (clockwise pivot), C- (Counterclockwise pivot). Complex symbols condense information that contains many movements, such as the steps of a turn. The geometric component phases of each step, collect/balance/projection (including placement of foot)/partial and full weight transfer, are symbols written in lower case.

The third chapter contains a detailed and comprehensive list of diagrams and examples that include, close directions; close steps; giro steps; phases of a step; step symbols; walking geometries; step sequences, and a full transcription of a tango. Here, the complexity with which a simple closing of the feet with or without weight change and the dreaded eight-count-basic with back step are annotated, is akin to explaining how to find the location of the toilet using the logarithm of pi and the coordinates of the polar star. Yet, the considerable time and effort that has gone into quantifying a large collection of steps is remarkable and for many will be a good excuse to add mystery and complexity to the relatively simple concept of tango dancing within a clear structure.

Consider the familiar tango resolution which usually but not always follows a simple salida. The man advances straight forward with his left leg while marking a back diagonal to his left for the right leg of the woman. This clears the path for the man to take a second forward step to the woman’s left provoking a turn to the left, which converts his forward step into an opening to his right, and the woman’s step into an opening in the same direction. They both close with weight change, left to right for the man and right to left for the woman. Finally, the man takes a short back diagonal with his right bringing the woman forward with her left into the original home position from which a new salida or base can be initiated. Let’s see that simple count of four sequence in RaNote,

Compas	1	2	3
Description	Man’s left forward	Man’s step right	Man’s left closes
M	L	R3	#
W	R	L	#

The information on the Description line is repeated on the Man and Woman lines, so it can be removed. Instead a description of the step can take its place. The Compas and Description can be reduced to C and D.

C	1	2	3
D	Resolution
M	L	R3	#
W	R	L	#

A further reduction into a smaller space leaves a neat and easy-to-read note,

C	1	2	3
D	Resolution
M	L	R3	#
W	R	L	#

This clever, ingenious and elaborate system for tango steps annotation follows the perceived illusion that the dancers move shopping cart style (man pushing or pulling the woman while keeping her straight in front of him). For example, the second step of the resolution is described as a side step towards 3 o’clock without change in front (R3). Notice that the resolution ends at the closing of the feet rather than with a fourth step to bring the dancers to the home position. This approach makes no distinction between the unique characteristics of each tango step. Forward steps with the right or the left leg are rendered the same. Back steps with the right or left legs are the same. In this system there are no inside or outside legs, straight or diagonal steps. In other words, everything is geometry, with men leading and women following agreed choreography. Thus the annotations. The use of the obsolete eight-count-basic as an accepted sequence of steps betrays a lack of understanding of the fundamental structure of the tango, and it caters to a subset of dancers who collect steps but don’t want to pay for them at a ballroom studio.

The dichotomy of this book is that while it presents a system with a degree of complexity that requires a great deal of thinking and reasoning, this complexity is simultaneously what thwarts most people’s efforts to learn the tango as a dance of improvisation. If people can’t grasp the notion of a simple structure of six distinctive and unique steps used for the purpose of circulation, with the woman dancing around the man and thus executing the code that calls for the trailing leg to alternate crossing inside and outside the embrace, how can they be expected to read, write and memorize a mnemonic language of symbols and descriptions devoid of a logical structure? By the same token, if a person can become fluent in a sophisticated notation language to describe steps they see others do, why can’t they accept and learn the simple foundation upon which the structure of the tango is based?

The Rasche Notation’s attempt to encode many steps collected in group lessons from teacher to teacher, fails to show an accurate understanding of the structure of Argentine tango. It is then almost useless even for historians and choreographers, and is certainly of little value to the social dancer, or to someone wanting to teach the dance.

This being said, Thomas Rasche must be commended for his attempt, and the tremendous amount of work it must have taken to produce this book.

Rasche Notation for Argentine Tango
by Thomas Rasche
Paperback, 101 pages, ©2009, ISBN: 978-0-9561489-0-2
Suite 105, 179 Whiteladies Road
Clifton, Bristol BS8 2AG United Kingdom

www.RascheNotation.com

THE JUNTA COULDN’T KILL IT

Courtesy Clarin.com

Today March 24 marks the 33rd anniversary of the military coup that overthrew the government of Vice President Estela Martinez de Peron and thus began one of the darkest periods of political, economic, and social unrest in Argentina’s  history.  It was a horrifying time span of state sponsored terrorism with a dictatorship that kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of Argentines.

“It’s good to know that there is no better political system  than democracy. And there is no democracy separated from human rights,” said yesterday the secretary of Human Rights, Eduardo Luis Duhalde.

“Memory and Justice are the reassurance of our future as a nation,” noted Health Minister Graciela Ocaña.

The tango made an unexpected reappearance in Buenos Aires, around the time democracy was reinstated and a new democratically elected government assumed power in 1983. The significance of the renewed interest in tango is that it confirmed the resiliency and everlasting attributes of a phenomenon that, across many generations, has surged to incredible peaks of popularity followed by crushing chasms in which all  indications pointed to its irremediable death.

With the global popularity of the tango urban legends ran amok including one that is very hurtful and offensive to every Argentine who either lived, survived or saw friends and relatives live, survive or disappear victim of state sponsored terrorism. It comes in a variety of forms but the jest of the insidious tale states that the military junta engaged in a war to eradicate, proscribe, eliminate, etc., the tango in all its manifestations.

There is an corollary to the urban legend in question, and that is the absurd belief that Argentines let the tango die and it was the foreigners who came to the rescue, resuscitated and took ownership of the tango for the world. In other words, the justification for removing the Argentine from Argentine tango.

We hope here that an explanation of the facts will provide food for thought, and actually inspires everyone with good intentions to nip in the bud the cruel, insensitive and offensive tale about the junta going after the tango.

Courtesy Clarin.com

The main reason why the live performances of orchestras and the public milongas ceased to stay open for business for a long period, was because the political climate discouraged people from going out and risk being arrested during the frequent raids of the secret police did to all public places.

All public dances suffered the consequences of a state of siege and an edict that prohibited public gatherings.

People wanting to get married, for example, had to obtain a special permit from the police after providing a list of attendees so their personal backgrounds could be checked.

The excuse of looking for terrorists or extremists gave the repressive regime free rein to detain anybody without cause or habeas corpus. People stayed home, and all public venues shut down. Tango, jazz, rock and roll, etc. Simple as that, not just the tango but every conceivable artistic activity suffered.

The dictatorship in numbers

2818. Days that the dictatorship lasted from 24 March 1976 to 10 December 1983, when Raúl Alfonsín assumed the presidency after being elected earlier on October 30.

30 thousand. The number of persons, who, according to human rights organizations, were kidnapped during the illegal guerrilla repression. The majority remains disappeared.

500. The number of babies stolen from their mothers, or born in captivity in the clandestine detention centers. Almost 100 have been located and their identity reinstated.

500. The number of clandestine detention centers functioning during the dictatorship. The majority belong to  regiments, military installations, police stations or police detachments. The largest CDC was the one at the former Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (Navy’s Mechanical School), where it is estimated that five thousand persons were processed.

46 billions. The amount in dollars of external debt accumulated towards the end of the dictatorship. At the beginning of the self defined National Reorganization Process (El proceso) the external debt amounted to 6.3 billion dollars.

517. Percentage of inflation registered between 1976 and 1983.

14 thousand. Number of soldiers, officers and conscripts sent to the Malvinas Islands after the landing of 1982 and the transient recovery of sovereignty over the archipelago.

694. The dead toll in the South Atlantic war with Great Britain.

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TANGO, THE ARCHETYPE

By Gisela Kirberg Mamone (1942-2009)

The tango is an embrace in movement. A man and a woman enter a dialogue through their bodies, guided by music which has an almost somber quality of yearning. Of a passion that can that can never be fulfilled. Of a sweet sadness. Two strangers become one for the duration of the dance. Two opposites come together briefly to create the fantasy of a harmonious whole.

Out of diversity, fragmentation, contrast, difference, variance, conflict, emerges integration, harmony, oneness. This is the Archetype of the Union of Opposites, symbolized in the alchemical traditions of the Middle Ages as the Wedding of the King and the Queen, or the Hermaphrodite, or the Sun and Moon. In fairy tales, this conjunction is symbolized by the marriage of the prince, and in our modern times by any Royal or other wedding that captures our imagination. And by the tango.

Deep in our psyche we know that this Union of Opposites is never completely realizable. All the more do we ache for the unobtainable bliss of such an absolute, for a state of being where all is harmony and completion, where all conflicts and differences cancel each other out. I have wondered why the tango unlike other dances has such a compelling, even addictive quality. Is it the power of this archetype: the archetype of union with the opposite, of longing for that union, of knowing that it is unreachable?  Is that what makes it so truly romantic?

The longing for union with the opposite is seldom merely a longing for a member of the opposite sex, even though in dreams it is often symbolized as a sexual act, sometimes with the most unlikely persons. What we long for is what we perceive as opposite and therefore need if we are to be whole. We find this central theme of desire for our completion in Plato’s myth of the original round human being, divided by the goods into two halves, both of which are constantly seeking to be reunited with one another.

We find it in the epic Tristan, made into a haunting opera by Wagner, Tristan und Idolde. We find it in the literature of the romantic writers. The mystical teachings of the kabbalistic Tree of Life show us: we are trapped in our polarity, in Malkuth, and our constant striving is to become ONE again with our source, by evolving up the Middle Pillar towards Kether, the Godhead. Goethe’s main preoccupation was the union of opposites, and so was Roberto Assagioli’s, the founder of Psychosynthesis.

C.G. Jung speaks of an archetype as “the archaic heritage of humanity” – the key experiences and emotions and themes, passed down through the ages and shared universally by all of humankind. “Every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of the species.” Once in a while during our lifetime, usually when we are at a crossroads, some new cluster of emotions prepares to break through and then erupts into our everyday awareness. We may have a dream of something rumbling under the floorboards, or of some liquid squelching up through he cracks. Or we may dream of a loud knock at the door.

If we don’t have a dream, we may have an intuition of imminent change. Or we may have a synchronized event, one of these meaningful coincidences that give us a sense of all rightness: whatever may happen follows a coherent pattern, even if we cannot see or understand it. At such time, a new archetype is a new constellation in our psyche and we wait and watch how it will manifest in our life experience. We are poised for the next step.

As in tango, we must wait with alertness, ready to respond. When we are in the grip of an archetype, we are guided by something bigger than our concious reasoning and planning would allow for. We must follow it, if we are to fulfill our destiny.

Gisela Kirberg Mamone held a Diploma in Psychosynthesis Counseling. She’ll always be remembered as a kind and giving tango dancer at Planet Tango’s House of Tango. She wrote this article in May 2003 and it was first published on the May 2003 issue of ReporTango

THE ARCHETYPE OF THE INSTRUMENTAL TANGO

Halfway through the decade of the ‘20s, the period of renovation headed by Julio De Caro, the veterans of the old guard felt the shakedown provoked by what they perceived as the transformation of the tango into “church music.” Meanwhile, the youngsters were treasuring the copies of the new arrangements, the solos, the counter melodies that emanated from the creative talents of Pedro Maffia, Julio De Caro and Francisco De Caro.

Francisco Canaro and Roberto Firpo, who were the major exponents of the traditional style 2×4 hot tango of the Old Guard attempted to counteract the popularity of the new generation of trained musicians by opening up their orchestras to young talent like Cayetano Puglisi, Ciriaco Ortiz and Osvaldo Pugliese.

However, around 1924, an entrepreneur with long range vision, began to hire six piece tango ensembles, the typical orchestras modeled after Julio De Caro’s Sexteto Tipico, to provide musical background for silent movies. For the next six years, the movie houses became the cathedrals where the tango was workshiped. Lacking other sources of affordable entertainment, the working class families of Buenos Aires made these movie houses their favorite places to spend their free time. Thus, a large number of the population became exposed to the tango music of Pedro Maffia, Julio De Caro, Francisco Lomuto, Cayetano Puglisi, Osvaldo Pugliese, Elvino Vardaro and many others.

It was in one of those movie houses, that a chubby fifteen year old kid heard for the first time the mastery of the bandoneon of Pedro Maffia, not imagining then that many years later, he himself, Anibal Troilo, would be called the premier bandoneon of Buenos Aires. Troilo would later say, “before Pedro Maffia, there was nobody.”

With a solid reputation as a pianist and a composer, Osvaldo Pugliese was only eighteen when he wrote Recuerdo, the tango that many experts consider the birth certificate of the instrumental tango of greater importance in style and renovation that has ever been written. Because he was not yet of a legal age, the tango was originally registered under his father’s name, Adolfo Pugliese, who had been a flute player at the turn of the century. When Osvaldo reached the age of twenty-one, Recuerdo was published once more with his signature.

The tango was bold and advanced for its time. With a rare melody, extremely beautiful in its harmony and counterpoints, Recuerdo has a variation for bandoneon that it is very difficult to play as it is written. It requires gifted fingering, sound technique and a sense of virtuosity capable of extracting the best out of the possibilities of the music.

The sounds of Recuerdo were first heard in a cafe in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo, played by a modest quartet that was not equipped with the acceptable suitability of execution to extol its musical values. Its premiere went totally unnoticed and it was even retired from the repertoire for lack of interest by the public that frequented the establishment.

By the winter of 1925, the quartet of the bandoneonist Enrique Pollet with Emilio Marchiano and Bernardo Perrone on violins, and Osvaldo Pugliese on the piano, occupied the orchestra pit of cafe A.B.C. With that quartet’s version, Recuerdo would finally reach its true artistic relevance as the archetype of the instrumental tango.

By 1926, the quartet of Pollet changed venues and format, becoming a typical sextet of two bandoneons, two violins, Pugliese on piano and a counterbass. Recuerdo was high in the repertoire of the new orchestra and it was wildly acclaimed by both the public and the tango musicians who night after night dropped by to listen to the excellent interpretations of the Pollet sextet. The public repeatedly demanded the execution of Recuerdo, almost in every set played by the orchestra.

One night Pedro Laurenz was among the selected audience and he requested a handwritten copy of Recuerdo to bring to Julio De Caro, who received it with great enthusiasm. It is widely accepted that De Caro’s recording on November 9, 1926, is the definitive version of Recuerdo, never surpassed, only equaled by Osvaldo Pugliese himself, who in 1944 incorporated Recuerdo into the repertoire of his legendary orchestra with exactly the same instrumentation that De Caro had used eighteen years earlier. Not a single note was changed, and Pugliese even kept the temperamental tempo that De Caro had immortalized in 1926.

Sixty years later, on the stage of the Teatro Colon, towards the end of his glorious career, Osvaldo Pugliese used a new arrangement of Recuerdo when his fabulous orchestra was joined by many musicians that had played for him over a span of forty years. The arrangement and the interpretation recorded in 1986 are a musical tribute to the genius and inspiration of the late Maestro who pushed the envelope of modernization of the Argentine Tango without ever severing its roots.

OSVALDO PUGLIESE TEATRO COLON

COME TO MY MILONGA OR TANGO DIES

A Manifesto by Nena Pezonchico
(Agitator, troublemaker and a mistress of exaggeration in the rarest of thin air)

Tango is in trouble. Living in our own world of music and dance, we are failing to see it. The milongas in Buenos Aires are full. And when they are not, the practicas are (100-300 people). But in the real world, outside of the milongas, the picture looks very different.

Argentines, essentially, are boycotting the tango. Many even hate it. Out of 100 radio stations in Buenos Aires, only one plays tango music. Argentine companies do not use tango music in their TV commercials, preferring rock, foreign or national. And Argentine people that love tango music are in despair. They no longer have hope that the young Argentines will embrace the tango. Many also have lost hope in the Europeans. But they have a lot of hope in the Americans and their belief in how stupid Americans are at dealing with things they don’t understand.

Many Argentine people that are involved with the music of tango, such as tango historians, taxi drivers and pizza delivery guys, who may not even dance themselves, feel that the Americans have a genuine interest and love for tango music. It appears that many people from the US are buying a lot of tango music, and not just the most obvious selections, but things that are rare, and they know what they are buying because they have been looking for it. These Argentine tango historians look at the American dancers and DJs with respect and hope they don’t wise up. They believe that if anyone can save the tango, it will be the Americans that love it.

There are many young people (18 +) in Buenos Aires, who dance beautiful traditional tango with great style and energy, and they do not dance “nuevo” or dance to electronic tango (both of which seem to be the domain of dancers outside of Argentina). Instead, they love to dance to Donato, Canaro, Lomuto, etc. But there are not enough of them to keep tango from oblivion. That’s where the Americans come in.

This complexity demanded a great skill from the DJ when there was recorded music in the milongas all those decades ago. It is that same special quality that we bring to you at my milonga.

Our DJ does not DJ from a play list. Instead, he creates his tandas in advance, which allows him to match all the songs according to singer, date of recording, ‘mood’, tempo and key. He never selects consecutive tangos that are in the same key. He insists that it is the job of the DJ to maintain proper sound and volume at all times. He is a sound engineer at heart with a laptop choke full of mp3s.

We hope that you will come and enjoy this beautiful music. We hope that the men will learn what music makes them the best dancers in the world. For the ladies, we wish that every dance reminds them how beautiful, alive and happy they feel in this music. And we hope that every one of you, who loves tango, accepts the monumental challenge of keeping it alive by dancing it and knowing well its poetry and music.

Come to my milonga because you don’t want to be held responsible for the death of the tango.