Floorcraft, Choreography and Hastiness

We dance counterclockwise along the line of dance, but our dancing route is not a straight line. Rather, it is a random course with alternate right and left moves, forward and backward steps and various turns. If our legs were brushes, they would leave on the dance floor marks with different characteristics - neat or messy, robust or graceful, beautiful or ugly, interesting or boring... just like a work of calligraphy. This work of calligraphy is not only two dimensional, composed of steps in single or multiple sizes and directions, it also has a time dimension, involving steps in monotonic or diverse speeds and rhythms.

Students may think of floorcraft as navigation rules, such as traveling on your own lane and avoiding frequent lane changes, not dancing against traffic, keeping a proper distance from the couple dancing in front of you, not doing spot dancing that may hold up traffic, avoiding dangerous steps, etc. But floorcraft is more than a safety protocol. It is also an important component of choreography, an art by its own right. Dancers may be skillful in dance techniques, but their choreography can still be artless. The following is an example.

These students are quite skilled dancers. Their embrace, posture, footwork and techniques are all good. The only issue is the rush. They danced with great hastiness, blindly chasing the beat regardless of the mood of the music. There is hardly any pause, extension, slow motion, subtlety, and emotional expression in their dance.

It's important to know that dancing to music does not require stepping on every beat. Dance is like any other composition art. In writing you need to use punctuation marks. In painting you need to use empty space. In calligraphy you need to leave margins. And in tango you need to pause. Silence is also a way of expression, which sometimes speaks more than words. Pause, slow motion, and pose must all be a part of your tango vocabulary.

In comparison, the following clip is a better example.

While some dancers in this video still dance in a beat-chasing way, there are few exceptions. The glaring example is the couple in white and purple appeared from 0:00-0:35 in the middle and again 0:55-1:05 to the right. The man danced in a relaxed and patient way, giving the woman enough time to finish her steps and not rushing her to chase the beat. Sometimes he paused to enjoy the silence, adding an interesting variety to the choreography.

When it comes to choreography and dance pace, we have much to learn from the milongueros.

As you can see, these milongueros danced at a much slower pace. Instead of chasing the beat, they incorporated a lot of pauses and slow motion into the dance. Their focus was on the music and feelings rather than steps, which made their dance more interesting, meaningful, and with depth.

It must be pointed out that plotting the dance is the role of the man. The woman's role is to synchronize the movements and beautify the dance, but she cannot change the choreography. That responsibility lies in the leader. Too often, the leader is so focused on leading the steps that he forgets to make the choreography interesting. This, of course, does not mean that the woman has nothing to do with choreography. Often the couple rushes because the woman dances with great haste, leaving the man little choice but rush with her. (See Steps, Musicality and Choreoraphy.)