Tuesday 22 May 2012

Ricardo again!

...and tango181 (Bendtango) has just uploaded another short extract of Ricardo Vidort at the milonga Bien Jaileife in July 2001.



Fascinating to watch not only Ricardo but the other dancers too.

I found a long and interesting quote from Ricardo on Jenney Surelia's blog, but I couldn't get the link to work, (it's http://tangothoughts.typepad.co.uk/tango_thoughts/quotes/ but it lead me to a blank page.) It obviously worked in the past since I copied the quote. Since I can't link it, I hope Jenney won't mind if I put it here in full. Ricardo said:

To explain what is a milonguero, is really very difficult, because the feeling of this beautiful emotion is something new to each person. It is almost impossible to put it in words. But I shall try to do it, and I hope without offending or hurting anybody's feelings.

To be a milonguero, first of all you have your own style of dancing. It means that you have a unique feeling for the music, rhythm, cadence and embrace. When you have all this, the music invades your body and mind and then, only then, the chemistry begins that really makes you transmit to your partner as if both were talking, whispering, sliding on the floor with sacadas, corridas, turns, dancing only one for the other, not for the people. In that moment, when both are listening to the magic of the music, the skin of one in the skin of the other, the smell, the touch produces the miracle of something like a mantra, and the ying and the yang is there!!! We are dancing tango!!!

The priorities of a milonguero are the feeling and the woman. The codes are like the commandments which were born with the tango, and the music is defined in three parts. The first is a question, the second is a pause or prologue, the third part holds an answer. All this is in our feeling and this is why we always improvise, having the pleasure of being ourselves, in our own style with the rhythm and the cadence. Today people teach in methodic ways, but the tango, the real Tango Salon, does not have method, because it is a feeling. Technique and choreography are only for performance, this is tango which has been learned for hours for show business; there are hundreds of couples doing the same thing, and only a few of them, let us say ten or fifteen are really very good because they are different and that is another thing. Every tango dancer of the streets, those who practised in the squares or parks, with other men, developed technique naturally, without knowing it. His steps and feeling were a technique. My advice is - walk, walk with your toe first and always in the music, walk and practise to be yourself and not a copy of anybody else.

Jenney Surelia's blog

4 comments:

Patricia said...

Thanks for sharing this beautiful quote, TC. It certainly rings true for me.

Janis said...

The complete text was published in the Autumn 2004 issue of El Once Tango News (London). Jenny's blog includes half of the article and should refer to the original publication. The second part of Ricardo's article is entitled, Is Tango Dance a Therapy?

Tangocommuter said...

Thanks, Janis. Of course I checked around to see if I could locate Is Tango Dance a Therapy? but it doesn't seem to be available on the web. If I do come across it, I'll link to it.

Janis said...

Is Tango Dance a Therapy? will be included in the blog Ricardo Vidort - Unforgettable Milonguero of Buenos Aires at www.ricardovidort.com when ready for publication.