Thursday 7 May 2009

Tango on-line

Jantango recently emailed me from Buenos Aires:

“A tango friend in the USA is trying to promote tango as it is danced by milongueros from the 50s. He wants to organize a conference for November. He can't afford to bring milongueros, so I suggested seeing how to incorporate the attendance of milongueros via webcam.

As you know, they are free transmissions. I have yet to use a webcam myself, but it could be one way of having the presence of a milonguero with someone on your end doing the translation.

It's not the same as being there, but it could be interesting and worthwhile.

What do you think?”

My first thought was that it's a wonderful idea and it might be an inexpensive way of holding a 'London Tango Festival', since it would save the cost and problems associated with travel. By definition the teachers are now in their 70s, so they'd probably find it preferable to 14-hour flights.

My problem is my lack of experience in both the technology, and in the teaching, so I thought I should open it out to anyone who happens to read this, because other people might have experience or good ideas.

Technically, it seems obvious that a projector would be required at both ends to give life-sized images, as it's hardly possible to work from a monitor, but that's not really a problem these days. I think the actual format of sessions to make the best use of the slightly disembodied experience might require more thought. & I don't know how dancers like Facundo and Kely, Dany 'El Flaco' Garcia and Silvina Vals, Myriam Pincen, Rubén de Pompeya, Miguel Balbi, Muma, Osvaldo Buglione, Ricardo Saurez, Pedro Sanchez, Ruben Harymbat, Elba Biscay, like to teach, what they think is important. Possibly we may well know as many 'steps' as we need, and need help rather with things like posture, musicality and finding new ways to combine steps.

My feeling is that what would be useful in any case would be a substantial amount of well-recorded video on YouTube. Of many of these fine older dancers there's a pathetically small amount of video publicly available and most of it poorly filmed in bad light and on what might well be mobile phones. Given that their experience might not be available for much longer I feel this is a potential tragedy. It is technically no problem to download YouTube video and work through it at leisure and in slow motion, which makes it a wonderful learning tool. Having worked through YouTube video like this it would then be great to have an online session with some of the dancers: five or six couples spending regular afternoons on line with several couples of the older dancers and a translator. I think it's an experience everyone could enjoy and benefit from, and the cost wouldn't be great.

I'd certainly jump at the chance to film and upload material any time I'm within reach of any of this generation of dancers. & if there's the interest, I'd be very glad to help set up a video meeting.

7 comments:

Simba said...

I'm not quite convinced. While video can certainly be useful, much of the point of taking lessons from the milongueros (or any other teacher for that sake) is to interact with them physically. To feel what it feels like dancing with them. And that, I'm afraid, won't transmit over the internet. At least not yet ;-)

Why don't you rather start in a bit smaller scale, inviting one of your favorite couples over? You don't need a grand festival to make an impact to the local dancing community, and the economic risk is much smaller.

By the way, Kely unfortunately passed away not so long ago.

Anonymous said...

I think it's a great idea.

Posting videos would be better than a live broadcast. It's technically easier (upload to youtube from camera for example), and replayable videos are much easier to use for studying and rewinding.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Simba that interaction is an important part of learning. The milongueros have lots of things to share about tango, and dancers need to hear them, not only to watch their dancing. They can learn HOW they do what they do and why. If it were only a matter of seeing them dance, I wouldn't have suggested a webcast. That can be done on YouTube.

For example, I videotaped a friend during her private lesson with Pedro Sanchez in February. Afterwards, I recorded their conversation--questions she wanted to ask about tango and the milongas. What he said was as important as how he transformed her dancing.

Tangocommuter said...

Simba, thanks for passing on the sad news of Kely. I never met her but remember her dancing with Facundo from a BBC documentary eight or nine years ago. They were spectacular together, and great fun to watch.

& thanks for your input. I agree that the physical presence of teachers is important, but inviting even one couple to the UK might cost over £3,000, which would be impossible to recoup from workshops. Video conferencing would at least give some of the benefits of interaction with this older generation, and at an affordable cost.

You can't learn tango by watching videos but if you are already dancing, as Anon. says, you can learn from video. Watching dancing is important, it's something everyone does, everyone learns from, although it never replaces the presence of teachers with a lifetime of experience. The older dancers might enjoy sitting together for a few hours watching our dancing, commenting, explaining, answering questions and demonstrating how it should be done. I'm sure I'd enjoy being in their company, even if they are far away. It's definitely worth a try.

Jantango knows how and what they teach: it would be useful to know how it could be organised, and which of the dancers she knows would be interested. & how much would it cost to get two couples, a venue for, say, three hours, and the technical link together?

Simba said...

If it is possible to get someone on tour in Europe, the trip is cheaper. I'm just mentioning it since we had quite a fight in our community over whether it was 'possible' to get professional dancers from Argentina and still cover the costs of the workshops.

It worked out quite well, much better than with instructors from our neighbouring countries that we had before. At least flaco Dany and Carlitos Perez have been on tour, I'm sure plenty of others as well.

So don't say it can't be done, check it out first!

Tangocommuter said...

Hi Simba, and it's encouraging to hear that you managed to get Argentine teachers to the UK. I'm curious about the details, and whether you managed to cover your costs.

One of the problems is actually finding out when these people are in Europe, as they tend not to do well-advertised tours, with websites, etc. I've asked contacts in Buenos Aires to let me know if they hear news of upcoming tours. Please let me know if you hear anything: it might be possible to collaborate on arranging a tour and workshops in the UK.

Videoconferencing is always going to be second best.

Simba said...

We were able to cover the costs, when we repeated we made a small profit. It is very sensitive to the travel cost, that was my experience.

We are a small community, so we had to rely on some visitors from other cities/countries and teaching in English, which added some additional constraints on the choice of teachers.

I recommend asking the people you would like to come directly, in person if possible, and see what they say. Then make a reasonable budget to see what you can cover with realistic attendance to the workshops. 6 workshops for a week-end and 15 couples was what I based my back of the envelope calculations on. Email me privately if you want more specific information, simba at simbatango dot com