The backstep

We started to talk about the back step. My partner claimed that good leads make deep backsteps, which she maintained gives energy to the dance. I wasn't so sure about the depth. In any case, deep backsteps can be a health hazard.

When I got home I started to look through some videos of the old guys. Ricardo Vidort steps back occasionally, but it's rarely a formal backstep, more like a quick rebound: most of the time he seems to be running forwards and around his partners. Tete took big backsteps in demos, but he took big steps anyway. Other dancers are like Ricardo Vidort: you don't really notice the back step although it is there. I don't think you can dance without stepping back sometimes.

I remembered that Ricardo Suarez has a very quick, energetic and precise backstep. How is it possible to get so much energy into a counter-intuitive and possibly awkward step? I watched some videos, and all the answers seem there in this short clip, first in real timethen in slow motion. He dances with his weight well forwards, as is usual for his generation. Then as he steps back, his right knee bends and his body sinks onto it, a smooth, swooping movement with a rebound back up onto a straight left leg. I think the big point is that he doesn't just step back; his whole body moves back and down, and he carries his partner with him. She's drawn downwards and forwards into a positive step. & since Ricardo's whole body moves back the foot stepping back stays almost flat to the ground.

My impression is that the energy comes from the whole body movement, and the precision of Ricardo's timing itself creates energy. This flexing of the leg you are stepping away from, and landing on a straight leg, is fairly consistent across the older dancers. It's the same pattern when taking a simple step to the left.

(Ah! The parquet floor of Maipu 444, and the red and black table cloths of Cachirulo! Ricardo's partner in March 2009 was Florencia Bellozo.)

So my partner was right in one way, there's energy in the backstep, but the energy isn't the consequence of a long step. Ricardo Suarez makes clear and relatively deep backsteps, but they don't need to be big to make sure they are full of energy.

Ricardo Suarez in Buenos Aires

After seeing Ricardo Vidort's milonga in Rome, I started to look for other milongas from that generation... and remembered Ricardo Suarez, who was five years older than Ricardo Vidort and celebrated his 90^th birthday a few weeks ago.

When I first watched him in Maipu 444 six or seven years ago I didn't know who he was: he certainly appeared to be the oldest dancer there, and yet didn't miss out many tandas. I kept watching him because he seemed to have an incredibly precise sense of the beat: he seemed more 'on the beat' than anyone else in a room full of some of the most experienced tangueros in Buenos Aires. Every time I've been there I've seen him at a milonga two or three evenings a week, dancing most tandas, dancing with old and young, dancing all evening.

His movements aren't big, but look very precise. Small movements doesn't mean movements without energy: his steps are absolutely decisive. That back-step has a sudden precision to it: you don't need to take a big back step to get the energy of the movement. As usual it's not what you do it's how you do it. Useful on crowded floors, and also useful if you want to keep dancing all night: no energy is wasted.

There have been a few recent videos related to his birthday, and several are milonga. The feeling that he's more 'on the beat' than anyone else is still there, and I assume that his partners are exactly with him, very precisely on the beat too. (There's nothing approximate about 'on the beat' in traditional Buenos Aires tango, as I've been reminded a few times while there.)

For some reason the 'embed' isn't working: the video is here. Abretango also has other videos of Ricardo's birthday celebrations.

Here's Ricardo and the late Enriquetta Kleinmann at Ricardo's 89^th birthday last year, a well-lit and very clear video. (You have to fast forward to about 2:40 to get to the dance.) Same music: curious how similar Tati Caviglia and Enriquetta Kleinman are, both in height and dance, although I think Enriquetta looks more assured.

And to return to the 90th birthday: Ricardo Suarez dancing with Muma. Not a milonga, but a lovely tango. The film is mainly close up on upper body, and the movements of the dancers are very clear, and it's extraordinary just how much movement there is, up and down, side to side and round, little movements back and forth, like a conversation. It's not exaggerated, and it is precise. But when the camera does pull back... Muma is dancing barefoot! Wonderful. In conversation once, a 'porteña' deplored women wearing jeans to milongas: But, I said, just last night I saw Muma at Cachirulo in jeans! 'Ah! Well. Muma!' she replied. Muma can wear jeans to a milonga, and she can dance barefoot too. But that's Muma.

One thing clear in this clip: Muma and Ricardo actually look as if they are dancing together, and enjoy dancing together. Sad to say, that's not so with some of the other dancers visible. A pity they are surrounded with dancing that seems to lack this personal, interior absorption, lost to the world in each other for a few moments.