Tag Archives: humanity

Argentine tango, Art, be yourself, body awareness, body mechanics, community, Dance, Emboying the rules, improvise, mindfulness, motivation, online tango practice, progress in dance, social dancing, social skills, Uncategorized

Keep dancing! Keep Moving!

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Dancing… Most of us think of it just as a social activity of a recreational nature. Something we do to spend some good time with friends, to learn something new and to have fun while introducing some moderate (not always) movement in our schedule. Right..?!? Yes and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Now think about dance in this last year. Are you taking classes online? Did you go to under-the-radar milongas or social gatherings? Do you dance every hour to a random song you hear on the radio like I do..?
If not do you miss dancing? If so has your perspective of what dance is here for, change through this experience?

The social aspect of every dance stems from within

Personally, I haven’t missed dancing as an activity because I still dance. But I have missed sharing the moment and creating something in the moment with someone else. And also the process of getting there, trying to understand my partner, trying to be honest, sharing and empathetic at the same time. This is irreplaceable!

Attending classes online and also offering classes online though made me shift or better said deepen my understanding of where all of the above comes from… and that is, from within each and everyone of us.

Spending some time understanding the human body, your body, through movement, will allow you to better understand yourself and then the other person, the human community and the world as whole. Coming from a place of understanding you can be more empathetic and sharing.

Dancing in the time of the pandemic

Though dance can surely not make the problems magically go away, the fact that we can feel more in control of our movement and our body while reducing stress and tension, can surely make us feel a lot better.

And this is where the dancer in me reaches out to the dancer in you!
Keep moving! Keep exploring and learning about all the things that make you, YOU!
How you breathe and how you can breathe more freely
Or how you walk and how you can walk with more ease
Are you holding your head in a position that pushes your whole body out of balance? You know which one that is… zooming into the computer screen! haha
And how you move to mitigate the impact of that

Dancing can help us look within, and understand what makes us…us; in the most free, comforting and comfortable way possible. I am not sure if this is just me, but I really need this! And I hope to be sharing this with you tomorrow and every Wednesday at the Tango Movement Lab happening live through Facebook and Youtube at 12:15pm Toronto time. Nothing is required other than you willingness to dance!

Lets get exploring together!

Chrisa

Argentine tango, Art, body awareness, community, Dance, online tango practice, social dancing, social skills, Tango practice

“Movement can change your brain, too!”

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For years and years we have a debate between body and brain. With different groups having strong opinions over ones power over the other; however more and more studies come to show an intimate connection between the two and bring movement to the stage!

Obvious findings through experience now backed up by science

We have all been in situation where we were feeling a bit blue, went out dancing and felt wonderful afterwards. Or where we have been feeling stressed and went to the gym to let some steam off.

Now there are numerous studies that show that movement, in different forms, aerobic exercise, resistance, flexibility, and balance exercises, Yoga, Qigong and Dance have an effect in the function of our brain. It “modulates stress reactivity and anxiety in humans.” , “increases endogenous opioid activity in the central and peripheral nervous system and may induce a euphoric state and reduce pain” , “boosts mood by increasing a brain protein called BDNF that helps nerve fibers grow.”

Specifically for movement practices where one is required to pay close attention to bodily sensations, position in space and feelings research has shown that such practices are useful adjunctive components to other treatment as they create the alleviation of depressive symptoms. See for example this interesting paper on Yoga practice and PTSD

Dance as a movement practice can have surprising benefits

The above links can surely give you an idea of what scientists mean when they say that change of posture, breathing and rhythm can have a positive change to your brain in various ways.

Dance, which is movement in synchrony with others can have further surprising benefits to “an individual’s self-esteem and their feelings of social connection with a partner.” The results of this study came to show that “individuals felt better about themselves following a period of synchronous compared to asynchronous movement, while they also perceived a greater self-other overlap with their partner.”

This for many of us might come as no surprise. I am sure we all have experienced the both ends of this spectrum of synchrony and asychnony. When in full synchrony with our partner we feel great. When fighting for synchrony for 12mins of a tanda we feel just terrible

In the same paper previous literature is referenced to have noted that “bouts of synchronous activity have been shown to increase cooperation , encourage compliance and conformist behaviour, boost trust, facilitate joint-action capabilities, enhance person memory, and promote compassion and altruism.(…) synchronous action can lead to perceptions of connectedness and the blurring of self-other boundaries between interaction partners. In general, experiencing interpersonal synchrony is seen to establish the common ground on which effective social interactions unfold.”

What I think we all might find interesting here is that communities around the world knew about this already; an experiential knowing that created folk dances, rituals and various other community activities that involve moving together.

Also, movers from various disciplines have described all of the above as firstly our movement informing our knowing. Secondly through discovering ourselves we discover more the other and the world and become more compassionate towards them, towards us.

Moving together is what I am missing

A friend asked me the other day: “Don’t you miss dancing?”
I was torn to tell you the truth… I couldn’t quite tell if I missed it or not.

On one hand I am now used to not having a milonga to go to…And I certainly don’t miss the action of dancing, of moving…

We have the Mid-week Tango practice and Online classes, plus my personal fitness schedule. So I am moving and dancing… What I do miss though is dancing with someone. Synchronizing my movement with other people.

Interestingly enough though all hope is not lost even in this crazy world we live in. In the experiment conducted as part of the research paper linked above, participants had to connect through a video link and perform arm-curls with their partner over the screen. Some were asked to synchronize their movement and some to avoid synchronization. The group of people who synchronized after the experiment reported a higher self-esteem and better connected to their partner.

People who live alone at this time isolation have suffered mentally much more than the rest of us. Can we virtually replace a hug? Surely not!
But maybe there are better ways to connect that we haven’t found yet, that we haven’t explored yet. Maybe there are ways to make these platforms and virtual environments more welcoming, more real…

Who knows..! I guess if we keep on moving and we will see what we can discover!

😉

Chrisa

Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, be yourself, body awareness, community, Dance, Emboying the rules, embrace, motivation, online tango practice, Tango practice, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers, Uncategorized

Are we going back to Tango?

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After many months of online chatting I got together friend and also a Tango teacher. We were wondering if we, as a collective of people, will be going back to Tango. And we were sharing experiences from our communities, as she is in a different city, noticing many common reactions from the two communities. Of course there are people already dancing, others that are not taking the risk and a small group of people willing to go back but trying to imagine what would they be “going back” to.

Going back by moving forwards?

So the question we stumbled upon was whether we could possibly be going back by moving forwards? Paradox..? Maybe not..!

This conversation started from the moment we saw each other… It was such a relief seeing each other in the flesh and bone again! And we jokingly said to one another: “Oh! You still exist in real life!” haha

Along with all that there was this great urge to hug and greet each other like any two people would have done under normal circumstances. We didn’t… you know, being in a public space and all..! See hugging is currently a no no and I personally don’t disagree

However, think about the time when going back will happen with no masks, no partner restrictions, no lysol wipes all over the place… Do you think that longing for a hug will express itself through the dance? Is there a possibility that we will be looking for more connection through our dances after this isolation, restrictions and fear? In this way would this actually be moving forward and not going back?

A deeper connection

Someone might say that they were always looking for a deeper connection and I think this to be true for most people. I imagine this though will be multiplied by this great distance we had to keep for such a long time.

We will probably be more like the kids we all saw on the videos online, where they ran to hug their friends after not seeing them for a couple months! haha

You know sometimes on the dance floors you would see the struggle and the persistence at the same time to achieve that connection in the faces of dancers. I imagine this will be effortless, a connecting power coming from within, along with unimaginable joy!

That is my post-covid, going back while moving forwards in Tango plan and the next question would be how would we then maintain that feeling?

That deeper connection can easily fade out once we get back to absolute “normal”. How could we possibly maintain and build that up though?

And I think, without having the experience of course, there are various steps. One being during those first few milongas, where we have the choice of diving in deep to that feeling that we take the dive and allow it to take over.

Then after the milonga, the same evening at home or the next day, there is the opportunity to wake up to the details of that experience and then start analyzing it. After the awe, we can start gently allowing for our mind to make sense of the experience. In other words allow for the experience to inform our knowing. That happens when we start describing in words how the experience felt. For example a dance can be light, intense, heavy, powerful, energetic, grounded, visceral but also spicy, salty, sweet. All great words and the more descriptive and detailed we can get, the better.

Lastly, the bits and pieces we think we have figured out can go into our practice. Not in a forcing way, not for example thinking: “Oh! We have to hold exactly the way we did it last Saturday at the milonga!”. Instead more in an explorative way, as an observer looking for clues of where these words came from. In practice therefore new experiences are created and the cycle starts again.

So I guess I am thinking of this endless spiral of creativity…! Hmmm…what do you guys think? Are we going back to Tango or are we moving forward to new Tango experiences?

Send me your thoughts! 🙂

Chrisa

P.S: Looking at working on the embrace but you doing have a partner?
Try this practice:

And for our Live practices you can check this link out Online Tango Practice

P.P.S: Join the Bautanz community by subscribing for more Tango inspiration, motivation and news on our online program

Argentine tango, Art, social skills

Art is a necessity not a luxury

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Moving together has been one of the many things this Art we call dance, is here to do.
As every Art, dance brings people together. Inspires them to create communities, helps them realize how much they have in common. Helps them understand one another, encourage and inspire each other to become better. And to become better not only in dance but as human beings as well!

Can we break apart?

Unfortunately it feels like we already have in some way, broken apart…
Lets take Tango as an example, communities around the world are still trying to recover from the hit they took from Covid. This though is not the only great hit…

This pandemic is the final blow for most Artists living under a great pressure.
With or without Covid19 Artists need 2 or 3 jobs to survive. They run from school to school, from gig to gig, from job to job. Performing Artists make their own costumes, pay for the venues, run the PR. They don’t get paid to rehearse and they don’t even sometimes get paid per show, but per ticket they sell. Every man for himself!

If you talk with any Tango organizer they will tell you how tough it is to sustain the milonga and even worse, the festival.
Every Dance teacher can tell you about the endless hours they spend preparing for classes, rehearsing, practicing, taking classes, staying in shape, only to be crushed by the hourly rates that can really be as low as minimum wage in dance schools that are either struggling too or that they have fallen for this destroying mentality of “This is how the Arts are! Nobody does it for the money! You have to really love it to make it”

Art is a necessity not a luxury

This mentality, that the Arts are just for a hobby, something to pass the time, not a real job…have made the Arts appear as insignificant, unnecessary, unimportant, something that is nice to do if you have free time and money.
And us, Artists have fallen for it..! We believe that we have to fit that ridiculous profile of the starving artist we see in movies. To make heroes out of ourselves just to prove that we are doing something worthwhile, something important, something necessary.
To prove, loving your job should be simply obvious!

It is with that mentality, that we will drop all our criteria to get our gig going, to put ourselves out there, to make ourselves known… We will put other Artists down, we will work with the worst of people, we won’t defend our coworker in need, we won’t even defend ourselves.

Art though is not a luxury; it is not a just nice thing to spend your extra time on. Something you do to forget your sorrows.
The Arts are here to elevate the human mind and spirit. To help people realize their role in this society. Art helps us realize our capabilities; helps us build up inspiration and courage from what people can create together. The Arts give people courage and strength to aspire for a better community, a better society, a better life.

The Artists therefore can not possibly fit that starving artist profile. Can not be crushed people, egoistically running around to get themselves known. The Artists inspire their students, their followers, their audiences. We show people that WE can move the whole world together!

The virus didn’t break us apart. This economic system did; where human kind always comes behind money did
Artists are here to show that nobody is alone! Together WE can move the world!

This is an invitation

The next class you take, the next play you watch, the next song you hear, the next poem you read and the piece of Art you admire, try to see what is this person really trying to share with you…

I for example teach you Tango but I also teach you anatomy, biomechanics and how your body was built to move…That is my passion..! But most and foremost I teach you how to research and explore; how to learn through movement. And that is a life skill.

What life skills do other teachers, dancers, painters, writers, musicians, actors…all the other Artists you follow share with you

Remember together WE can move the world!

Chrisa

P.S: and if you want to start dancing right now…haha…here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFJxkNgUVQ&list=PLllIglFQNLn8TzQscnkvBgsKjdweeEZO-&index=6