It has been said, the music should go through our ears and come out from our heart.  This is the basic requirement for a dancer to truly reflect his/her dance colors.  After all what makes every dance so distinctive is the uniqueness of each dancers’ personality.  The dance doesn’t have to be perfect but the dance should reflect your true self.

This last statement captures our main idea about the tango dance.  Our teachings should concentrate on preparing you to express your self to the music in the shortest time and allow you to have the most fun.  The basic ingredient of this approach is the very rich tango music.

We prepared the graph below to illustrate the factors involved in learning the tango dance.   Most of the space is covered by the factor of music or we call it the sea of music/ality.  It is obvious that this area affects everything that is related to tango. 
 

Learning the tango pyramid is similar to the food pyramid we have seen so much.  At the bottom we notice the most important ingredients.  Starting with the walk other tango elements make the foundations of the tango dance.  The more you get to the top of the pyramid the more difficult moves you will encounter.  Starting the second level, techniques such as embellishment will be included.  The very top of the triangle represents the most fantasia moves which require good technique. 

The triangle is also supported by a vertical structure which represents our body and posture.  A good posture will allow the dancer to apply the techniques he/she learns.  The dancer will practice concepts like “learn how to feel grounded with the lower body and how to extend the spine of the upper body.” 

Holding up the structure during the dance will be a fundamental requirement, and being flexible as needed will be the key to advance.  As you can see, this structure needs to be present through every level.

The last element of the dance, the line that holds the various teachings and posture, is the connection and/or communication piece.  The line which surrounds the triangle is the connection line: connection with the floor, connection with the partner, and connection with the dance crowd.  As seen in the picture this line is not static and moves in both directions.  The embrace which allows us to communicate (even with closed eyes) is more important for close embrace dancers.  As you can see the triangle is not in a perfect shape but flexible, which means during the dance the embrace, the touching point(s) will shift but will never break. 

We believe putting the tango dance/teaching into a diagram like this will help us to understand the essential elements.  Now the question “how this relates to the art of dancing?” will bring us back to the beginning of this write-up. Music that goes through our ears and comes through our heart and reflects in our bodies will allow us to open the doors of improvisation or creativity. 

We believe in emphasizing the areas which takes larger parts of the dance/teaching:  Fundamental factors such as music/musicality, body, embrace/communication, and simple techniques such as walk should be thought with other elements introduced slowly.  The main emphasize should be how to use the techniques with the music. 

The upper portion of the pyramid, which is the fantasia area, is usually in great demand.  The newness off these moves and uniqueness appeals to most beginner dancers since accomplishing these moves gives them great satisfaction - and look pretty cool from the outside.  I have to admit these moves were very appealing to me (Mehmet) in the beginning.  However in a social dance environment most of these moves can not be applied due to space restriction.  But that’s not the point I am trying to make.  The top of the pyramid is like chocolate.  It is very tempting but you can not eat chocolate all the time.  The system will not handle the moves either due to lack of technique, body and/or space restrictions.  The most appealing part of accomplishing these incredible moves lies in that we think these moves gives us the most satisfaction.  I also mean it when I say incredible moves; unfortunately only a few can accomplish these moves in the beginning. 

Since satisfaction/fun is the key element here, we would strongly argue, the same satisfaction can be obtained through using just the basic techniques combining with music/musicality.  With just a handful of moves and musicality, paying attention to communication, wonders can be achieved. And all these thoughts, basically our teachings originate from our dance experiences and all the dance classes we have taken. 

We hope the above helps explain where we are coming from.  By emphasizing musicality, body posture, embrace/communication, along with providing you simple moves and shortcuts we think you can start having fun on the dance floor in a short time and begin to show your dance colors.  After all, the more colors there are, the better it is. 

                                                                             M&L