Of all my classes this week, your class embraced my new drill, Superheroes!! Wow: what a bunch of not-so-latent theatre types! I loved hearing the ZOOM! BAM! WHEEEE! sounds echoing off the walls. Even more, I loved watching all of you put so much energy into your dances! Way to go!
Class overview:
- ocho cortado turns: Leader does first half of the ocho cortado (or any of the variations we've worked on), but continues around in a right (clockwise) turn instead of finishing the move. At the end of the turn, the leader "cuts" the follower's motion to produce the end of the ocho cortado, or goes into any of the ocho cortado variations we've done this term.
- left (counterclockwise) turn after the ocho cortado: Instead of finishing the ocho cortado by leading the the cross position, the leader make the follower's step a front cross step of a turn, and continues turning as desired. I really like this step because a lot of followers who do mostly close embrace ASSUME that we are going to the cross, and do it automatically. Here, I can encourage them to pay attention, because I am not automatically leading the expected step. This spices it up for both of us, and gives me a more awake follower.
- review: We reviewed walking to the cross, front paradas + crossover with adornos, and some of the ocho cortado patterns we've covered this session.
- musicality: using traspie in tango, milonga and vals rhythms. We focused on distinguishing the timing for milonga and tango (double-time) from vals (triple-time). In vals, the traspie can have a 1 2 3 1 2 3 timing; or a 1 2 3 1 2 3 timing. For me, it depends on what the music asks me to do. Sometimes, I play against what the music suggests, but most of the time, I use the timing that goes with the particular part of the song/orchestra. We practiced with Canaro (pretty straight-forward) and Biagi (fun but diabolical) valses. For milonga, we practiced with Canaro and di Sarli (both pretty straight-forward). For tango, we practiced with Canaro (rhythmic) and various lyrical orchestras.
Thanks for a great session. I'll be back in Eugene about once a month for group classes and private lessons. Stay tuned for venue and times. I am thinking about coming the first Friday-Saturday of each month: any opinions on that?