Teaching Tips (Richard Powers)

- Alice Hamachek

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“Finally, the most important immediate outcome . . . To help dancers learn in as many ways as possible, and to make teachers fluent in as many teaching languages as possible, including those visible and invisible ways of communicating things like care, concern, humor, warmth and love for the art, not only for the art of dance but the art of teaching, and the desire to pass these things on to other people by teaching them to dance, or at least for an hour, giving them wings to fly.”

- Joan Walton

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“To educe means to draw out or evoke that which is latent: education then means drawing out the person’s latent capacities for understanding and living, not stuffing a (passive) person full of preconceived knowledge.”

- Stephen Nachmanovich

The Passion Container by Sharna Fabiano

I first read these articles some time ago, but I just posted them under the Resources section and wanted to make sure everyone has read them. Even if you are not a tango dancer, all of Sharna Fabiano’s articles make for excellent reading. You can visit the website for her nonprofit in D.C. at http://www.tangomercurio.org. Enjoy!

“The mastery of the music doesn’t stop with the mastery of musical technique. The musicians we think of as true masters of their art are the ones whose artistry we admire, and that goes way beyond technique, into a place that even the word ‘excellence’ can barely touch, that almost indescribable realm of human depth which we refer to by such terms as ‘character’ and ‘soul’… It’s not about what you do or how you play but about who you are. It’s about the qualities in the soul of the musicians that contribute to true artistry.”

Enjoy!

Condolences to Frankie’s family and friends. To make a donation to the Frankie Manning Fund, please visit www.frankiemanning.com.

Check out these videos of Frankie Manning dancing. The first one is from the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin. The second one is Frankie dancing with Sylvia Sykes in 2006. Enjoy!

Despite the fact that the Spanish Harlem Orchestra plays very danceable salsa tunes, the band has expressed opposition in the past to playing for dancers. They say that this prevents their music from being appreciated for its artistry and is instead only used as background music for dancing. “I respect that [dancers want to dance to our music], but, unfortunately, the dance trivializes what we do from an artistic point of view,” the band’s leader Oscar Hernandez told Rosa Luisi (see below for full article). “People think it is one big party, and we are up there in a creative trip trying to present a musical artistic vision.”

Luisi’s article for the New Hampshire Register does an excellent job of expressing the view of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra that their music deserves to be heard and appreciated for its own artistic merits and not just as an accompaniment for dancers. This is a very interesting debate for dancers and musicians. While many dancers wrote negative comments about the band’s point of view on Salsa Forums online, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra’s position does highlight an important point for dancers: the music itself is an art form and can be appreciated even absent the dance. Perhaps keeping one’s body still and more actively listening (or just listening in a different way) can lead to a greater and fuller appreciation of the music that inspires the dance. And perhaps it may also eliminate the intimidation factor for nondancers and bring salsa music (and dance as well) to a larger number of people that might not otherwise be exposed to it.

Definitely a worthwhile topic for further reflection and discussion. You can check out Rosa Luisi’s full article here.