Instructors: Homer & Cristina Ladas
http://theorganictangoschool.org/
England International Tango Festival
Tonbridge, Kent, United Kingdom
May 26-28, 2018
We began with
individually practicing the three main boleo foot movements/shapes:
(1)
low
and continuously on the floor
(2)
higher
at our knee
(3)
higher
up toward our thigh.
We first did this with
front boleos. With option (3) higher up
on our thigh, the ending is with our knee up and then slowly over to the other
side. We drilled this on the left
leg/foot and right/leg foot, all three shapes/movements.
Exercise: In hand to
hand hold with imaginary giant fish bowl between us, both dancers did forward
ochos into forward boleos. Do not use
the hands for leverage to get yourself to pivot. Do not push down. Keep the chest up and back. Do not look down
at feet. It’s not about how fast you
pivot, but about being able to pivot fully and completely. The standing leg should be in control at all
times, with foot not rolling out to either side. Do not sickle the foot at the point of the
boleo.
Exercise: In sugar
bowl embrace, the Follower should be close to the Leader. Leader leads forward ocho and forward boleos
in this embrace, doing side step and using send or stop energy.
There are two energies
needed to lead a boleo: (1) send energy,
and (2) stop energy (becoming a statue).
If the Leader gives
the Follower enough time, she might do a boleo on her own (not led by him) as
an embellishment. (The Follower “takes”
the boleo.)
The Leader needs to
send the Follower’s hips into the boleo first, before giving stop energy.
The magic point in the
boleo and the “Point of No Return” is at the point where the Follower’s
hips face the Leader’s hips. Here is
where/when the Leader needs to turn the Follower’s hips past to get a boleo.
The Follower knows the
Leader has stopped because she feels it as she holds onto the Leader, so she is
present. Do not be too light or floaty, and conversely, do not push down on the
Leader with your embrace.
When Leader leads the
ocho, the Follower needs to amplify the movement in her hips 2-3x as much, as
her hips are an “Ocho Factory” – whereby they amplify the Leader’s
spinal rotation and pump out beautiful big ochos on demand. The Follower needs to power her hips through
her connection with the floor. The
amplification is 2-3x, not 1x, otherwise he would never get a boleo.
Back Boleos
Keeping our feet on
the floor. There are 4 categorical shapes in doing back boleos:
(1)
keep
foot on the floor
(2)
Blade
of Zorro where knees are together, and leg just goes up and down in a diagonal
slice of air, with front knee slightly behind the standing knee
(3)
semi-circular
into drop the axe. This is the most common and is a little rounder with one
knee behind the pit of the other so you can’t see the knee cap. Boleoing leg does a semicircle and then drops
down like an axe. It is like striking a
match, turning at the point where the leg drops like an axe. The beauty of the circular boleoing leg
depends on the stability of the standing leg.
(4)
in-line
Boleo, which depends on how much your thigh goes backward. The knee disappears beyond the other knee.
There is lots of extension in the Follower’s hip flexors and contraction in the
lower back. This is a big movement, and
could be socially unacceptable, so be mindful about where/when you do this.
Only do it where conditions allow.
Back boleos are based
fundamentally on the back ocho, so the Follower needs to be good/great in her
back ocho technique.
Exit: collect and wait
for the Leader.
The Leader is after
the reflection in the Follower’s foot with what he is doing with his
spine. The litmus test of whether a
boleo is good is if the Leader feels the Follower’s hips move.
The Point of No
Return in back boleos.
Leader takes
Follower’s hips past that point to get a boleo.
Leader needs to have clear stop energy.
We drilled both sides,
with the Follower communicating with the Leader what she needs from the Leader
(more energy, etc.)
Contra Boleos
In regular boleos, the
Leader employs 75% send energy and 25% stop energy.
In contra boleos, the
Leader employs 25% send energy and 75% stop energy.
Exercise: Do side
steps, playing with this concept of stopping the energy to feel what it should
be like. Leader does shimmy to get the
Follower’s hips going, then he steps to the side with send/stop energy, getting
Follower to do a contra boleo. The
Leader’s side step is around the Follower, as his two feet need to surround the
Follower’s standing, supporting leg. It is like their feet are three points in
an isosceles triangle (Follower’s foot is the tip; Leader’s two feet are at the
base of the triangle).
We drilled doing
contra and regular boleos from the forward ocho and back ocho.
Maestros concluded
with a class quiz/summary and demo to All
of Me by Ray Boudreau
Notes courtesy of Anne at http://scoutingtour.blogspot.com
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