adornos

Like Johanna in her blog entry from Friday, my “adornos” that I do are finally the result of a very organic process that followed me on my path of self-discovery with Tango. I may have admired other dancers and tried to put some of their moves into practice (discarding what didn’t feel right), but I have never taken any of those “adorno workshops” that are rampant in the U.S.

When I was still a beginner, someone was in town teaching an adorno workshop for ladies. Immediately I knew I did not want to take it. I was still trying to get comfortable with myself in the dance, and I wanted my embellishments to come from *me*, not someone else.  Since then, various teachers have put on a lot of different workshops for embellishments and people would say, “Oh you should take that because you can learn new embellishments!” and it has never felt right, so I have never done it.  The whole point of embellishing is to express your own personality, not dance like another person.

In my organic process, I went through various stages.

For a while I was overdoing the adornos because I’d suddenly discovered this feeling of freedom to do whatever I wanted.  Poor leaders that had to deal with me … The longer I dance though, and especially the longer I’m in Buenos Aires, the more it comes from the heart - and the less adorning I do.  I still do it, it’s just… different now.  Embracing men who have a keen understanding of the music they have listened to since they were teenagers and letting their interpretation soak into my own being might have something to do with it (esp. since I am so very picky about rhythm), but I really think I’ve basically had a natural evolution.  And when you see my adornos now, in the crowded milongas, they are close to the floor (at least I hope), very specific to the space that I am given and to the music and my feelings.

I like what Johanna had to say in this paragraph:

Adornos are the cherry on the ice-cream sundae, the icing on the cake, the star on top of the Christmas tree. They are used as punctuation, as an element to draw attention to a specific place or moment. But there is a definite visual distinction between a technically correct adorno and an emotionally-evoked one: we either embellish because we just learned it in a class and apply it any- and everywhere, or because the music and our partner moves us to do it in that specific moment in time.