“The Sensual Foot”

Awakening the dancer’s awareness of their relationship to the floor.

Before we take our first steps, before we can even embrace, the fundamental relationship that supports the most obvious relationships in tango- to the music, to our partners, is really our relationship to the floor. If this foundation isn’t solid it stands to reason that the other relationships are compromised. Sensuality is very much a part of tango, yet when it comes to our feet, besides the technical aspect of collecting, pivoting, and getting forward, we seem to take the actual foot for granted. Worse, we ignore it. Pushing off from one leg onto the other wouldn’t be possible without the toes, yet how many dancers actually have awareness and faculty to call them fully into play. When we see a dancer we admire, besides posture, intensity, physical and artistic abilities, isn’t part of what we admire the dancer’s relationship to the floor?... how he or she moves through the dance and relates to the floor? Though “the intention” is transmitted through the chest, the foot is what propels us from one leg to the other and the toes possess the ability to control the intended quality of movement.  Strong and aggressive, languid and sensual, or staccato and measured, primarily it’s the toes (our stubby little digits at the very nether region of our bodies), then our feet that are responsible for receiving, interpreting, then transmuting more precisely what we want to say with our emotions and movement into our dance.

CONTACT /
INFORMATION
Sharon Hillman
Tel. (54 11) 4361 1052
batangosurvivalcourse@hotmail.com