| Article | : | Dancing Tid-bits Issue #179, Thursday, April 22,2004.
Today's Topic: Oversway vs Throwaway Oversway
Dear Max, I am a royal reader of your "Dancing Tid-bits" in Taiwan, and benefit a lot from your article. Thanks very much."Dancing Tid-bits" Issue #173 is excellent. I fully agree what you say about the throwaway. The excellent point of view clarifies my problem about the throwaway.Could you comment the following about the throwaway?
1. When man does the throwaway, is it the same in tango as in Waltz?
2. In Tango, after throwaway, how to back to promenade position?
Sorry to bother you and wish you all the best.........Mon Lei Chang
Hello Mon Lei, I am so glad that you are a royal and hopefuly a loyal reader of Tid-bits, so today just for you,we will talk about this business of Oversway vs. Throwaway Oversway. In Tid-bit #173 we discussed the following pointer from Stephen and Jennifer Hillier when it comes to Oversway and Throwaway Oversway.
Oversway Vs. Throwaway Oversway: This was the best part of the lecture for me. I always had a problem differentiating the 'lead' for Oversway as compared to Throwaway Oversway. First it might disturb you to hear that there is no SWAY in these steps. So why are they called Oversway and Throwaway Oversway. Interesting?..Isnt it. What I could gather from Stephen and Jennifer was that these pictures lines give an illusion of Swaying. However if you study the great masters you will see that their pelvic girdles or say, the Hips are more or less level and therefore there is no sway per se. Having said that, then there is extreme shaping. Please don't mind the word extreme, this is my interjection. This shaping creates the illusion of swaying and I think there may be some inclination of upper body depending on who is doing it but certainly there is no swaying here to inside of turn (there is no real turn) or otherwise. The LEAD for just the oversway is that there is no lead. Simply (Man) RF back, turning left, LF to side staying kind of low and don't overturn and let her assume the final position nice and easy. Oversway is done.
Now let's see what we have to do in order for her to go all the way for "Throwaway". Stephen and Jennifer got all of us on the floor to try this. I cannot believe it was so simple and I got a hang of it right away. As the man gets ready with his RF back to oversway he uses a slight elevation as he steps to side on LF. This may create a foot work of toe-heel on LF and then he lowers and lady automatically extends her left leg and foot for a throwaway with nice shaping again. Actually here, there is a feeling that he picks her up from his right side and puts her away to his left.
Now then,the answer to your question could be quite complicated but there is nothing that complicated in dancing. Depends; if you are teaching Standard Syllabus to your Gold Level Students none of that stuff will apply. Oversway is a described figure in Technique and Man startswith LF forward and does a Open Reverse Turn type of movement and then turns the lady further into an Oversway. There is a variation called Drop Oversway where there is an initial inclination of his body to left then he inclines to right (lady opposite). Having said that, now let's forget about the syllabus and answer your question as if we are open level dancers. Here we can do anything as long as it looks good and follows general character and timing of that particular dance. The answers to your questions are as follows:
1. When man does the throwaway, is it the same in tango as in Waltz? Yes, we can do an oversway in Tango just like above as described in Waltz. RF back and then LFto side turning left leading lady into oversway. We must show Tango in our character and some reasonable stuccato executing this figure. I think we can even create the look of a drop oversway also. *I will try it today with Syncopated Basic Reverse Turns (Vienese Cross) as a Precede.
2.In Tango, after throwaway, how to back to promenade position? Let's say we lead the Lady into a Throwaway with technique that was given to us by Stephen and Jennifer. I would say, it would be just as easy for the man to start rotating to right at the end, and bring his RF to LF and then LF to side in PP. He will lead the lady also to rotate to her right, she will bring her LF close to RF and then RF to PP.
I hope I have made some sense here but I will see how things go this evening, best wishes, Max
|
