Intermediate Elements - Sacada
For the Leaders: Sacada is one of a class of steps where your chest is doing one thing while your legs and center of gravity are doing another. In pretty much every sacada, the leader is saying, "go this way" while he is not going that way, so he can go through the follower's leg. The need to multi task in this way is something that is very typical of many steps in tango.
When David is trying to learn steps that have more than one thing going on at once, he takes his time and finds the coordination that connects the two things. Nancy suggests isolating that one step which embodies the particular difficult coordination and practicing it until you feel natural doing it.
- Artist Name:
- Mercedes Sosa
- Song Title:
- Vuelvo Al Sur
- Album Title:
- Gestos De Amor
(From Wikipedia): Known as La Negra (literally: The Black One), Mercedes Sosa was an Argentine singer who was popular throughout South America and many countries outside the continent. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She was best known as the "voice of the voiceless ones".
- 00:04
- We’re going to show you a sacada;
not easy, pretty cool. - 00:12
- We’re coming off of front ochos
which you already know. - 00:17
- And there’s your sacada. One more time.
- 00:27
- And so what happens is, for the leaders
you do your front ochos… - 00:31
- ..just like you normally do front ocho,
front ocho. - 00:34
- Now right here, as you pivot her
to take the next front ocho… - 00:37
- ..you prep your leg and as she goes forward,
you go through her leg. - 00:42
- Different angle.
- 00:45
- Front ochos for him,
here as we get her to go around... - 00:49
- ..we start going around the circle of
where she’s going to go. - 00:55
- And then it goes on.
- 00:56
- For the followers, this is remarkably like
just carrying on with your front ocho. - 01:01
- There are two differences.
- 01:02
- First difference;…
- 01:08
- ..is right here as you go out,
as the leader puts his leg there, you’ll go “Oh” - 01:16
- And so there’s this little bit of an
“Oh” with your back leg. - 01:20
- So follower as you’re dancing with your partner
who looks... - 01:23
- ..remarkably like a chair lying down.
- 01:28
- That’s difference number one.
- 01:29
- Difference number two is it becomes
a little bit more circular. - 01:32
- So with front ochos
as we taught them originally... - 01:34
- ..they were very linear
going from one side to the other. - 01:36
- And now because he’s staying
more or less in one place... - 01:40
- ..going around this circle,
you’re going to go around him. - 01:50
- So right here,
I take her in the circle around me. - 01:53
- I go forward with my leg,
catching her back ankle. - 01:57
- And then as I shift forward
she’s going to go “Oh” ... - 02:00
- ..and collect and then we can go on.
- 02:02
- So my leg - my ankle,
just comes up over his leg... - 02:05
- ..and keeps going in it’s original trajectory.
- 02:08
- Yes.
- 02:09
- So I don’t make a big thing of it.
- 02:13
- I was thinking maybe I’ll show you how
making a big thing of it is too much. - 02:16
- And then I thought, oh they might like it.
- 02:18
- N: Yes that’s not a good idea
D: So I’m not going - - 02:19
- Yes, I’m just not going to show.
- 02:22
- And they’re like, "That’s no fair David."
Here’s another angle. - 02:30
- And so I want to leave you with
two thoughts as you think about this. - 02:34
- Thought number one is that for the leaders,
this is about correlating your chest... - 02:40
- ..with your feet as you do two different things
at the same time.. - 02:43
- ..and having them relate to each other.
- 02:46
- For the followers -
- 02:48
- He made that sound do easy didn’t he?
- 02:50
- No It’s not easy.
- 02:51
- For the followers as you do this,
ideally I want you to have this idea that... - 02:57
- ..you can have energy in the limbs
without them being frozen. - 03:00
- N: Oh right.
D: So there's an instinct... - 03:02
- ..for followers to say, “Okay I’m here.”
- 03:05
- And yet if someone tries to move your arm,
nothing happens. - 03:08
- N: That doesn’t work with the feet.
D: Yes. - 03:10
- Or you might be here but sort of limp.
- 03:13
- So you want to have this place where
it’s sort of like you’re stretching in all directions… - 03:16
- ..but that if there’s a movement, the body
can respond in this sort of elastic way. - 03:21
- So when you hit the foot,
it goes “Oh” and it goes on.
