[Tango-L] Always close embrace I

[Sergio Vandekier]

Derik says:

"The problem I have with the "close embrace all the
time" people is ignorance, and then them trying to
spread that ignorance around, by promoting their own
inexperienced teachers.  If the "close embrace all the
time people" would just dance the way they want to and
leave other people alone (not try to teach their
ignorance), then I would have no problem with them at
all."

I think we should analyze the reasons a particular individual chooses to 
dance in a particular way.

1 - The style of the local available instructor.   Here we should 
acknowledge the existence of several periods:

An initial period  (early nineties):

Most instructors traveling abroad  taught open embrace salon style (called 
tango fantasia by some people, nowadays).

This style could be very demanding in the way of physical conditioning, 
dancing skills and availability of space to dance, (it trains for stage 
dancing although it can be done as a social form) but it can be simplified 
to some extent to adjust to different circumstances.

The students at this period (ignorant of the existence of different tango 
styles assumed that that was the only Argentine Tango).

A few years later ( mid nineties):

People started to travel to Argentina to improve their dancing and 
discovered that most people at the milongas danced in close embrace. A 
different form of the one they had been taught.

This form was more compact, kept the close embrace all the time except for 
minor adjustments and the best of all: it was excellent for dancing in 
crowded milongas and at the same time it was not as demanding of physical 
conditioning, skills and rigorous training as the other form. It was ideal 
for social dancing done by people of all ages and physical aptitude.

These people returned home believing that they had been cheated and 
proclaimed that the "real tango was done in close embrace".  At the same 
time instructors of this style started to travel abroad saying " if you wish 
to dance in buenos Aires, you should learn this style, because most people 
there dance this form. They were not lying, this was the truth.

They said "most" people dance only in close embrace. They neglected to 
mention that many others danced 'Salon open embrace' , that many danced both 
ways open and close embrace, and that a few were starting to dance "Nuevo 
tango" and "Canyengue".

During this period many people started instruction in 'milonguero, close 
embrace'.
That was all they knew, they were convinced this was the only tango that 
existed. Many other dancers frustrated with their impossibility to master 
the 'Tango Fantasia' joined in. They had plenty of room to dance but they 
chose to make the room smaller to reproduce the situation in Buenos Aires.

When dancing with beginners of "open embrace" started to complain about 
them: "they show off",
"they dance externally (for the audience) rather than internally the way we 
do it", "they are rude, as they provoke frequent collisions", etc.   The 
dancers of only 'Open embrace rarely complained about the others but 
interiorly many of them thought that close embrace seemed to be an 
"inferior" form of dancing tango.

During this period Nuevo Tango was introduced by traveling instructors of 
this style.

  Here again we have a style that is very demanding in the way of physical 
aptitude, skills and training.
Due to all those factors this style atracted mostly young dancers.

Will continue, Best regards, Sergio.

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