[Tango-L] Social Tango: A Cultural Perspective

[El Mundo del Tango]

Ron...If  you  understood Argentine culture as well as you claim to, you 
would know that "Milonguero" is simply someone who goes partying and dancing 
all the time, for social purposes, whatever style he or she dances.
 The word is used all over Southamerica , is not exclusive of Argentina and 
it may have nothing to do with Tango, depending on context.
I think you know very well that you should be calling what you teach 
"Apilado"  o "Del Centro" but you desperately hang on to the "Milonguero " 
label to imply that you are the "real thing", "the authentic one" and the 
next guy is NOT .
Others like you do the same thing with the labels "Close embrace" or "Buenos 
Aires style". Shame on them and you. You are excluding and offending 
millions of milongueros, who never danced such style. Not  now, not in the 
Golden ages, not in Buenos Aires, not anywhere . Anybody who doubts this, 
can refer to Pepito Avellaneda's videos or discuss the issue with living 
legend milongueros Facundo Posadas or Julio Balmaceda, to name just two.
Salon and Nuevo,  like it or not, are also "social ", were also created 
(Salon, half a century before the so called "milonguero") and are danced in 
Buenos Aires, depending on which Milonga you attend, and  can also be danced 
in close embrace, even closer.
I agree with you and Tom  that we all must use judgement  to  adjust to 
circumstances and context, but that has absolutely nothing to do with style. 
Horrendeous navigation come in all styles and is more a matter of attitude 
rather than skills or lack thereof.
 To lift your partner over yor head or have her hanging around your waist I 
agree is not "social", but I heard the same thing said about boleos, 
sacadas, enrosques, colgadas, etc. It sounds to me, agreeing with Jake, like 
a lame excuse for not making the effort to aquire the skills to be able to 
do them.

Gabriel

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Weigel" <tango.society at gmail.com>
To: <tango-L at mit.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 2:37 PM
Subject: [Tango-L] Social Tango: A Cultural Perspective


> In Buenos Aires porten~os don't have difficulty separating stage tango
> and social tango. This is the culture that created tango, so perhaps
> we should listen.
>
> In the early 20th century, Europeans and North Americans had their
> first exposure to tango. It was as shocking as it was popular, often
> considered too provocative for euro-norteamericano tastes. So it was
> sanitized and standardized to fit the cultural norms of the recipient
> cultures. Thus, today ballroom dance studios teach an American tango
> where partners at times separate part of the embrace or the
> International tango with bizarre head-flicking, both danced in a march
> like fashion to marching music with a strong drum line. This dance is
> an evolutionary derivative of the tango from Argentina, perhaps much
> accurately described as a fusion of a foreign form with an indigenous
> (ballroom) form and it is still called 'tango'.
>
> In the 1980s and 90s Tango Argentino and other stage shows introduced
> Europeans and North Americans to another version of tango - tango
> fantasia, as it is sometimes called. This type of tango is not
> normally danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires. However, exposure to
> the shows created a demand from viewers to learn this type of tango
> and they did and danced it socially. This learning and further demand
> was reinforced by continued travel of tango stage performers to the US
> and Europe to teach. Thus, a modified tango fantasia became the norm
> at US & European milongas.
>
> There are probably several reasons why modified tango fantasia became
> the standard social form in the US. Part of it is due to a 'founder
> effect', i.e., it was the part of the Argentine tango culture that was
> brought to the US. However, tango fantasia also met with acceptance in
> the US because it blended well within a recipient culture that places
> a value on exhibition - whether it is dance or sports or motion
> pictures. We are a culture that enjoys and reinforces visual display.
>
> Social (milonguero and other) styles of tango have had a more
> difficult route of cultural diffusion in the US. As an instructor of
> the milonguero style in the Midwest US, I have repeatedly encountered
> resistence against the idea of dancing with maintained chest-to-chest
> contact. North Americans are uncomfortable with close physical
> contact. Dancing at a distance and making large conspicuous movements
> is less personal, less threatening, more comfortable, more consistent
> with our culture.
>
> This is not to say that tango fantasia is bad or somehow inherently
> evil. When done well on the stage, it is an art form to be admired. It
> requires great skill. It is great entertainment. However, on the
> social dance floor, it can be dangerous. Stop talking about all the
> fantasia dancers who respect the line of dance. They are few and far
> between. More likely to be encountered are dancers with limited skills
> who cannot navigate well and are a collision danger to other dancers.
> I've had to learn defensive navigation on the dance floor because of
> them.
>
> Fantasia is adapted to the stage. Social tango is adapted to the
> social dance floor.
>
> Despite exposure to the social style of tango in the US, there is
> limited acceptance. I believe one important thing North Americans fail
> to understand is that one of the unique features of social tango that
> makes it such a powerful experience that we become addicted to it is
> that there is connection primarily through the tactile and auditory
> sensory modalities, not the visual. Tactile connection with partner,
> auditory with music, with the visual sensory modality used primarily
> by leaders to navigate so as to not collide with other people on the
> floor. In what other dance can we maintain an intimate embrace with a
> partner for 10-15 minutes, synchonizing our brething and heartbeats,
> bathing in each other's sweat, flowing to passionate music? The
> porten~os understand this. North Americans have difficulty letting
> down their defenses enough to experience this.
>
> This concept is very foreign to a culture that glorifies exhibition
> and finds interpersonal contact threatening.
>
> So perhaps a modified tango fantasia or the similar 'nuevo' tango will
> define tango social dancing in the US for a long time to come, much as
> American Tango and International Tango did previously. But remember,
> this is not the tango that is danced socially in Buenos Aires. That
> may or may not mean anything to most US dancers, which is not a
> surprising revelation, since North Americans are known worldwide for
> interpreting any cultural product in their own terms. Our inability to
> understand other cultures is one of the reasons we are considered
> arrogant and have so much conflict with other cultures all around the
> world.
>
> Ron
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