[Tango-L] Social Tango: A Cultural Perspective

[Christopher L. Everett]

El Mundo del Tango wrote:
> 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.
>   
Umm, no.  In Buenos Aires, for tango purposes, milongueros are a group 
of insiders
who decide who is and isn't a milonguero.  Who is and isn't a milonguero 
makes no
sense to outsiders, but they all know  who is and isn't.
>  The word is used all over Southamerica , is not exclusive of Argentina and 
> it may have nothing to do with Tango, depending on context.
We know the term arose in Buenos Aires, and Argentine Spanish has evolved
very independently of Spanish in the rest of South America.  No other 
country
uses "vos", for example.

Are there Colombians, Venezuelans, etc, on the list that can verify for 
El Mundo?
> 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 .
>   
He did say social, not  milonguero.

And trust me, they use the term milonguero to describe a way of dancing
in Buenos Aires.  I danced a song with a singer and dancer/teacher who
was the daughter of a famous milonguero, and she told me I "dance as a
milonguero".  And Marta Fama, one of the best dancers in Buenos Aires
teaches "Milonguero Style".
> 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.
Umm, I'm here in Buenos Aires now.  I respect the few good open
embrace dancers around, but in the last month I have seen exactly
3 Portenos dancing open; one's more of a well known character in
the milongas here, and not considered a real dancer at all, and the
other 2 were miserably bad, by any definition.

With all due respect to the nice people at Villa Malcolm and all, the
overwhelming majority of dancers here dance in close embrace or
so close as to make no difference at all in technique.   If the old farts
around here are the leftovers of the Golden Age, then where are all
the open embrace people?
> Anybody who doubts this, 
> can refer to Pepito Avellaneda's videos 
I know 2 people who studied from Pepito for years (including one who has
almost all his steps from him).  In most social situations, they dance 
close.
I've seen exceptions, but that was a tiny barrio milonga (less than 40 
people
there) in Avellenada with little old ladies, most of whom were not good
dancers at all.

In Buenos Aires, very often dancing open is a survival tactic for dealing
with partners who don't have good equilibrium, or good control of their
bodies.  And little old ladies who've never danced tango are often squeamish
about dancing close, even here.
> or discuss the issue with living 
> legend milongueros Facundo Posadas or Julio Balmaceda, to name just two.
>   
In Buenos Aires, they dance close embrace in the milongas, just like
everyone else.  They wouldn't dream of arrogating the space for
anything else.

Theres a difference.  In the milongas, it's social dancing, and in 99%
of all cases I've seen, social means close.  On videos, or demonstrations
that's performancedance, not social.

Also, I've seen hours of Julio Balmaceda video, and he is pretty much
a close embrace all the time guy.
> 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.
>   
There are no Nuevo milongas here.  They have some practicas to go to.

And milonguero style dates back to the D'Arienzo revival of tango in 1935.
>  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. 
Never heard that said about enrosques; sacadas are a staple item in
Buenos Aires.  My teacher here in Buenos Aires is teaching me giros
with sacadas and something so similar to the enrosque it might as well be
an enrosque, and he's a milonguero.

Big flashy boleos are flat out dangerous in close quarters, its not a habit
you should acquire unless you like starting fights.  Much better to make
boleos a occasional thing.

In general, things happening outside the circle of the embrace are
unsuited for social dance.  They should not be something you do by
default.
> 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.
We've had the all distances discussion.  Now I guess we'll have
the all steps discussion.  Same bullshit, different people.

Musical interpretation is more important than maximizing vocabulary
any day of the week.
> 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. 
>   
On the surface no.  But "Milonguero" is built around navigation in tight 
spots.
Salon, Fantasia and Nuevo aren't.  People teaching milonguero style in the
(including myself) only teach beginners things that won't get them in 
trouble.
> Horrendeous navigation come in all styles and is more a matter of attitude 
> rather than skills or lack thereof.
>   
People that can't do an instant 180 on a dime can't navigate.  That is a
necessary skill.  So is closely regulating how fast you move forward. 
So are a few other things.  Ocho cortado, knowing what distance to
keep from the guy in front, even musicality is important.  Navigation
has a huge skill set. 

Christopher
> ----- 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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>>
>>     
>
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