[Tango-L] Social dancers

[Jonathan Thornton]

Sergio,

I would like some clarification on the points you made as these seems to
conflict with earlier reports I've read and photos I've seen.

On 7/13/06, Sergio Vandekier <sergiovandekier990 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Misconception #1 - Fantasia is stage dancing.
>
> Tango fantasia is the one done with all the elements that belong to
> Argentine Tango. It is done with amagues, boleos, ganchos, enrosques,
> contrenrosques, barridas, calesitas, volcadas, colgadas, little jumps,
> etc.
>
> Tango fantasia was the norm in social dancing till about 15 years ago when
> the dancing floors in Buenos Aires were not crowded as they are today.


I had always read that during the Golden age the dance floors were quite
crowded and the photos I've seen have shown very tightly packed crowds. This
was also I think true of the big band dances during WWII. The photos and
newsreel footage I've seen show a very tightly packed floor of slow dancers
dancing pretty close also in England for example, though they weren't
dancing tango of course, more like a slow fox trot I guess.

Daniel Trenner also said that in the better milonga's people could be
ejected for doing ganchos which were at that time considered vulgar. And if
that was the case I can understand that viewpoint.


> In the 70s. and 80s. people went dancing to do all the possible
> embellishments, to see what the other dancers were doing, to try to copy
> new
> steps, to do little exhibitions exactly the same as they are done today.
> Dancers like Petroleo, Todaro, Virulazo, Lampazo, Nito and many others
> were
> not stage dancers . They were social dancers that went to the local
> milongas
> in the neighborhood to do social dancing.


Again here I've read that during the military dictatorship that large
gatherings were forbidden and that milongas and clubs were closed. This I
recall from Daniel Trenner.

I'm just a bit confused now about what tango was like in those periods.

Thank you.
Sincerely,

Jonathan Thornton
-- 
"The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it,
but it still encloses, as does all that which is truthful, a secret."
Jorge Luis Borges