[Tango-L] Social dancing

[Sergio Vandekier]

Jonathan says:

                    "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."

*The above is true, but that is only part of the truth.   There are certain 
milongas that are very  popular on certain days of the week.  Let's say 
Gricel is the place to go on Fridays, for instance.

You can expect that that milonga is going to be very crowded on Fridays. If 
you go there you will be obligated to   (due to the lack of space)  dance in 
close embrace and adjust your vocabulary of steps to that circumstance, 
unless you go very early or very late and then you may be able to dance in 
other ways.

When you see people like Rodolfo and Maria Cieri, Puppi costello, Nito 
Garcia, Lampazo, Mingo and ester Pugliese, Pepito Avellaneda, etc, etc, to 
name a few. Where do you think that they learned to dance ? In an official 
school of tango training?  Do you think that they were stage dancers? (they 
were social dancers).

No, there were no schools, they learned from each other at the practicas and 
then went to the milongas to dance the type of tango that they exhibit and 
taught in recent times.  A style called Salon or more recently Fantasia to 
differentiate it from a simpler form done in crowded milongas.
A style with all the elements that characterize tango argentino.

Does everybody dance the way they do or did? No, there are lots of people 
that learn a few steps and turns and dance a simple tango that satisfies 
them.

Summary:  People danced salon with all the elements of tango if the 
conditions of the floor and space allowed it, otherwise they adjusted their 
dance to the circumstances.

There were many people that danced without ganchos for instance and they did 
not allow them in their milongas..this does not mean that that was the rule 
in every milonga. You could dance your style with all sort of embellishments 
in most places .

I remember going to the Milonga of Mimi and Francisco Santapa at Salon 
Canning (probably early 1990s). Francisco always well dressed with tie and 
coat dances a very elegant form of salon tango. He told me "I do not allow 
ganchos in my milonga" then I danced with Mimi without ganchos but when Amy 
brought him to teach in Detroit, she told him that people there liked to 
dance with all the firuletes and he taught tango with firuletes ganchos 
included.


"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. "

*The military dictatorship you make reference to, lasted from 1976 to 1983.  
During that period with the excuse of "fighting terrorism" and supported by 
the USA they tortured and killed thousand of people.  They prohibited any 
gathering of more that three people without permission.

All you needed to have a milonga, a party, or a gathering to discuss any 
subjects was a permit from the local police station.

Many milongas downtown closed, many people stopped dancing but in the 
neighborhoods many milongas continued open and many milongueros never 
stopped dancing.

Last wednesday I had the chance to look at a huge collection of videos from 
those times with Sergio Segura and Anton Gazenbeek.  They showed plenty of 
milongas with lots of space to dance and people dancing the Salon tango with 
all its elements, similar to what some would call "fantasia"today.

There were all sort of famous dancers such  as Todaro, Lampazo and many 
others only known by their nick names. Ladies like "La Rusa" (the Russian) 
or "La cucaracha", etc.

Anton spend 8 years in Argentina dancing and doing reseach about the history 
of tango as a dance, he collected media material and interviewed many all 
milongueros.

I found them extremely interesting.

Summary: Tango did not stop during the dictatorship.

Have a beautiful day, Sergio

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