[Tango-L] Prologue to an aesthetics

[TangoDC.com]

Dear all,

This picks up the "gender roles" thread from a few days ago... Sorry for 
not being more punctual; I've been deleting as much as I've been typing. 
And it is Long.

***

Hi Sergio (et al),

Thanks for the quotations from Nau's book. Now I understand (or think I 
understand) what's actually behind your point, and what appears to be 
the dominant formative idea behind tango dancing in Argentina. Sean 
argued earlier that the tango is a sublimation of mating; I presume he 
means heterosexual mating, because he insists on including one male and 
one female part. This we might call the Ritualistic mode of tango, 
insofar as the dancers are sublimating their own mating instincts, etc., 
rather than "representing" something external to themselves. Your 
argument here gives the tango a Mimetic dimension as well, since (in 
Nau's outsider interpretation) it represents elements of Argentine reality.

Now, your point and Sean's may seem, to a good number of people here, 
like they're saying the same thing. I don't believe they are, and if you 
bear with me through some aesthetic analysis, I think you'll see where 
I'm coming from, what I'm attempting to do here, and why. I'll use topic 
headings to clarify matters, since this may get a bit complex. (Also, 
here I must largely pass over your recent post on Surrender. It's 
valuable, but applies mainly to technique, and only to certain kinds of 
content. Before we can fully digest your point on Surrender, and other 
such points, I think we need a more accommodating context, so we can see 
all aesthetics and modes of dancing, e.g., "neo" tango, in relation to 
tango tradition as a whole.)

* FORM vs. CONTENT*
First we must distinguish form from content, and consider what each one 
actually is. Partisans of different camps will probably find one 
definitive and the other not, but no matter. First, let us consider content.

_1. "Traditional" content_
The recent posts arguing in favor of a male-female partnership are 
discussions of the tango's content, not its form. This has been 
described variously as:
* Sublimation of (heterosexual) mating
* Representation of typical Argentine gender roles

Several views have been expressed amounting to much the same thing: if 
this "traditional" content is altered, the dance is no longer authentic. 
A couple dancing in the Netherlands, and expressing the typical gender 
roles there (providing there are any), would be using the same mimetic 
approach, and representing their society. But-- goes the argument-- we 
would have to call it Dutch tango, because it represents the Dutch 
character.

I can see where this perspective is coming from, because I make a 
similar objection every time I hear an Israeli blues guitarist playing 
out-of-a-can licks at an open mic night. The technique is well 
practiced, but they just aren't Getting it. My objection, however, is 
that they are playing music devoid of Any content, since (in the cases 
I'm speaking of) they fail to achieve anything except the genre. That is 
not enough. It is merely mechanical.

In the case of the imaginary couple from the Netherlands, however, we 
have something different going on. This couple, which exists only in 
this example, is utilizing the same aesthetic (mimesis) to the same end. 
Only the particular content has changed. Presumably, if there was an 
Argentine couple with comparable personalities, they would dance exactly 
the same way, because they are representing their reality via the same 
medium, the same aesthetic, and the same style. The ritualistic 
sublimation of mating might still be intact as well, insofar as the 
dancers aren't playing anyone (or standing in for anyone) except themselves.

_2. Non-mimetic content_
If we extend this allowance to other kinds of content, we soon reach a 
point where content ceases to matter, so long as some content exists. 
The aesthetic need not be mimetic or representative of anything larger 
than the dancers' personalities. It is still a realist aesthetic, so 
long as the dancers, in some sense, are "playing themselves." The dance 
remains a documentary of gender roles, or of societal codes, or more 
simply of individual personality.

But this is only one mode of available content. Dancers may just as 
clearly express a formalist aesthetic, in which the content becomes the 
dance and its traditions, its evolutions, or its history. Here a 
particular move might be highlighted and "commented upon," or a 
particular style might be debuted, and so forth. In such dances, the 
dancer ceases to represent any particular country, and possibly any 
particular personality (even his or her own), and is much more an 
abstract entity-- an artist, or even a critic, more than an 
autobiographer. These dances are what lit crit would call "intertextual" 
and "intratextual," since they are dances about the dance, and refer to 
themselves as well. (This differs from the guitarist I described above 
only because I'm remembering guitarists who were Copyists, not creators. 
They created no "discourse" about playing blues guitar. A formalist 
dance would have to do so, or else it would also sink into rote repetition.)

Then you have content that could be called Expressivist in its 
aesthetic-- content such as I described in a recent post, imagining the 
man's role to be valid as either bull or matador. In such cases, the 
tango itself transforms its participants into something else, and the 
content of the dance is neither external reality nor formal concept, but 
something completely Other, such as a bullfight, or the clashing of the 
primary elements, or even (and here we come full circle-- almost) a 
satirical cartoon about heterosexual courtship, in which the dancers are 
not themselves, but comedians. In such dances, style comes to the 
foreground, and everything else (gender roles, formal ideas) tends to be 
of lesser significance. This aesthetic also tends leverage its effects 
on the music to a much greater degree.

Given the wide variance here between aesthetics as regards content-- and 
I have only named Realism, Formalism, and Expressivism-- I think the 
form of the dance, or the medium, perhaps has a better chance of 
achieving inclusion while being definitive.

*FORM*
The form of Argentine tango has always been defined (when it has been 
defined) by negative comparison to Ballroom tango and other such dances. 
History made this necessary, since "tango" as a _widely popular_ dance 
was, first, what was going on in Paris, and only afterwards what people 
were doing in Argentina. So, forever after, in order to clarify what we 
mean, we're stuck using the descriptor "Argentine," to distinguish our 
dance from what the globe came to consider regular tango.

This "form" or "genre" of dancing is what I take to be definitive, even 
though it has an increasing number of subcategories. To wit: apilado, 
open/nuevo, neo (which is nuevo style plus Nu music, so far as I can 
tell), nuevo milonguero, "canyengue," and so forth.

The two indices of style here seem to be (a) vocabulary of moves and (b) 
type of embrace. That there is a fair amount of overlap regarding moves, 
and how they're executed, indicates that these styles have similarities. 
There is no style in which a volcada is impossible, and the same goes 
for a boleo, an ocho, and many other moves. Certain moves are easier in 
one style, or perhaps harder (or impossible) in another. But most moves 
are shared, or at least their functional principle is (e.g., 
counter-motion, off-axis leaning).

That the functional aspects of the embraces also overlap is an 
indication that these styles belong to the same family. We can define 
the embrace by reference to ballroom, and say that the embrace in 
Argentine Tango is more relaxed, more fluid, and more for the purpose of 
communication within the partnership than for preserving a rigid form 
for the sake of an external observer, such as a competition judge.

That all the styles mentioned above (as well as others) refer to species 
of *improvised dancing* seems to be the telltale sign of the genus we 
call Argentine Tango.

This is why I personally consider tango choreographed for the stage-- no 
matter how Argentine (or not) its content or "look" may be-- to belong 
to a different genus of dancing. Namely, to ballroom. Given a very good 
argument to the contrary, I could be persuaded to change my mind, but I 
detest stage dancing, so someone else will have to make that argument.

_1. "Traditional" and new forms_
We're at a very odd crossroads today, because there is a large camp that 
insists on dancing "traditional" styles, some of which (e.g., canyengue) 
have been reconstructed out of notes, and others of which (apilado) have 
been transmitted down by the oldest generation of living dancers. In the 
meantime, however, Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas have laid a new 
foundation, on which many of today's younger teachers and performers 
continue to build.

In light of the recent developments, there's a real question that 
remains unresolved, largely because nobody seems to have posed it: If 
someone now in their twenties commits to learning an old-school style, 
when do we start calling it "retro"? That is to say, these forms or 
modes of dancing (again, regardless of content) are hardly immune to the 
vicissitudes of fashion. To pretend otherwise is to look the other way.

What I think we must do is accept that all these forms of dancing belong 
to the same major form, called AT. They are intelligible to one another, 
and they all are _unintelligible_ to ballroom tango. To exclude 
everything but the most old-school, traditional forms is to shut down 
creativity. And to exclude everything except mimetic or ritualistic 
content representing the Argentine character is not only xenophobic and 
myopic, but also reduces Argentines to a single stereotype.

_2. Alternate match-ups_
In one sense, we might say that the form of the tango changes when the 
XX-XY gender of the dancers is altered. (I'm using chromosomes as 
shorthand for actual gender, as opposed to "role.")

On the other hand, this gets very confusing, because we cannot 
completely extricate ourselves from content when it comes to this topic. 
This is because actual gender isn't necessarily represented "literally" 
in the dance. Two women dancing, with the leader taking on a masculine 
part, would give us a match-up like this: XX(masc)-XX(fem). In the case 
of two men, we could have XY(masc)-XY(fem).

The reason this all gets very slippery is because the traditional 
*external form* XX-XY is one thing, and the traditional *internal form* 
(masc)-(fem) is another. (This internal form is also, often, the dance's 
content.) If one disagrees with the notion that leading is a masculine 
role (et vice versa), then we would also need to specify that detail as 
a separate element. That is, we need to specify:
* what gender a dancer is (XY/XX)
* what dramatic or functional role they're playing (masc/fem)
* which side they assume in the embrace (L/F).

When I asked earlier how men can follow _as men_, I was asking about the 
artistic possibilities for XY(masc)F. This dance would be highly 
untraditional because that F is not an L. If the dancers are dancing 
apilado style well, however, it would also be a dance with very 
traditional form. These distinctions need to be made, or else we will 
fail to see what's right before our eyes.

Further, to link all this up to something more common, there's the case 
of a leader "listening" and giving his partner a Lot of room for 
creativity and decision-making. The follower is largely backleading-- 
but with the leader's permission, we might say. I frequently "listen" in 
this way as a leader, and I know that dancers of a much higher caliber 
than myself do it as well. If L/F refers to the viewed embrace, while 
(masc)-(fem) refers to the "invisible" action of leading and following, 
then we'd analyze such a dance this way: XY(fem)L-XX(masc)F.

Is this an alternative match-up? It looks like a traditional one. An 
outside observer would have no way of knowing, unless something went 
wrong and a mistake gave it away-- but even then, it would take a very 
sharp eye to see it. Within the embrace, some followers can't even tell 
that they're actually "leading the leader," for that matter.

In any case, we now have three aspects of gender to consider, as 
components of form no less than of content. But gender is only one part 
of the dance, and different aesthetics (Realist, Formalist, 
Expressivist) will give gender different meaning.

*POSTSCRIPT*
This analysis has thus far been bogged down by a dual purpose-- namely, 
that it's trying to describe both the social dance and the improvised 
performance. The main difference between the two, besides available 
floorspace (which is a variable in social dancing and a prerequisite for 
performance), is the presence of an audience.

I don't have the patience to rewrite this preliminary treatise now, to 
go back and accommodate the differences between social dance and 
performance. I've tried to do a little of that along the way, but I'll 
incorporate it more effectively when I rewrite this thing in more 
polished form.

Up to this point, I've attempted to break down the tango's content, or 
possible content, as well as its many formal aspects, to establish a 
complete aesthetic context in which we can better understand-- and 
ultimately, better discuss-- what happens on the pista. We have to 
consider that the thing we see performed, or the thing we do, has 
different aspects, and that the XX-XY match-up is largely a convention, 
primarily because the tango's (masc)-(fem) content/interior form is 
Also, largely, a convention. The aesthetic I called Realist or 
Ritualistic above is the name of that convention: a sublimation of 
heterosexual mating, in Sean's words, or a representation of Argentine 
gender codes, in Sergio's.

The traditional form here is perfectly suited to the traditional 
content. But if the tango is really an art, we must be able to recognize 
this as one possibility among many. Not every development in the tango's 
future, if current trends are any indication, will preserve the 
traditional XX(fem)F-XY(masc)L form; nor will every dance, or even most 
dances, necessarily have a realist aesthetic. The purpose of the 
critical vocabulary I'm sketching out here is not only to let us discuss 
and critique dances in a more articulate way, but also to let us 
identify areas, whether of form or content, that are relatively 
under-explored.

At present, in performance, the gender aspect of form has hardly been 
touched. Social dancing has been exploring it in far more detail. On the 
other hand, I think performance has been exploring many more varieties 
of content, or of "aesthetic," than most social dancing has occasion for.

If you've read this far. Please. Cut me. Some slack. Theory is not my 
strong suit. Over the next week or so, I'll try to apply the abstract 
material here to some actual dances, and provide at least one man's 
critique, so we have at least one failed effort on record. After some 
consideration, I've decided to look at the dances from ValenTango 2006, 
since they have a decent mix of aesthetics, with various degrees of 
success and failure across the board.

They also have music, which I've barely touched upon.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC


Sergio Vandekier wrote:
> Dear friends of tango,
>
>                     The premise is that in tango like in life there is a 
> masculine and a feminine role.
>
> These roles are played when you dance or perhaps they are not evident in 
> your dancing.
>