[Tango-L] Tango A La Turca

[john]

 Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 23:55:49 -0400
From: "Keith" <keith at tangohk.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] 
To: tango-l at mit.edu
Message-ID: <E1GX8ib-0005rD-NM at webmail02.yourhostingaccount.com>
Content-Type: text/plain


>Why would anyone want to attend a Tango Festival that doesn't feature
Argentinean instructors? Is this common in the >US? From my experience,
non-Argentines pale in comparison with the 'real thing'.

Keith

In a recent edition of BA Tango (picked up in the milongas in BA) Edmundo
Sappa wrote - "...I don't question that rock banished almost all other
rhythms.  But I emphasize that the ones more engaged to make Tango (dance)
disappear were those of the "new wave"...........if we continue with the
poor concepts like those which you, and many like you express, they will
come to teach us in German, English or French".

Hmm!!
  
In my experience, touring Argentine maestros, almost without exception, come
from a performance / professional dance background, with an average
understanding of social dance technique.  However they sell high-priced
classes with impressive performances.

With only one exception, every recent class I attended in Buenos Aires with
popular teachers was based on teaching sets of sequences.  90% went away
with no idea how to execute the sequences.  That's poor teaching and a waste
of money.  That is not to say the teachers were not friendly and personable,
except for one well known man who insisted on showing-off has fancy footwork
with figures that were impossible to learn in the time and equally
ridiculous to perform socially. 

The exception was Tete & Silvia, in my view the masters of social Tango.

It's naïve to suggest that Argentine instructors are necessarily better than
other good teachers.

John