[Tango-L] Fame and photos

[Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)]

Hi list,

A little graffiti...

Crrtango at aol.com wrote:
> Trini wrote:
>
> <Susana Miller's influence was in the teaching, not the dancing.  Many of the old-timers had no idea how they did what they did.>
>   
 From what I've seen, she hadn't a clue herself.
> [This and the rest is Charles...] True, but some do know how to teach. She may have figured out how to teach it well but she never learned to dance it well.
Again, we encounter the difference between knowing how to dance and 
knowing how to teach. To me, if you don't dance what you teach, and vice 
versa, you're full of it.

To the seams.
> Whether good or bad, a teacher is still going to be the dance model for what they teach.
This is the same point from the other end of the telescope. And let me 
quote Stephen Brown's recent post on "Finding Clarity in Tango"--

> 4)  Much of what is represented as tango instruction doesn't do much more than convey the instructor's own style of dancing.  This criticism doesn't apply to everyone who teaches tango.
>   
The only teachers exempt from this "criticism" are the ones who _do not_ 
dance what they teach.

I'm frankly astonished that Chris (UK), who's usually a perceptive 
critic of bullshit, could call the post in which this piece of hogwash 
was written "excellent." And then quote Yeats on top of it. Tsk, tsk, my 
friend.
> That is my point: Susana Miller is a so-so dancer with an over-inflated reputation, not an important and influential one. She just got more publicity.
Amen, Charles. And she "got" more publicity because she found more 
suckers at, evidently, the opportune moment.
> The only reason her "close embrace" approach was novel was because it appealed to people who had no sense of tango history or never learned tango correctly in the first place.
Nor have many of them learned how to dance correctly since. As a 
teacher, I'm _constantly_ correcting the worse habits of her goddamn 
McMilonguero style, which are as close to choreography as the most 
number-based sequence is.

If it wasn't for her, conscientious teachers might have very little to 
do indeed.
> It is sad when the traditional way of dancing is forgotten or ignored to the point that someone can come along and market it as 
> if it were a new way of dancing.
>   
Sad, yes; but a false alternative is false nonetheless-- as you, 
Charles, seem to imply. As for the rest of you-- never forget that she 
has consciously and deliberately _marketed_ her teaching as "authentic," 
if not always "new." What "influence" she has had-- contra "Trini de 
Pittsburgh"-- has largely occurred because her teaching excels in the 
bad-habits department, and therefore requires a lot of fixing. If she 
disappeared for one generation of tango dancers (provided her 
"disciples" could stop their tongues), we would have no more reason to 
mention her name.

In truth, as I've pointed out here before (and as the interview w/ 
Fabian Salas on Keith Elshaw's website makes plain), SM is responsible 
for propagating that incorrigible misnomer "ocho cortado," which move is 
patently nothing of the kind. I personally have spent excessive time 
getting students _out_ of that one damn pattern. I wish my teaching 
could be more productive than remedial, with all my heart; but as long 
as this woman's "influence" remains in circulation, I and many others 
will have problems to undo, as our priority.

AND the woman sells (or at least formerly sold) other people's 
copyrighted music on CD. And in _poor_ fidelity at that (which in my 
view is hardly excusable, if you're going to be a punk. What honorable 
pirate traffics in garbage?).

AND her disciples, the "close embrace" people (I dance close embrace 
too, mind you), have become, I daresay, the only _dogmatically_ 
closed-minded participants in this dance we all love. As is evidenced 
here, on this very list, every other month or so.

So please tell me, O List-- given this critique-- what possible value 
does this self-appointed (if ever there was one) apostle of the 
"authentic" have to her credit? We're well past the point at which her 
"non-stage" approach (not that it's even true) holds any water. I've 
seen her teach in DC; I've cleaned up the reductive mess she leaves; I'd 
sincerely like to know. I mean, if there's one teacher who _should not_ 
have a press photo, it's her, as far as I can tell.

Jake
DC