[Tango-L] Expanding social dancing to exhibition level?

[Carol Shepherd]

Ron:

I second your observation on this trend.  All dance, when it comes to 
America, seems to not only gets transmogrified into something different, 
it also gets turned into a competitive sport: if you view film footage 
from the jazz dancers at the old Savoy in New York, it was all about 
showboating and winning the admiration of other dancers, inventing steps 
and putting existing steps to new rhythms.  Dancers at prominent clubs 
were known for the 'shines' that they invented (shines are the American 
equivalent of adornos) and the shines were named after them and carry 
down in American social dance to this day: Shorty George, Suzy Cue.  Jam 
circles (where couples go into the center and do a short exhibition, or 
dance traveling down the middle of a double line) are also very popular 
in street dances in clubs here.  So to me, exhibition elements fit right 
into a historical cultural phenomenon about how Americans view social 
dance and enjoy their dance recreation.

I haven't seen jam circles spread to milongas yet, but I'm waiting.

Tango Society of Central Illinois wrote:
> I've noticed a trend over the past few years towards development of a new
> tango market niche -  close embrace with exhibition elements - volcadas,
> ganchos, barridas, boleos, and the like. Sometimes a cute term like 'nuevo
> milonguero' is used to link the new to the traditional. This suggests that
> tango milonguero is suffering in sales in the North American (and probably
> European) market, so perhaps if some compromises are made to attract
> norteamericanos to something that is comfortable ('cool steps' to impress
> the audience) within the familar cultural context, fueled by Hoolywood, that
> places value on exhibition dancing, then dancing tango in close embrace with
> exhibition elements will compete successfully for market share with nuevo
> tango. However, doing this abandons the attempt to dance tango the way
> nearly all porten~os do in milongas in Buenos Aires, without these
> exhibition elements. (The exception is exhibition dancers recruiting
> tourists for lucrative private lessons.) What this does is create a new
> version of tango, which can can proudly stand beside Arthur Murray and Fred
> Astaire's versions of tango as North American aberrations of tango. However,
> this is not tango milonguero. Go to Buenos Aires milongas to see the real
> thing. If you come back doing nuevo milonguero, at least you made an
> informed decision.
> 


-- 
Carol Ruth Shepherd
Arborlaw PLC
Ann Arbor MI USA
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