[Tango-L] "Alternative" Music....

[Carol Shepherd]

Kat wrote:

 > You tango purists sound like
 > religious fundamentalists.

Thank you for making this analogy.  I quit the dance five years ago 
because I was tired of "dance doctrine" being thrown in my face by 
arrogant leads, in the middle of the dance floor.  It has often struck 
me that many tango purists are trying to time-travel and live in another 
place and time.

When we consider the origins and evolution of tango (or frankly, any 
other organically developed street dance) the hypocrisy is doubly 
laughable.  There are these same arguments going on right now in the 
lindy hop community, with certain upper-middle-class white college 
students screechin' and preachin' about why one can only dance lindy hop 
to music from certain approved black jazz artists in the early 30's.

Popular dance (street dance) cannot help but evolve.  It reverberates 
with the cultural memes, body movements, clothing, images and beats from 
the popular culture surrounding it.  If it ain't movin', it's dead.

To fix a dance in a style, a syllabus, a choreography chart, a set of 
pre-ordained and pre-approved musical tracks, is to fossilize it like an 
insect in amber.  And then we call it vintage dance, to distinguish it 
and its practitioners from organic, live, popular dance.  There are 
plenty of people out there who do vintage dance and it's a very cool 
thing--with costumes and period music on period instruments and 
sometimes even elaborate reenactments of certain historical events, such 
as an inaugural ball.  Vintage dance is a valid art form, but it is a 
historical, traditionally accurate artform.  It is not innovative.

So now we have identified the genesis of Miles' flamewar: different sets 
of expectations.  Both styles of dance are valid (vintage vs. live).  As 
a dancer, and as a dance promoter, here are your issues:

How do I manage (my own, others') expectations?

As a dancer I can observe someone's dancing on the floor, and then 
decide whether I want to dance with them (having observed that they are 
obviously a vintage dancer or obviously a neotango dancer).

Will I dance with someone either way?  Yes.  Will I have a good time? 
Depends.  I am focusing on having an enjoyable three minutes of social 
dancing.  Obviously, many dancers do not share the same goal, some are 
on the floor to precisely recreate a 1930's period mood in their own 
mind with the aid of a dance partner, or to perfect the execution of a 
methodology or a chain of dance figures as exemplified in some dance 
guru's teaching method.  If one of us is looking for anything more than 
a social dance (with all its inherent discoveries, inventions and 
imperfections), then we are on the floor for two very, very different 
things.  I am capable of flexing a little towards the doctrinal but at 
some point it becomes "not fun."  I also recognize that for those 
"execution of a methodology" type leads, dancing with me is not their 
idea of fun, because they are looking for a highly specific dance 
experience where a follow gives them exactly the response they are 
intending to evoke.

It's too bad there are so many people in the tango community on the 
extreme ends of this spectrum, and not too many in the middle, it makes 
for a lot of mismatched expectations.

How do we call a spade a spade?

I'm sorry, but the words "tango" and "Argentine tango" are not 
trademarked.  The tango purists and the vintage dancers are not allowed 
to forbid the use of these terms to all except the certified and 
sanctified brethren who worship at the same altar.

That being said...it is misleading to call a dance which only features 
blues, jazz, and electrotango music a "milonga" or a night of "tango". 
People are going to read publicity, show up, and their expectations for 
their evening's entertainment are not going to be met.  So I think we 
should use "neotango" or "alternative milonga" to describe dances 
featuring only these types of tandas, and I think we should give some 
thought to using "traditional tango" and possibly "vintage tango" to 
describe the dance as it is narrowly defined to a period of music and a 
stylistic set of moves coming from an era--at least in discussion, if 
not also in promotion.

-- 
Carol Ruth Shepherd
Arborlaw Associates PLLC
business, technology, entertainment and media law
"practical legal solutions for creative people"
Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
734 668 4646 v  734 786 1241 f
http://www.arborlaw.com

"When grain is made into refined white flour, more than 30
essential nutrients are largely removed.  Only four of those
nutrients are added back in a process called "enrichment."
Using this same logic, if a person were robbed of 30 dollars
and the thief then returned 4 dollars to his victim for cab
fare home, then that person should be considered "enriched"
by 4 dollars, not robbed of 26." -- Elmer M. Cranton, M.D.

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