[Tango-L] Alternative Music

[wendy gordon]

Bravo Nina and Huck  and Deby for taking a stand!  Argentinean tango is
danced to tango music.  Period.  The fact that the dance is evolving doesn¹t
make the new thing it is becoming TANGO.  As it evolves, perhaps it is
becoming something else. . A form of tango, a modern version, but by it¹s
very definition it is not traditional, classical, argentinean tango. So
what?  the way I see it.. This is an argument of semantics.  Call it tango
nuevo or what ever you like and leave it at that.  But Kat, why are you
trying so hard to fit a square peg into a round hole.  You said:

i'd
much rather have dirty, sloppy, broken tango with some
balls.  you don't have to want that, either!  but you
sure as hell can't convince me that i can't have it,
or that it doesn't exist, or that I need to rename it
for you.  

For all I care we can call it KAT TANGO or sloppy, broken tango with some
balls tango, but what ever it is it isnt traditional argentinean tango.. And
I for one hope that at the very least you don¹t dance that on a crowded
floor.  No one wants to tell you not to dance it..  I don¹t think anyone
cares what or how you interpret your dance. Your arrogance comes in the form
of trying to make what YOU do somehow relevant within the history and
tradition of an established form.

> There are a million examples of evolution in thes arts. Innovators who have
> changed their forms forever. Look at modern art, the history of rock and roll
> or jazz, modern dance, theatre, poetry.  No one would ever suggest that ee
> cummings and william wordsworth belong on the same dance floor, so to speak.
> 
> It would be like dancing waltz steps to the the rolling stones.  I am sure
> they wrote a song or two in 3 time, but all you would succeed in doing is
> dancing a waltz to a rock and roll song.  Would you be waltzing? Yes.
> Technically.  But would you be dancing steps with the intent of the rolling
> stones in mind.. Obviously not.
> 
> Or think of it like this.. if a modern dancer were to put on toe shoes and
> dance  a modern dance to swanlake.. They still wouldn¹t be dancing classical
> ballet. They would be dancing something... But not classical ballet as we know
> it.   Are the viejos  at sunderland on Saturday night dancing argentine tango?
> Is Chicho? Perhaps the purists would say yes and then no. I don¹t know that it
> matters what you call it.. Perhaps Classical Tango and Modern Tango would
> suffice, in the same way ballet and modern dance have taken different paths.
> But clearly EVERYONE knows the difference between Mark Morris¹ version of the
> Nutcracker and American Ballet Theater¹s, and EVERYONE knows the difference
> between dancing to Calo or Narcotango.
> 
> And kat, shame on you for being so opinionated, rude and close-minded.  You
> arent from argentina, you will never have the same experience of the dance or
> the music as the people who were born here.  There are things that you will
> never understand that are a part of this culture  ... anymore than an
> argentinean could understand what it feels like to be offered a 30 year
> mortgage with 5 or 10  percent down (something, we as americans take as a
> given)  
> There are simply cultural differences. And you lack the respect for the
> culture and the music and the history.  You didn¹t grow up with tango, your
> grandfather didn¹t sing tango songs to you when you were a kid, and I wonder
> if you can understand any of the words of the songs.. The poetry of tango
> letras is inextricably bound the the music and the movement.
> 
> You have a lot of nerve in my opinion trying to claim a path of it¹s evolution
> as something you KNOW.  You are a visitor to tango-land.  And a newly landed
> one at that relatively speaking. Every single one of us foreigners is.    But
> why is it that you feel like you have to put YOUR stamp on it.. MADE IN
> AMERICA!, MADE BY KAT? Proudly beating your chest that you also relevant
> somehow?   But why isnt it enough for you to call argentinean tango
> ARGENTINEAN? And whatever you dance.. Something else?  I think it is great fun
> to dance to some of the songs mentioned by Miles as alternative tango songs.
> But I don¹t feel the same dancing to them as I do to Nada or Poema.  I don¹t
> move the same way, I don¹t feel the same connection with my partner. Is it
> tango when I dance open and elongated and elastic? I don¹t know. But I know
> that it FEELS different.  Are you paying attention to what it FEELS like?
> What your body does?  It will do different things depending on what the music
> FEELS like..right? So if it feels different why shouldn¹t you NAME it
> something else? 
>    
> You said...
> 
> ³Ooh, does that mean we can start alternately calling
> pure Argentine Tango "Slicked-Back-Hair,
> Rose-in-the-Teeth, Pretentious Windbag Dancing?"
> 
> To begin with, if you really were paying attention to your tango history, you
> would know that it was an american director in an american movie who put the
> rose in rudolf valentino¹s mouth. There isnt a single argentinean at a milonga
> dancing with a stiff arm cavorting in a straight line with a rose in his
> mouth.  Re-read, Tango, the art history of love, if you need a reminder of how
> badly foreigners bastardized the tango during the last century.
> 
> And if this is what you think about tango, slicked back hair, rose in the
> teeth, pretentious windbags, then I have a question for you.. Why are you
> dancing? What is it your are in love with? In fact, why are you dancing tango
> at all? If you don¹t love tango music, and don¹t love tango steps, and instead
> are looking for ways to modify the dance and modify the music, then go ahead
> and do it,  I am sure you are a lovely modern dancer, and perhaps with time
> you will come to be regarded as one of the innovators of a new art form but
> don¹t disrespect the history, the tradition or the culture in an effort to
> call it your own.
> 
> Wendy