[Tango-L] Respect and love of cultures

[WHITE 95 R]

>From: AJ Azure <azure.music at verizon.net>

>As a musician and someone putting together a stage show involving live 
>music
>and dance I ask you this, do you think that trad. tango makes for good 
>stage
>performance? I am asking sincerely. it's something i am currently wrestling
>with in deciding the content of said show,

Well, I'd say that traditional tango music is excellent music for stage 
performances of Argentine tango dance. All you need to do is watch some of 
the many stage shows that have been already produced. Tango X 2, Fiorever 
tango, Tango Argentino are but a few stage shows made 99.9% with traditional 
tango music and traditional tango dancing (although the dancing is of course 
a very challenging stage performance)

>which will also feature lindy and
>swing styles.

For this particular genre of music and dance, the tango might be totally 
innapropriate. Is there gouing to be some sort or amalgam of styles? will 
people be dancing swing or lindy hop to tango music? Or is it tango dance to 
lindy hop music?


>Aside from being a pro musician my family lineage is from
>Argentina and I respect my roots although I believe to survive newness must
>also be injected in to nostalgia.

Not necessarily so. Although newness is nice, it's not necessary for the 
survival of the tango dance at all. Actually, it's not necessay for the 
survival of the music either. For example, look at the blues. Although there 
are new or newer musicians and compositions, the wealth of existing old 
blues music and even old traditional blues musicians is what really keeps 
the intetrest in the blues going strong. Likewise in the contra dance and 
old time fiddle music tradition. The old time fiddle music is alive and well 
while maintaining it's very traditional characteristics. Any 'newness' or 
innovation that comes into the genre still maintains the intrinsic 
characteristics of old time fiddle music. Otherwise it will flop at the 
dance...

>The answer is if you really want tango to
>live on, support the live music so that it can keep some sort of freshness.
>get musicians old music so that we have access to it.

Well, at least from our part we have always supported high quality live 
music. We love traditional tango musicians and have often strived to 
showcase and feature live tango music in our events. In reality, we always 
subsidized the musicians since the dancing publib cannot be counted on to 
produce enough revenue from the ticket sales. Also, I have personally worked 
with many musicians who were not tango musicians. I've made sheet music of 
tango available to them, played traditional recorded tango music for them 
and tried to explain our needs as tango dancers to them. We've done this 
with various degrees of success.

>Work with musicians to
>tell us you want but, also keep an open mind AND for goodness sakes stop 
>the
>elitism, snobbery and judgmental attitude (not specific tot his e-mail just
>in general) it's seen in many circles and ultimately it poisons the
>environment

There is no "elitism, snobbery and judgmental attitude". What you read is an 
impassioned plea to people to show some respect for the culture that spawned 
the tango and for some open mindedness regarding the traditional tango music 
and dance. It's good to remember that the music came first and the dance 
later. The traditional tango music is the instpiration for the tango dance. 
They are inextricably bound. And changing one will of necessity change the 
other. Personally, I love the real, authentic Argentine tango and see 
absolutely no need to change it. I don't see how the feelings and opinions 
of tango lovers would " ultimately it poison[s] the environment".


Manuel






> >> From someone on the American side teaching tango, I find that getting
> > Americans to accept tango as danced in Buenos Aires (close embrace,
> > with the music, partner rather than audience directed) is a difficult
> > task. I often wonder why most Americans prefer the exhibitionist
> > fantasy - nuevo forms of tango. In part, this is our dance culture -
> > ballroom dance competition & swing dancing in particular - as part of
> > our Hollywood driven desire for audience approval. We talk of dance as
> > "learning cool steps". It is deeply ingrained in our cultural. Not to
> > mention the intimacy of close embrace is somewhat frightening to a
> > culture with a strong Puritan heritage. It is sometimes amusing to see
> > how Americans learning close embrace tango fight against getting
> > close. Or if they are in close embrace, they throw their shoulders
> > back to avoid a complete connection, despite what we as instructors
> > tell them repeatedly about "connection, connection, connection". The
> > Latin Americans and some other foreigners in our classes are
> > different. They are not afraid to get close. Fortunately, after a
> > while most people who stay with tango in close embrace enjoy it, and I
> > believe the connection fulfills a need in a standoffish culture.
> >
> > However, these people are a minority. Fantasy tango and, more recently
> > nuevo, are a strong magnet for dancers. So is the loud, bass thumping
> > noise that passes for dance music in our culture. This fits in more
> > with our cultural values of exhibitionism being dominant over subtlety
> > and intimacy.
> >
> > Almost all milongas in the US are a caricature of milongas in Buenos
> > Aires, with exhibitionistic antics predominating, at least visually,
> > if not in numbers. Connection with the music is rare. Moving in
> > harmony with a partner is rare. This is not news.
> >
> > Why do US tango dancers prefer exhibitionism, even when it is aberrant
> > in Buenos Aires? We Americans frequently adopt and change imported
> > culture to fit our own cultural norms. The Argentine tango of the
> > early 20th century was imported, sanitized, modified, etc., until the
> > descendant American ballroom tango is hardly recognizable as tango.
> > Fantasy tango and nuevo are accepted because they meet our culture
> > norms of dance as exhibition. When I mention that people in Argentina
> > do not dance that way at milongas, I have heard a few times "We're not
> > in Argentina. We're in America". So be it. The ugly truth bares
> > itself. Many of us do not even care that what we dance as tango
> > socially is not what is danced socially in Buenos Aires. Why should
> > we? We are Americans and we have the right to do things our way!!
> > Don't tell us how to dance tango!! We are free to express ourselves as
> > we want, why shoul dwe be bound by silly irrelevant tradition? And
> > besides, we live in a democracy, so don't tell me what to do!
> >
> > Fortunately, there are a significant number of Americans who break
> > away from this cultural ignorance. Sometimes it takes a few trips to
> > Buenos Aires. I had danced fantasy tango for 5.5 years when I first
> > went to BA in 2003, but meeting this cultural clash between what I was
> > taught as social tango and the reality of social tango in Buenos Aires
> > made me angry at my instructors who had deceived me and made me
> > determined to change. But not every American changes they way they
> > dance even when faced with that reality. Perhaps it was growing up in
> > multicultural New York City as the son of European immigrants and
> > being reasonably fluent in several languages that has enabled me to
> > appreciate what other cultures have to offer. Maybe it is more
> > difficult for Americans who only encounter people with similar
> > cultural becakgrounds. Maybe this criticism of them is to harsh.
> >
> > However, to really appreciate tango, you need to approach tango for
> > it, as a part of Argentine culture, has to offer. You need to try to
> > understand tango on tango's terms, not fit it into your own cultural
> > preconceptions, modifying it until you fill comfortable with it within
> > the dimensions of your own cultural frame of reference. Of course, not
> > being Argentine, we can never understand tango as an Argentine.
> > However, Americans need to watch and listen more and be objective in
> > seeing what this part of Argentine culture can offer us and what we
> > can learn from it and how we can grow from this knowledge, rather than
> > claiming artistic creativity in adapting tango until it is no longer
> > recognizable as Argentine.
> >
> > Ron
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Tango-L at mit.edu
> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
>
>
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