[Tango-L] Gustavo Naveira

[Sergio Vandekier]

Jake says:   "Now, one would hardly expect an analysis of movement to tell 
you
everything about good dancing. I think it's only the plethora of (bad)
move-centric performers, and those who emulate them, who are responsible
for promoting this stuff above its proper station in some people's eyes.
But nonetheless it does get elevated; and so criticism of it can be not
only deserved, but quite healthy, to keep things in perspective."

As you know the classical teaching format in Argentina is :

1) The teacher shows a figure that has several components.

2) Exercises are performed in order to  acquire the necessary skills to 
reproduce the figure.

3) The figure is executed by the students.

4) The different components of the figure are dissected, executed isolated 
with other steps or recombined in different ways.

What Gustavo Naveira did was to add a new dimension to this classical form 
of teaching: Analysis of the movement itself.

This analysis explains where the center of rotation is situated for every 
single step, and how front, back crosses and turns, in one or another 
direction are the scaffolding of the dance.

Tango can be very precise and convoluted, these characteristics attract 
people that posses a particular personality: perfectionist and analytical.  
To those people this approach to the movement is very pleasing, an adds 
satisfaction to their personality.

For those that enjoy learning tango in the traditional way, on the other 
hand, this analysis seems to be totally unnecessary and excruciatingly long. 
You can be an excellent tango dancer without knowing the mechanics of the 
movement.

  Gustavo's approach to teaching tango, explores all the possibilities of a 
certain movement.

  Most dancers have a repertoire of moves that they use again and again in 
different combination.  Many  turn using simple turns, many turn only to the 
right and never to the left, many use only normal walk and never walk 
crossed, etc, etc,.

In the process of getting acquainted with Gustavo's teaching you are going 
to discover the full possibilities of tango motion. You may decide that 
certain moves to the left are too difficult to execute, that many are not 
elegant, that you will not use them for any other number of reasons but at 
least you will learn that the possibility exists.

  Analyzing tango moves, many forgotten figures were resuscitated and by 
combining them in different ways with the ones in fashion a new style of 
dancing developed: "Nuevo Tango".

A style that has many followers, mostly young people that love to experiment 
with the music and the dance, and to use surprising moves.

Summary: independently of your dancing preferences with respect to tango 
style and moves, you have to acknowledge that Gustavo, uses a different 
pedagogical approach, that he developed together with a small group of 
friends (Chicho, Fabian and Pablo Veron) an analytical form; resuscitated 
old moves and figures, explored all the possibilities of movement in tango 
and created a school of followers of "Nuevo Tango".  A Style that continues 
to evolve  .

Each time I explore this form of dancing I discover that there are new ways 
of doing volcadas and colgadas, new moves such as "piernazos", etc, etc.

Finally you cannot judge the instructor of tango by the poor performance of  
imitators that claim to be students of his.

With best regards, Sergio

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