[Tango-L] Dancing socially to Piazzolla

[Joe Grohens]

> You cannot make a general pronunciation. There is no such thing as  
> "Piazolla's music" that is a monolithical slab of black onyx 1:4:9;  
> it's a collection that encompasses many different styles of music.

Yes, yes. Of course you are right, Alexei. My earlier statement was a  
huge generalization. I'm not sure I can make a generalization,  but  
let me try again. The Piazzolla music that was thought of as avant- 
garde, which was written for listening and not for dancing, and which  
was called "tango nuevo", seems to me, for the most part, to be  
difficult for most people to dance to in ordinary social dance  
settings. Because much of Piazzolla's works for quintet are musically  
very interesting, and beautiful, and because the sheet music is  
published and readily available in parts for each instrument, I often  
hear tango ensembles playing these pieces at milongas. I just think  
that it is bad judgment.

Someone commented to me privately that part of the problem is that  
most dancers are not very good, and have trouble with anything that  
doesn't have a metronomic beat.

A friend of mine once asked me, on this same topic, if I didn't think  
that tango dancers needed to evolve their dance forms to adapt to  
newer music, rather than have the newer music adapt to the old dance  
forms.

These are worthwile points to consider.