[Tango-L] Nuevo, Apilado... and marketing. The bottom line is always $$$

[Tango Society of Central Illinois]

There is always marketing. Someone with tango dance skills
communicates that knowledge in teaching, and the student pays for the
instruction. This is not crime, it is capitalism at a very basic level
- small business, something that has existed for thousands of years,
perhaps longer.

Some important issues are whether there is truth in advertising with
respect to the talents and background of the instructor, and whether
the product offered is accurately portrayed. In today's marketing,
every tango instructor is the best, or even better and has a resume
longer than a roll of toilet paper. There are no bad instructors. The
same can be said for laundry detergent. Ask your friends whether a
tango instructor is really good or whether their laundry detergent
really gets out those tough stains. They will be more truthful than
the ads.

The accurate portrayal issue in tango is something else. If one reads
the announcements of touring tango instructors on Tango-A, these days
the majority are for instruction in nuevo. There are even numerous
tango festivals where all of the instructors teach nuevo. There are
numerous milongas at these tango weekends and festivals where nuevo is
taught. Since a 'milonga' is a social tango event, this raises the
question of whether nuevo is social tango. Since I don't take classes
in nuevo, I cannot say whether nuevo is being portrayed as social
tango in these classes, either explicitly or implicitly. I cannot say
that I've seen this in any of the announcements or web pages
advertising nuevo workshops, unless one gets into the gray area of
'volcadas for the social dance floor', 'back sacadas in close embrace'
and the like, which are often advertised under the banner of 'nuevo
milonguero' which implies, by the use of the term 'milonguero', that
it is somehow related to 'tango milonguero', which is used to describe
a variant of social tango. Others can perhaps cite explicit examples
of nuevo being advertised as social tango.

The implicit portrayal of nuevo is social tango is another issue.
Except for the often cited tango oases of Villa Malcolm and Practica
X, the rest of the Buenos Aires tango desert is overpopulated with
social tango typically called 'tango de salon' by porten~os. Tango de
salon varies along several dimensions in the angle and degree of
offset of the embrace, placement of the head and arms in relation to
the partner, the characteristics of the walk, among other things.
However, it is almost inevitably characterized by some close embrace.

Of course, nuevo is more often taught where it is truly popular,
outside Argentina where, in some communities, it has become the de
facto representation of social tango. One could argue that nuevo
instructors are teaching social tango because that is what is danced
at milongas in the communities where they teach. Inaccurate portrayal
occurs when it is advertised as social tango in Buenos Aires, unless
one defines Buenos Aires tango as what happens at Villa Malcolm and
Practica X.

I suggest that if you have doubts about truth in advertising in tango
that you go to Buenos Aires and go to milongas where tourists are
rare. The source of social tango is what the porten~os dance in the
milongas. In my own observations, what is taught as social tango by
instructors who specialize in social tango may or may not be danced by
porten~os in the milongas of Buenos Aires. To some degree, all of them
teach some Tango de Salon. Some stay very close to the core. Some
spend more time on the unusual things that may be used occasionally at
milongas in Buenos Aires (e.g., certain types of embellishments or
interpretations of the music); this often produces dancers whose
dancing style emphasizes the fringes rather than the core, e.g.,
constant embellishment, lengthy pauses, or dancing an entire milonga
in traspie rhythm. Then there are some instructors of social tango who
invent their own things. To some extent that is OK as long as it fits
in with the general characteristics of movement and musicality in
social tango. What is questionable is when something is taught that is
not characteristic of social tango but presented as such, e.g,
volcadas in close embrace. Despite the oft repeated statement that
volcadas are based on social tango, I would say, "only by accident,
not by design".

You can't expect accurate evaluations of instructor competence in
tango advertising. No one is going to advertise their limitations.

However, it would be beneficial in the transmission of tango culture
to have an accurate representation of the source of the culture.
Otherwise, we are just ugly Americans, Europeans et al. adapting a
foreign culture to our own tastes and stealing its name for supposed
legitimacy.

Ron