[Tango-L] obsession with nuevo

[larrynla@juno.com]

I see in this and other tango forums a near-hysterical obsession with nuevo 
tango and its perceived threat to "real authentic tango" - which usually means 
"tango the way I do it" but justified often by claiming their way is how its 
done in the tango Mecca of Buenos Aires.  In the 20 years I've been obsessed 
with tango I've seen the same hysteria twice before in tango.  Both times it 
blew over only to be replaced by yet another thing to be alarmed about, this 
time nuevo.

For that matter I've seen similar alarms in other fields, starting with swing 
when I was 15 in the 50s and learned the rock'n'roll version from a barmaid 
between school and happy hour in my uncle's honky-tonk.  Later I took up west-
coast swing.  In both styles of swing I saw several different hostile divisions.  
In the east coast swing it was between the Benny Goodman swingers (the "real 
true swing") and rock'n'rollers of the 50s.

I also learned the Balboa, though only as a curiosity.  It is a sort of 
"milonguero" version of swing developed in the shoulder-to-shoulder 
Benny-Goodman-years of swing.

http://www.balboanation.com/balboa.html

The interesting thing about the Balboa is that there were two versions - the 
tight "milonguero" form, and the new bat-swing form which opened up the embrace 
and allowed nuevo swing moves.  The couple from whom I learned the Balboa waxed 
nostalgic about the times when hostile camps fought over which was the real 
swing.  Here is a video that shows a couple starting in classic Balboa form and 
moving into bat-swing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gunvVp-Qymg

When I moved to L.A. in 1982 to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab I first got 
involved in the swing community here.  But I started dating a woman from 
Columbia, who introduced me to the cumbia, a sort of slow salsa with different 
instruments.  (You should learn the cumbia if you're going to Buenos Aires, 
since it's easy to learn and a popular dance in the non-tango tandas in many 
milongas, and a good way to meet people you may want to dance tango with.)

>From there I moved to the salsa world.  And found yet another set of hostile 
camps.  The older salseros danced on the two, doing the first step of the 
triple-step basic on the second beat of the 4/4 measure.  The newer salseros 
danced on the one, the first beat of the measure.  Oh, the anger and arguments!

And with that perspective let's move back to tango nuevo.  I consider myself a 
nuevo dancer, and can do some of the more radical moves.  I'll sometimes do them 
very early or very late when the floor is more open and my partner also has a 
nuevo background or is simply a very good dancer.  But when the floor gets 
crowded I tighten up my embrace and do small movements.  Nor am I an exception.  
Most of the people I've seen in tango nuevo classes do the same.

Of course you always see people who race, stop for a long time and block the 
flow, play chicken with other dancers, and bump you if you're in their way.  But 
this has nothing to do with the style of tango they do.  It's because they are 
selfish, arrogant, ass-holes.  You see that in every form of dance, especially 
in the salsa and east-coast swing world where dancing sometimes seems a form of 
warfare.

Maybe courtesy is less in newer tango communities, but L.A. is a mature tango 
community and carelessness on the dance floor is one of those rough edges that 
have been much smoothed since the early 90s - though it still exists.  Ass-hole-
ness never goes all the way away.


Larry de Los Angeles
http://shapechangers.wordpress.com




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