[Tango-L] Milonga candombera, canyenguera, etc

[Huck Kennedy]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 2:41 AM, Ernest Williams
<alohatango2002 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I thought this example too relevant to miss.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hx81RhyPXk
> Notice the arm movement here.  The arm movement is actually necessary in order to get your partner to move with the quickness and light-heartedness of this dance.

     Whoa.  First of all, let's get this out of the way right off the
bat:  I hate to say "never," but...independent (from the body) arm
movement is almost never necessary to get your partner to move.

     Now, to proceed to your video cite above:  There is a huge
variety of arm movement in this video, but most of it is not of the
type I criticized, to wit, independent gratuitous time keeping with
the arm (or arms) that has almost nothing to do with what's going on
in the body, the sort of left arm movement we see a lot of in 0:17
through 0:36 of the Sighe video, to provide just one example.

> Tango rules do not always apply to milonga, milonga-candombera and canyengue.

     Claro.

> I think this is just a case of not understanding what the characteristics of milonga-candombera are and judging it through tango-liso eyes.

     Absolutely not.

     The very next video I clicked on (Omar Vega) shows a clear
distinction from the Sighe video.

     http://tinyurl.com/5ovtlj

     Notice how there is way more going on in the body and legs, which
you'd intuitively think would be even more of an excuse to move the
left arm, yet for the most part Omar isolates what's going on in the
body and legs from the left arm.  You don't see his left hand bobbing
up and down 5 or 6 inches at a clip like a metronome keeping time,
independent from the body frame.

     Now, to go off on a bit of a tangent, remember how I said I hate
to say "never" above--if you look at Omar's video from about 0:58
through 1:10, you'll see his right wrist moving to aid in the lead of
the front ochos.  Whether or not this is strictly necessary (or
whether it is really cause or actually just effect of her movement)
might be a subject for another debate, but many old-school Argentines
do it and as such it would have to be considered authentic, although
I've seen some teachers frown on it.  So that's at least an arguable
rare exception to the rule about independent arm action not being
necessary to induce movement in the follower.

> Now one can decide that they don't care for milonga-candombera as a style

     Ewww, how tragic.  I pity those people.

Huck