[Tango-L] Report from Buenos Aires #5

[Shahrukh Merchant]

Trini de Pittsburgh says:

> a lot of people have been saying - that the dancing, specifically navigation, has grown worse in BsAs over the past few years.

That is absolutely my observation. Or maybe my tolerance to bad 
navigation has decreased so I notice it more, but I really don't think 
that that explains more than a small part of the problem.

This is highly correlated with:

- The presence of Tango tourists (including long-time Tango dancers 
visiting Argentina): Not that Argentines have navigation genes that the 
rest of the world doesn't (Michael seems to think the opposite, in fact) 
but they are more used to crowded floor conditions and I don't care how 
many "Milonguero Style" festivals you've been to but you've got to learn 
navigation in the field (New York doesn't count). (I am sure I was 
somewhat of a nuisance on the dance floor the first time I came to 
Buenos Aires as well until I "got it" and it's the rare dancer that 
"gets it" in a week, as it's a whole skill set that must be learned, and 
sometimes unlearned ....)

- The presence of Tango "hot-shots" (Argentines and otherwise). They use 
their "skill" to intimidate and shove their way through the crowd and 
take up more space than they should, by doing inappropriately big or 
high-velocity turns or steps.

- The Tango nuevo set. There is a small Argentine following of nuevo, 
but it's largely a Tango tourist phenomenon in Buenos Aires. To be 
clear: There are a few very good and very social dancers who dance nuevo 
and milonguero well and keep them apart or fuse them very judiciously 
(and know when there is the appropriate space for each style), but there 
are any number for whom a colgado or a linear boleo is "just another 
figure they learned (from a real Argentina maestro to boot)" to be done 
at equal frequency with any other figure regardless of how crowded the 
floor may be.

Shahrukh