[Tango-L] What do you think?

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

--- On Sun, 8/2/09, jb34528 at att.net <jb34528 at att.net> wrote:
The good “nuevo dancers” dance anything from the
> close embrace club style to “nuevo” based on their mood
> and available space. I.e., they dance tango.
> For example, M & S did an underarm turn – they did it
> “tango like” IMHO. 

One or two underarm turns is okay for a little seasoning.  But 8? 16? 101?  How about the whole dance?  At that point, why not call it another dance since the character of the dance changes?

There's an argument that Argentines are not as nostalgic now, so the dance should also become happier.  If I wanted happy, I'd do milonga or vals.  I like the nostalgic, sadder, more introspective feeling of tango tango.  Why does this nostalgic feeling need to evolve into something happier?  As if, these sadder feeling are going to evolve out of existence?  A friend passes away.  I play Milonga Triste and dance out my sadness.

> I took a number of classes from Sebastian and Mariana and
> believe that what they teach and dance is tango. The
> “non  nuevo”, especially its most conservative
> forms should be called historical tango. And a dance event
> imposing the conservative limits should be called historical
> milonga. This might be hard to take for those who made an
> emotional investment at the time of their initial
> indoctrination and never got over it.

I disagree with that.  Traditionalists don't stick with the "old style" because that's just the way it's been done for a hundred years more or less.  They stick with it because they like how it feels, this particular type connection.  Nuevo practitioners like another type of connection, but clearly their interest lies more in geometric forms and possibilities.  That's okay but it changes the character of the dance.  So why not call it something else?

Traditionalists aren't bothered by setting certain bounds, even if those bounds are unspecified.  Nuevo dancers do seem bothered by bounds, apparently.  That's a significant difference.  If nuevo dancers aren't willing to set bounds, then evolve it into something else.

Trini de Pittsburgh