[Tango-L] Limitation vs Challenge (was "Nuevo" Dancing to Di Sarli)

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

--- On Sat, 8/15/09, bettina maria fahlbusch <bettinamaria7 at gmail.com> wrote:

> To have that analyzed and categorized in such a way, as a
> dedicated
> student for over 10 years of Tango, such a comment as "it
> does not
> quite look right" feels offensive.
> 

Glad to see that you've chosen to stay in the conversation.  Limitations, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder.  Diego DiFalco said that when he went to milongas, he would dance toward the most crowded part of the room to challenge himself.  To be creative, to really dance.  

Think about how creative movie makers were about handling scenes of death or sex when movie codes were more restrictive than they are now.  They played with lighting, with music, with camera angles, with the audience.  It produced classic scenes that are still hailed today as great examples of movie making.

One can choose to see a limit (or a categorization) as either a boundary or a challenge.  My experience is that people who say that tango needs to grow only think of tango's evolution as being in one direction.  Those are the dancers who are limited.  Tango grows in multiple directions.  

Ask any salon dancer who has chosen not go the nuevo route, whether they feel limited.  Ask a milonguero.  I bet their answer will be a resounding "No".  And they'll talk about how infinite their possibilities are.

But can someone run into a crowded movie theater and yell "Fire" as part of their personal expression?  Of course, not.  

Tango works as a community endeavor, not solely as an individual one.  And I think an important element in these conversations over the past few weeks has been looking at how we can encourage personal expression within a given social framework that people don't want to see changed.  Given the history of Tango-L, I think it's pretty cool that we can have an intelligent conversation without name calling or insults.


Trini de Pittsburgh