[Tango-L] No Nuevo (as a style) - according to the Naveiras

[Alexis Cousein]

Jack Dylan wrote:
> I don't really get this. No one has ever suggested that those dancing the 
> same 'style' would dance EXACTLY the same and would 'feel' the same 
> to every partner.

> 
> On that premise everyone in the world dances a different 'style'.
 >
Exactly my point.

What exactly defines a "style"?

Many people on this list are determined to pigeon hole people into
"styles", and even to ascribe certain properties one would normally
associate to individual couples to a "style", all as if they were
stating universal truths when they proclaim the association as
valid.

We can't even use the equivalent of the biological 'species' to mark
styles, given styles most evidently interbreed (for the moment
-- see below ), which means that styles are a bit like the ill-fated
"race" in biology.

You know a race when you see it, but you should know better than to take
it as having an absolute value, and you should be mindful of the fact
that phenotypes can be expressed or hidden in particular individuals
in very complex manners.

The only way in which "styles" would really become mechanisms for
speciation would be forced segregation, i.e. apartheid. I know some
people actually advocate this (possibly in an attempt to keep their
"race" "pure"), but I have just as much sympathy for apartheid as a
system in tango as I had for it in other matters.