[Tango-L] BsAs: Young/Old, Milongas/Practicas, and how THEY mix without conflict - Part I

[Brian Dunn]

> -------------- Original message from Jack Dylan : 
> > Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Buenos Aires already solved 
> > this problem by allowing for the separation of traditional dancers 
> > and nuevo dancers?...Aren't traditional milongas for Salon and
Milonguero style, while 
> > alternative milongas [called practicas] are for anything at all. 
> > 
> > Wouldn't this solve everyone's problem? 

It's often not useful to cite Buenos Aires tango realities as guiding
examples for logistical structuring of tango event schedules in North
America, for the same reason that Council Bluffs, Iowa should not slavishly
organize itself after the way things work in New York City. Size matters, in
many ways. 

But Buenos Aires IS the hotbed of tango, so it may be useful to at least
hear some perspective on this question of young vs. old, milongas vs.
practicas from someone embedded in the scene.

I overheard an Argentine teacher in BsAs who trains advanced dancers
discussing with a student from the USA why he couldn't use the material he's
worked on in class at the milonga the previous night:
"You have to remember that the classic milongas are primarily a social
experience here, and not so much a "dance" experience.  People want to meet,
to drink a little, eat a little, laugh and joke and talk, and maybe do some
dancing too. As a visitor, you can attend them, dance in the ronda without
disturbing anyone, and enjoy them as a kind of anthropological immersion
into a part of our culture - but those events are not really that much about
the dancing.  The dancers there think of themselves as "good" dancers,
because they know how to dance appropriately and with satisfaction in the
settings they prefer, but generally they don't tend to think of themselves
as "advanced" dancers.  If you are really interested in the dancing, then
you go where people want to really focus on the dancing - and that's at the
practicas."  And yes, at those practicas, the dancers TEND to be younger.

Young people generally want to dance with young people (what a shock).
Older people generally want to go where they've been going for twenty years,
to meet their older friends, and relax. Because the scene is so big, this
hardly requires much organization, just initiative - people start new things
all the time, and everyone finds events they prefer for various reasons.

The older BsAs dancers, generally speaking, often no longer "study" the
tango anymore - they've done enough for their purposes, they have reached a
level that usually gets them the dances they want or can expect, and now
they mostly want to MAINTAIN and enjoy their current tango with the partners
that are available to them at their current level.  

By my observation, young BsAs people often dance differently than older BsAs
people, generally - the young women are often well-trained and in great
shape, trying to outdo each other in looks and skill to attract the better
young leaders, and the young men, full of piss & vinegar, are often working
similarly hard on their tango, and afire with competitive juices within
their peer group as everybody plays and flirts with each other like mad
(wow, what a shock). Quite a few older people who want to work on their
tango also attend the practicas, but not in numbers sufficient to affect the
overall "youthful" feeling of the event.  So the practicas tend to be about
IMPROVING the level of your dance, and making connections with those who
enjoy doing that.  

Of course, young people often do take advantage of the late-night classic
milongas, for social reasons, to relax.  When they do, and when they choose
to dance there, they generally handle the crowded floors with grace and
style without causing fights (and in Buenos Aires, you can get anonymously
elbow-nailed in the back for being too out of line - I've seen it). At some
traditional Buenos Aires milongas I've seen, there is a tendency to form a
dense outer line in the ronda IMMEDIATELY, on the edge of the floor, even
when there is still PLENTY of space (like several lanes worth) available in
the middle. At some of these traditional milongas, I have seen younger or
relatively more energetic dancers in the middle of the ronda making more
complete use of the available space not used by the dense outer ronda.  They
generally dance WITHOUT causing conflicts with the older dancers in the
outer ronda, even though their orientation to available space is different.
Some on this list might call what they do "nuevo", I suppose, in some
instances - of course, since they aren't bothering anyone in the outer
ronda, I observe that what they are doing "stylistically" really doesn't
seem to matter to anyone else. And while we're talking "branding" issues,
these dancers generally refer to what they dance as "tango" - I have never
heard a young Buenos Aires dancer, at practicas, or milongas, or tango
classes, refer to their dance as "nuevo" in casual conversation.

Continued in next message...