[Tango-L] chicho - sorry

[Myk Dowling]

Noughts wrote:
> As
> you stated, in a lot of his dancing, he has no chest connection.. does
> that automatically mean no chest lead?  Answer - no.  Simple.  Cecilia
> Gonzalez and other great dancers for years have showed how to maintain
> a connection without contact.  If you think that, then you are truly
> quite naive in the way of open dancing and nuevo and only expousing
> one perspective quite possibly.  An excellent lead in open uses
> nothing but chest.  This you possibly have yet to experience.

It's a different type of connection, and gives the dance a different 
look. Part of what makes traditional tango such an emotive dance is the 
fact that the partners are always facing each other, chest to chest, 
while their legs are wandering in different directions. There's 
something about that visible connection that helps give tango its 
mystique. Nuevo discards this particular element of the dance. (And not 
all traditional tango dancers manage to keep it in place, either)

> In contrast, then you would say that all 'Salon/Close' embrace dancers
> only use chest - and almost every woman would tell you that the
> majority of 'Salon/Close' embrace dancers also use their arms, hands,
> wrists, forearms and fingers to change a lead, change direction and or
> execute some other lead.  Is it correct?  Is it wrong?  Well, that is
> an entire debate in itself.  Watch most "milonguero's" (definition,
> self taught dancer) and they have their own style, but really, that
> does not automatically make them a good dancer.  Most are too strong
> in the frame, squeeze the life out of a woman or man (women do it too
> unfortunately).

Indeed. If all the leading came from the chest, there would be no need 
for arms, other than embracing. But then, isn't that something we do in 
practice at times? Drop the arms and lead purely with the chest? Which 
would indicate that there is a definite goal or intention to lead from 
the chest. But there is no way that Chicho could lead many of those 
moves without his arms. He'd have to change to a salon style, keeping 
his partner in front of his chest.

> So, at the end of the day, closed, open, salon, canjengue, candombe,
> nuevo, stage... any other dance you like - lead correctly, uses
> basically chest only.  The technique is the same.  Having danced and
> competed internationally in many different dances, ballroom included -
> this is quite synonymous.

No, sorry, I disagree. The chest is where the motion starts, but the 
arms modify and transmit the motion. In some dances, they modify it more 
than others. Nuevo dancing is closer to the ballroom level of arm input 
than the traditional tango level.

I guess it's partially a difference in definitions. The term "leading 
from the chest" is not something that you can look up in a dictionary 
and get a precise definition of. From one perspective, you can say that 
all partner dances are lead "from the chest", since that is the root of 
all body motion. But to say that removes the purpose of the distinction 
between arm leading and chest leading. At one end of the spectrum are 
dances like ceroc and lindy hop, where it's almost all adjustment of 
arms and hands that define the lead. At the other end, in my experience, 
is milonguero style, with a a physical chest to chest connection that 
hardly ever breaks, and the arms are almost superfluous.

Yes, the chest is still an important part of nuevo, but the arms play a 
much greater role than they do in traditional tango. And for me, this 
seems to be almost the defining difference between the styles. Every 
other difference between the two styles I have seen posited has been 
shot down by the regulars on this list.

> At no point have I even entered into a debate about Nuevo in a
> Traditional milonga - both co-exist at basically every milonga in BA -
> even the most traditional.  That is another debate entirely.

I think we're pretty much in agreement there, though we probably have 
different opinions on the exact mix of music. That particular phrase was 
more aimed towards the rest of the list than yourself.

Myk
in Canberra