[Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo" #1

[ECSEDY Áron]

Dear Everyone,

Pleeease call me ARON. My family name is Ecsedy (pronounced 'echedee',
with the first and second 'e' as in 'ever'). Hungarians, along with the
Japanese, write first names last, family names first.

I was truly amused by all your letters as everyone is really _agreeing_
on the main points, except the actual content of the term 'nuevo'. When
there is no strict, 'codified' definition for a term, then every and all
argument about it is in vain.

People who DO NOT dance nuevo (according to their own definition)
include certain aspects of (infdividual?) style and technique which
according to people who say that they DO dance nuevo are not part of the
term nuevo. So who is 'more' right? Who has the authority to define what
is included, what's not? What I wrote down was something everyone who
DOES dance nuevo agrees. I don't think nuevo is a style. The freedom it
contains may 'trigger' a way of dancing that will be distinguishable
from other styles, but that is not a must. For instance I've heard
Sebastian Arce saying that what he is dancing is Villa Urquiza
style...but the way he is approaching his dancing is nuevo.

Also, Sergio practically wrote down almost the same facts but considered
the Argentine predominance in tango teaching a sort of 'assurance' that
tango remains Argentine. But this was NOT the question. The issue was if
there is a change in tango, and if this change is driven by
multiculturality. Obviously, the 'Argentine' influence is there as the
starting point was in Argentina, but the CULTURAL influence may be of
another source, even if the foreign influence was and still being
integrated in Argentina, by Argentines. Just consider the way you dress,
how the way life was getting closer to the rest of the world (which
means strong US influence - true for most large cities anywhere), the
'counterculture', rock 'nacional' etc. The entire way of life is now
globalized and the rule of capitalism and market economy is, that
production/service always have to follow demand. If people want, say,
more freedom, then those who do not integrate that element into what
they sell, won't be able to sell it. If this element was not a
requirement in the native community, then it is a foreign element. I was
raised in a family full of ethnographers and historians. The general
idea is: something is original only if it is done the same way. If there
is a dance which was danced in a certain city, by a certain ethnicity,
following a certain ritual in both the way it is danced, the way it is
learned, the places it is danced, the whole environment, then there is
no way that in a different time, place, using different methods,
different ethnical background it will be even something remotely
similar. For instance there is something which is pretty recent, pretty
well dogmatized: the music of Bartok. I've never heard Bartok played
RIGHT by any non-Hungarian orchestra. What I mean by right? Bartok was a
modern 'classical' musician (the English word itself is wrong you see:
in Hungarian we say 'serious' music for 'classical' because there are
'contemporary classical musicians', which sounds like a joke) who used
his own country's folk music as a basis for his work. So a Hungarian
orchestra plays it so that the folk elements sound similar to Hungarian
folk music, as the dance rythmics are pretty much in the score. When
Bartok is played by, say, a world class Japanese conductor and a US
orchestra, it sounds like a Star Wars soundtrack (actually the music of
the first trilogy in most parts pretty similar of Bartok's Concerto for
Orchestra, of course there are also other parts that resemble Dvorak,
Holst, Stravinsky, Debussy etc)... So, Sergio yes: tango, as you
percieve it, can only be danced by Argentines, and their tango will be
more tango-like then tango danced by people who grew up within a vastly
different cultural mix. But the word, tango, is also container, and
content is changing because of the many non-Argentines whom are dancing
it too. So there will be a time, when the original context will be lost,
but a context (with elements of both the tradition and both the new
influences) will still be there. Happened to the (Viennese) Waltz
(supposed to be pan-German invention, became attributed to Vienna, but
even that is now only a tradition as you will find the Austrians to be
less adept at waltz than some other nations), happened to Ballet (was
French, became more Russian along the way, now you couldn't just point
and say this or that nation is better in it), happened to languages in
the past (greek, latin).

(cont...)