[Tango-L] Tango Styles

[ECSEDY Áron]

Dear Sergio,

I still believe that this whole debate is not about tango or styles, but 
semantics. See:
> They did not intend to create a new tango style but as they developed a school of followers both at home and abroad their characteristic way of dancing became a style or several different styles: Gustavo remained closer to Traditional tango style, Chicho and Fabian frequently, not always, adopted a particular way of dancing that eventually was called "Nuevo Tango".
>   
So they either dance what YOU call nuevo or they don't. Which means that 
their _style_ is NOT 'nuevo'. Therefore it seems that you are using 
'nuevo' to distinguish all styles that are not 'milonguero' or 'salón'?
> There are places or milongas in B.A. and abroad where those particular styles are taught and danced, it is very easy to recognize them just by looking, yet there are still people that decided to deny their existence as tango styles.
>   
Umm. OK. Let's look at those. We have five couples who use different 
characteristics. You say two of them dance 'nuevo'. I say, they are 
using nuevo technique to create their own style which DOES separate them 
from the others. One of them is dancing a style you identify as 
milonguero, I still say they are still using nuevo technique to create 
their own style which, however, conforms with your formal requirements 
of the milonguero style. The others are 'genuine' milongueros, who 
imitate their teachers also dancing their style that you brand milonguero.

Now, here is the quirk: If you show me someone who is using milonguero 
technique to dance what you call 'nuevo', you'll prove that _neither_ 
nuevo nor milonguero is a style. Because in that case you have proven 
that there is no difference between the two stylewise, but both 
techniques can achieve the same result. If you can't, that means nuevo 
is NOT a style, but milonguero is.

The 'style' nuevo technique creates when used in a particular way is 
simply something different. We should either separate the terms for the 
nuevo technique (original meaning) and the style it creates (at present 
also called 'nuevo' while being an independent phenomenon, call it 
modern tango or something else). I have no idea how to call it though, 
as there is no universally agreed definition for the other styles. Any 
definition you may come up with can be easily shown to be incomplete or 
contradictory. Nuevo technique does have a 'minimal' definition which 
is, by this definition, includes anything that is tango. Think about it 
as superset of all techniques used in other styles (as it was meant to 
be: the synthesis of the results of the analysis you mentioned). In 
other words: 'nuevo' is really just tango without any stylistical 
obligations attached.
> I find important to recognize these different forms of dancing in order to select the style that one prefers to study at certain moment in the learning process. 
This sentence...
> Some dancers eventually use one style with some elements of other styles.
>   
...and this are contradictory. If you want someone to use a mix, the 
only reason to separate them would be if there is a technical difference 
(there is none if you teach nuevo) or to teach people the history of 
tango, which in itself is not teaching dancing, but rather talking about 
the cultural background. Unless you can get a universal definition of 
the 'other styles' and show all of them without mixing in anything 
(including your own interpretation of said styles), you will just make 
the students lives miserable. The only information they need is if they 
are ever taught a subset of the possibilities ('style') by another 
teacher then they should be aware of the 'dependencies': that is the 
presumptions of a teacher who says that he is teaching this style or 
that (obviously, you can only guess).

Cheers,
aron

-- 
Ecsedy Áron
***********
Aron ECSEDY

Tel: +36 20 66-36-006

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