[Tango-L] TANGO 2000 ............For DUMMIES

[ECSEDY Áron]

Dear Jack,
> Aron, can you give us some reasons why you don't want to see separate 
> milongas, other than the one above, which makes no sense, unless you 
> think that Nuevo couldn't exist on its own. 
>   
You are absolutely right. Nuevo is not a dance. It is tango. Separating 
it would make it a separate dance after a while. I think you have 
visually identified something that you call nuevo around you which even 
I would not classify tango. I dance TANGO using nuevo technique.
> Separate milongas/practicas work in BsAs, why not elsewhere?
>   
Umm. We are continuously talking about different things. Nuevo does not 
separate. You can see all those 'nuevo' dancers in all the milongas (of 
course they tend to frequent certain places more, but that tells you 
more about the mood of the place than the style danced). Actually I was 
taken around by a bunch of nuevo dancers in the trad milongas too. I see 
no difference. But they still frequent schools like DNI.

As for nuevo dancers are teachers in Europe. Most European countries 
have a smaller population than your average US county or even medium 
cities. Even the big ones are fragmented by ethnic, traditional or 
language boundaries. Obviously, many communities are small, so most 
dancers who know what they do start to teach. I've seen this in many 
cities. Also, most places (notable exceptions are the large 
metropolises) have only one milonga on the same evening and it is NOT 
normal to have milongas each day (in Hungary it is still considered a 
major diplomatic offense to launch a new milonga when there is one on 
the same day). In Budapest, there are 2M people, with over 3M if you 
include the agglomeration zone. The second largest city in Hungary has 
barely 300.000 people., the third half that much. Entire population is 
less than 10M. Nevertheless, we have 4 regular milongas, maybe a bit 
more during the summer (because of the open air stuff) in Budapest, and 
only one city has a milonga - which is really only for one club there 
with a dozen or so people.

Simply, the community is not large enough to support separate 
traditional/nuevo milongas. Also, for an average milonga attendance of 
40-60 people (Budapest), there are over a dozen people who do teach. Of 
course, they aren't teaching that 60 people. Simply, the amount of 
activity and overall tango population numbers are different: the mailing 
list for tango has over 300 members, tango courses usually churn out an 
average of a 1000 people per year. The problem is that most Hungarians 
are simply not interested in going to milongas, only learning 'some 
tango' (long story - has to do with danceschool tradition: people are 
led to believe for decades, that they only need 8-lesson courses and 
they have the basics in any dance). So milongas became the meeting point 
for the fanatics, the elite, a large percent of them with enough 
knowledge to teach (this is something we are trying to change 
desperately - especially the nuevo folks...). Also, most of Eastern 
Europe is nuevo land. Traditional teachers were considered lame by the 
general population, because dancing is/was mostly a stage phenomenon 
(after 40 years of state sponsored cheap elitist dance education and 
performances - along with the Soviet-Russian influence - it is a normal 
attitude) for the older people, for the younger ones, the freedom (and 
the youth of teachers) in nuevo was/is more appealing. That's about it, 
I guess. But nuevo folks dance to traditional tango, in close embrace, 
even if sometimes (when they have the space and the chance) to fancy 
stuff as well. For us it is completely organic to show characteristics 
of nuevo, salón, even canyuengue within the same dance... purists may 
cry now.

Cheers,
Aron

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

Tel: +36 20 66-36-006

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