[Tango-L] Type-A Tango Salon or Show ?

Gordon Erlebacher gerlebacher at fsu.edu
Sat Dec 25 12:24:57 EST 2010


I agree Jack, that almost no one teaches the style of Orlando Paiva 
anymore, except his sun Orlando Jr. perhaps. However, that style is a 
very particular type of Salon. I would place the following teachers in 
the same category: Javier Rodriguez, Jorge Dispari, Mimi Santapa, Ney 
Melo. While they may have differences in terms of technique and 
emphasis, they seem more concerned with body rather than steps. I only 
have personal experience with Mimi and Ney, however, so perhaps I am 
mistaken. These teachers almost never lift the feet off the ground for 
example, which is mainly how I distinguish dancing suitable to the 
Milonga from dancing suitable for stage. For me, Salon versus milonguero 
is not the distinguishing factor.

     Gordon


On 12/25/10 12:19 PM, Jack Dylan wrote:
> I agree with all that you say. But the point is that almost no one dances or
> teaches
> the style of Orlando Paiva anymore.
>
> The dance of Murat and Michelle, on the other hand, is the style that is danced
> by many of today's teachers who describe their style as 'Salon'.
>
> You're correct ... "It’s Show  or Performance tango and it’s not intended to be
> danced at a social  milonga." But it's being taught as "Social Tango" -
> especially
>
> outside of Argentina and that's the problem.
>
> Jack
>
>
>
>> From: "HBBOOGIE1 at aol.com"<HBBOOGIE1 at aol.com>
>>
>> For those of you that don’t seem to be able to  separate salon tango from
>> performance tango here are two videos that clearly  show the difference. The
>> first video is Orlando Paiva dancing at Sunderland.  Orlando was the master
>> of smooth elegant tango. Balance, axis, timing and  connection. The
>> definition of Salon tango is to dance closed and open embrace  within the
>> music.
>>
>> Notice how they start off in closed embrace and walk then he  gently releases
>> her to execute a figure, you barely notice her arm slip from his  shoulder to
>> his arm and then back again. Their feet are always in contact with  the
>> floor, they don’t look down at the floor…..blah,blah,blah….the point is if 
>> you can dance salon tango you now have the skill to effortlessly dance close 
>> embrace or milonguero tango or whatever you wish to call it.
>>
>> In the  second video Murat and Michelle perform a show tango. With no
>> disrespect to  Murat and Michelle a large number of tango dancers are taught a
>> lot of the moves  you see in this video. You can see the same open and closed
>> embrace being danced  but that’s pretty much the only thing the two styles
>> have in common. It’s Show  or Performance tango and it’s not intended to be
>> danced at a social  milonga. 
>>
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in8rG2BHnwo 
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrhlyM-_yos
>>
>
>
>
>
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