[Tango-L] tango to rap

[Anton Stanley]

I can accept the hypothesis that you can dance any type of step to tango
music and legitimately call it tango, but I can't accept that dancing the
same steps to any other music, can be called tango. I believe that only if
one accepts that there is no generic tango music, can dancing to non-tango
music be called tango.

Anton

-----Original Message-----
From: tango-l-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:tango-l-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf Of
Trini y Sean (PATangoS)
Sent: Tuesday, 12 April 2011 1:06 PM
To: Tango-L
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] tango to rap


--- On Thu, 4/7/11, JOHN WROBLEWSKI <nrj.sparrow at prodigy.net> wrote:


> Vince; I agree with you. This "ad" is
> not tango. By the very definition a tango is a tango because
> of the tango music. The question is can there exist a tango
> dance without tango music and the answer is no. And if a
> tango danced to music other than tango music is the dance a
> "real" tango, again the answer is no. Why, because of the
> identity principle: "I think therefore I am". Tango music
> and the act of the tango dance, are one identity. 


By that logic that it would seem that the dancing I saw last week at the
Piazzolla operita was tango simply because the music was tango.  I would
call the dancing itself modern dance and not tango.  If one can dance ballet
to tango music or modern to tango music or whatever else, that it seems to
me that there is indeed a separation between music and movement.

I'm sure we're all familiar with ballet companies taking jazz music or swing
music or whatever and performing ballet to it.  We accept that as okay and
artistic.  We don't say "they're not doing swing".  We say "they're doing
ballet to swing music".  Seems to be the same could apply to tango, as well.

One could argue about an emotional factor in tango, but modern dancers and
ballet dancers feel, too.  The dancers who convey an emotion with their
dancing are at the top of their fields.

One could argue about a partner connection.  Well, what about a pas de deux
in ballet?

One could argue about improv vs. choreography.  Well, I know many dancers
who choreograph tango for show, and modern dancers do contact improv.

I just see people dancing tango to non tango music as just developing
another subset of dancing in the vast world of tango.


Trini de Pittsburgh






      
_______________________________________________
Tango-L mailing list
Tango-L at mit.edu
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l