[Tango-L] Better? No. Worse? No. Different? Definitely!

[Charles Roques]

Trini wrote:

<<I think what defines what is classic or modern tango lies not so much in the movement itself but in the energy and the intention of the movement.  I watch Diego & Carolina do a colgada and has a definite salon feel.  I see Homer and Christina do a colgada and it has a more nuevo feel.  I've done close-embrace colgadas with salon dancers years before colgadas were being taught in workshops.

Today, I think that it's becoming more of the context of the dance (space size, traveling versus stationary, music, etc.) that determines whether a tango is classic/traditional or not.>>


Historically as new steps came along, they were still executed within the technical framework of traditional tango, meaning that posture was not compromised, one did not turn their head in a different direction from their frame, watch their partners feet, feet were kept together and collected between steps, weight was kept forward over the balls of the feet, etc.   So steps like the cross or a molinete were more easily absorbed into the traditional structure of tango.  What is different about much of nuevo lies in the difference in fundamental elements like those, not just in different steps.  Nuevo tango has a different structure, not just different steps.  It is not a semantical argument about the roots of the words "traditional" or "classic."  

Charles