[Tango-L] How tango evolves
Jack Dylan writes --- this is ... my opinion [only] on his dancing; Chicho might well be a great teacher and choreographer. I found him a middling teacher (of course he MIGHT have improved since 2003/4). A lady friend took one class and said never again. His focus, she said, was just on the men's part and totally ignored women's. I think he's a brilliant choreographer, but obviously his stuff is not to everyone's taste. And his choreography depends on his partner. His current one seems a bit limited, but that might be because she does not assert herself. What he did with Eugenia Parilla I loved, but I suspect she pushed to get in neat stuff that showcased her, as in the following video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyZq6sOLI0g ___ I'm a fan of nuevo tango and have taken a lot of classes in it, but some people have greatly exagerated its importance today and in the future. I think it ultimately will have a definite but only a small part in the continued evolution of tango. The most important contribution to tango that Naveira and Salas provided is a way to look at traditional tango less as complex steps and more as simple movements which could be combined in different ways. But they aren't the only ones who contributed to this movement toward deconstruction (destruction + reconstruction). Some people in this and other tango forums have identified a nuevo style of dancing and listed aspects of it. Among those is a distant embrace which gives more freedom for the dancers to do fancy stuff. But this is true for most show dance routines, and was around long before Naveira and Salas started their deconstruction efforts. Most of the traveling teachers I and many other learned from in the early 90s were professional dancers from shows such as Forever Tango and Tango por Dos who taught this embrace. For that matter, a number of social dance teachers from Argentina teach a distant embrace. One couple I took classes from in the early 90s, for instance, spoke contempuously of the belly bumper (their words) embrace, associating it with vulgar street dancers. Some of the steps associated with tango nuevo also have been around for a long time before its advent. The volcada, for instance, is just a fashionably newer name for the extreme lean, which has been around for a long time as part of several traditional show and social figures such as the carousel. Other movements associated with nuevo are natural extensions of traditional figures. The colgada, for instance, is what you get when you do a parada where the woman does a half back-ocho before she's stopped. But the man leads her to continue her spin beyond 180 degrees to 270, 360, or even several complete turns. (Larry briskly brushes his hands together and mutters dismissively So much for nuevo.) Larry de Los Angeles http://shapechangers.wordpress.com Paying too much for your business phone system? Click here to compare systems from top companies. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2131/fc/PnY6rbwT01yK9ZMSoctrIzW5xpfet0NgERTW2haWCvoepdBXHimSe/ ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] How tango evolves
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 9:46 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a fan of nuevo tango and have taken a lot of classes in it, but some people have greatly exagerated its importance today and in the future. I think it ultimately will have a definite but only a small part in the continued evolution of tango. Larry, Let's hope you're right about this. Right now it seems that nuevo defines tango in some tango communities or events in the US, where the tango from which nuevo evolved is no longer recognizable. The most important contribution to tango that Naveira and Salas provided is a way to look at traditional tango less as complex steps and more as simple movements which could be combined in different ways. But they aren't the only ones who contributed to this movement toward deconstruction (destruction + reconstruction). Go talk to the milongueros. They were dancing simple movements and recombining them before Naveira and Salas were born, and still are today. The difference is that, unlike many nuevo dancers, milongueros take floor traffic and the music into account when they do it. Some of the steps associated with tango nuevo also have been around for a long time before its advent. The volcada, for instance, is just a fashionably newer name for the extreme lean, which has been around for a long time as part of several traditional show and social figures such as the carousel. The difference is that the lean in social tango is rarely used and the woman does not gvet displaced from her position (i.e., take a step) while off axis. By the way, a good calesita, if used, does not pull a woman off her axis, it only rotates her on her axis. Other movements associated with nuevo are natural extensions of traditional figures. The colgada, for instance, is what you get when you do a parada where the woman does a half back-ocho before she's stopped. But the man leads her to continue her spin beyond 180 degrees to 270, 360, or even several complete turns. One almost never sees a parada coming out of a back ocho in the milongas of Buenos Aires. It is usually danced by someone who looks uncomfortable on the dance floor. This isn't social tango; it is stage tango. I see a lot of people grasping at straws to justify nuevo as a close evolutionary descendant of social tango. Tango evolved in part from several European dances (apparently polka, mazurka, waltz, if one believes the tango historians) and if one looks hard enough, one can probably find some steps they share, but this doesn't mean that tango is polka or mazurka or European waltz. Likewise, one could find similar steps in tango and foxtrot and quickstep, and these probably share no evolutionary relationship. In some ways (e.g., complete separation of partners, underarm turns) nuevo has borrowed movements not used in tango. It is a hybrid. (In nature hybrids are sterile and produce no offspring.) It deserves its own niche, where it does not compete for resources with tango. Ron ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] obsession with nuevo
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, 1 December 2008 4:48 AM To: tango-L@mit.edu Subject: [Tango-L] obsession with Nuevo Of course you always see people who race, stop for a long time and block the flow, play chicken with other dancers, and bump you if you're in their way. But this has nothing to do with the style of tango they do. It's because they are selfish, arrogant, ass-holes. You see that in every form of dance, especially in the salsa and east-coast swing world where dancing sometimes seems a form of warfare. Totally agree. I see a difference between, cities where a tight, close frame is required and a respect for others is shown to places where it seems the definition of a good dance is how many ganchos and volcadas can be thrown in a song no matter who is around. Lately I have been concentrating on trying to smoothly turn my partner keeping the axis, do mirror giros and project through in my basic walks. A large minority to tango seem in the main want to do fantasia so how do I satisfy their needs while getting enough dances of my own? ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
