On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 4:59 PM, David Thorn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I too have puzzled over this religious fervor. If one looks for example at > Lindy Hop, another > street dance with no ruling body, it passed through the "style wars" (Savoy > vs. Hollywood vs. West > Coast Swing vs. ..) in a matter of several years.
A 'milonga' is a place or event where tango social dancing occurs. The origin of the tango and the milonga are in Buenos Aires. The terms derive their meaning from the culture of their origin. Within the milongas of Buenos Aires there is a form of tango typically called 'tango de salon', which has some variations, but also has characteristics in common which differentiate it from other forms or derivatives of tango de salon such as tango fantasia and nuevo. Common characteristics of tango de salon are a close embrace, observing the a line-of-dance, and keeping feet close to the floor. Within Buenos Aires milongas, a particular kind of music is played for dancing tango, which consists of almost entirely recorded tango music from approximately 1930-1955 from about a dozen different tango orchestras. Those outside Argentina who accurately follow the tango cultural traditions of manner of dancing and music played at milongas are not religious zealots. They are just people who are trying to duplicate as best as is possible in a foreign country the cultural traditions of an Argentine dance they love. We would like to have a place to dance tango where we can have an environment of dancing to classic tango music and codes of behavior where people do not create navigational hazards on the floor. Why are we who try to maintain the cultural traditions of tango so outraged at times? There may be different reasons for different people, but there are some common causes of our frustration. Probably the greatest source of frustration is the inability to replicate the atmosphere of a Buenos Aires milonga because people who come to milongas do not respect the line of dance and create other navigational hazards. Some would say that it is not nuevo or fantasia that creates navigational hazards, it is people who create hazards. While this is true to some degree, it reminds me of the argument that 'guns do not kill people; people kill people', so don't outlaw guns. I guess one could then argue that if nuevo were not widely available to the tango dancing public, then only outlaws would have nuevo, but I regret to say the analogy doesn't work. On the other hand, if you take the tools of nuevo and fantasia away from a tango dancer, you greatly decrease the threats of collision and near collision on the milonga dance floor. Another objection we have to the nuevo-fantasia tango kidnapping coalition, is that these exhibition forms of tango have hijacked the terms 'tango' and 'milonga' to subvert for their own purposes. A place where people dance nuevo or fantasia socially, sometimes even to non-tango music, is not a 'milonga', Even calling it an 'alternative milonga' is implying that it has characteristics of a milonga, which is misleading. Advertising dance courses that teach nuevo-fantasia as 'Argentine tango' is also misleading, unless one specifically states that these versions or derivatives of tango are designed for exhibition and are not danced socially in the milongas of Buenos Aires. To my knowledge, this information has never been provided. Instead, either by silence or by direct statement, nuevo-fantasia is represented as social tango. Because nuevo-fantasia dancing fits the cultural expectations of North American, European, and Asian dancers as to what constitutes social dancing (i.e., memorization of sequences, audience directed conspicuous movements), this transformation of tango, this 'tango for export' usually receives a better reception in non-Argentine cultures than does the Tango de Salon of Buenos Aires. Thus, in most tango communities outside Argentina, nuevo-fantasia is the predominant, if not exclusive form of tango. As a result, in most 'milongas' outside Argentina, Tango de Salon is rare and an hospitable environment for it is not provided. Thus, there is rarely a tango social dancing venue outside Argentina for which it is justifiable to call it a 'milonga', yet pages upon pages of psuedo-milongas are advertised throughout the northern hemisphere. So, you can call us zealots or say we are intolerant and even undemocratic or even 'tango fascists'; however, all we are trying to do is dance Tango de Salon in a Milonga. How absurdly Argentine. If the nuevo-fantasia coalition were truly democratic, it would respect the rights of the minority. If it were interested in truth in advertising, it would refrain from advertising its instruction as 'Argentine tango' and its social dancing events as 'milongas'. Ron _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
