I've been following the debates on Tango-L for a year and a half.
Most dramatic for me, has been the clash between Nuevo and Traditional styles
of dance.
The topic becomes even more confused when one observes the similarities
between the two approaches..Nuevo is based on Traditional (so it says) and
most of it's moves have already been seen in Traditional Tango at some time or
other (in demos).
The real clash, however, is on the dance floor. I have seen a small dancefloor
that easily holds more than a dozen couples during a traditional social dance
shrink to only able to
hold 4 couples doing Nuevo...what's it all about?
Well, for my part, I am finally seeing that THE clash is not between Viejo y
Nuevo
but rather between Social and Performance dancing..(yes, it's been said here
before but I am finally 'getting' it myself, thank you.) Performance tango
borrows from the Milonguero tradition and uses it as a point of departure to
morph into modern dance , ballet, you name it.
It uses as much of the floor as possible so as to be able to dance in the
round, as it were,
and please as much of the surrounding audience as possible.
It is sometimes even called 'Milonguero' when in a demo performance
OK, if we are in agreement on the above...it follows that;
WHY is Show Tango taught at all???( there are reasons for it besides greed.)
Why isn't it called Performance Tango?
How can we help the class-goer distinguish between what is appropriate
when dancing alone or with lot's of floor space and what is suitable for close
quarters?
How can we get the two (Social + Show) under the same roof and co operating
with each other????????
ALL INPUT GRACIOUSLY LISTENED TO
_______________________________________________
Tango-L mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
