Dear Everyone, Pleeease call me ARON. My family name is Ecsedy (pronounced 'echedee', with the first and second 'e' as in 'ever'). Hungarians, along with the Japanese, write first names last, family names first.
I was truly amused by all your letters as everyone is really _agreeing_ on the main points, except the actual content of the term 'nuevo'. When there is no strict, 'codified' definition for a term, then every and all argument about it is in vain. People who DO NOT dance nuevo (according to their own definition) include certain aspects of (infdividual?) style and technique which according to people who say that they DO dance nuevo are not part of the term nuevo. So who is 'more' right? Who has the authority to define what is included, what's not? What I wrote down was something everyone who DOES dance nuevo agrees. I don't think nuevo is a style. The freedom it contains may 'trigger' a way of dancing that will be distinguishable from other styles, but that is not a must. For instance I've heard Sebastian Arce saying that what he is dancing is Villa Urquiza style...but the way he is approaching his dancing is nuevo. Also, Sergio practically wrote down almost the same facts but considered the Argentine predominance in tango teaching a sort of 'assurance' that tango remains Argentine. But this was NOT the question. The issue was if there is a change in tango, and if this change is driven by multiculturality. Obviously, the 'Argentine' influence is there as the starting point was in Argentina, but the CULTURAL influence may be of another source, even if the foreign influence was and still being integrated in Argentina, by Argentines. Just consider the way you dress, how the way life was getting closer to the rest of the world (which means strong US influence - true for most large cities anywhere), the 'counterculture', rock 'nacional' etc. The entire way of life is now globalized and the rule of capitalism and market economy is, that production/service always have to follow demand. If people want, say, more freedom, then those who do not integrate that element into what they sell, won't be able to sell it. If this element was not a requirement in the native community, then it is a foreign element. I was raised in a family full of ethnographers and historians. The general idea is: something is original only if it is done the same way. If there is a dance which was danced in a certain city, by a certain ethnicity, following a certain ritual in both the way it is danced, the way it is learned, the places it is danced, the whole environment, then there is no way that in a different time, place, using different methods, different ethnical background it will be even something remotely similar. For instance there is something which is pretty recent, pretty well dogmatized: the music of Bartok. I've never heard Bartok played RIGHT by any non-Hungarian orchestra. What I mean by right? Bartok was a modern 'classical' musician (the English word itself is wrong you see: in Hungarian we say 'serious' music for 'classical' because there are 'contemporary classical musicians', which sounds like a joke) who used his own country's folk music as a basis for his work. So a Hungarian orchestra plays it so that the folk elements sound similar to Hungarian folk music, as the dance rythmics are pretty much in the score. When Bartok is played by, say, a world class Japanese conductor and a US orchestra, it sounds like a Star Wars soundtrack (actually the music of the first trilogy in most parts pretty similar of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, of course there are also other parts that resemble Dvorak, Holst, Stravinsky, Debussy etc)... So, Sergio yes: tango, as you percieve it, can only be danced by Argentines, and their tango will be more tango-like then tango danced by people who grew up within a vastly different cultural mix. But the word, tango, is also container, and content is changing because of the many non-Argentines whom are dancing it too. So there will be a time, when the original context will be lost, but a context (with elements of both the tradition and both the new influences) will still be there. Happened to the (Viennese) Waltz (supposed to be pan-German invention, became attributed to Vienna, but even that is now only a tradition as you will find the Austrians to be less adept at waltz than some other nations), happened to Ballet (was French, became more Russian along the way, now you couldn't just point and say this or that nation is better in it), happened to languages in the past (greek, latin). (cont...) _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
