For full interview, see: http://atdrc.com/default.asp?TextDisplay=1&Display=18
Excerpts: Chicho: To think that ‘Tango Nuevo’ is something that occurred only 10 years ago is a commercial exploitation that we owe to the festival organizers, I don’t think I am doing ‘Tango Nuevo’, I feel that I am dancing tango. Because today there is a new generation that learned to dance 2,3 or 5 years ago, who only know how to do the new styles, the ganchos, the colgadas, but who are not in contact with everything that came before, and I go to the milongas and I see people that know how to move but that don’t know how to dance, people don’t breathe tango like they did before. ........................ Chicho: For me the style is something you search for with your partner, and not something that you find separately. ................. Chicho: I haven’t heard anything new yet which reflects what a real tango can make you feel. The dance of today has adapted itself to that kind of music referred to as electronic tango, and it doesn’t fall into the same category as a Pugliese or a Troilo. The tango was hidden for almost 30 years and that is the emptiness which is present today in the tango. There are people who have 60 or 70 years of age, and now there are those who are 30 years old, which is saying that there is a 20 year gap within the tango, because there aren’t really that many people in their 40’s and 50’s in the milongas. I believe that that same thing occurred in the music, there was Piazzola and then there was a jump to Gotan Project, directly to Narcotango, and there hasn’t been a musical process that has accompanied the dance through its evolution. The music hasn’t evolved, it jumped and skipped a very important of the creativity that is happening in the dance, which continues to grow and evolve creatively. .... Interviewer: What do you think about the direction the tango is beginning to take, socially and artistically? Chicho: I think it is a very critical moment, there are many new young people who are beginning to dance today and if we as teachers can’t transmit what was taught to us as the essence of tango when we began, the tango will be lost, because the essence will be lost, and therefore losing its foundations. The most important element is to remain keep the tanguero essence alive, the style doesn’t matter, but that the people are really dancing the tango. Today the road is confusing, it’s in this space where or it either takes a turn towards modern dance or it continues being tango. Today people are dancing tango, but they are not living the tanguero essence, they don’t love the tango. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
