I’ve put a lot of thought into what I think tango nuevo is and I finally figured out what I believe identifies nuevo. It’s not the figures It’s just different footwork and unconventional movements. What I see in nuevo that ’s different from other styles of tango is the leader stepping without closing the feet standing usually in a squatting position always looking down at the floor with a lot of arm movement. I also see this occasionally in other tango styles but that’s just bad dancing they should know better. The difference is this must be how nuevo is taught because everyone I’ve seen dancing nuevo dances this way. I have seen a couple of nuevo dancers who are excellent only because they had traditional training before nuevo so they know the fundamentals of tango and it shows.
Tango nuevo reminds me of the jive from the 1940’s that’s become very popular again. They squat down and keep the feet apart jumping and jiving and taking up a lot of space on the dance floor. Ultimately they had to have separate venues because it became impossible to dance jive on a traditional crowded floor. If the nuevo craze continues to grow it will consume most of the milongas and there will have to be separate venues for the few remaining pockets of traditional tango dancers.How sad is that? Hbboogie1 _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
