"Vince Bagusauskas" <[email protected]> said: > Excellent review Shahrukh. What I suspected that it is not a true practica. So where do all the nuevo dancers hang-out? :)
There seems to be an assumption that practica = nuevo dancers. The fact that there is some truth (i.e., some correlation between these groups) makes the assumption that much more tricky. It doesn't help that some practicas (like X) are in fact milongas, at least at this point (I remember being there some years ago when it did not have a milonga feel to it, though I still didn't get a feeling that people were there to practise steps either). The whole practica-vs-milonga question is probably a subject for a different thread (my short version is that, for the practicas that are mostly for dancing, it is ultimately just a marketing thing), but I don't really have an answer to your question as to where the nuevo dancers go--I was expecting to see much more nuevo in Practica X than I saw, especially given the large number of "tango tourist" attendees. My observation is that if you take all Tango dancers in Buenos Aires, subtract all the tango visitors, then subtract all those who teach them, there are precious few nuevo dancers left. That may change over time, but it's still a fringe phenomenon amongst (non-tango-professional) Argentines. Maybe a nuevo regular who seeks out nuevo spots in Buenos Aires and would be better informed on this than I can comment on or correct that observation. A couple of other spots that I'd been to where I might have expected nuevo-like dancing were quite lightly attended. Jan points out TangoCool! at Villa Malcolm, which I had forgotten about and IS indeed popular (haven't been there in a while -- ends too early for me :-) -- and since I don't recall its being air-conditioned I may not go for a while either!). RonTango <[email protected]> wonders: ... whether the "holiday effect" of Argentines leaving town and tourists coming into town affects the proportion of Argentines vs. non-Argentines at milongas and practicas, and also whether holiday closings of some milongas might cause some practica organizers to make their practicas temporarily more milonga-like. Ron, if the question was regarding my estimation that 80% of attendees at Practica X seemed to be visitors, I don't think it had a big effect (I can't be sure since I hadn't been to Practica X much before that, so have a limited reference point). The reason I say that is that I went on 29 December, and yes, while visitors start taking their vacation in mid-late December to include the Christmas and New Year's days off, Argentines really do start their vacation on 1 Jan (MAYBE a few on 31 Dec)--they like to be in town for Christmas to celebrate with families and to take part in festivities in the city, and the whole summer vacation mentality in Argentina is very much geared to which quincena (fortnight) will be your vacation: 1-15 Jan, 16-31 Jan, 1-14 Feb or 15-28 Feb. So there may have been somewhat more tourists, but there shouldn't have been fewer Argentines. And there aren't relatively speaking that many Milonga closings for January, though attendance is definitely lower in most. Torquato Tasso is closed for the month, for example, but that's mainly because it's primarily a performance venue and they have no performances scheduled (like most theatres) during January, so the entire facility is closed. Perhaps a few smaller milongas de barrio are closed for short periods when the owners go on vacation, or a couple of places take advantage of the lighter turnout to do renovations at the like. In any event, I can't really see organizers adjusting their milonga/practica themes to take into account what else is open or not -- it's not really part of the mindset (and I don't see any identifiable need for it either). Jan <[email protected]> says: > If I may, what you omitted in "What you get at Práctica X" is that he > management will not interfere if you lead shoulder high boleos or > whirling colgadas, e.g. As long as you do not hurt anyone. I.e., the > practica provisions apply. Not sure that´s allowed in Viejo Correo. The first statement ("management will not interfere ...") is probably true. On the one hand, I could not have added it to my "What you get ..." list because I never observed ultra-high boleos or whirling colgadas, nor have observed people being reprimanded in other milongas for doing them (I don't see them that often in other milongas in Buenos Aires either). There was also no evidence of "practica provisions," implicit or explicit--what are they and where are they declared? (I'm not being argumentative here--I'd truly like to know what is this list, and whether there is some sort of consensus surrounding it amongst practica organizers.) Actually, I have never seen or even heard of anyone actually being asked to leave a milonga because of doing nuevo steps. Notwithstanding talk of mysterious codigos and so on, there is much more tolerance in milongas these days than there used to be (whether that's a good thing or not is a separate discussion!). Now, if you are actually being dangerous (and I don't think the organizer should wait until you actually hurt someone -- "Sorry about that gouged-out eye, but we DO call this a practica, you know ..." :-)), you should be "talked to" anywhere, though realistically speaking, organizers are reluctant to do so except in extreme cases. The threshold for being considered dangerous may very well be quite different in a large space with mostly young people, vs. a small place with people dancing who are old enough that a strong bump could translate into a fall and a fractured hip. > And in response to Vince who wrote: "...I suspected that it is not a > true practica.". Indeed Practica X was one of the first (if not the > first) tango venues that allowed dancing free of milonga restrictions > on style, i.e., "nuevo". Hence the designation "practica". During its > 5 year existence it became a premier young crowd dance venue and some Indeed, Practica X seems to have become the "premier young-crowd venue" at least for tourists. For Argentines, I suspect it's La Viruta, though that gets more of a mixed crowd. (I should go back there too -- the last I went the dancing was pretty bad and navigation at Practica X was much better than what I recall at La Viruta -- but from more recent reports I'm hearing, perhaps it's different now.) > of the dancers coming now are rank beginners so the "nuevo" crowd was > substantially diluted - a milonga of young people. Yet "nuevo" is OK There is an implication here that the nuevo crowd comprises good dancers, who were "diluted" by the beginners (presumably not doing nuevo). This may have been true at one point, but this was not consistent with my observation at Practica X last week, where the best dancers with the best connection were those dancing close-embrace, with only one exception. (And I am not being narrow in my interpretation of "connection" to mean only a chest-to-chest subtle close-embrace connection--I can appreciate good connection in modern dance, ballet, West Coast Swing, etc.) Now perhaps there were a lot of nuevo dancers who were mostly dancing close-embrace because that's all the space allowed (and they were largely experienced-enough dancers to realize that and accommodate that), or perhaps formerly nuevo dancers "returning to the fold" :-) but the "young-crowd venue" descriptor is more accurate for Practica X than "nuevo venue." Shahrukh _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
