The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 10 Oct 1999
to 11 Oct 1999
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 03:00:01 -0400
Sender: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 10 Oct 1999 to 11 Oct 1999 (#1999-31)
There are 3 messages totalling 288 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. "New Tango" Again (2)
2. Ebert, Tango and emotions
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 03:10:07 -0700
From: Larry E Carroll <larrydla @JUNO.COM>
Subject: Re: "New Tango" Again
FORWARD BY REQUEST FROM EMILE SANSOUR
__________________________________________
I would like just to give some comments about the socalled New Tango.
I share Larry with his opinion:
1) Tango is IMPROVISATION. You should play with the music, improvise,
and be creative. This is the soul of tango. So, if you are
improvising then you are dancing TANGo, not NEW TANGO.
It is good to be creative, but to call it new tango is
unlucky and misleading, in my opinion.
Now, if some new guys from Argentina (or whereever in the world)
are creative, it is ok, that is great, that is tango.
To call it new tango is not the right thing, I guess.
The group around Gustavo Naveira is great since they improvise
a lot. So, they are: good TANGO dancers,
and not: good NEW TANGO dancers.
2) In order to say that you are doing NEW tango you MUST first know the
old tango. When Gustavo Naveira are claiming such things
(BTW, I do not think he is doing so) then I agree and I understand
why, since he knows the "old tango" and he has been watching
the development (or history) of tango during the last
(at least) 15 years. But when a dancer is still new to tango
and he has benn learning from the first beginning the
"new tango" then he cannot claim: I am creating a new tango,
because he does not even know the "old tango".
3) People like to search for new things, they get bored
always doing same thing thousend time
over and over again, so they like to introduce, let us say,
some more interprations, or figures to that what they already know.
For example:
Dancers where dancing e.g. enrosque for long long time
ago, over and over again. So they get bored of it.
The movement is full symmertic and both partners have same
speed in the turn. Now some of them say: let us open the left
and right side of both partners, let us change the speed of both
and introduce some more sacadas after turns.
To do this:
1.) mam and woman must have different speed in the turn,
2.) the upper body holding must be very light -- no stiffness
3.) the left and right side of the woman must be free
(that is, no side contact).
Now, when a guy is new to tango, like Chicho, and started to learn
tango with the above listed points, then he still does not know
the "old" enrosque in the right way, he cannot be fast in doing it
since he did not learn it. The woman has to go fast
arround him, he must hold her in a full symmertic way with
a little tension in the arms. Have you seen Chicho doing
many kinds of enrosque?? No, he does more sacadas and changing speed
and direction. Chicho does not do also the drippling
(very small steps to the music) in a rythmic way of dancing
to rhythmic songs. Maybe now he learned all of that, I do not know.
It is so easy for him to learn them, of course, since he is a great
dancer. But
someone like, let say, Gustavo or Fabian, must show him first
how to do that (the socalled old tango).
Then he realized, ok, I am doing the new tango.
But without knowing the old, how can one claim to be doing the new one?
For example, you know first that there is
something called positive only if you know that there is
something called negative.
You know that something is good only if you know that there
is something called bad. There must exist
a relation between two things, otherwise you cannot say nothing.
Last time in Holywood I discussed this point with Fabian
Salas, and I was very suprized to hear, that he also
thinks the same thing. Fabain Salas knows a lot, I
enjoyed discussing with him about such things;
he knows what is going on.
xx) Last comment about light tango:
It depends on you and your feelings at that moment.
people usually danced the tango very serious and they suffer
while dancing. Zotto asked: WHY. Somethimes yes, I like
to feel the passion of tango, sometimes I like just to enjoy and
to laugh while dancing. He claimed that he introduced
laughing to tango. I really do not know. Roberto and vanina also
smile a lot while dancing, not artificially, they enjoy it.
Also many people from the young generation smile while dancing
and are very light, others are very heavy and they are like
suffering (or fighting with each other) during the dance.
I do not know, sometimes I feel so, sometimes so.
So, I suggest: be as you want to be. There are no rules.
Regards
Emile Sansour
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Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 15:35:59 +0200
From: Natarajan Balasundara <rajan @EMC.COM>
Subject: Re: "New Tango" Again
Original Message-----
From: Larry E Carroll <larrydla @juno.com>
To: TANGO-L @mitvma.mit.edu <TANGO-L @mitvma.mit.edu>
Date: Saturday, October 09, 1999 9:26 AM
Subject: "New Tango" Again
>Fabian Salas is touring again, coming to (among other places)
>Santa Fe & Los Angeles. I've taken several classes from him &
>Chicho, both of whom teach different aspects of the "New Tango."
>They're good teachers, with important things to say. Don't miss
>them.
He is a great teacher. I and others who took his class about a year(?)
ago in boston did feel we finally may have learnt something.
[stuff deleted]
>
>"NEW TANGO" IS INTELLECTUAL.
>All analytical techniques are intellectual, & the Fab Four (or is
>it Five now?!) are far from the only teachers with an analytic
>system. For many years Mingo Pugliese has been teaching an
>analytic system, & he's hardly the only one. Analytic systems are
>used to TEACH & LEARN tango. But they are only training wheels
I would like someone comment more on this--- especially about
Fabian Salas' notational scheme.
Fabian Salas tries to break all steps into(some please correct me right
here if I am wrong): front, back, side. Now, in the workshop/class there
were
several questions as to what exactly 'front' meant. Basically:
(1) If all steps could be composed from front, back, and side, then there
ought to be steps which are partly front, partly back. Not so according
to him(at the time, anyways): each step is purely either front, side or
back.
So, this label(front, back, side) is not denoting anything continuous.
(2) If each step is purely front, back, or side, then perhaps it denotes a
relationship of the man to the woman(leader/follower). He did not seem to
entirely agree with this notion either.
In any case, as the class went on, it did not seem that big of an obstacle
what the basic terms exactly meant because he was patient and presistent
in his teaching by example. It leaves me with an impression that "New Tango"
perhaps may have some problems of semiotics to solve at the moment --- or
someone could explain the notations more clearly :-)
>for the mind. To actually DANCE everyone must shift gears to
>sythetic, holistic thinking (& feeling). It's rather like
>learning a new language: grammar & verb charts & phonic tables &
>so on help to speed up learning, but to have a conversation all
>analytic tools are totally useless (even harmful) unless they've
>become such a part of your subconscious that you are not even
>aware they exist.
>
Anology seems better than than the summary that "to actually DANCE
one must shift gears". Languages are learnt by practice and assimilating
grammar. Or, rather, ability for the language(grammar) is innate and that
one needs to practice enough to bring it out. I am not sure thre is a
similar
'dancing instinct' too. However, the ability to dance correctly also will
only
come from practice. That is, one does not have to shift gears but practice
enough for the gears to shift automatically. To have a conversation, one
must start talking and make mistakes, I guess( I just spent all afternoon
yesterday saying ' a paper sheet' hunderds of times in a language new
to me -- to be corrected each time).
>THEY ARE TEACHING SOMETHING REALLY NEW.
>The phrase "New Tango" is a marketing label (like "Milonguero"!).
>It's very effective, especially on young people, who always want
>a way to distinguish themselves from & be better than those who
>came before. But the styles of the four lead "New Tangueros" is
>not revolutionary; if anything it reminds me of several of the
>better-known old milonguero. And the fundamentals they teach are
>essentially the same ones that many others teach, both those who
>came from a mostly social dance background & those who learned
>dance in an academy. For how could it be that much different? We
>only have two feet, we're dancing in an embrace, we're dancing as
>couples, & the laws of physics & physiology are the same for us
>all.
>
>
This is really an interesting point. While it seems obvious there could not
be
anything new, there sometimes is. For example, in highjump, it is obvious
that someone could not be jumping up or down in way totally different from
all
our ancestors. Yet, the back-flip high jump surely was not done
before(because
it is not instinctive to jump that way--one needs to think and analyze).
Since
analytic tango is not (entirely) instinctive, there could be newer things.
Which leads to the question: what exactly is the 'essence' of tango? It
could not be
things that can be changed since it would be no more tango if you changed
them.
Now, with new tango, close embrace is not necessary and hence , tango can
not be defined as 'a close embrace dance'. So, if even embrace is not
defining
of tango, then what is? Is it the music and the beat that are the sole
defining
elements of tango?? What if someone were to write new music and sneak
in a newer beat(which almost is the same as old but not exactly?)
rajan.
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 17:13:12 +0200
From: Natarajan Balasundara <rajan @EMC.COM>
Subject: Re: Ebert, Tango and emotions
Original Message-----
From: Brian P. Dunn <bpdunn @ix.netcom.com>
To: TANGO-L @mitvma.mit.edu <TANGO-L @mitvma.mit.edu>
Date: Friday, October 08, 1999 9:22 PM
Subject: Re: Ebert, Tango and emotions
>Virginia Gift wrote:
>
>> In a review of the film "Tango", Roger Elbert wrote the following, but
>> without any support "The tango is based on suspicion, sex and
insincerity.
>> It is not a dance for virgins. It is for the wounded and the wary."
>
>Frank Williams replied:
>>>>>>>
>Perceptions of tango are, in my opinion, very personal and quite varied.
[ stuff deleted]
>Yet, what of the beautiful scene of mourning in "Evita", where couples are
>sadly dancing to comfort each other after Evita's death? They are simply
>feeling something intensely, and are expressing it with the artistic tools
>they have been given because THEY MUST deal with the feeling somehow. In
>the Mississippi delta, the response might be to grab a guitar and peel out
a
>fresh yank-your-pain-from-you eight-bar blues. I saw no insincerity, sex,
>or wariness in these mourning dancers...
>
So, "we dance to know that we are not alone"(as in C.S.Lewis: "we read to
know that we
are not alone" )? I guess, it is like the chinese saying: "joy shared is
doubled, grief
shared is halved." Dancing with joy needs no explanation. And if we dance
to know that
we are not alone, I was wondering why do people not dance when someone is
dead
and the above scene seems to confirm there could be such a thing.
I have not seen Evita. I am sceptical that people actually danced when she
died.
May be the director put in the scene since no words could sufficiently
express the
sarrow(that which no one could deal with alone).
rajan.
>Brian Dunn
>Boulder, CO
>
End of TANGO-L Digest - 10 Oct 1999 to 11 Oct 1999 (#1999-31)
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