The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 10 Aug 2000
to 11 Aug 2000
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 03:00:04 -0400
Sender: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 10 Aug 2000 to 11 Aug 2000 (#2000-216)
There are 6 messages totalling 412 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Evolution takes time...
2. Melingo
3. Styles in Europe (Re: Evolution takes time... (2)
4. In the milonga they don't take me the point :-) (2)
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 04:04:03 -0400
From: Eugenia Spitkovsky <euginas @EROLS.COM>
Subject: Evolution takes time...
Dear list,
What is wrong with tango in US?
I am not sure anything is necessarily wrong, we are simply going through
the pains of growth and development.
Here in Washington we were lucky to have a guest from Bs As, Ruben
Milonga. Ruben was a professor at the Tango University of Buenos Aires,
and happened to be a third generation of tango dancers in his family.
Not only he is a fabulous teacher who focuses on teaching balance,
technique of correct movement and those subtle things that make tango so
intimate and personable. Ruben supports his practical methods with
materials from his rare tango collection, film, newspapers of the
period, music, recordings, etc. You name it, Ruben either has it or
knows about it. In addition, Ruben has observed tango development in
Germany, where he taught tango for years. Chan and I asked Ruben a
similar question: What do you think is the future of tango DANCING in
the US? Ruben told us first he was not certain because of his experience
in European communities. When he first started working with tango
dancers in Germany he thought that Argentine tango was dying. Show tango
in a very bad interpretation of social dancers was predominant. This was
several years ago. Now European communities dance what we would call
milonguero style. They evolved!
Monaloca(?) pointed out that milonguero and salon are two different
dances. Ruben showed us several videos and discussed in detail dancing
styles that changed dramaticly with time: knees bend or not, body
position, cross, etc. You are right- sometimes different time period
looked like absolutely different dance. Evolving...still
Carlos Limo said, "students choose badly...however the situation is
gradually and very slowly improving". How true! A couple of years ago
dancers in NYC did too many embelishments, showing not much feeling. But
that was the time when "Forever Tango" was running and people tried to
do/ to be like the celebrity dancers, not realizing that those dancers
practiced 6-8 hours each day! But now, it is such pleasure to dance in
NYC: more feeling, closer embrace. Most likely not because people are
trying to replicate what they saw in BsAs, rather at least once they
felt really good dancing tango, moving together with the partner, to the
music and keep trying to replicate their own mood or feeling. Visiting
milonga in BsAs can help with the feeling - many good dancers are there.
Our tango communities are similar in our development: most of our
communities are younger than in NYC or Europe. Yes, students choose
poorly if we are talking about dancing tango only. But we all are social
creatures. Most of us do not begin to dance tango to perform or to make
money: we dance tango to socialize with others in the environment that
is pleasant. People select their teachers by the fun these teachers can
provide. Tango show steps are fun and can give a feel of quick and easy
accomplishment. LOOK! I CAN DO GANCHO!!!!! BOLEO!!!!!! SALIDA!!!!!!! and
I know these fancy words too! Try to feel the music, or move with your
partner as one as quickly. Impossible! People who accomplished the fun
part and do not progress evantually weed out. Teachers who use these
people for their own monetary enrichment are unethical.
Wow, I wrote more than people will ever read!
Good tangos. WE ARE STILL EVOLVING!!!
Eugenia
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 11:08:42 +0200
From: Silke Engesser <j43 @IX.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject: Melingo
Hi everybody on this list all over the world,
I hope somebody can help me. I am looking for more cds of an extraordinary
tangosinger. His name is Melingo.
The only cd I have got is titled "tangos bajos" and I hope that there
exists another compilation with songs of him.
Thanks and greetings
Silke
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 19:56:58 +0200
From: andy Ungureanu <Andy.Ungureanu @T-ONLINE.DE>
Subject: Styles in Europe (Re: Evolution takes time...
Eugenia Spitkovsky schrieb:
:
> knows about it. In addition, Ruben has observed tango development in
> Germany, where he taught tango for years. Chan and I asked Ruben a
> similar question: What do you think is the future of tango DANCING in
> the US? Ruben told us first he was not certain because of his experience
> in European communities. When he first started working with tango
> dancers in Germany he thought that Argentine tango was dying. Show tango
> in a very bad interpretation of social dancers was predominant. This was
> several years ago. Now European communities dance what we would call
> milonguero style. They evolved!
>
> Monaloca(?) pointed out that milonguero and salon are two different
> dances. Ruben showed us several videos and discussed in detail dancing
> styles that changed dramaticly with time: knees bend or not, body
> position, cross, etc. You are right- sometimes different time period
> looked like absolutely different dance. Evolving...still
Dear List,
I followed the discussion about style names in the US and I wonder. In
Europe nobody makes any difference between "milonguero" and "salon".
There is a difference between salon (social, improvised) and show
(choreographed). People trying to impress other people dance "show" in
the milonga.
There is salon with more or less distance or not distance at all.
As far as I heard about, some (important) people in BA think that the
name of "milonguero" is only a marketing gag of Susanna Miller teaching
the style of Tete.
Any opinions about this?
Andy
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 15:38:32 -0400
From: Richard Lipkin <ezie @EROLS.COM>
Subject: In the milonga they don't take me the point :-)
BUENOS AIRES HERALD magazine, Saturday, August 5, 2000
Friend B.T.,
I accuse receipt of your letter of Thursday last past, but again I
don't know if I do not explain myself well or if you take me by the
hair. When I
say my sister was intervened I mean of course by the doctor surgeon. If
not, by who else?
She said it did not hurt her much but it molested her some. She is now
well but has to adhere herself to a regimen. They do not let her take
for
example, a beef on horse or even meat to the oven. Most of the time she
eats eggs passed by water and takes herself a litre of milk a day. The
regimen is little interesting.
Next week my fathers take her to the camp to reestablish herself. My
little brothers and my little sister go also so that I will be alone in
the department with all convenience! I wait that you will come and visit
me one day.
What do you tell me of the heat? It was something that had no name.
The other night in the house we couldn't anymore so we did a round of
the balneario. There it made fresh. It was very well. But how the
confiterias worked that night! To get ourselves a beer we had to make
the tail.
Last week was coming a friend from Rosario to visit me. He was coming
by coach, but in the afternoon I received a telegram to say that his
coach had given against another and he had retraced himself. The coach
suffered serious disperfection. Less bad that my friend suffered no
disgrace.
But the fault he has it himself. He bought the car which was of second
hand from an anybody. It resulted a complete nail. Everything happens to
it. One day we were going along and the little mule stuck. What a paper
we passed there in the middle of the street! Later we got it to walk.
I did not inform you that I was learning golf. I started last week
taking lessons. But what a silly game! And well, one must have patience.
The other day I came out very well -I found three balls. The
professional tells me that I must apply myself more. He is a good
banana, that one: he
expects already that I play at the thousand marvels.
Do you go to Mar del Plata to summer? When do you get licence? When my
fathers come back from the camp, maybe we pass a time down there. Esther
she goes with her fathers next week and her cousin Martha.
What a girl that! She has only sixteen years but she is going to be a
potato. Already she is sufficiently interesting.
I must stop now to take my Italian lesson. Or did I not inform you?
Yes, I am not taking French anymore. Now I have an Italian teacher. She
is of
the best. She teaches well also. I am enchanted with her. If you are
interested in Italian, she has a friend... But of every manner, write to
me a few lines soon or if not give me a blow of the telephone. Until the
sight! Your friend.
Ramon
_______________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 16:46:12 +0100
From: white95r <white95r @HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: In the milonga they don't take me the point :-)
Richard,
Literal translations from one language to another can result in hilarious
nonsense. The problem is that it represents a perfectly cogent and clear
narrative, in Spanish, as a ridiculous, idiotic diatribe to an English
speaking reader. The same results can be obtained by literally translating
English (particularly colloquial English) into Spanish. This way the English
writers are ridiculed to the Spanish readers.
Cheers,
Manuel
Original Message -----
From: Richard Lipkin <ezie @EROLS.COM>
Subject: In the milonga they don't take me the point :-)
> BUENOS AIRES HERALD magazine, Saturday, August 5, 2000
>
>
> Friend B.T.,
>
> I accuse receipt of your letter of Thursday last past, but again I
> don't know if I do not explain myself well or if you take me by the
> hair. When I
> say my sister was intervened I mean of course by the doctor surgeon. If
> not, by who else?
>
> She said it did not hurt her much but it molested her some. She is now
> well but has to adhere herself to a regimen. They do not let her take
snip
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 17:37:13 -0700
From: Carlos Lima <amilsolrac @YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Styles in Europe (Re: Evolution takes time...
In the original posting by Andy Ungureano:
>
I followed the discussion about style names in the US and I wonder. In Europe
nobody makes any difference between "milonguero" and "salon". There is a
difference between salon (social, improvised) and show (choreographed).
People trying to impress other people dance "show" in the milonga.
There is salon with more or less distance or not distance at all. As far as I
heard about, some (important) people in BA think that the name of
"milonguero" is only a marketing gag of Susanna Miller teaching the style of
Tete.
<
Since I left Europe many years ago I cannot bear witness for or against your
(prima faciae absurd) statements, but I hope my deductions are correct, for
European sanity s sake. I cannot believe that nobody (unless you mean none
of you or your friends, in which case I have no objection) makes a
distinction between:
(i) The (classical) salon tango, historically that of, above all but not
only, Carlos Alberto Estevez Petroleo , and at later times (as such or as a
variant) that of Firpo Lampazo, Pepito Avellaneda, Rudolfo Cieri (all dead,
please respect their memory), Maria Cieri, Nito & Elba Garcia, Graciela
Gonzales, EN (Pupi) Castello, Juan Carlos Copes, Maria Nieves, Carlos
Copello, Alicia Monti, Carlos Gavito, Marcela Duran, Juan Bruno, the
Mayorals, Gustavo Naveira, Olga Besio, Fabian Salas, Miguel Angel Zotto,
Milena Plebs, Lorena Ermocida, Osvaldo Zotto, Pablo Veron, Luciana Valle,
Fernanda Ghi, Guillermo Merlo, Guillermina Quiroga, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc .
. . A tango canon that was born right about 1940 from the synthesis of older
and newer Rioplatense influences (among many others, the tango of Benito
Bianquet, known as El Cachafaz) and European/North American ones. (Please
note, no English eccentric tango clown acts were involved at the time, they
did not exist yet, a circumstance that rarely deters myth makers.) A tango
that was born in a context of social tango dancing, since (inter alia)
tourist shows, in fact tango dance shows in general, did not significantly
exist at the time, a circumstance that rarely deters myth makers. A tango
that became the gold standard for SOCIAL dancing, the only type of dancing
really existing at the time, and in due time for stage creations, from
fantasia to tango inspired balletic works, and also orillero, and now tango
nuevo, and all that. A tango that influenced all of the tango future, and is
the root whence milonguero sprung. ( Milonguero being the STANDARD, or at
least most common, name by which what Tete , among many thousands of others,
does is known all around the world, including, I assure you, Europe. (If it
seems otherwise to you, it is perhaps because you live SOMEWHERE in Europe,
not all over it, or, more likely, because you only hear what accords to some
preconceived ideas gleaned from misguided great dancers and/or teachers
playing at being also dance scholars, with predictable results.) A tango that
was learned (and at the same time re-invented, which is what great masters
do, that is the main reason why they are great masters) by the older masters
in the list given earlier from their friends/family and fellow SOCIAL
dancers; who did so for the single purpose, since no other could meaningfully
be formulated at the time, of then going and dancing at MILONGAS in Buenos
Aires and/or Clubes in the arrabales. (You know milongas, right? PARTIES,
where people dance SOCIALLY, or does the word mean something ELSE to you?) A
tango that those people did NOT learn at the time (late forties and early
fifties) in any schools, Todaro s among them, or any stage tango academies,
or any academies of any kind, or by attending seminars by traveling
celebrities, or by taking expensive privates , due to reasons that you may
be able by now to discover on your own, but rarely deter myth makers. AND . .
.
(ii) Tango milonguero, which (as the orillero salon does in a
completely different way) harks back in many ways to older forms of (social,
OK?) tango dancing, but does not become a canon of sorts until the very late
forties, at the earliest. A tango that is clearly a descendent of salon,
quite possibly having evolved (but no one really knows for sure) as people
who had been dancing since the thirties and earlier (in styles that are today
sometimes bundled up as canyengue, but I am sure that is an extreme
oversimplification and an inaccurate nomenclature) absorbed the new
influences (a.k.a., salon) and adapted to increasingly crowded public floors
and bailongos. The tango of Tete AND of Susana Miller, and of her
informants, who probably were very numerous (but I am guessing here, I have
met only one claimant to the title, and it is just his word at this point),
and of many thousands of milongueros, because milonguero (in a few flavours)
and social salon (in many different flavours) are both very alive and very
well in Buenos Aires and elsewhere around the world, both boasting thousands
of amateur, i.e., SOCIAL practitioners. The myth that SOCIAL Europe has
converted massively to milonguero, save the peacocks strutting their show
tango impromptu performances out of vanity, which truly reads like a myth on
its face, has been debunked on this list by first hand witnesses. Why is it
coming back? Could it be that people dancing subdued salon in close embrace
(perhaps defined as zero nipple distance, medium squeeze or higher) think
they are dancing like Tete ? Or Susana Miller? Or Cacho Dante?
Why do I know that it cannot be true that everyone in Europe fails to
make the distinction? Because there is no reason for me to believe that
everyone in Europe is blind or otherwise sensorially deprived, or sensually
dead, or trained in only one of the two and completely shielded from any
knowledge or experience of the other. I know that many people in Europe have
learned and danced both approaches, and I know a handful of teachers who have
taught both approaches in Europe. NO ONE starting from regular tango
instruction of basic salon vocabulary who progresses in milonguero to
reasonably well executed back ochos can possibly fail to FEEL the difference,
or can possibly spout arrant nonsense about social dancing in CONTINUOUS
DEGREES OF EMBRACE CLOSENESS unless s/he is going around in some sort of
nearly catatonic state. The typical European is lively and sophisticated
(wouldn t you say), nothing catatonic about their state.
About the word milonguero , I have seen a claim posted on this list that it
was a market gag invented by Daniel Trenner upon return from Buenos Aires on
one of his trips. I rolled and nearly fainted laughing about that one, but
this one (which I have heard before only from salon exclusivists with
conspiracy theories) is not as funny. It is in fact possible that Susana
Miller has UNWITTINGLY contributed to the popularization of this particular
label. But she could not have created it as a marketing gag. (By the way,
this is the first time I hear a presumed milonguero devotee ascribe bad
motives to Susana s enthusiasm for it.) In fact the use of the label salon
for the milonguero, which is dear to all leading milonguero masters, I
believe --- certainly to BOTH Tete and Susana Miller as attested by Tete s
instructional tapes and a published interview with Susana (El Once?)
--- is an ideological gag aimed at denying legitimacy to (classical) salon as
something you would dance in a salon (milonga). If it is a tango de salon,
then it must be milonguero, I mean salon, as per BOTH Tete and Susana
Miller. And if it is not salon, that is, not what nearly everyone calls
milonguero, then it is show tango (or tango danza , says Ms Miller),
something that only ridiculous people would do in a salon. NEAT! Besides,
milonguero masters wince at the label milonguero, because back circa 1960 it
was a derogatory label. Milongueros were bums who did nothing but sleep by
day and dance by night. So you milonguero-style myth makers out there need a
different conspiracy theory. Hey, I have an idea, let us pin it hard on
Daniel Trenner. Just keep repeating it. Soon people will stop laughing and
believe it. This would be a great boost to the North American tango
communities! Un norteamericano baptized the prime social style of the future!
Tete et al want theirs to be the one called salon, because that is THE ONE
that everybody should be dancing in the salons, so (classical) salon cannot
legitimatly be called salon! Salon exclusivists want the label milonguero to
be replaced (preferably by something demeaning, like caquero), because many
milongueros do not dance milonguero. This is not nomenclature, it is secular
religion, Newspeak. And not very inteligent language manipulation at that.
A word about Susana Miller doing Tete s thing and appropriating it with a
clever new label. I only know first hand Susana s one time partner, Anamaria
Schapira, a GREAT milonguera and a great teacher, my beloved teacher for a
regrettably very short time. There are lots of differences between what she
does and what Tete does. From what I hear, they and Cacho Dante would be
more alike. I also saw Omar Vega doing milonguero (and how well the sunofagun
does it!) and that looked to me very close to Tete s way, except that Omar
has a much smaller tummy. But these are details and they could be wrong. The
important point is that there are many many milonguero practitioners left
over from the early sixties and earlier, so to claim that Susana Miller is
repackaging Tete with a snake-oil brand name is non-sensical.
To conclude. I love milonguero, and my greatest frustration in tango is that
I cannot ply it in New York. I would do it most of the time if I could. But
every time I read or hear pronouncements from milonguero masters and
enthusiasts to the effect that tango is divided into (milonguero) salon and
(stage) fantasia I feel like tearing myself away from a beloved thing in
order to spite the authors of such bizarre non-sense.
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End of TANGO-L Digest - 10 Aug 2000 to 11 Aug 2000 (#2000-216)
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