The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 30 Sep 2000
to 1 Oct 2000
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 03:00:05 -0400
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Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 30 Sep 2000 to 1 Oct 2000 (#2000-265)
There are 2 messages totalling 102 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Hello to all!
2. More on "Flintstones" tango
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 11:57:36 -0700
From: Richard Heath <cathoops @EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Hello to all!
Hi to all you Tango Junkies! My name is Rick from Arizona (USA). I was
introduced to Tango last July and my life has changed forever. I am addicted
to it; but then how do I expect any of you to understand my problem...HA! As
my instructor tells our friends..."Rick is obsessed with Tango!"...Wow!..I
have danced all my adult life and have never enjoyed dancing as much as I do
now. I was reluctant to try tango till I saw my first demo of it..Then, I
realized that if I did only one more thing good in my life time, it would be
to learn tango and learn it well...Now, I am on a mission. My female
instructor, who has also become a dear friend tells me because of my
passion for tango, I will be very good someday..Oh, how I yearn for that
day! My problem is I get too easily frustrated because I want to learn it
all by tomorrow! My standard for success has become the female counterpart
of my instructor couple...She is a "Tango Work Of Art" on the Milonga floor!
She has motivated me to new heights.I will call her Tango Princess as not to
embarrass her.
TP, please do not get upset with me for bragging on your Tango skills! If it
were not for her, I would have never found this incredibly wonderful dance.
I am a man of romance and passion, so Tango is a new and perfect way for me
to express myself like I have never been able to do before.I am A Registered
Nurse specializing in adult Critical Care. Since I am just learning so much
now and have so much more to learn, my "Tang Intelligence"is pretty bare
right , but with the help of many of you, I will be in the main stream of
Tango. I look forward to meeting many of you ! Chau! Rick. @-;-;------
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 20:26:01 -0400
From: Melinda Bates <tangerauna @EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: More on "Flintstones" tango
Still more clarifications about "Flintstones" tango:
A Flintstone dancer is a dancer that needs clear guidance from the music.
This is NOT the same as "beginner".
Nothing wrong with that. Not at all. Indeed many Argentineans dance like
that
and they are good at what they do. Go around the floor, embraced, without
interrupting the "ronda" to do choreographyc figures. So, I did mention the
"ronda", means to go around the floor all together, straight or doing giros
around your axis (the most skilfull ones). In the old times in crowded
milongas there used to be a kind of "bastonero" a big guy with a big stick,
in the
middle of the dance floor. If someone interruped constantly the ronda he
would
grab the couple and make them to dance in the middle...it was so
embarrassing
that almost everybody was focused on dancing properly and not bothering
others. Can you image if we did this in the USA....the border of the dance
floor
will be alway empty!!!!
Back to the music. Dancing out of the music is also a consequence of how
the
tango is taught today. Focus on steps. If you were a dance student in BA
long
time ago, before the tango show poisoned the milonga scene, your teacher
will make you walk "forever" - indeed this is what Cacho Dante and other
teachers in
BA do with local students.
So, with the empahasis on steps, musicality was forgotten. Alsmost all the
Argentinean teachers abroad teach steps, choreography and some times small
talk in musicality. This is a consequence of the market. Students consider a
good teacher the one who teaches more steps...
Of course musicality is the most difficult thing to learn and always you
will
have some "accent", like my English. If I pretend recit Shakespeare in
public you will tell: "good try..." , that means "you have an awful accent".
Same happens to me...
Last point, to dance Piazzolla at the end of your tango party (milonga are
only in BA. Milonga is more than the music and the dancers, it's the whole
ritual of eye contact, cabeceos and more subtilties that are missed
overseas). So, if you finish your tango party playing Piazzolla and not La
Cumparsita, as we traditionally do...or you consider Di Sarli music for
begginers...well...what can I say...It reminds me of the Turkish immigrant
that went to
Germany and with the first money he own he bought a clothes washer and sent
it
to his beloved mother that suffer a lot washing in the river. Month later
the good man received a letter from his mother thanking him for the "very
useful
machine to soft octopusies". She was a fisherwoman, she did not know how to
use a clothes washer, but she find her own way of use it...same happens with
tango...what people do with the music and the steps and the culture of
tango is different all over the world. Nothing wrong with that, so you have
tango alla turca, or the american way of understanding tango, or the so
called milonguero from the dutch...all nice trys...
End of TANGO-L Digest - 30 Sep 2000 to 1 Oct 2000 (#2000-265)
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