Re: [TANGO-L] Nuevo vs. Milonguero

[Brian Dunn <Brian @DANCEOFTHEHEART.COM>]

Hola list,

Stephen Brown opens up some great points:
>>>
Over recent years, however, nuevo has taken on the dimensions of a style.
As a style, nuevo is is danced in an open, loose embrace with a very
upright posture, and a great emphasis is placed on dancers maintaining
their own axes.
<<<

I know what you are saying - nuevo STARTED as an inquiry, but in some
people's minds has become a style, based on what is excluded and included,
like other styles.  In part, I'm arguing that its chief value was, is, and
remains as an inquiry rather than as yet another limited style (not that
there's anything WRONG with styles!)

Even when considered as a style, there's a paradoxical angle on Nuevo.  The
"open, loose embrace" for example, is less part of the dance styles of
Gustavo, for example, than it is some of their less-experienced adherents.
I'd agree that it's definitely a characteristic of a certain initial level
of exploration using the nuevo tango approach.

What you see is that people doing the Nuevo line of inquiry go through a
"novice nuevo" developmental phase, where some of the old beginner habits
resurface, because they're mastering new things again.  Wehn many of us
started, we had a much more "buffered" open embrace to avoid kicking our
partner while we mastered these alien things like parallel/crossed, 2
tracks/3 tracks/4 tracks, and other things that made us stare a lot at our
feet.  Working on something like the back sacada by the follower will bring
us temporarily back to this stage while we stare at our feet again. But
that's just because we're at an early development stage with the stuff.

Deb and I were at Linda Valentino's Tango Fireworks last month, and one of
the many great things about it was being able to watch Gustavo & Giselle
dance on the pista in a social setting rather than just in a performance
setting (their performance was awe-inspiring, but that's another story).  If
you actually watch Gustavo and Giselle dance, if you actually take their
classes (what a privilege! Thanks, Linda!), you see that their embrace is
"close but flexible", rather than "open and loose".  When they walk, they
are in close-embrace with a slight V to the open side of the embrace.  His
right arm is all the way around her back, his right hand under her right
shoulder.  Those of us who enjoy close-embrace can identify with this. Those
of us taking the GyG classes noted that when we first tried the material, we
tended to open up our embrace a LOT.  Then as we understood the step, we
found that there were difficulties we couldn't get past UNTIL we made the
embrace close again, at which point many many things became magically
easier.

As to whether they are "very upright"...well, you had to see Giselle's
volcadas and colgadas and hear the room start moaning in appreciation!

So, do some people stay at the intermediate-level and keep the embrace open?
Well yes, I see that they do.  They like it, people see them, and so it sort
of starts down the "style" track.  But something really important is missing
in calling THAT "Nuevo" - we're enshrining the stylings of apprentices as
the voice of the masters.


>>>
As for whether, nuevo contains milonguero, I have to disagree a bit.
<<<
If we're talking the "Style Nuevo" instead of the "Nuevo Inquiry", then of
course you're right. "Style Nuevo" excludes "Style Milonguero" to the degree
that we draw distinctions between what they include or exclude... unless,
perhaps, if the "old guys" start doing changes of direction!

>>>
Milonguero-style tango is typically danced with an apilado embrace...As Tom
Stermitz has pointed
out numerous times, this embrace tends to move the axis of the dance into
the woman's body.
<<<
Great, you've made my point!  Nuevo-inquiry systematically explores moving
the axis of the turn in and out of both partner's bodies and also
in-between. Milonguero-style decides it likes leaving it in the woman's
body.  Style vs. inquiry again...an inquiry-based approach transcends and
includes styles, because its goals are different. Styles can use the
inquiry's methods to expand themselves, as we see happening in things like
"nuevo milonguero"...although sometimes the transmission path can be quite
circuitous! ;>


>>>
As experimentation continues, integration of milonguero into nuevo seem to
be occurring, but some people regard this as yet another style and calling
it liquid tango.  Liquid tango has no set embrace.  Dancers go back and
forth from the open loose embrace of nuevo and a soft apilado embrace.
<<<
As stated above, this is actually pretty much how Gustavo & Giselle dance.
So do we define styles by what the leaders themselves do or by the struggles
and stylings of the less-skilled adherents?  See robin's comments about
Susana Miller's teaching - that's an interesting question.

>>>
Last year, everyone in North America was abuzz about two new movements that
work well
in an apilado embrace--the colgada and the volcada.
<<<
??? TERMINOLOGY ALERT ???
Colgadas, as I understand them, are an OUTWARD leaning of BOTH partner's
axes (the "hanging") which sometimes but not always is combined with a
single-axis turn.  Julio & Corina first drew this distinction clearly for
me.  I think some people refer to single-axis turns as colgadas, then take
out the "hanging" concept so they can stay in apilado, but maybe this is an
example of a good name gone bad.

It seems reasonable to say that "hanging" of partners away from each other,
tilted outward away from their shared foot placement by thirty degrees or
more, doesn't have much to do with apilado.

>>> old wine in new bottles
I always appreciate it when an Argentine master teacher shows me something,
then explicitly attributes its origin to someone besides themselves. This
happens all too rarely.   Otherwise, well, it's amazing how much tango
knowledge sprang forth fully developed in some people's heads without ever
having seen it first in someone else's body! ;>  ;>

"Sure I steal stuff, but I only steal from the best!"


Abrazos,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado  USA
1(303)938-0716
http://www.danceoftheheart.com