Re: [TANGO-L] competition

[bailadora2000 @excite.com]

With attention to Phillip, who wrote:
I continue my crusade: syncopation has nothing to do with tempo, splitting the beat, or with double time steps. Syncopation is accenting a normally unaccented beat or failing to accent a normally accented beat."

I never stated what syncopation means, and I won't dispute you on what it means.  And I will actually correct myself, admitting that I was writing that email hastily and that the info as to why the waltz was slowed down is not because of the syncopated rhythm at all...but simply it was too fast and rigid for most people(as what we know today as Viennese Waltz)....but Phillip you are correct that neither waltzes is syncopated.  That was my fingers working faster than my mind.

And you are also correct as to when the waltz MUSIC began to be written.  But I wasn't speaking of the music...but of the dance.  The music did come much earlier then the dance is.  I haven't found any information stating that the dances developed earlier than the 19th century.

And once again, you do correct me on dates with Arthur Murray's teaching .... which I'm terrible with dates anyway, and once again typing faster than my brain was working. And yes, Arthur Murray did have his dance show on TV, but the type of competitions that I felt the lister who provoked my response were the ones as such like the dance competitions we still see today as full scale spectator events.  I would compare Mr. Murray's show more like the dance contests we see in a nightclub today, or even reminiscent of American Bandstand type dance contests.  But the large scale dance competitions of the grand ballrooms, like Roseland in NY, much less Blackpool in England, were extremely popular way before Arthur Murray had his show.  And he himself was not a dance competitor and surely can not be so highly credited for putting dance competitions on the map.

In final response, I am a respected and working professional dancer of jazz, hip hop, ballroom, Swing, Argentine Tango and Salsa, and I do take my profession seriously enough to know about what I dance.  If I am mistaken in information and discover so, I will admit it.  However, often I hear Tango dancers on here speaking about Ballroom, Swing, Salsa, etc who dance nothing more than Argentine Tango and have no concrete knowledge of any of the other dance styles.  So, if you've never explored and learned anything about the other dance styles....don't speak about them.

Nicole
Miami






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