142 According to a WSJ article Tango was considered as possible name for a
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 17:29:30 -0400
From: James Murphy <cmurf@WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
Subject: According to a WSJ article Tango was considered as possible name for a
new fragrance
The Wall Street Journal (August 9,2001) had a front page article describing
the steps that were involved in developing a new fragrance that is soon to
appear from Liz Claiborne called Mambo.
According to the article, "Liz Claiborne's first task, which it tackled well
before commissioning the scent itself, was coming up with a name. The
marketing vice-president Art Spiro is quoted as saying "We kicked around a
few, including Salsa and Tango, but the company quickly settled on Mambo.
You don't have to explain what it means in Duluth, Minnesota."
??? No, I don't have any idea what he meant by that either.
The full article is available on The Wall Street Journal's web site but you
have to be a subscriber to access it and since I am not I have no URL
address to pass along.
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:06:05 -0700
From: Rick Barbarash <rbarbarash@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: WSJ Article
Posted on Mon, Aug. 29, 2005
New tango trades cheek to cheek for hot, fast moves
KIM-MAI CUTLER
Associated Press
BERKELEY, Calif. - It still takes two to tango, but young urban aficionados have added some surprising new twists to the tradition-bound Argentine dance.
For most of a recent Saturday night, Homer Ladas staged what appeared to be a program of traditional tango at a small studio here. Locked in tight embrace, dozens of couples gently swirled on the scuffed wooden floor as the sound of violins from the golden age of tango in the 1940s floated in the air.
But by about 4 a.m., it was time for something quite different on the dance floor. With the traditional crowd gone home to bed, Mr. Ladas dumped the orchestra music and replaced it with the sort of modern, bass-heavy dance music that might be played in a hip nightclub. The dancing was different, too: The people in their twenties who remained switched over to a new kind of tango that had them lifting, twisting and ricocheting around the room.
This is "neotango," a new millennium version of the dance that was born at the turn of the last century in the brothels of Buenos Aires. It's booming all over the tango world.
For years, the very word tango brought images of sophistication and glamour: tuxedoed, rose-clutching tangueros strutting across the floor with leggy women - tangueras - in dresses slit up the thigh. But the tango was withering away. A lot of American milongas, or dance parties, were kitschy affairs patronized by an aging and dwindling cast of die-hards who danced to scratchy records of accordion music.
But now, in city after city across the U.S., a new generation of tango dancers is packing the floor again. They swerve and kick, not to the traditional violins of, say, the great Francisco Canaro's orchestras, but to the dub beats of Massive Attack or wailing guitar lines of Jimi Hendrix. Formal wear is out; sneakers, low-rider jeans and halter tops are in.
And the dance itself is different: faster, more fluid and requiring more floor space. While old-school dancers, enjoying simple steps, might press themselves heart to heart, the new version rotates over swaths of floor at high speed. Actually, there are many competing new versions. Some dancers borrow moves and music from electronica, swing and even martial arts.
One popular neotango DJ played gigs in Beijing, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis this summer. Indeed, at Mr. Ladas's Berkeley milonga studio, there's usually a global assortment of partners on hand - an architect from Berlin; a Japanese woman who helped found the Edinburgh, Scotland, tango society; college students who fly up from Southern California just to dance; even a porteno, or native of Buenos Aires, or two.
Mr. Ladas, who hosts all-nighters in the San Francisco area and in other cities across the country, is emblematic of the new generation of dancers. A former mechanical engineer in Tucson, Ariz., he saw a flier for tango when he was 27 years old and became obsessed. He took lessons and, soon, 10 hours of dancing a week became 15 and then 20. At an Amsterdam tango festival, he danced for 26 hours nonstop.
But tango remained just a hobby for Mr. Ladas, now 36, until two cataclysms shook up his life - his mother's death and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, just a day later. He took a leave of absence from his job to teach tango, and he never returned. At around the same time, neotango was growing increasingly popular in American and European dancing circles. It had its roots in the pounding club music, the experimental stylings of a few prominent Argentine dancers and modern fitness regimes: yoga, Pilates, martial arts and capoeira, a Brazilian art form that combines martial arts with acrobatics.
While the traditional form of tango can be highly structured, neotango's early proponents believed dancers had to be free to experiment, and experiment they have.
Mr. Ladas set out to spread the word about the new tango, teaching classes and hosting milongas around the country. In 2003, he and a group of like-minded San Francisco dancers opened the doors to the city's first large-scale alternative milonga. "There was a group of young people who were frustrated who wanted to have more expressiveness in tango," he said.
But when neotango started picking up steam, the passionate tango community divided into cliques as arguments brewed over which kind of tango is best. Even as Mr. Ladas's neotango events have swelled in popularity, some dancers have branded him a "tango philistine" or have avoided his events. The same rifts have appeared in other communities, too. When new-style dancers first emerged in Denver, they were dubbed the "nuevo brats" for causing collisions on the floor with their flashy and sometimes haphazard moves, said Stephen Brown, founding member of the Dallas tango community who has been a DJ at Denver tango festivals.
Traditionalists simply long for the older styles: chest to chest, cheek to cheek, and eyes closed in what is known as the tango trance. "Tango is very close to the heart," dancer Moti Buchboot said. "That makes it really easy for crazy zealots to go in there and say that their style is the style and that's the only right style."
It isn't just the dance moves that are dividing the audience, it's the more beat-oriented music. "Tango requires music with a human breath, and without that it isn't danceable," said longtime Denver teacher Tom Stermitz. But even Mr. Stermitz, who promotes the older, closer style, recently added an alternative milonga to his popular annual festival.
The debate has even come home to Argentina. Tango was repressed there between 1955 and 1983 under regimes that broke up milongas and jailed dancers. Argentine tango went underground. Although it came roaring back to life when several Broadway shows in the 1980s and early '90s, including "Tango Argentino" and "Forever Tango," sparked interest abroad, the music didn't catch up with the times.
When neotango music first emerged, just one club in Buenos Aires would play Carlos Libedinsky's homemade compilation of electronic tangos called "Narcotango." But after spreading it to friends in Europe and North America in 2003, the musician has sold about 20,000 CDs, mostly through word of mouth, and it has become part of standard playlists at several Buenos Aires clubs.
"Many people say that it's not tango. Even I'm not sure - I don't say that it's traditional tango, of course," Mr. Libedinsky said. "But it's something new, something refreshing. It brings new colors to the music and to the dancing."
It is abroad where the new dance has taken off and gone through endless mutations. Mr. Ladas has been teaching swing dancers to tango. "Swango," anyone? Other East Coast couples are pioneering "liquid tango" and "free tango," among an infinite assortment of names. By whatever name, it proves that, after several decades, Argentina doesn't have a lock on tango anymore.
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:21:41 -0400
From: WHITE 95 R <white95r@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: WSJ Article
I'm no hidebound tradicionalist although I definitely prefer to dance to the
music of the Golden Era orchestras, so I don't think this article is the end
of tango as we know it ;-). Actually, I admire Homer Lada as a dancer and a
teacher and I wish him the best of luck (particularly in his upcoming visit
to Atlanta) ;-)... So even though this type of exposure might elicit howls
of rage from some quarters, it will be good if more people get interested in
tango.
However, I found the following words rather amusing particularly based on a
recent experience I had. The article says (among other things):
"But by about 4 a.m., it was time for something quite different on the dance
floor. With the traditional crowd gone home to bed, Mr. Ladas dumped the
orchestra music and replaced it with the sort of modern, bass-heavy dance
music that might be played in a hip nightclub.'
Well, a few days ago there was a Salsa event at "The Compound", one of the
hippest, newest and largest nightclubs in Atlanta... Since I love to dance
salsa, I went to the club. Unfortunately, the schedule was not clear so I
arrived after the Salsa part was finished. I had the chance to see all the
beautiful, hip people have "fun" and dance to their "hip", "bass-heavy dance
music"..... I have one word for it: BORING. Sure, they undulate and move
aorund with various degrees of grace, but they all do it by themselves, for
themselves and completely apart from each other. For me it's a colossal
waste of time, the music is boring, booming and too loud. Everyone is posing
and posturing and the dance floor is full of people talking (yelling
actually), drinking and smoking...... If this is the best of what "hip night
clubs" has to offer, I rather sit at home alone and read a good book. It
sure as hell is not the kind of "dance" scene that I like.
Manuel
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:49:42 +0200
From: Áron ECSEDY <aron@MILONGA.HU>
Subject: Re: WSJ Article
> in Atlanta... Since I love to dance salsa, I went to the
> club. Unfortunately, the schedule was not clear so I arrived
> after the Salsa part was finished. I had the chance to see
> all the beautiful, hip people have "fun" and dance to their
> "hip", "bass-heavy dance music"..... I have one word for it:
> BORING. Sure, they undulate and move aorund with various
> degrees of grace, but they all do it by themselves, for
> themselves and completely apart from each other. For me it's
> a colossal waste of time, the music is boring, booming and
> too loud. Everyone is posing and posturing and the dance
> floor is full of people talking (yelling actually), drinking
> and smoking...... If this is the best of what "hip night
This is why I think there is a chance to get some of these people to do
something better. Like dance tango. But you can't make them change so much
at once. Feeding them the hip stuff with some tango moves, then some modern
tango stuff, with more tango moves, then some traditional music with
whatever they learned already, then real tango, maybe...
I've been to performances where people were only lightly moved by a
relatively spectacular performance to DiSarli, but they were exploding to
Narcotango in jeans (on stage!). Same stuff with media people. The director
of a day television show almost jumped out of his skin when he heard that we
are going to dance to Gotan Project. I do not know what is the situation in
the US, but the mainstream media, mainstream people consider tango, or
rather couple dancing as a whole (maybe even dancing as such) a
marginal-provincial stuff, that is only used by elder people (grandpa at the
community house :) ), weirdo fanatics from another planet or for weddings
and high school proms.
I do not believe that a new style or dance that is based on tango will take
away from it. Do not forget how Piazzolla and his tango nuevo was unwelcome.
Of course eso no es tango, but still his work helped tango to remain afloat
internationally, while never really claimed anything from it.
Cheers,
Aron
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:28:03 -0400
From: WHITE 95 R <white95r@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: WSJ Article
>From: Aron ECSEDY <aron@MILONGA.HU>
>This is why I think there is a chance to get some of these people to do
>something better. Like dance tango. But you can't make them change so much
>at once. Feeding them the hip stuff with some tango moves, then some modern
>tango stuff, with more tango moves, then some traditional music with
>whatever they learned already, then real tango, maybe...
Oh boy, I re-read my own post and I see where I should have edited my quote
from the article..... First of all, Homer does not play boring bass-heavy
music. He's a very good DJ at milongas and I've enjoyed very much dancing to
his music. IMHO, the article distorts completely what Homer is about.
Frankly, I seriously doubt that any people who frequent these "hip" clubs
would ever be interested in tango or any other partner dance for that
matter. My comments should be taken as my personal opinion of the "hip"
night club scene in general and not of any of the tango styles or
predilections of anybody. I particularly wish to clarify that Homer Lada is
very much a tango dancer and teacher after my own heart and he is also a
great DJ and I like his choice of music before and after 4:oo a.m. ;-)
Otherwise we would definitely not have invited him to come to Atlanta. I
endorse him completely and unequivocally.
Hoping to see you all in Atlanta when Homer gets here,
Manuel
www.tango-rio.com
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:57:09 +0200
From: Áron ECSEDY <aron@MILONGA.HU>
Subject: Re: WSJ Article
> Frankly, I seriously doubt that any people who frequent these
> "hip" clubs would ever be interested in tango or any other
> partner dance for that matter. My comments should be taken as
My dance partner is 24 and she was (and still is) dancing hip-hop/r'n'b, and
I have several students whom are fans of music that barely deserves that
definition...
I am aware, that in many countries the average tango age is over 40, which
obviously generates an extra problem: generation gap. Here in Hungary the
average age is slowly creeping down from that value (many new young
dancers). Now it is around 30.
Obviously, it is hurtful that someone writes nasty things about 'our' tango
and about 'us' in general, but this is an essential element in youth
rebellion (the article clearly targeted the younger generation), as such
drastical division of style is essential to make people believe that this is
something utterly different and new. All the things the journalist listed
are essential to create a fashionable genre these days - it was a good
promotional article for neotango...for people who don't have a clue about
tango. Maybe we should use a rating system for these articles as well (such
as PG-13, R): NTD - not for tango dancers...
Aron
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:08:24 -0400
From: Richard deSousa <mallpasso@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: WSJ Article
I agree with Manuel that Homer is an excellent DJ. My previous post
earlier today stated that Homer plays mainly traditional tango music at
his All Nighter (and his choices are wonderful!) but the music only
changes to non-tango past 3 or 4am when the predominant crowd is
younger and want to experiment with neotango.
This is also the precise reason why Homer has CellSpace in San
Francisco which caters primarily to neo and nuevo tango dancers....
no, I don't go to CellSpace since it's not my preference. But I admire
Homer for being astute enough to have two different venues to cater to
two different types of tango dancers. This way he keeps both crowds
happy.
Rich
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:28:03 -0400
Subject: Re: [TANGO-L] WSJ Article
>From: Aron ECSEDY <aron@MILONGA.HU>
>This is why I think there is a chance to get some of these people to
do
>something better. Like dance tango. But you can't make them change so
much
>at once. Feeding them the hip stuff with some tango moves, then some
modern
>tango stuff, with more tango moves, then some traditional music with
>whatever they learned already, then real tango, maybe...
Oh boy, I re-read my own post and I see where I should have edited my
quote
from the article..... First of all, Homer does not play boring
bass-heavy
music. He's a very good DJ at milongas and I've enjoyed very much
dancing to
his music. IMHO, the article distorts completely what Homer is about.
Frankly, I seriously doubt that any people who frequent these "hip"
clubs
would ever be interested in tango or any other partner dance for that
matter. My comments should be taken as my personal opinion of the
"hip"
night club scene in general and not of any of the tango styles or
predilections of anybody. I particularly wish to clarify that Homer
Lada is
very much a tango dancer and teacher after my own heart and he is also
a
great DJ and I like his choice of music before and after 4:oo a.m. ;-)
Otherwise we would definitely not have invited him to come to Atlanta.
I
endorse him completely and unequivocally.
Hoping to see you all in Atlanta when Homer gets here,
Manuel
www.tango-rio.com
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 16:38:40 -0400
From: Nitin Kibe <nitinkibe@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: WSJ Article
>From: Bill King <Euroking@AOL.COM
>Why would any article on Tango, of any persuasion appear center column in
>the WSJ?
>
>Maybe it was A: A slow newsday (or weekend)
> B: There was a 'hook' in it that would catch the
>desired demographics of the paper's desired readership.
> C: To raise a bit of controversy
> D: The writer had her (or his) own agenda.
> E. All of the above
>Having dealt with the press off and on for decades, I tend to believe it
>was E: all of the above.
Or perhaps none of the above. Like every newspaper, the WSJ has its own
structure, which is quite apparent if you read it for more than the usual
cycle of a week (just like the milongas cycle in a community ;-)). Lead
business articles are top left and top right single columns, the center is
for a "human interest" non-business story. Only major stories would spread
across more than one column: of course, the story continues inside (!!).
Drawings are common, photographs are rare, and colour ones (Homer/Cristina
doing a line boleo?) even rarer. Interestingly, articles are less
ideological and more sceptical than the editorials/op-ed pieces and letters
to editor. The website is paid access only.
Good wishes and I've enjoyed reading the traffic.
NK
Wash DC
