3673  A neuvo experience

Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 21:59:23 EDT
From: TimmyTango@AOL.COM
Subject: A neuvo experience

Sean and Trina got it started, so here is my opinion on Neuvo.

Just last night while dancing at our Sunday night milonga.
I did try going off in some neuvo choreography I learned the some classes I
participated in.
Yes, it was fun, for a while. Until either I or my partner goofed, and then
we had to laugh it off. Maybe to try it again, but then I went back to my
traditional close embrace moves and BAM. That feeling was there again, and why do I
want to dance neuvo when it doesn't give me that feeling from my partner that
close embrace gives me.

Personally I really enjoy it when the whole dance floor dances as one.
I don't think I'll ever get the feeling the entire dance floor is one with
Neuvo.

It's just my two cents
Timmy in Cleveland

Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 19:07:17 -0700
From: "Franco, Zeno" <zfranco@PGSP.EDU>
Subject: Re: A neuvo experience

Timmy --

Beautifully stated about the floor moving as one. I remember sitting at the
sidelines at a milonga in Culver City, CA, it was an old mason's lodge, great
building, baby powder on the floor to make pivoting easier, old timers, young
timers, and all of a sudden it was like things had gone back to the golden
age. The reflection of the lamps and the dancers in the floor, the movement
in unison, the creaks as the floor boards gave into the music. You didn't
even have to be dancing to have the feeling. It was a night I have never
forgotten.

Zeno


________________________________

Sent: Mon 8/8/2005 6:59 PM
To: TANGO-L@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: [TANGO-L] A neuvo experience



Sean and Trina got it started, so here is my opinion on Neuvo.

Just last night while dancing at our Sunday night milonga.
I did try going off in some neuvo choreography I learned the some classes I
participated in.
Yes, it was fun, for a while. Until either I or my partner goofed, and then
we had to laugh it off. Maybe to try it again, but then I went back to my
traditional close embrace moves and BAM. That feeling was there again, and
why do I
want to dance neuvo when it doesn't give me that feeling from my partner that
close embrace gives me.

Personally I really enjoy it when the whole dance floor dances as one.
I don't think I'll ever get the feeling the entire dance floor is one with
Neuvo.

It's just my two cents
Timmy in Cleveland

Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 09:21:05 -0700
From: Sean de PATangoS <patangos@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: A neuvo experience

Hi Timmy,

I agree with Zeno. Great point about the floor moving
as one. I can't believe I overlooked that, as much as
I harp about it to my students.

Sean

--- TimmyTango@AOL.COM wrote:

Personally I really enjoy it when the whole dance
floor dances as one. I don't think I'll ever get the
feeling the entire dance floor is one with Neuvo.

It's just my two cents
Timmy in Cleveland

Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 13:35:38 -0400
From: Gülden Özen
<gulden@TANGOPHILIA.COM>
Subject: Re: A neuvo experience

Timmy and Sean,
Thank you for sharing your "tango nuevo" experiences with us all. It is
my impression though, that neither of you have much experience in learning
and dancing the "nuevo" style. Maybe you'll have pretty different opinions
if you could get to a point where you can dance more than one style in
tango fluently.
The way you put it "I did try going off in some neuvo choreography I
learned the some classes" sounds like you work through memorized patterns
and not improvise on the social dance floor. That's a different approach
in dancing tango socially and possibly that's why you may easily find a
synchronization with other dancers who dance in close embrace doing nothing
but a lot of "ocho cortados" and "ochos" (not that it is not possible to do
more in close embrace but it is certainly easier to stick with a few items
available in the vocabulary).
Change is challenging in any field. Finding a new way to analyze the
tango movements and to teach them with a new approach was certainly a
challenge for the "nuevo tango" initiators which eventually lead to having
more possibilities available to the social dancers who could invest the
time and effort into learning tango in this "new way". It doesn't mean that
everybody should feel like they need to take this challenge and those who
take the challenge are superior to those who don't take it. They just have
different approaches to learning and dancing tango. However, what puzzles
me is the aggressive way of defending one way over the other and for some
reason, this approach seems to come from mostly those who want to keep
things in a limited fashion, in the only way they feel themselves
comfortable. You don't need to define what is tango and what is not and put
yourselves in the "tango" category after creating these artificial
separations just to feel comfortable with what you are doing, folks. Do it
the way you want and be happy with it, is it so impossible? There will
always be things in life that we won't be able to perceive and maybe it is
natural to feel threatened by the "unknown" but is it impossible not to
react instinctively to the unknown even if you don't want to see what it is?

I know that this is another repeat of this same old discussion and some
of us will feel tired of saying the same things over and over again and
won't say a word and some will never get tired of it and will feel that
they are the winners of a "just case" when there is silence.

Gulden



At 09:59 PM 8/8/2005, TimmyTango@AOL.COM wrote:

>Sean and Trina got it started, so here is my opinion on Neuvo.
>
>Just last night while dancing at our Sunday night milonga.
>I did try going off in some neuvo choreography I learned the some classes I
>participated in.
>Yes, it was fun, for a while. Until either I or my partner goofed, and then
>we had to laugh it off. Maybe to try it again, but then I went back to my
>traditional close embrace moves and BAM. That feeling was there again, and
>why do I
>want to dance neuvo when it doesn't give me that feeling from my partner that
>close embrace gives me.
>
>Personally I really enjoy it when the whole dance floor dances as one.
>I don't think I'll ever get the feeling the entire dance floor is one with
>Neuvo.
>
>It's just my two cents
>Timmy in Cleveland

Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:41:17 -0400
From: v0orbuwg1l <gr1ndm1t0u@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: A neuvo experience

On 8/9/05, Gülden Özen <gulden@tangophilia.com> wrote:

> However, what puzzles
> me is the aggressive way of defending one way over the other and for some
> reason, this approach seems to come from mostly those who want to keep
> things in a limited fashion, in the only way they feel themselves
> comfortable. You don't need to define what is tango and what is not and put
> yourselves in the "tango" category after creating these artificial
> separations just to feel comfortable with what you are doing, folks. Do it
> the way you want and be happy with it, is it so impossible?

For the proponents of classical tango, Tango is not simply "just" a
dance, as you clearly propose it to be. Tango is a matter of feeling,
of a certain more sensual worldview, which you do not seem to share
or even understand. The real roots of Nuevo are not in Tango, but
elsewhere, in the modern world of personal disconnection. The
"aggressive defence" of the Tango afficionados is therefore in the
defence of a personal, intimate construct.

I certainly do not appreciate your patronizing tone, implying that
we are "limited", old-fashioned "folks", advising us, Tangueros at a
time when you were not yet born, to not define what Tango is. Why
don't you go to the Salsa "folks" and teach them some new "Nuevo"
figures? Or to an even better, more "comfortable" place?