1691 Inprovisation and social dancing
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 01:03:23 -0400
From: Sergio <cachafaz@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject: Inprovisation and social dancing
"If I like the
material or some aspect of it, I take it apart and incorporate the pieces
into my own dance. Those pieces are then available for my use when they
are needed. "
As Steve says the videos or workshops offer new material to work with. Most
of them are not intended to "teach" how to dance to beginners. The elements
learnt are offered to be dissected, separated and recombined in different
order so that they can be incorporated into the improvisational, social
tango as more vocabulary. Frequently one learns a more interesting
variation of a step already known.
Long figures are almost never used completely due to lack of space.
Fragments of one figure can be utilized linked to some from another.
Any sequence that has three segments A,B,C should be recombined as ACB or
CBA, or BCA, etc, etc.
It is important to experiment to discover how many variations are found to
continue dancing from any given step.
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 20:14:20 -0500
From: Michael Figart II <michaelfigart@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: social dancing
Hello to all,
Sergio wrote <<<<<<<...but there are others that like to use more
elements of Argentine Tango. They use boleos, amagues, ganchos, all sort
of sacadas, planeos, dibujos, enrosques, cambios, sentadas, etc, etc. So
those people are not satisfied with dancing a few moves all night long
again and again in crowded places. They wish to dance with a little more
room, they like to learn and they enjoy very much to dance using as many
elements as are available to them........I think that some people only
learn to dance in "one" way and there fore they are ignorant with
respect to other styles and forms of dancing, some are not only
ignorant, they are disrespectful, dogmatic and opinionated. They draw
all sort of erroneous conclusions based on their limited knowledge.
Summary : if you enjoy dancing milonguero, by all means continue to do
so but do not erroneously assume that that is the only form of social
dancing.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"They wish to dance with a little more room"???? But there is no room;
this is a crowded social dance floor, Sergio. So what do you do? Make
some room by beating people away with big boleos and ganchos????
To me, "social dancing" implies being on a crowded dance floor among
many other tango dancers who deserve my respect. It doesn't matter
whether you dance open, salon, or milonguero, or any other "style", but
you must respect everyone surrounding you. Boleos are to be kept very
small, with followers ankles together. Amagues are easy to keep small.
Sacadas are a little tougher, but can very well be done tight and small.
Not sure of a couple of your terms, but, in my opinion, there is no
place for ganchos on a social dance floor, and unfortunately there are
many followers out there who interpret the tiniest "boleo" lead as an
opportunity to use their stilettos as spears. There was huge battle
between a couple of followers here in Houston because of a brand new
expensive dress ripped by an over-zealous boleo at a crowded event in
Dallas.
And, from my experience in Buenos Aires, there was no room for anything
but walking, amagues, tight turns, shifts of weight, etc. No way for
ganchos, enrosques, sentadas.......
Tango Milonguero is not the only form of social tango, but all forms
should adhere to rules of good floorcraft.
Regards,
Michael from Houston
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:07:54 -0700
From: Phil Seyer <weddingdj@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: social dancing
michaelfigart@yahoo.com wrote:
"They wish to dance with a little more room"???? But there is no room;
this is a crowded social dance floor, Sergio. So what do you do?
Makesome room by beating people away with big boleos and ganchos????"
No, Michael, you just wait until all the weak Americans go home --
especially the ones who can't stand smoke. Later in the evening at all
the dances I go to, there is plenty of room for those more interesting
steps like the Gavito triple crusada, etc.
[Note: my comment about smoke and weak Americans was not meant to be
taken seriously. I only said that with tongue in cheek because I was
called a "Weak American" some time ago on this list because I talked
earlier about my lungs hurting when visiting Japan from the excessive
smoking, which is so popular there.
By the way, if anyone else is used to breathing clean air (like many
of us "weak" Americans are), you may want to check out the personal
ionizer that can be worn around the neck. (I don't sell it--at least
not yet.) You can find out more about it by Googling "Wein 150mm
Personal Ionizer" I was thinking it might be helpful on a trip to
Buenos Aires. You could even dance with it on, although it might raise
some eyebrows. :)
Isn't Google great?
By the way, I love gmail (Google Email) -- it lets me read all of the
tango-L emails about the same subject as one continuous conversation.
I can search for and find various emails in a flash using the Google
search technology applied to my gmail.
=========
www.Argentine-tango.com - LIVE tango chat online
Phil Seyer
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:44:54 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Social dancing
To: tango-l@mit.edu
"And milonguero style dates back to the D'Arienzo revival of tango in 1935."
Milonguero style was danced downtown in confiterias or clubs, that is the
reason that style also carries names such as "del centro" (downtown) or club
or confiteria.
Those were pick up places. Milongueros went there to try to find a partner
for a romantic encounter and therefore they developed the very close embrace
but that was not the type of tango we danced in the neighborhoods of the
city.
At the local clubs the purpose of the dance was not to pick up but to dance.
A certain separation of the bodies was mandatory. There we danced liso,
salon or fantasia depending to our preference at the moment.
Sergio
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:07:10 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Social dancing
To: tango-l@mit.edu
Jonathan says:
"I had always read that during the Golden age the dance
floors were quite crowded and the photos I've seen have shown very tightly
packed crowds. This was also I think true of the big band dances during
WWII. The photos and newsreel footage I've seen show a very tightly packed
floor of slow dancers dancing pretty close also in England for example,
though they weren't dancing tango of course, more like a slow fox trot I
guess.
Daniel Trenner also said that in the better milonga's people could be
ejected for doing ganchos which were at that time considered vulgar. And if
that was the case I can understand that viewpoint."
*The above is true, but that is only part of the truth. There are certain
milongas that are very popular on certain days of the week. Let's say
Gricel is the place to go on Fridays, for instance.
You can expect that that milonga is going to be very crowded on Fridays. If
you go there you will be obligated to (due to the lack of space) dance in
close embrace and adjust your vocabulary of steps to that circumstance,
unless you go very early or very late and then you may be able to dance in
other ways.
When you see people like Rodolfo and Maria Cieri, Puppi costello, Nito
Garcia, Lampazo, Mingo and ester Pugliese, Pepito Avellaneda, etc, etc, to
name a few. Where do you think that they learned to dance ? In an official
school of tango training? Do you think that they were stage dancers? (they
were social dancers).
No, there were no schools, they learned from each other at the practicas and
then went to the milongas to dance the type of tango that they exhibit and
taught in recent times. A style called Salon or more recently Fantasia to
differentiate it from a simpler form done in crowded milongas.
A style with all the elements that characterize tango argentino.
Does everybody dance the way they do or did? No, there are lots of people
that learn a few steps and turns and dance a simple tango that satisfies
them.
Summary: People danced salon with all the elements of tango if the
conditions of the floor and space allowed it, otherwise they adjusted their
dance to the circumstances.
There were many people that danced without ganchos for instance and they did
not allow them in their milongas..this does not mean that that was the rule
in every milonga. You could dance your style with all sort of embellishments
in most places .
I remember going to the Milonga of Mimi and Francisco Santapa at Salon
Canning (probably early 1990s). Francisco always well dressed with tie and
coat dances a very elegant form of salon tango. He told me "I do not allow
ganchos in my milonga" then I danced with Mimi without ganchos but when Amy
brought him to teach in Detroit, she told him that people there liked to
dance with all the firuletes and he taught tango with firuletes ganchos
included.
"In the 70s. and 80s. people went dancing to do all the possible
embellishments, to see what the other dancers were doing, to try to copy new
steps, to do little exhibitions exactly the same as they are done today.
Dancers like Petroleo, Todaro, Virulazo, Lampazo, Nito and many others were
not stage dancers . They were social dancers that went to the local milongas
in the neighborhood to do social dancing.
Again here I've read that during the military dictatorship that large
gatherings were forbidden and that milongas and clubs were closed. This I
recall from Daniel Trenner.
I'm just a bit confused now about what tango was like in those periods. "
*The military dictatorship you make reference to, lasted from 1976 to 1983.
During that period with the excuse of "fighting terrorism" and supported by
the USA they tortured and killed thousand of people. They prohibited any
gathering of more that three people without permission.
All you needed to have a milonga, a party, or a gathering to discuss any
subjects was a permit from the local police station.
Many milongas downtown closed, many people stopped dancing but in the
neighborhoods many milongas continued open and many milongueros never
stopped dancing.
Last wednesday I had the chance to look at a huge collection of videos from
those times with Sergio Segura and Anton Gazenbeek. They showed plenty of
milongas with lots of space to dance and people dancing the Salon tango with
all its elements, similar to what some would call "fantasia"today.
There were all sort of famous dancers such as Todaro, Lampazo and many
others only known by their nick names. Ladies like "La Rusa" (the Russian)
or "La cucaracha", etc.
Anton spend 8 years in Argentina dancing and doing reseach about the history
of tango as a dance, he collected media material and interviewed many all
milongueros.
I found them extremely interesting.
Summary: Tango did not stop during the dictatorship.
Have a beautiful day, Sergio
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:02:01 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <stermitz@tango.org>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Social dancing
To: Tango-L <tango-L@mit.edu>
On Jul 14, 2006, at 7:07 AM, Sergio Vandekier wrote:
> ...
> I remember going to the Milonga of Mimi and Francisco Santapa at
> Salon Canning (probably early 1990s). Francisco always well dressed
> with tie and coat dances a very elegant form of salon tango. He
> told me "I do not allow ganchos in my milonga" then I danced with
> Mimi without ganchos but when Amy brought him to teach in Detroit,
> she told him that people there liked to dance with all the
> firuletes and he taught tango with firuletes ganchos included.
This seems to be a common pattern. Bring up an expert tango dancer,
then tell them to teach something different from what they actually
do socially.
Was this the organizers desire, or the students?
Tom Stermitz
https://www.tango.org
