4330 Invoking Buenos Aires
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 18:25:38 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Invoking Buenos Aires
To: tango-l@mit.edu
Jay Rabe says: "Jake ... well said" Not in my opinion and I will tell you
why.
"Even ...in Buenos Aires itself ... there has always been dispute, conflict,
and competition over dancing styles. If the city is definitively anything,
it is definitively divided." "dancers [in BsAs]... have always been at each
other's throats over who's got the "real style"
*Not true*. Tango has some elements that are essential that have to do
with its being Argentine Tango. It is improvised, people for many years
learn by themselves, practicing with friends, discovering, creating,
developing new steps, figures and styles. This process continues today and
certifies to the vitality of tango. Every neighborhood, club, person
develops its own style. This never created divisions, dispute, competition
or division. Everyone dances the way he/she prefers and this is fine.
Milongueros do not criticize at all, they are very tolerant of individual
styles as everyone has its own. All that you can say is "I like or dislike
the way so and so, dances" this is an assertion of his personal taste.
There is no "real style" in Argentina this is something that concerns
foreigners not Argentines.
"The old guard has always shut down the innovators, and the innovators have
always fought back."
**Controversy in art matters has always existed. This is what keeps art
alive. It changes with times adapting to new discoveries, new techniques,
different circumstances. Nobody was ever "shut down" in Argentina for
developing a variation. As I mentioned before when a new wave develops
there are those that join immediately and those that take refuge in
tradition. This is also true in science.
"Teachers are notorious for contradicting each other and also themselves."
**This is normal when you are dealing with people that dance different
styles which have different technique. If they contradict themselves it may
be because they are just regular dancers that are hired by Tango
entrepreneurs to come and teach here. (Frequently looking for the cheapest
way to hire somebody).
The same happened with every dance: country-western for instance had/has
line dances with choreography being different (for the same dance) every 100
miles away . The same line dance has different choreography in Buffalo than
in Cleveland, this cause no problems here and never cause problems in Bs.As.
either.
"[Tango] never even rose into prominence among Argentines, or approached
anything resembling a popular identity, until it came back from Paris with a
stamp of approval
If Buenos Aires is the mother country of the tango, she certainly needed a
lot of help raising the miscreant after she left it to perish on the stoop
of a whorehouse."
**Tango was born in the periphery of the city, in brothels, bars, gambling
places. Its choreography and lyrics were not acceptable by most people but
since it had a strong appeal to any Argentine, young boys of middle and high
class started a process of purification of tango and took it to their homes
and taught it to their sisters, aunts and friends.
It was young Argentines of high class that introduced Tango in Paris where
it became the craze of aristocracy and high society. The news of this
success reached the Rio de la Plata where high society in Argentina and
Uruguay started to look at tango from a different perspective.
Tango was born and evolved in Argentina. With or without the European
approval Tango would have continued to develop and become generally accepted
by society as a whole for it appeals to the Argentine soul. There will
always be some people that do not like tango, or Jazz, or classical music
but that is irrelevant.
"Every visiting Argentine teacher I've met in the U.S. - without exception -
[answers] questions about authenticity, [by shifting] emphasis to individual
style - not theirs, mind you, but Yours."
**Many of those teachers are improvised tango instructors, not used to
discussing what is self evident and notorious to any Argentine. So he might
not know how to discuss authenticity but he knows when you look like a
"gringo" trying to dance tango.
"[and the best one IMO...]
"Since the whole damn thing is an *ART* [emphasis added], ... [how can it
be]
so boneheadedly orthodox ... so coweringly in search of validation[?]"
**Tango dancing is an art, you have absolute freedom to dance any way and
form you wish, with another woman, with another man, with both of them at
the same time, with your dog, with your broom, with a cloth hanger, to
traditional tango music or to any kind of music, properly dressed or with
shorts, socks and sneakers.
**All what we are discussing here is not that freedom that you have, it is
to know the point when you have drifted so far away of what is essential to
Argentine Tango that you are dancing anything but A. Tango.
A. Tango went around the world with great impetus two times. At the
beginning of the 20th century and in the late 80s. The first time it was
changed in Europe into what it is now known as
"International Style Tango" and in the USA as what is known as "American
Style Ballroom Tango".
Authenticity is then an important factor unless you wish to dance something
else devoid of the original characteristics and contaminated by your foreign
culture.
Best regards, Sergio.
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 16:01:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Trini y Sean \(PATangoS\)" <patangos@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Invoking Buenos Aires
--- Sergio Vandekier wrote:
Every neighborhood, club, person develops its own
style. This never created divisions, dispute,
competition or division.
******
Hi Sergio,
Sean here. There can be no doubt that you have more
experience than I in this subject. But I have heard
another story from Maria Cieri, who has more
experience than both of us combined will have, even if
we both dance into our 80s. Next time you are home,
ask here about the time Rudolpho went dancing at the
"wrong milonga".
Sometimes I think that the one thing required for a
tango to be authentic is a disenting opinion.
Sean
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 01:00:48 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Invoking Buenos Aires II
To: tango-l@mit.edu
Sean wrote:" "Next time you are home,
ask here about the time Rudolpho went dancing at the
"wrong milonga".""
Dear Sean,
There so many cultural differences that I could spend
months writing about them .
People abroad hear part of the truth and then they fill in the blanks,
reflecting what they thought to be the truth. I am hesitant to talk about
these cultural differences because each time I do there are all sort of
misinterpretations and fairy tales. but ...
In the old times, even my parents times, most people interacted with members
of his own family and his own neighborhood.
It was "not entirely right" for a young man to venture in other
neighborhoods looking for women and trying to impress them with his
particular style of dancing and fancy foot work.
Those that did so could sometimes be told not to show up there any more. If
you persisted and got acquainted with a girl that showed genuine interest in
you, then eventually males of her family and the boys of the neighborhood
would accept you as one of their own.
Each neighborhood had its own tango style, if you went dancing there, you
had to dance the way they danced. If you came showing off a different style
you could have some problems but it was more about women than about dancing.
It is common sense that when you go dancing to a place where they are
doing "tango liso" you are not going to be well received by the boys if you
start dancing with all sort of boleos, ganchos, amagues, etc, and on top of
that the women will refuse to dance with you.
So it was a question of adjusting to the style that was being danced in a
particular place, this is true even today.
When you want to dance Open Style or Milonguero or Nuevo tango you should go
to places where those are the styles of choice . If you dance in a different
way women there will not dance with you.
If a boy met a girl from a different area of the city they would meet
outside her neighborhood and kept their relationship secret till they new
they had genuine interest for each other.
Tango reflects Argentine society and keeps those rituals and codes even
today.
I want to make clear that the milonga reflects society as a whole and the
problem is not entirely about dancing a different style.
I will try to discuss some of those codes and rituals at the right time (as
requested by Bruno) but now we have to keep focus on Women leading. :))
I hope that this helps to understand what happened to Rodolfo when he went
to the wrong milonga. :))
Best regards, Sergio
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:54:29 -0600
From: "Bruno Romero" <romerob@telusplanet.net>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Invoking Buenos Aires II
To: <tango-l@mit.edu>
Sergio wrote:
>I will try to discuss some of those codes and rituals at the right time (as
requested by Bruno) but now we have to keep focus on Women leading. <
Just to mention one code without discussion would have sufficed.
Bruno
