5621  Problems with Tango Nuevo

Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:34:30 GMT
From: "larrynla@juno.com" <larrynla@juno.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Problems with Tango Nuevo
To: tango-L@mit.edu

I have to agree somewhat with those who condemn "tango nuevo" for some
of the problems we see often on the dance floor.

This may sound surprising to some of you who have read my defenses of
tango nuevo. I consider myself a tango nuevo dancer. I've studied its
basis and its movements - a word I use rather than figures. Most
teachers of tango nuevo, and many other teachers besides, don't often
teach complex combinations of movements any more. And I've melded the
lessons from tango nuevo into my own dancing.

There are two problems with tango nuevo. One part is its teachers, who
usually spend so much time getting their students to master the basic
movements that they never even mention the skills needed to fit those
movements into the flow of the dance. The other is its students, who
are usually young and so often don't understand the social rather than
showy nature of most tango dancing. Also, being young and often quite
athletic physically they quickly manage to master the basic movements,
leading them to think that once they've mastered the basic movement
that they're done when in truth they are only half-done.

This combination of teacher and student failure at teaching and
learning the social side of tango has nothing to do with tango nuevo
per se. I and I'd bet you have seen this kind of failure in tango way
before there was tango nuevo. In fact, if you've been long involved in
other kinds of dance, I'd bet you have seen it in other kinds of dance.
I saw it in swing in the early 60s, and in disco in the late 60s and
early 70s. When I got involved in salsa in the early 1980s I saw it,
where the mambo enthusiasts (stepping on the 2) blamed all sorts of
ills on salsa enthusiasts (stepping on the 1).

Some people have blamed the problems caused by tango nuevo dancers on
the movements we do. That shows a basic ignorance of tango nuevo.
Tango nuevo introduced NO new movements. Not one. Every one was
invented by someone decades before. What tango nuevo did was introduce
new VARIATIONS of older techniques.

The colgada is a variation of a figure sometimes called the stork,
where the woman is halted with her weight on one foot and the man then
walks around her. If he halts her and leads her into an extreme
forward lean (a volcada) before walk around her some call this the
calesita. If he leads her into a backward lean this is the colgada.
Same movement, three variations.

The colgada is often associated with tango nuevo, because many of it
teacher teach an extreme show-tango version of it. The woman (and
counter-balancing man) lean far back away from each other. She also
extends her free foot far behind her. Here are examples from Fabian
Salas and Carolina del Rivera. But the colgada can be a gentle lean
with the woman's free foot near her standing foot. This is shown in
the second video, where it is taught by Oscar Casas (and called
Colgadas Milongueras).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0E7rCcBmjc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvHdD7-qsaA

Again we come to my earliest point - much of the problems caused by
tango nuevo is due to some of its teachers.

Larry de Los Angeles
https://ShapechangerTales.com



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