4383  Prologue to an aesthetics

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 16:50:51 -0400
From: "TangoDC.com" <spatz@tangoDC.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Prologue to an aesthetics
To: tango-L@mit.edu

Dear all,

This picks up the "gender roles" thread from a few days ago... Sorry for
not being more punctual; I've been deleting as much as I've been typing.
And it is Long.

***

Hi Sergio (et al),

Thanks for the quotations from Nau's book. Now I understand (or think I
understand) what's actually behind your point, and what appears to be
the dominant formative idea behind tango dancing in Argentina. Sean
argued earlier that the tango is a sublimation of mating; I presume he
means heterosexual mating, because he insists on including one male and
one female part. This we might call the Ritualistic mode of tango,
insofar as the dancers are sublimating their own mating instincts, etc.,
rather than "representing" something external to themselves. Your
argument here gives the tango a Mimetic dimension as well, since (in
Nau's outsider interpretation) it represents elements of Argentine reality.

Now, your point and Sean's may seem, to a good number of people here,
like they're saying the same thing. I don't believe they are, and if you
bear with me through some aesthetic analysis, I think you'll see where
I'm coming from, what I'm attempting to do here, and why. I'll use topic
headings to clarify matters, since this may get a bit complex. (Also,
here I must largely pass over your recent post on Surrender. It's
valuable, but applies mainly to technique, and only to certain kinds of
content. Before we can fully digest your point on Surrender, and other
such points, I think we need a more accommodating context, so we can see
all aesthetics and modes of dancing, e.g., "neo" tango, in relation to
tango tradition as a whole.)

* FORM vs. CONTENT*
First we must distinguish form from content, and consider what each one
actually is. Partisans of different camps will probably find one
definitive and the other not, but no matter. First, let us consider content.

_1. "Traditional" content_
The recent posts arguing in favor of a male-female partnership are
discussions of the tango's content, not its form. This has been
described variously as:
* Sublimation of (heterosexual) mating
* Representation of typical Argentine gender roles

Several views have been expressed amounting to much the same thing: if
this "traditional" content is altered, the dance is no longer authentic.
A couple dancing in the Netherlands, and expressing the typical gender
roles there (providing there are any), would be using the same mimetic
approach, and representing their society. But-- goes the argument-- we
would have to call it Dutch tango, because it represents the Dutch
character.

I can see where this perspective is coming from, because I make a
similar objection every time I hear an Israeli blues guitarist playing
out-of-a-can licks at an open mic night. The technique is well
practiced, but they just aren't Getting it. My objection, however, is
that they are playing music devoid of Any content, since (in the cases
I'm speaking of) they fail to achieve anything except the genre. That is
not enough. It is merely mechanical.

In the case of the imaginary couple from the Netherlands, however, we
have something different going on. This couple, which exists only in
this example, is utilizing the same aesthetic (mimesis) to the same end.
Only the particular content has changed. Presumably, if there was an
Argentine couple with comparable personalities, they would dance exactly
the same way, because they are representing their reality via the same
medium, the same aesthetic, and the same style. The ritualistic
sublimation of mating might still be intact as well, insofar as the
dancers aren't playing anyone (or standing in for anyone) except themselves.

_2. Non-mimetic content_
If we extend this allowance to other kinds of content, we soon reach a
point where content ceases to matter, so long as some content exists.
The aesthetic need not be mimetic or representative of anything larger
than the dancers' personalities. It is still a realist aesthetic, so
long as the dancers, in some sense, are "playing themselves." The dance
remains a documentary of gender roles, or of societal codes, or more
simply of individual personality.

But this is only one mode of available content. Dancers may just as
clearly express a formalist aesthetic, in which the content becomes the
dance and its traditions, its evolutions, or its history. Here a
particular move might be highlighted and "commented upon," or a
particular style might be debuted, and so forth. In such dances, the
dancer ceases to represent any particular country, and possibly any
particular personality (even his or her own), and is much more an
abstract entity-- an artist, or even a critic, more than an
autobiographer. These dances are what lit crit would call "intertextual"
and "intratextual," since they are dances about the dance, and refer to
themselves as well. (This differs from the guitarist I described above
only because I'm remembering guitarists who were Copyists, not creators.
They created no "discourse" about playing blues guitar. A formalist
dance would have to do so, or else it would also sink into rote repetition.)

Then you have content that could be called Expressivist in its
aesthetic-- content such as I described in a recent post, imagining the
man's role to be valid as either bull or matador. In such cases, the
tango itself transforms its participants into something else, and the
content of the dance is neither external reality nor formal concept, but
something completely Other, such as a bullfight, or the clashing of the
primary elements, or even (and here we come full circle-- almost) a
satirical cartoon about heterosexual courtship, in which the dancers are
not themselves, but comedians. In such dances, style comes to the
foreground, and everything else (gender roles, formal ideas) tends to be
of lesser significance. This aesthetic also tends leverage its effects
on the music to a much greater degree.

Given the wide variance here between aesthetics as regards content-- and
I have only named Realism, Formalism, and Expressivism-- I think the
form of the dance, or the medium, perhaps has a better chance of
achieving inclusion while being definitive.

*FORM*
The form of Argentine tango has always been defined (when it has been
defined) by negative comparison to Ballroom tango and other such dances.
History made this necessary, since "tango" as a _widely popular_ dance
was, first, what was going on in Paris, and only afterwards what people
were doing in Argentina. So, forever after, in order to clarify what we
mean, we're stuck using the descriptor "Argentine," to distinguish our
dance from what the globe came to consider regular tango.

This "form" or "genre" of dancing is what I take to be definitive, even
though it has an increasing number of subcategories. To wit: apilado,
open/nuevo, neo (which is nuevo style plus Nu music, so far as I can
tell), nuevo milonguero, "canyengue," and so forth.

The two indices of style here seem to be (a) vocabulary of moves and (b)
type of embrace. That there is a fair amount of overlap regarding moves,
and how they're executed, indicates that these styles have similarities.
There is no style in which a volcada is impossible, and the same goes
for a boleo, an ocho, and many other moves. Certain moves are easier in
one style, or perhaps harder (or impossible) in another. But most moves
are shared, or at least their functional principle is (e.g.,
counter-motion, off-axis leaning).

That the functional aspects of the embraces also overlap is an
indication that these styles belong to the same family. We can define
the embrace by reference to ballroom, and say that the embrace in
Argentine Tango is more relaxed, more fluid, and more for the purpose of
communication within the partnership than for preserving a rigid form
for the sake of an external observer, such as a competition judge.

That all the styles mentioned above (as well as others) refer to species
of *improvised dancing* seems to be the telltale sign of the genus we
call Argentine Tango.

This is why I personally consider tango choreographed for the stage-- no
matter how Argentine (or not) its content or "look" may be-- to belong
to a different genus of dancing. Namely, to ballroom. Given a very good
argument to the contrary, I could be persuaded to change my mind, but I
detest stage dancing, so someone else will have to make that argument.

_1. "Traditional" and new forms_
We're at a very odd crossroads today, because there is a large camp that
insists on dancing "traditional" styles, some of which (e.g., canyengue)
have been reconstructed out of notes, and others of which (apilado) have
been transmitted down by the oldest generation of living dancers. In the
meantime, however, Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas have laid a new
foundation, on which many of today's younger teachers and performers
continue to build.

In light of the recent developments, there's a real question that
remains unresolved, largely because nobody seems to have posed it: If
someone now in their twenties commits to learning an old-school style,
when do we start calling it "retro"? That is to say, these forms or
modes of dancing (again, regardless of content) are hardly immune to the
vicissitudes of fashion. To pretend otherwise is to look the other way.

What I think we must do is accept that all these forms of dancing belong
to the same major form, called AT. They are intelligible to one another,
and they all are _unintelligible_ to ballroom tango. To exclude
everything but the most old-school, traditional forms is to shut down
creativity. And to exclude everything except mimetic or ritualistic
content representing the Argentine character is not only xenophobic and
myopic, but also reduces Argentines to a single stereotype.

_2. Alternate match-ups_
In one sense, we might say that the form of the tango changes when the
XX-XY gender of the dancers is altered. (I'm using chromosomes as
shorthand for actual gender, as opposed to "role.")

On the other hand, this gets very confusing, because we cannot
completely extricate ourselves from content when it comes to this topic.
This is because actual gender isn't necessarily represented "literally"
in the dance. Two women dancing, with the leader taking on a masculine
part, would give us a match-up like this: XX(masc)-XX(fem). In the case
of two men, we could have XY(masc)-XY(fem).

The reason this all gets very slippery is because the traditional
*external form* XX-XY is one thing, and the traditional *internal form*
(masc)-(fem) is another. (This internal form is also, often, the dance's
content.) If one disagrees with the notion that leading is a masculine
role (et vice versa), then we would also need to specify that detail as
a separate element. That is, we need to specify:
* what gender a dancer is (XY/XX)
* what dramatic or functional role they're playing (masc/fem)
* which side they assume in the embrace (L/F).

When I asked earlier how men can follow _as men_, I was asking about the
artistic possibilities for XY(masc)F. This dance would be highly
untraditional because that F is not an L. If the dancers are dancing
apilado style well, however, it would also be a dance with very
traditional form. These distinctions need to be made, or else we will
fail to see what's right before our eyes.

Further, to link all this up to something more common, there's the case
of a leader "listening" and giving his partner a Lot of room for
creativity and decision-making. The follower is largely backleading--
but with the leader's permission, we might say. I frequently "listen" in
this way as a leader, and I know that dancers of a much higher caliber
than myself do it as well. If L/F refers to the viewed embrace, while
(masc)-(fem) refers to the "invisible" action of leading and following,
then we'd analyze such a dance this way: XY(fem)L-XX(masc)F.

Is this an alternative match-up? It looks like a traditional one. An
outside observer would have no way of knowing, unless something went
wrong and a mistake gave it away-- but even then, it would take a very
sharp eye to see it. Within the embrace, some followers can't even tell
that they're actually "leading the leader," for that matter.

In any case, we now have three aspects of gender to consider, as
components of form no less than of content. But gender is only one part
of the dance, and different aesthetics (Realist, Formalist,
Expressivist) will give gender different meaning.

*POSTSCRIPT*
This analysis has thus far been bogged down by a dual purpose-- namely,
that it's trying to describe both the social dance and the improvised
performance. The main difference between the two, besides available
floorspace (which is a variable in social dancing and a prerequisite for
performance), is the presence of an audience.

I don't have the patience to rewrite this preliminary treatise now, to
go back and accommodate the differences between social dance and
performance. I've tried to do a little of that along the way, but I'll
incorporate it more effectively when I rewrite this thing in more
polished form.

Up to this point, I've attempted to break down the tango's content, or
possible content, as well as its many formal aspects, to establish a
complete aesthetic context in which we can better understand-- and
ultimately, better discuss-- what happens on the pista. We have to
consider that the thing we see performed, or the thing we do, has
different aspects, and that the XX-XY match-up is largely a convention,
primarily because the tango's (masc)-(fem) content/interior form is
Also, largely, a convention. The aesthetic I called Realist or
Ritualistic above is the name of that convention: a sublimation of
heterosexual mating, in Sean's words, or a representation of Argentine
gender codes, in Sergio's.

The traditional form here is perfectly suited to the traditional
content. But if the tango is really an art, we must be able to recognize
this as one possibility among many. Not every development in the tango's
future, if current trends are any indication, will preserve the
traditional XX(fem)F-XY(masc)L form; nor will every dance, or even most
dances, necessarily have a realist aesthetic. The purpose of the
critical vocabulary I'm sketching out here is not only to let us discuss
and critique dances in a more articulate way, but also to let us
identify areas, whether of form or content, that are relatively
under-explored.

At present, in performance, the gender aspect of form has hardly been
touched. Social dancing has been exploring it in far more detail. On the
other hand, I think performance has been exploring many more varieties
of content, or of "aesthetic," than most social dancing has occasion for.

If you've read this far. Please. Cut me. Some slack. Theory is not my
strong suit. Over the next week or so, I'll try to apply the abstract
material here to some actual dances, and provide at least one man's
critique, so we have at least one failed effort on record. After some
consideration, I've decided to look at the dances from ValenTango 2006,
since they have a decent mix of aesthetics, with various degrees of
success and failure across the board.

They also have music, which I've barely touched upon.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC


Sergio Vandekier wrote:

> Dear friends of tango,
>
> The premise is that in tango like in life there is a
> masculine and a feminine role.
>
> These roles are played when you dance or perhaps they are not evident in
> your dancing.
>

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 14:57:10 -0700
From: "Igor Polk" <ipolk@virtuar.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Prologue to an aesthetics
To: <tango-L@mit.edu>

In Re: Prologue to an aesthetics

Whew!
I wonder, Jake, do you make as many steps per tanda as you write words per
article?
Igor.

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:08:46 -0400
From: mallpasso@aol.com
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Prologue to an aesthetics
To: ipolk@virtuar.com, tango-L@mit.edu


Yeah, he's the Speedy Gonzales of the tango world... ;-)

El Bandido de Tango




-----Original Message-----

Sent: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 14:57:10 -0700
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Prologue to an aesthetics


In Re: Prologue to an aesthetics

Whew!
I wonder, Jake, do you make as many steps per tanda as you write words per
article?
Igor.

Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, email and IM. All on demand. Always Free.

Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:29:32 +0000
From: "Sergio Vandekier" <sergiovandekier990@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Prologue to an aesthetics
To: tango-l@mit.edu

This will be my last note for a while, I will join Derik and the many others
that over the years discovered that there are many interesting ways to
employ their time in a productive way.

Jake welcome to the reality of Tango-L. My advise is that if you wish
everybody to be able to understand you; you should speak at a level of 7th
grade, primary school because the list is formed by people of different
degree of education and intellectual level. (the ones that are highly
intelligent will understand you anyways).

Even if you do so you can expect that some, who never contributed a useful
line to the list will come up with some misinterpretation of what you say
and a smart remark.


To be clear one could say:

Women are the ones that have the breast more developed. In biology we know
that they carry the chromosome X : they are XX. Remember that there could
be some obese males with big breasts but they are not women because men
carry the chromosome Y : they are XY.

Foreign personal styles and gender roles may leave authenticity behind.
This means that when you dissociate a tango style from its native culture
it loses its pristine form and content and could become something else.

Remember children this does not mean that a tango that lost authenticity is
a bad tango, rest assured you can continue doing whatever is that you are
doing.

Tango( the way you dance it) represents society codes, gender roles and also
your personality.

You can change roles, content and form even while attempting to mimic the
original dance but the result may be another dance or a caricature of the
authentic one.

Argentine culture has developed different styles of Tango (Traditional,
open, close, embrace, milonguero, Nuevo, canyengue, etc) . They all have a
common vocabulary of movements and expression in the way they are danced
with some changes in technique and embrace but all those styles belong to
the same generic dance. They overlap in this regard and they are
characterized by improvisation.

Finally I never said that Argentine society has no problems, actually it
probably has more problems that other societies. But I am not discussing
Argentine societal problems I am discussing Tango and the elements of that
society that are represented in it.

Tango has followed in its form and content every change in Argentine
evolution, the dance as well as the music and the lyrics. there is plenty of
literature in this respect such as "Tango testigo social"
9tango social whiteness) of Mr. Carretero.

Argentines (IMO) ( I speak for myself and not for the entire A. population)
are family oriented, the most important things in life for them is family
first, friends second and their job in a far third position. They feel
realized in that context and performing the roles that are traditionally
conducive at obtaining a good, healthy family and a large group of faithful
friends. In that context the woman occupies an important place, as a
treasure in young times and as a saint later on as a mother and a grand
mother. Further more our entire education is left largely in the hands of
women, mother, grand mothers and aunts during childhood, women teachers
(over 90%) in primary school, women professors in Secondary school (over
60%) and also at the University level where they are well represented.

Many tango lyrics are dedicated to the woman in their different capacities,
to the mother and to their self denying virtues. And yes also to the many
women, that failed the men that loved them, but those were another kind of
women, product of a bad form of life. Many tango lyrics make reference to
friendship as well...but

This is another subject.

Have a good time, Sergio