1417  Stephan Brown on Powers

Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 19:47:52 -0700
From: Carlos Lima <amilsolrac@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Stephan Brown on Powers

Stephan Brown ...

> I have looked a several visual records of tango dance history:

1) La Historia del Tango (a 1949 movie produced in Buenos Aires that
purports to show the history of tango including its early forms)
2) A recently produced video of Victor Romero and Norma Galla dancing
orillero
3) Canyengue as presented by Rueben Terbalca (in person)
4) Canyengue as danced by Luis Grodona (on video) <

a) All the above sources are far too late to add anything pro or con Powers'
observations. Besides, how many times does this need to be said, Powers was
not talking about "English technique" or USA chain studios. Now, I know we
are not scholars here in the list, but, come on ...

b) In these matters, proposals or conclusions without a chronological
framework, however rough hewn, are pointless. This is the number one reason
why the culture framing the sub-culture that invented tango does not seem
able to tell the history of the tango in a satisfactory way, while parallel
endeavours elsewhere in the world have succeeded quite well enough. If you do
not have a calendar, you cannot write your own history, and are left with
someone else's carbon-14 dating.

c) When I ran into Powers' observations some three years ago, they did not
constitute any great revelation. I have known from time immemorial (through
European and North American sources) how and when tango was brought to Paris,
and then to the other big capitals, and originally by whom. Powers simply
confirmed what I would have expected from first principles and common sense,
but for all the fog that I went through reading native sources. When I found
the ballroom competition tango sometime in the seventies, I did not need any
great sage to tell me what the pedigree of all that stuff was, though I had
no notion then, and I still do not have much of one now, of the distance
between the ways of the barrio de las ranas and what the ninnos bien of the
19-teens picked up and passed on. I am still very frustrated that I cannot
get my hands on Nicanor Lima's book, though. I would rather not have to take
Mr. Powers word for it, exclusively.

d) Ninnos bien did not live in conventillos, but the Argentine ones are still
Argentinean. If you want to dismiss them, you need to try another tack.

e) Those who argue "looks" are falling into any number of classic mistakes.
Example. Mr. Powers did not, and anyone else of his caliber would not, argue
a family resemblance of that kind. He was talking about the structure of the
dance. One who believes that tango is unique in not having a structure is
making another series of classical mistakes that I could not begin to
describe here; though someone should, since they have been abundant in recent
postings here.

f) Example. The way it "looks" today is not the way it has always looked.
(The tango como manda la ley syndrome, again.) I would say, just common
sense, the way Parisian socialites moved in tango is VERY unlikely to have
resembled AT ALL the way folks living beyond the Riachuelo moved, back circa
1910. But THE EXACT SAME thing is overwhelmingly likely to be the case with
the way ANY present day Portenno tango dancer moves. They also do not live in
conventillos. Is anyone ready to accept that they do not "look the part",
either? I do not think so.

g) You do not need to go back much in time to find artifacts of any given
culture that present day members of it cannot recognise. The material may
exist to illustrate this fact of life with vintage tango and today's
Argentines. The doubt is, where is the Argentine who will do the leg work and
report the results accurately.

Since I have to stop somewhere,let me stop now.

Cheers,