2559 Tango Improvisation Origins
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 22:05:38 -0600
From: Bruno <romerob@TELUSPLANET.NET>
Subject: Tango Improvisation Origins
Is it tougher or more challenging these days to improvise since the music is
not the same as the one that was played during the Tango origins? What I
read and heard from old guard tangos is that tangos of those days sound very
playful and very upbeat.
I quote Ines Cuello, in La Coreografia del Tango(from La Antologia del Tango
Rioplatense, 1890 - 1920). She breaks down the tango choreography in 3
periods based on its evolution, and ancillary aspects such as changes in the
dance repertoire of the upscale classes, and the different social
environments of the tango practitioners.
Basically what Ines says is that the music served as stimuli to the dancer
to improvise in the dance. Afterwards, the Tango dance was subjected to so
many prescriptions that it turned into a sensual dance as a result of the
embrace, and with steps and figures strictly determined in its movements and
number of compasses. The Tango was danced like a march of flexible
movements, very slow, and rhythmic, but swift with a light knee inflexion,
which accentuates the cadence.
First Tango Period:
1) Manifestation (1894 - 1904) According to what was gathered from
newspapers and observers, Ines infers that during this period the
choreographic style of Tango was characterized by a constant improvisation
and had the following characteristics:
Having a great flexibility in the embrace of the dancers, having an
extensive repertoire of figures or cortes. (FYI, a corte besides its common
meaning of suspending the march or walk during the dance also meant
executing a dance figure), performing momentary pauses in the dance perhaps
by more less the duration of one compass (4 pulses), performing lateral hip
movements, heel taps, cross steps, vaiven or balanceos (sort of rock steps),
and finally by a very strong relationship between the dance and the music.
2) Adaptation Period (1905 - 1910). Excluding the Porten~o elite the rest of
the Buenos Aires society danced Tango. There were two styles of tango
coexisting in this period the tango called * Criollo * and danced by *
criollos * of the first Period and another called Tango Liso danced with
simple steps and without figures. Also, with the advent of tango dance
competitions the tango dance acquired tango figures that were too
complicated to dance, and paradoxically, the Tango was also danced with
simpler steps and with less contoneos or quebradas, which were more
appropriate for less skilled dancers.
3) Codification Period (1911 - 1916) The Tango dance fell under the scrutiny
of Tango instructors in Buenos Aires, North-America, and Europe. According
to periodic publications from Buenos Aires the European instructors of salon
dances appeared eager to introduce novelties to their clients. Thus, they
found in tango enough elements to repackage and present it successfully to
their audiences. During these years there were a lot of theories about the
tango Dance, academies of Tango, congresses, and plebiscites.
There was a major concern to establish with precision not only the quantity
but also the different types of figures and steps. Some of the names were
given as they were originally known such as: corte, media luna, and ocho,
and in other cases the names were assigned technical names such as: cross
step, paso cortado, paseo (walk with left and right foot following the
compass of the music with 2 or 4 steps), rueda, or cruzado cortado.
Ines says that is difficult to reconcile the similarity of the Tango steps
between those danced spontaneously in the popular dances in the shores of
El Rio de la Plata and the ones taught through tango books or manuals of
those days.
Interestingly enough she points out that the only book or manual that stood
out from many others was the one from Nicanor Lima's El Tango Argentino de
Salon, Metodo Teorico Practico (1916?). Unlike other books Nicanor's offered
possibilities of movements, and emphasizes combination of steps and figures.
Bruno
