[Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo".
Aron, I have a question about "nuevo". When you dance at milongas and the majority of the people are not dancing nuevo, do you stop and change directions and take up a great deal of space? If this is what you do, how do you feel about not following traditional tango etiquette rules? I'm asking you this question because I would really like an honest answer. I'm not against tango nuevo, it's just that I see nuevo dancers have a rather selfish approach to space and line of dance and they don't seem to care or have respect for others on the dance floor. Thanks, David ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo".
--hbboog...@aol.com wrote: > When you dance at milongas and the majority of the people are not dancing > nuevo, do you stop and change directions and take up a great deal of space? No. This came up on Tango-L in last decade over hundred times over: the nuevo method enables you to teach the technical part very fast, but you can't teach adults to learn how to pay attention. Most Europeans and even more in the US are used to large spaces, used to excessive personal freedoms, which makes most of them simply unaware that in this situation they must find a compromise: they have to restrict their own freedom to enable the fair distribution of resources (space) available. This also applies to the way they treat leading-following, their partners. In short: bad dancing is not nuevo. Nuevo is not bad dancing. While someone dancing nuevo is more likely to be young, ambitous, more keen on the technical part than the other half, open and therefore more extroverted, maybe even eccentric, thus they may stand our more than the tradition loving who tends to be more introverted, rule-abiding, simply: conservative. There are stupendously bad dancers in much larger numbers among the traditionals according to my experiences, but you do not need to be a statistician to see that perception is cheating you: bad nuevo dancers are like lighthouses, bad traditional dancers are simply ignored or avoided by the more knowledgeable dancers within the community, or they happily find each other. > If this is what you do, how do you feel about not following traditional > tango etiquette rules? > I'm asking you this question because I would really like an honest answer. > I'm not against tango nuevo, it's just that I see nuevo dancers have a > rather selfish approach to space and line of dance and they don't seem to care > or have respect for others on the dance floor. > I don't believe in etiquette as such. Most of the codigos are as natural as tango itself. They are simply based on the very simple fact of a large number of people trying to cope with the given situation, in a given environment. They simply had a lot of time to experiment with what works best. I look at the so called etiquette as a guideline to avoid problems. If you know the reasons behind the rules, you will know how to avoid the problems they were devised to solve (and bend the rules accordingly). As for the line of dance: as a teacher I usually have my students dance in a space less than squaremeter (a bit more than a squareyard) per couple right during the first two classes. It is not easy for them to improvise, change direction, mark/follow, on music, while in a confined space, but my experience is that it works, people enjoy it, and also if you allow beginners to disregard available space while they learn the basics, it will simply fail to become a part of their routine. It is infinitely harder to learn it later. Obviously, these problems are there with the traditionally oriented dancers as well. So again: it is not nuevo. It is bad dancing. Only nuevo dancers usually do have the technical capabilities much earlier in their learning process to cause problems, and therefore they tend to cause a lot more visible problems for other dancers if the teacher failed to make them aware them. I hope I could answer all you questions to your satisfaction. Best wishes, Aron -- Ecsedy Áron *** Aron ECSEDY Tel: +36 20 66-36-006 http://www.milonga.hu/ http://www.holgyvalasz.hu/ __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4479 (20091004) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo".
Your question doesn't make sense to me. Nuevo is not a style of tango... Just like floorcraft is not a style of tango. See, we're mixing apples and gardening techniques. On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:00 PM, hbboog...@aol.com wrote: > Aron, I have a question about "nuevo". > When you dance at milongas and the majority of the people are not > dancing > nuevo, do you stop and change directions and take up a great deal > of space? > If this is what you do, how do you feel about not following > traditional > tango etiquette rules? > I'm asking you this question because I would really like an honest > answer. > I'm not against tango nuevo, it's just that I see nuevo dancers have a > rather selfish approach to space and line of dance and they don't > seem to care > or have respect for others on the dance floor. > Thanks, > David Tom Stermitz http://www.tango.org Denver, CO 80207 ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo".
> From: Tom Stermitz > > Nuevo is not a style of tango... > > I really don't know why some people continue to say that. As Sergio has just written ... "Nuevo is a distinct tango style and easily identified by looking." Nuevo might well have started out as something else but, IMHO, it has now clearly evolved into a style of Tango, to join Salon and Milonguero. Most people can easily recognise these different styles and usually prefer one or another. You can intellectualize it any way you want but there have been thousands of posts on Tango-L covering the subject of these 3 'styles' of dancing Tango. Is everybody wrong? Jack ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo" #1
Dear Everyone, Pleeease call me ARON. My family name is Ecsedy (pronounced 'echedee', with the first and second 'e' as in 'ever'). Hungarians, along with the Japanese, write first names last, family names first. I was truly amused by all your letters as everyone is really _agreeing_ on the main points, except the actual content of the term 'nuevo'. When there is no strict, 'codified' definition for a term, then every and all argument about it is in vain. People who DO NOT dance nuevo (according to their own definition) include certain aspects of (infdividual?) style and technique which according to people who say that they DO dance nuevo are not part of the term nuevo. So who is 'more' right? Who has the authority to define what is included, what's not? What I wrote down was something everyone who DOES dance nuevo agrees. I don't think nuevo is a style. The freedom it contains may 'trigger' a way of dancing that will be distinguishable from other styles, but that is not a must. For instance I've heard Sebastian Arce saying that what he is dancing is Villa Urquiza style...but the way he is approaching his dancing is nuevo. Also, Sergio practically wrote down almost the same facts but considered the Argentine predominance in tango teaching a sort of 'assurance' that tango remains Argentine. But this was NOT the question. The issue was if there is a change in tango, and if this change is driven by multiculturality. Obviously, the 'Argentine' influence is there as the starting point was in Argentina, but the CULTURAL influence may be of another source, even if the foreign influence was and still being integrated in Argentina, by Argentines. Just consider the way you dress, how the way life was getting closer to the rest of the world (which means strong US influence - true for most large cities anywhere), the 'counterculture', rock 'nacional' etc. The entire way of life is now globalized and the rule of capitalism and market economy is, that production/service always have to follow demand. If people want, say, more freedom, then those who do not integrate that element into what they sell, won't be able to sell it. If this element was not a requirement in the native community, then it is a foreign element. I was raised in a family full of ethnographers and historians. The general idea is: something is original only if it is done the same way. If there is a dance which was danced in a certain city, by a certain ethnicity, following a certain ritual in both the way it is danced, the way it is learned, the places it is danced, the whole environment, then there is no way that in a different time, place, using different methods, different ethnical background it will be even something remotely similar. For instance there is something which is pretty recent, pretty well dogmatized: the music of Bartok. I've never heard Bartok played RIGHT by any non-Hungarian orchestra. What I mean by right? Bartok was a modern 'classical' musician (the English word itself is wrong you see: in Hungarian we say 'serious' music for 'classical' because there are 'contemporary classical musicians', which sounds like a joke) who used his own country's folk music as a basis for his work. So a Hungarian orchestra plays it so that the folk elements sound similar to Hungarian folk music, as the dance rythmics are pretty much in the score. When Bartok is played by, say, a world class Japanese conductor and a US orchestra, it sounds like a Star Wars soundtrack (actually the music of the first trilogy in most parts pretty similar of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, of course there are also other parts that resemble Dvorak, Holst, Stravinsky, Debussy etc)... So, Sergio yes: tango, as you percieve it, can only be danced by Argentines, and their tango will be more tango-like then tango danced by people who grew up within a vastly different cultural mix. But the word, tango, is also container, and content is changing because of the many non-Argentines whom are dancing it too. So there will be a time, when the original context will be lost, but a context (with elements of both the tradition and both the new influences) will still be there. Happened to the (Viennese) Waltz (supposed to be pan-German invention, became attributed to Vienna, but even that is now only a tradition as you will find the Austrians to be less adept at waltz than some other nations), happened to Ballet (was French, became more Russian along the way, now you couldn't just point and say this or that nation is better in it), happened to languages in the past (greek, latin). (cont...) ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
Re: [Tango-L] Aron, I have a question about "nuevo" #2
I believe that today's tango (along with Argentina!) is becoming more 'globalized' culturally. I do not try to take anything away from Argentines though. I mentioned influence. With time it will change into something that is no longer something that is exclusive to Argentina. Actually, Argentina is becoming something that is no longer only Argentine. Also, Argentina was always very multicultural compared to, say, Tahiti. Argentina is a place. It's culture was already a mix when tango emerged, but for at least a few decades it's natural state was more or less the same type of mix, but afterwards I can't think of a single decade when some aspect of tango was not _influenced_ by something outside of Argentina. With the tango economy driven by people outside Argentina, 99% of them never even getting near South America, the influence of local cultural elements will be stronger. That's simply unavoidable. As for the content of nuevo, I think the word itself is a misnomer. It's not the tango that is new in it. It is the way people approach tango. The name itself was probably a simple marketing trick, but it stuck. The same way Americans use the word 'kleenex' for tissue paper. It was meant to convey something specific (the brand), while it was only something general (tissue paper) for the simple purpose to drive people to buy that specific product. Obviously, nomen est omen, so some people included 'new' (or at least odd) stuff, so nuevo can live up to it's name. But this process is still undecided, it is not general, or at least not yet. Most nuevo teachers go back to the roots and use the 'technology' only as a way to get people moving. Of course the possibilities are there to use them any way, so there will be people who use it this way. I don't say 'misuse', as one of the general ideas in nuevo that it does not imitate any specific style, so you are free to develop your own. And by the way, this approach is very historical... the reason I said 'museum' is because of this very historical aspect of tango: the right of the individual to develop the style of its own is being taken away or at least severly limited by 'tradition' that supposed to be followed 'as danced in BsAs'. Tradition is a nice thing, but I never heard about old milongueros imitating all other older milongueros to be the best dancer around. They all invented things. The same way the young in BsAs invent things. Wear cargo pants. Have a crooked posture. Whatever. Some of it was (and is) accepted. Some of it was (and is) not. The same happens 'nuevo': some 'nuevo' dancers invent things that are not accepted by the community. These will 'die out'. Others are accepted and are used (and maybe you don't even consider them 'nuevo' anymore - just a decade ago the term included several things that are considered regular 'salón' now, and now it also include things that were not defined at that time). Cheers, Aron -- Ecsedy Áron *** Aron ECSEDY Tel: +36 20 66-36-006 http://www.milonga.hu/ http://www.holgyvalasz.hu/ ___ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
