> -------------- Original message from Jack Dylan : > > Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Buenos Aires already solved > > this problem by allowing for the separation of traditional dancers > > and nuevo dancers?...Aren't traditional milongas for Salon and Milonguero style, while > > alternative milongas [called practicas] are for anything at all. > > > > Wouldn't this solve everyone's problem?
It's often not useful to cite Buenos Aires tango realities as guiding examples for logistical structuring of tango event schedules in North America, for the same reason that Council Bluffs, Iowa should not slavishly organize itself after the way things work in New York City. Size matters, in many ways. But Buenos Aires IS the hotbed of tango, so it may be useful to at least hear some perspective on this question of young vs. old, milongas vs. practicas from someone embedded in the scene. I overheard an Argentine teacher in BsAs who trains advanced dancers discussing with a student from the USA why he couldn't use the material he's worked on in class at the milonga the previous night: "You have to remember that the classic milongas are primarily a social experience here, and not so much a "dance" experience. People want to meet, to drink a little, eat a little, laugh and joke and talk, and maybe do some dancing too. As a visitor, you can attend them, dance in the ronda without disturbing anyone, and enjoy them as a kind of anthropological immersion into a part of our culture - but those events are not really that much about the dancing. The dancers there think of themselves as "good" dancers, because they know how to dance appropriately and with satisfaction in the settings they prefer, but generally they don't tend to think of themselves as "advanced" dancers. If you are really interested in the dancing, then you go where people want to really focus on the dancing - and that's at the practicas." And yes, at those practicas, the dancers TEND to be younger. Young people generally want to dance with young people (what a shock). Older people generally want to go where they've been going for twenty years, to meet their older friends, and relax. Because the scene is so big, this hardly requires much organization, just initiative - people start new things all the time, and everyone finds events they prefer for various reasons. The older BsAs dancers, generally speaking, often no longer "study" the tango anymore - they've done enough for their purposes, they have reached a level that usually gets them the dances they want or can expect, and now they mostly want to MAINTAIN and enjoy their current tango with the partners that are available to them at their current level. By my observation, young BsAs people often dance differently than older BsAs people, generally - the young women are often well-trained and in great shape, trying to outdo each other in looks and skill to attract the better young leaders, and the young men, full of piss & vinegar, are often working similarly hard on their tango, and afire with competitive juices within their peer group as everybody plays and flirts with each other like mad (wow, what a shock). Quite a few older people who want to work on their tango also attend the practicas, but not in numbers sufficient to affect the overall "youthful" feeling of the event. So the practicas tend to be about IMPROVING the level of your dance, and making connections with those who enjoy doing that. Of course, young people often do take advantage of the late-night classic milongas, for social reasons, to relax. When they do, and when they choose to dance there, they generally handle the crowded floors with grace and style without causing fights (and in Buenos Aires, you can get anonymously elbow-nailed in the back for being too out of line - I've seen it). At some traditional Buenos Aires milongas I've seen, there is a tendency to form a dense outer line in the ronda IMMEDIATELY, on the edge of the floor, even when there is still PLENTY of space (like several lanes worth) available in the middle. At some of these traditional milongas, I have seen younger or relatively more energetic dancers in the middle of the ronda making more complete use of the available space not used by the dense outer ronda. They generally dance WITHOUT causing conflicts with the older dancers in the outer ronda, even though their orientation to available space is different. Some on this list might call what they do "nuevo", I suppose, in some instances - of course, since they aren't bothering anyone in the outer ronda, I observe that what they are doing "stylistically" really doesn't seem to matter to anyone else. And while we're talking "branding" issues, these dancers generally refer to what they dance as "tango" - I have never heard a young Buenos Aires dancer, at practicas, or milongas, or tango classes, refer to their dance as "nuevo" in casual conversation. Continued in next message... _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l