Bad habits?

[ArbeeNYC]

I was fortunate to have started my journey at a studio that used senior students who had been through the studio's level system at least once as accompaniers, and that saw accompaniers who accompanied 20+ hours/week for years as potential teaching assistants who could step in to help teachers with lower-level classes.

It's fairly common down here for teachers (leaders) to teach premilonga classes with some of the better followers (may or may not have been their former students). But that's about as far as it goes and that's a semi-formal setting.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Yeah I wish people would just drop the whole milonguero/salon/nuevo classification, it's just confusing these days when people do "milonguero" close embrace with boleos and ganchos, and "salon" can be more or less anything.

Well, nuevo really is quite distinct from the other two. And so-called salon (they are all salon, ie, social) is simply the style once (wrongly) associated with Villa Urquiza but is really the style practiced in the outer barrios of BA, as opposed to the dancing practice in the downtown area. Now, there is less of a clear distinction between these two styles. And they are stylistically different.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

I think that precision and control are also things you can show off.

Elegance is nice, as well. That's something I appreciate in a couple. I do admire virtuosity in videos, but I'm dancing at crowded milongas most of the time.

 

[TTanguero]

When starting a tanda I do the opposite. I start with being subtle and then calibrate it up or down.

Um ... that's the same rather than the opposite?

 

[Tangogal]

Yes, well, they still have to follow your torso, but when you are open like that (watch Chicho, for example), there's a lot going on with the rest of the body and those other parts are at work as well as your torso. It's a much different connection and it is certainly not an abrazo. Traditional AT is quiet, nuevo is not, as well as lending itself to much larger movements.

I danced with Chicho, for about five seconds, at one of my very first festivals. His leading is precise and unambiguous even to a relatively new dancer. The “noise” doesn’t impact his partner.

Didn’t Gustavo Naveira invent ocho cortado? The Nuevo maestros are all very accomplished dancers and dance all the styles socially. Obviously their performances are more showy.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Didn’t Gustavo Naveira invent ocho cortado?

Hmm. This is news to me.

 

[Rabbit]

Didn’t Gustavo Naveira invent ocho cortado? The Nuevo maestros are all very accomplished dancers and dance all the styles socially. Obviously their performances are more showy.

He claimed to. I don't have any evidence one way or the other. Naveira was also very clear in his interviews that "nuevo" is not actually a dance style, but rather a method to generate more possibilities in the dance

 

[Bailango]

Today the only persons recognized as having knowledge are teachers and I find it problematic. If there were more options/roles people would not necessarily end up labeling themselves as teachers.

Many experienced dancers have a solid knowledge but no recognized channel to pass it to new community members.

I couldn’t agree more! It is not only the new members but also those who have been dancing for seven eight or more years.

Unlike on this board which is a self–selected group, most dancers don’t process information they receive from instructors with an open questioning curious mindset. Often they get dogmatic about what they learnt from their favorite instructor or in the privates they took. They don’t realize how to adapt or modify it depending on music, rhythm, partner, and what’s happening in the ronda. I once invited a dance friend who ended up arguing with a good instructor about she having to be led everything. The instructor looks at me with a shrug and throwing up his hands on her not comprehending which part of what he was teaching she needs to own. On the other hand at practicas there have been many times I have given tips regarding balance or posture or a movement that I know is a problem when I danced at milongas with them. It is appreciated.

 

[Bailango]

Yeah, I agree with you there. It's inherently competitive at all levels. If finding a reliable dance partner is difficult enough, then finding a trustworthy collaborator of the same role is almost impossible. It doesn't help that just about everyone has an inflated opinion of their own ability.

Fortunately, cross-training is really effective.

Competitive in what sense?

 

[Bailango]

I have had similar discussions with some of my teachers (who are regarded as top/famous teachers/dancers in US/World) and it's not unanimous that they favor close embrace more, in fact they enjoy both. Obviously when the milonga is packed it defaults to close embrace but they've told me open embrace allows for a lot more opportunity in movement/style, and you also have the option to swap between open/close within the dance too - which is actually what I see often when teachers / high level dancers do in a social / non performance setting and currently what one of the things I'm trying to instill into my own dance (when there's room).

To me opening an embrace is completely different than dancing in open hold. The very words opening the embrace implies closing it too. Open hold involves no embrace. I think most good dancers open the embrace depending on the movement being executed. It also adds variety.

As for different styles, I've heard what you've described but even styles within styles. Like with social tango the movements can be even grouped into milonguero / salon / nuevo, and there's overlap between those three as well.

I think the movements can be grouped into close embrace movement, open embrace movements, shared axis movements and open position or open hold movements. Salon and milonguero are unnecessary labels that not all agree with nor is there a consistent definition. There are a lot of instructors including famous or popular one that do disservice by labeling them as styles. If they were indeed styles, we wouldn’t be able to dance with everyone at a milonga Nuevo is a different animal not only because of the movements within it that are more popular. It requires more space. Its choreography is not ronda oriented. Neuvo is better danced without a ronda. The “alternative” music it is danced to, makes it a distinct style. Non-traditional Tango music can have rhythms that are Tango like. Some alternative music can be good to dance tango. Many alternative sets are either world music or popular pop music, no semblance to tango rhythms in most of them.

 

[Numawan]

I am really wondering what kind of tango movements/techniques are considered inherently nuevo.

 

[JournalInTime]

I am really wondering what kind of tango movements/techniques are considered inherently nuevo.

It's totally subjective, and opinions are like . . . well, you know the rest.

Shortly after I started to learn tango, I became a True Believer in distinctions like "milonguero," "salon," and "nuevo." That's because teachers and more experienced dancers spoke of them as if they were accepted as objective reality. I didn't know any better, so I made that my reality.

Then I began serious private coaching and started throwing those words around . . . and my coach fired back, "What's the name of this milonguero?", "Which salon? In what barrio?", and "New relative to what?" I was taken aback.

She proceeded to show me really old (1920s-1930s era) handbooks and posters proclaiming the steps of tango. The depicted dancers – who'd be 120+ years old today – were having a great ol' time with volcadas, enganches, soltadas, sentadas, blah, blah, blah. Elastic arms were in evidence, though frozen in a still photo. I realized that there was nothing new under the tango sun.

I think what most of the influential "nuevo" people did was (1) make existing stuff bigger to show it off to newer, less rhythm-driven music, (2) put names on the movements, and (3) systematized teaching it. There work was mostly theoretical, not on the dance floor.

Anybody who hasn't been brainwashed by some influential writer or teacher can figure out that dancers have been tangling legs, lifting each other up, jumping in the air, spinning each other around really fast, etc. since dancing was first invented, and that tango dancers weren't special in this regard.

As my coach also said, "I think the only thing that's uniquely tango is the cruzada, and I wouldn't even defend that to the death."

 

[tangomaniac]

I am really wondering what kind of tango movements/techniques are considered inherently nuevo.

I thought nuevo primarly referred to the music. In terms of nuevo figures, I think the key is off-axis, e.g., volcadas and colgadas.

 

[Rabbit]

I thought nuevo primarly referred to the music.

Oh, that just gets into a whole other different realm of confusion. Piazzolla originated the term "nuevo tango" for his own compositions but a lot of contemporary tango or alternative music is independent from the Piazzolla lineage, very diverse, and people will just label all of it "nuevo". If someone asks me to play a "nuevo" tango, therefore, I have to ask for clarification.

 

[Brummbaer]

Oh, that just gets into a whole other different realm of confusion.

And it's also evolved to refer to AT danced to any 'alternative' music (but some will argue that that isn't tango).

Language evolves. Milonguero no longer has its earlier meaning(s) (perhaps a good thing).

It's becoming necessary to put some of these terms into a context.