Chicho Frumboli interview in El Tangauta (Dec 2009)

The younger generation is sooooo determined NOT to be driving their father's Oldsmobile that they will re-invent the dance just to be different and have their own identity.
The tango dance students in Phila. who study with a very good, young, Argentine (faguchi-style) dancer/teacher, sure get their money's worth in each 1 1/2 hour class. The class itself rivals a Milonga in that there is lot's of action, lots of different partners and nobody ever sits down. The only downside is that after a year of these classes, the close embrace dance is non existent or if the student already knew how to dance close embrace, it is worse not better. This is from my own personal experience having taken over 30 such classes myself and having returned six months later and danced with the same student/dancers.
At a practica (which is the only place that I see them doing the Nuevo patterns), their movements seem tentative ...always looking down at each other's feet and seemingly mystifyed by the dance. I don't see the attraction of it all but evidently they do...different strokes for different folks, I guess.:confused:
 
Wish I had more time to play with you guys! Busy, busy with a bunch of stuff. Hate to spend time explaining - again - what "nuevo" started out as, etc.

different strokes for different folks
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This is a good thing to accept. As I've written repeatedly, tango in Argentina has a very long history.
There have been and are many styles.
There are many reports of "milongueros" (and others), "opening up" and dancing "bigger" and with more energy as the crowds thin.
There are many reports (see posts by Brian Dunn on TangoL, only "one" of many such reports) of people dancing different "styles" alongside of each other.

And, I'd like to share this quote I came across yeterday.
"Everything evolves but the tango... nobody dares to break taboos. It's the old Argentine attitude: 'Don't get invovled.'"
Astor Piazolla 1961

P.S. They did sacadas in "Tango Bar" which was made and released before the tango explorations began. So they didn't invent the "sacada", as Chico claims, just as Salas states that they didn't invent anything except the linear boleo.
 
jantango said:
The Faguchi* trio will never show up at a milonga in BsAs, like many others who are busy teaching choreography or exhibition tango. They are used to having the floor to themselves and don't know how to dance among others. I have seen Gustavo in a milonga on only two occasions in the past 13 years. The only time I saw Chicho dance was an exhibition in Salon Canning. The way they dance an exhibition is the way they dance. None of the social rules apply for them when they dance, i.e., keeping feet on the floor, etc.

The tango I know in the milongas is another world from the new movement. The Faguchi women are puppets responding to puppet masters' hands.

*Faguchi is a term that was coined years ago by someone on Tango-L for the new movement trio: Fabian Gustavo Chicho.
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Actually- in the video, Chicho was dancing small, and though he did appear to be moving himself slightly against the ronda, towards the middle of the floor. I suspect (but have no proof) that he knew he was being recorded and didn't like it and moved away from the camera because the couples that were the frame of reference (that I was using to watch) in the video remained mostly in shot, in the same place relative to him the whole time.

We won't ever know. We weren't there. Only the people who have danced next to him I think could have the priveledge if telling us how "social" his social dancing is.

I am not a Chicho fan (except for his dancing with Eugenia). I just tried to observe what I saw with neutrality and his muscial interpretation may have been more what I see from "Nuevo" style dancers, but as far as I could tell his movements were confined to the usual social movements i am used to and her feet didn't leave the floor that I could see. They weren't doing exhibition movement.
 
Steve Pastor said:
Wish I had more time to play with you guys! Busy, busy with a bunch of stuff. Hate to spend time explaining - again - what "nuevo" started out as, etc.


This is a good thing to accept. As I've written repeatedly, tango in Argentina has a very long history.
There have been and are many styles.
There are many reports of "milongueros" (and others), "opening up" and dancing "bigger" and with more energy as the crowds thin.
There are many reports (see posts by Brian Dunn on TangoL, only "one" of many such reports) of people dancing different "styles" alongside of each other.

And, I'd like to share this quote I came across yeterday.
"Everything evolves but the tango... nobody dares to break taboos. It's the old Argentine attitude: 'Don't get invovled.'"
Astor Piazolla 1961

P.S. They did sacadas in "Tango Bar" which was made and released before the tango explorations began. So they didn't invent the "sacada", as Chico claims, just as Salas states that they didn't invent anything except the linear boleo.
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Agreed. I, too, have been a wee inundated w/ much less fun things. However, we do have to remember; 1- forum guidelines, 2- others' feelings (respect), and 3- common sense. These things have been discussed here, ad nauseum, and will be again, but....

Let's also remember that Fabian (who is a personal friend, actually), has also said many times that they didn't invent anything. In an earlier, similar interview (too lazy to find it at the moment), he said that all they really did was to take what was and try to merge it with a more contemporary/universal way of moving/feeling. He even said that one of the things that they "reinvented" was the cross-foot system, which, he continued to admit, is a misnomer.

The point... I do not believe that either of these guys set out to destroy or take away anything from early tango. He has said to me that it is his admiration of the early milongueros that led him to venture into a new era. I understand Chicho's comments in the interview. There's much truth to them, yet they do not say that there was/is no room/place in tango for it.

My english (bi-national) doesn't sound like Heather's whose doesn't sound like Srini's from India. Yet, we all accept it as being english. Why can't we do the same with AT?
 
jantango said:
...The way they dance an exhibition is the way they dance. None of the social rules apply for them when they dance, i.e., keeping feet on the floor, etc.
.
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I really think this is not the exclusive domain of the nuevo, even if they do dance large. I think it depends of the individual. Case in point, I was twice rammed... RAMMED by Tete Rusconi! He didn't even bother to look and acknowledge the hit that nearly knocked my partner and I into a table. Anyone is capable of doing these, social tango indiscretions.
 
:together::tongue:
Angel HI said:
My english (bi-national) doesn't sound like Heather's whose doesn't sound like Srini's from India. Yet, we all accept it as being english. Why can't we do the same with AT?
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Angel, we really don't accept all the different English as English...some of it is by foreigners!:mad:
Actually, I went to my religious weekly milonga last night and was amazed at the number of new dancers in town. I sat there (with a few tequillas) and watched different styles of dance flourish around me...my table was actually on the dancefloor. I also watched the battle within myself...finding fault with the 'sandwiches'...as being too showey and when the music went from Neo-tango to a hard beat...alas, the sandwiches didn't fit...I pointed this out to my favorite dancer (trying to gain her commitment to Milonguero) and she said, "That's the beautiful thing about Tango, it's open to everyone's different interpretation." ...I was really disappointed with her reply but I begged her for another dance, anyway.
 
Mario7 said:
:together::tongue:
Angel, we really don't accept all the different English as English...some of it is by foreigners!:mad:
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Yeah, like Americans. :p

Having read the interview, it still doesn't make much sense to me, you can read pretty much anything into it. Possibly it's the translation, but it comes across as rambling and unfocussed to me.
 
Ampster said:
I really think this is not the exclusive domain of the nuevo, even if they do dance large. I think it depends of the individual. Case in point, I was twice rammed... RAMMED by Tete Rusconi! He didn't even bother to look and acknowledge the hit that nearly knocked my partner and I into a table. Anyone is capable of doing these, social tango indiscretions.
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I guess he needs a lot of room to do that silly looking helicopter thing that he's known for.

:tongue:
 
Fuddy-duddy Chicho!

Chicho has become a fuddy-duddy!

"These young people dance all the same. They are show-offs who choose a figure that makes them look good. They don't respect the customs such as the cabeceo. They don't connect intimately. They dance like 'entes' (entities, things, robots, mere bodies, zombies)."

I imagine the neanderthals made similar complaints about the cro magnons - though on rather different subjects!

I am making fun of Chicho, but I also see the same phenomena, everywhere I go. But it is not because the youngsters are ruining tango. It may be more prevalent among the young because they are usually self-absorbed, shallow, and still young enough to be delighted in their new-found physical ability to do acrobatics. I certainly was when I was young. But this is part of growing up, and may be grown out of.

However, many people do NOT grow out of it. I see people even older than I am who show this same "adolescent" incompetence. And that includes the "milongueros" in Argentina, the supposed saints of Tango Mecca who many believe can do no wrong. (If they do wrong, the True Believers instantly demote them from being REAL milongueros.)

This callow behavior is not restricted to tango. I would bet that everyone of you reading this who dance other styles could give dozens of examples from, say, salsa or swing or ballroom. It comes from the simple fact that no one is perfect, and some of us are less perfect than others.

But. It may be more prevalent in tango.

Our dance is still only about two decades old outside Argentina. Students and many teachers are still learning what tango is about and how to learn it - and teach it. Most of us are still learning how to make the "words" of tango and how to create "sentences." Hardly surprising that we are not yet able to create "poetry."

This forum is proof of that. Many (perhaps most) of the discussions here are about dance mechanics: how to stand and walk, how to embrace, figures, dance floor etiquette. Almost none of the discussions touch on tango music and the subtleties of expressing music and sharing emotion.

Art is not completely avoided in this forum. Recently several people discussed the relationship between simple and interesting dancing in the thread about walking an entire song. (http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=34225) The basic idea I got out of the discussion is that walking is basic meat and potatoes of tango, while adornos are the sauces.

Related to that was this perceptive comment in another thread.

hbboogie1 said:
... adornments are to be used in moderation. I equate them to women dressing up to go out for the evening. Some women know just how much to accessorize not too much jewelry not too much make up and you look beautiful and sophisticated however get carried away and over accessorize and you’ve ruined the whole look.
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Using the food metaphor: Too much spice is as bad as too little.
______________________________________
​
Chicho is now in his thirties. He has been dancing tango fifteen years, and traveled the world teaching and performing. He is now a (not quite) grey eminence. And as this interview shows he's beginning to get grumpy and rail at young people.

How quickly the brash creative young bloat into oldsters, and become the new fuddy-duddies mumbling into their beards about the good old days. Oh, the agony! The tragedy! The humanity!
 
larrynla said:
Chicho has become a fuddy-duddy!

"These young people dance all the same. They are show-offs who choose a figure that makes them look good. They don't respect the customs such as the cabeceo. They don't connect intimately. They dance like 'entes' (entities, things, robots, mere bodies, zombies)."

I imagine the neanderthals made similar complaints about the cro magnons - though on rather different subjects!

I am making fun of Chicho, but I also see the same phenomena, everywhere I go. But it is not because the youngsters are ruining tango. It may be more prevalent among the young because they are usually self-absorbed, shallow, and still young enough to be delighted in their new-found physical ability to do acrobatics. I certainly was when I was young. But this is part of growing up, and may be grown out of.

However, many people do NOT grow out of it. I see people even older than I am who show this same "adolescent" incompetence. And that includes the "milongueros" in Argentina, the supposed saints of Tango Mecca who many believe can do no wrong. (If they do wrong, the True Believers instantly demote them from being REAL milongueros.)

This callow behavior is not restricted to tango. I would bet that everyone of you reading this who dance other styles could give dozens of examples from, say, salsa or swing or ballroom. It comes from the simple fact that no one is perfect, and some of us are less perfect than others.

But. It may be more prevalent in tango.

Our dance is still only about two decades old outside Argentina. Students and many teachers are still learning what tango is about and how to learn it - and teach it. Most of us are still learning how to make the "words" of tango and how to create "sentences." Hardly surprising that we are not yet able to create "poetry."

This forum is proof of that. Many (perhaps most) of the discussions here are about dance mechanics: how to stand and walk, how to embrace, figures, dance floor etiquette. Almost none of the discussions touch on tango music and the subtleties of expressing music and sharing emotion.

Art is not completely avoided in this forum. Recently several people discussed the relationship between simple and interesting dancing in the thread about walking an entire song. (http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=34225) The basic idea I got out of the discussion is that walking is basic meat and potatoes of tango, while adornos are the sauces.

Related to that was this perceptive comment in another thread.



Using the food metaphor: Too much spice is as bad as too little.
______________________________________
​
Chicho is now in his thirties. He has been dancing tango fifteen years, and traveled the world teaching and performing. He is now a (not quite) grey eminence. And as this interview shows he's beginning to get grumpy and rail at young people.

How quickly the brash creative young bloat into oldsters, and become the new fuddy-duddies mumbling into their beards about the good old days. Oh, the agony! The tragedy! The humanity!
Click to expand...

so Chicho is becoming likea Yorkshirman?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
 
larrynla said:
This forum is proof of that. Many (perhaps most) of the discussions here are about dance mechanics: how to stand and walk, how to embrace, figures, dance floor etiquette. Almost none of the discussions touch on tango music and the subtleties of expressing music and sharing emotion.
Click to expand...
Mainly because such discussions are much more difficult to convey in a text-based forum.
 
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