OK, since this was my post to begin with, I'm not necessarily asking who dances in "close embrace", or who performs in close embrace, but who teaches how to embrace, and in close - an ability sorely missing in most Americans and Europeans. I just returned from BAires, and women there prefer dancing with Argentines, and say that it is a rare thing to find a non-Argentine who can embrace properly. I find that, too. I think many Argentine men find that foreign women don't get it either, because a lot of men will look at me with wonder after a dance, and ask if I am a Portenã. (I'm not, and really can't hope to pass). Hieu Lee and Ernest Williams are two I can think of here in the USA - who are the other ones? Maybe you can post videos of their students rather than of them dancing themselves. If you get it, who taught you? I learned in the arms of Argentines.
Were you able to find a sub for you while you were away? Who did you end up getting?
There is a couple in Las Vegas - Judy Margolis and Jon Martin - that you might find interesting.
My experience is that the trend of dancing open and big is on its way out and a smaller more intimate dance is coming back in vogue here in the Eastern US. Granted, many people aren't doing it all that
well, but more people are doing it, which is a start. I think in any pursuit, most of the participants will be, by definition, average rather than excellent. The baseline level in major cities is higher, but the "middle of the pack" is always going to be the largest segment of the pack for hobbies taken up by adults. So I don't think it is fair to compare tango dancing at its place of origin where people start it young and have it ingrained in the culture, to the practice of tango in other places.
That said, there are plenty of bad dancers in BA too.
I am biased because I started in a "milonguero" style and danced it exclusively for a couple of years which made me fairly unpopular in my community. Almost everyone was dancing open and had no idea how to lead without overuse of their arms or without looking at the partner's feet.
I've written this in other threads before, but I'll repeat it here: I always start beginners in a parallel, flat on, chest connected, close embrace with a fair level of forward "presence". IMO, it's easier to adapt to a V embrace or completely open embrace from "milonguero" than it is to go the opposite way. Once people have developed habits like overusing the arms, looking down, letting the arms become independent of the core, etc, it's quite difficult to break those habits. By starting in a more milonguero style, it's harder to "cheat" with those things.
