pianistamediano
Forum Master
Considering the way many Londoners go in groups to events overseas and dance mostly within themselves... Thankfully, fat chance!Please don’t export it out of London and UK
How to improve musicality
- Thread starter JTh
- Start date
I fear it might be an import, although I've not come across similar within the EU and associated countries (and we're now trying to repel allPlease don’t export it out of London and UK
)Nor in Scotland. And my experiences in Ireland pre-date COVID.
English exceptionalism
opendoor
Forum Master
Guys, your bashing bothers me somehow. When I started tango around 2000, English dancers attended the milongas in my town Hamburg/Germany in droves on the weekends. Ryanair flew for 5 € ! Londoners were welcome here. And their dancing style didn't stand out, because back then there were no codigos and no ronda at milongas. For me, these newfangled dressage exercises are still a pleasure killer and a hindrance to real fun. Nowadays you have to look for milongas without codigos and LOD with a magnifying glass. But they still exist (or grow again).
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pianistamediano
Forum Master
I can personally attest, Scotland is almost exactly the opposite.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
I'm afraid that cat's out of the bag already.Please don’t export it out of London and UK
Depends whether or not 'real fun' entails behaving as a 'jerk' to everyone else around.
I'm not against relaxation, or even doing away with, some of those BsAs codigos, to get a more social atmosphere, but it's more like someone, or several, who think it would be 'fun' to drive in the wrong direction along a dual carriageway and then stop across all lanes to have a discussion with their passenger before driving the wrong way up the slip road.
pianistamediano
Forum Master
opendoor
Forum Master
That is an important point. Everyone is free to choose their favorite milonga. I actually don't know any born nuevo dancer who actually disturbs a ronda. Most nuevos don't come at all to a traditional milonga, or they adapt and no longer stand out. (Tourists excluded). I have never seen Nuevo dancers intentionally wanting to disrupt or change the style of a milonga. Ask that "jerk" you have in mind what he's doing and he'll shake his head in ignorance. There is no clash of dance cultures. There is only stupidity and lack of education.
Nicely put. But honestly, when you write something like that, you don't have an uneducable borderliner, a cocky provocateur, or a nuevo jihadist in mind, but rather a socially blind beginner. I stick with it, the nuevo dancers are generally more flexible and the better dancers which can customize.
I once saw someone dancing against the LOD. This was a skilled nuevo dancer, but a crazy one. Every milonga ended in a fight over women. That was pathological.
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it's not about LOD and ronda, it's about having some sort of respect for the other people on the dance flooor and interacting with the space you're dancing in in a harmonious way
if it's not crowded and people move all over the place but don't interfere with others, i have no problem with that
except
It's not nuevo dancers, who sometimes just get a bad label. Skilled ones know the differences and have respect. If you prefer nuevo, then ok.
Depends how you define 'beginner'. We were all there once, but it was scary and respectful of other dancers.
Now that might fit some. More a beginner, or ignorer, in social etiquette within the society of that locale (I'm not insisting on some idea of AT codigos, just what might be expected there). Someone who thinks society's 'rules don't apply to themselves' (A description commonly applied to a recent, former, UK PM).
Maybe it is an English feature. We talk of pre-Covid, but (without descending into the politics in this forum!) that could be pre-Brexit in some timeline, and mark a change in attitudes within UK society. I'm more inclined to consider it the result of learning without context.
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Please don’t export it out of London and UK
London has a high proportion of temporary residents, so bad dancing neither originated nor can be contained here
You must be talking of a different dance
like a mutated virus variant that developed on an isolated island far away from the main strain
Did most of milongas in BsAs always have a recognizable Ronda? Always = since golden age to now.
opendoor
Forum Master
Don't fall for such constructions. The traditional recollection was essentially a new creation. It started with tango being declared a world cultural heritage site. There were probably actually a few milongas with codigos and ronda in BSAs in the 80s, but they were the minority. In addition, there were no milongas at all in the golden age. The milonga culture only emerged in the late 70s. There can therefore be no question of continuity. I learned tango from immigrants from Montevideo. There was never a ronda there, but there was definitely considerate dancing.
We'll, yes, amongst exiles. 1976-83 (TBC) in Argentina was a time of military repression, curfews, limitations on gatherings of 3 or more, the 'disappeared', etc, etc. And, of course, the involvement of the USA by the recently deceased Kissinger, with an all's well from Piazzolla. And then came the Malvinas and the overthrow of the regime. Not the interesting times in which you'd choose to be in Argentina.
Or are there some errors in that limited summary? Certainly many omissions! And no continuity in the development of AT.
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ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
Depends on where you go to dance, but floorcraft and floor behavior at the larger events leave a great deal to be desired. Much of the behavior described above, you find here as well:Oh no!
Do give us the juicy details.
- too many people trying to enter the ronda at the same time at the same point (why?)
- consistent failure to make eye contact with the leader behind you when entering the ronda ("teachers" are also guilty of this)
- BACKING INTO THE LINE OF DANCE WITHOUT LOOKING
- Jumping into the line of dance sideways without looking
- Stepping randomly out of an inner lane into an outer lane without looking
- Stopping to do some weird stuff as the space in front of the couple grows and grows, backing up the line of dance
- Showboating by performers
- Showboating by couples who are not performers but think they are
- Showboating by couples who can't really showboat
- Dancing to some tango but not the one currently being played
- Colliding with the couple in front of you (me) while I'm standing still, before we even begin the tanda
- Tailgating for no apparent reason (usually dancing unnecessarily fast). It's as if they worry they'll be late getting to the end of the pista or something.
- Talking during a Pugliese tanda
- Talking during a Troilo tanda
- Talking during any tanda (loudly enough for me to hear it)
- Stomping on the floor (where does this come from?)
- Crashing into tables and chairs around the pista
- et cetera
Sad, isn't it. OTOH, we have some well-behaved milongas, where, even on a crowded floor, the couples navigate sensibly and coureously. (Hosts can make a big difference here.)