Assisting you for a better understanding of the undercurrents in argentine tango. What I am trying here is to explain is the phenomenum “tango” to my fellow non argentine dancers and non dancers. I am talking today about the dance only, i am excluding the music here, that is another topic. This is my very personlal view, I do not claim that this is the truth, it is my persoanl way of understanding the whole picture of argentine tango. Are you curious to know more about the undercurrents in argentine tango ?
What I am trying here is to explain is the phenomenum “Tango” to my fellow non argentine dancers and non dancers. I am talking today about the dance only, i am excluding the music here, that is another topic. This is my very personlal view, I do not claim that this is the truth, it is my persoanl way of understanding the whole picture of argentine tango .
What comes up in your mind, when you think of argentine tango?
When I started with tango, I just had one picture in my mind: Sensual, but elegant dressed beautiful women and very macho loocking ( in a good sense), evenly elegant dressed up men , wearing black hats , moving together to vintage music interwined with breathtaking movements. That was Tango for me …ah not to forget the red rose in the mouth. Yes, this is Tango , show tango , how it was and still is, brought around the world by professional stage dancers in theatre shows. I got curious…I would like to point out that this has nothing to do with social dancing, which is often misunderstood by non dancers. And the best way to explain and understand Tango, I think is to see the developement step by step .
Ok, to make it easy to describe TANGO, i will explain it with boxes. easy to understand, and for me , i am german i love to create boxes …..forgive me for that 🙂 ) But my boxes are not static, they are virtual and dynamic and they can intersect with each other.
Let’s start with the box “TANGO”.
Since I started in 2001 with tango, i was exposed to many different styles by teachers, by videos and Milongas i went, but i did not realized this ….everything I heard about it , it was just labeled Tango.
A huge box with many surprises inside.
Some kind of confusing for me, yet intriguing.
In 2005 I was ready for my first trip to Argentina. I went to many classes In Buenos Aires. A whole bunch of different classes were offered and I did not even understand the differences though.
A dive into the undercurrents of argentine Tango.
Even the campionata mundial del Tango , with the cathegories labeled “Escenario” and “Salon” was already established, i did not realized it was existing.
The Tango Nuevo movementment was developing rapidly and it was huge. I as well did not really noticed a difference to the traditional at that time.
The Box ” TANGO ” which i defined earlier, I described it now a little more detailed . There was the Box “STAGE TANGO ” for the professional dancers who danced on stage in dinner or theatre shows and for social part, I created the Box ” old dancers ” and the BOX ” young dancers “. Back in that time I prefered the last one of course.
With the years I developed a closer view about the undercurrents in argentine tango, more detailed in the characteristics of each style.
The “Stage Tango” which was more on the floor , meaning to say great tango with some dramatic poses and some jumps etc. has changed into the much more acrobatic stage dance , labeled “Escenario” .
The group which I have labeled ” old dancers ” before, i described later as the traditional style dancers, which are mainly milonguero.
The “Salon” is born.
From this group, originated by the Mundial, developed a new stream called “Salon”. On the floor tango, where all jumps and lifts and drama poses from stage tango where eliminated . They kept the elegant close and open embrace dancing, with lots of giros, sacadas enrosques.
Let’s have a look to the ” young dancers” what happend to them. When “Salon” was still small there was a huge developemnet around the world called Tango Nuevo. Argentine’s young dancers wanted to let go from the traditional tango, as a global phenomenum of revoltution against traditions , like everywhere else in the world. No codigos, no dresscode, no cabeceo, etc etc, and this was easily absorbed every where in the western world. Tango Nuevo was really populare specially between young people.
Brilliant traditional dancers transformed into Nuevo dancers and changed the whole world.
From this ” young people ” group we had the social Nuevo and many grand masters who toured on pro leage with fantastic tango Nuevo perfomances. Very artistic and creative in its expression.
We clearly can see 2 different interpretations of tango developing , the traditional and the nuevo. What happend then?
With the birth of the MUNDIAL, the argentine government made a very clever move to develope Tango and attract foreignors to Buenos Aires. They opend their culture ( Tango is a world culture herritage) to other nations to compete. Herewith they just scratched the nerve of all foreign tango dancer’s ego……. to be able to create a carreer out of their very own dancing , same like the argentine masters do!
On one hand the tourist business in Buenos aires started booming.
on the other hand many ambitious foreign dancers trained they butt off to compete and became local masters in their own countries.
This new options given to dancers in the world just widely opened the interest for ” SALON” . A cathegory every social dancer can be good enough in to compete with some special training.
Suddenly the interest for Nuevo decreases, I think because Nuevo was not a cathegory in the official Mundial. The whole developement changed in favor for the “SALON” and was even fueled by some popular SALON masters traveling the world, preaching foreignors the ” ONLY REAL TANGO is SALON “
Undercurrents in argentine tango developed into a tsunami.
It culminated into a dispute between the people from different groups all over the world. The Escenario people felt misinterpreted. The Nuevo people lost their identity. Suddenly there where no Nuevo dancers anymore, they now called themthelves just “TANGO” dancers. This was very tragic. Many increadible artist suddenly not only lost their artistical concept , they lost on work invitations. The Milongueros would think anyway that the the real tango is with them. The whole discussion somehow did not much effect them at all.
The officials tried to solve the problem by changing the label. Smile ….What was SALON before is now PISTA. One of the undercurrents in argentine tango.
Today i may interpret the scene starting with the “pro leage” of 2 different streams.
– The Escenario dancers , who have adopted much of the nuevo elements
and
-the Pista dancers, former Saloneros.
On the social side, we have the big group of Milongueros and Saloneros.
The Tango Nuevo group got back to the close embrace and traditional music. Fortunately they found new inspiration and developed their very own musical interpretation.
The dynamics of tango nuevo.
They brought the dynamics from Nuevo, paired with strong rhytmical elements, into the close embrace dancing.
No etiquette attitude, they melt well with the rest of young people in the world. They are once again on an increasing development worldwide.
Everything is real tango.
All streams and all undercurrents in argentine tango have their justification. It is culture ,it is history , everything is changing and nothing is forever. We shall remember and to defend all interpretations.
Nobody , no group has the right to claim tango only for themselves. Let’s stay curious and always have an open heart when it comes to new developments, fashions and trends.
