I have recommended here in this blog the tango site Tango and Chaos. I still recommend it but as with everything, you have to read it with a pinch of salt. Rick McGarrey is one of those people that still lives on the golden era. He understands tango very well, and the website is a good resource for some theoretical notions of tango. You may think this is boring, but if you are serious about tango you can't just dance it. You have to live tango, meaning, you have to know its history, its major composers and the way how they play tango so that you can adapt your dance to the music.
Rick dismisses everything that is not strictly milonguero, in fact, he says that everyone that doesn't dance the way he does doesn't dance tango. I don't mind people saying "Well, I only dance this way because it's the way I like it". It's very different than "True tango is only the way I like it". The former is something like "I acknowledge that tango has various phases and has been evolving but I prefer the traditional" whereas the latter is "Tango must be like it was in the 40's, everything else is bullshit". Dogmas shouldn't exist in tango.
Anyway, just to prove my point, in one of the chapters about dance Rick picks a reknowned nuevo tanguero to make fun of him and try to sell his fundamentalism. I suggest you have a look at the chapter. He tries to take the VERY VALID point that tango salón is to be danced within certain limits, that we should respect other people in the dance floor and we shouldn't dance like we do in a demo. This is all fine. Then, he shows us the clip and says:
"Then Gustavo Naviera and his partner Giselle are shown dancing stage tango. You can see right away that he picks up his feet, kicks, and moves his left arm around more than the milongueros. He and Giselle also separate and do large leg swings and poses. Unlike the milongueros, they move their bodies around, and dance apart from each other. It's a more physically active and demonstrative way of dancing because it's designed to entertain an audience: Stage tango."
Now, I am confused. In my very humble opinion, when I am dancing socially, nobody screams my name to come into stage and generally people don't come into stage with an orderly fashion. Rick seems to have forgotten that this clip is actually a GROUP DEMO and NOT A MILONGA! And for as much as GyG move around they bump into nobody. AND, as far as I can see, i don't think that GyG are unpredictable, I think they are trying to make the most of their space.
Fundamentalism and radicalism have this little drawback, life (and tango) are not black and white. They will never be. If you stick to black or white you'll just be looking to a very little spectrum of things.
I will still be advising people to read Tango and Chaos thoroughly. It's the best online resource if you really want to understand tango dynamics, history and lyrics/styles. But as I hinted previously (with the help of some fabulous comments) sheeps never go anywhere.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Traditionalistic fundamentalism
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15 comments:
Hence the reason for the proviso on the sidebar of the LimerickTango blog, "if it's not referenced it is not a fact".
The fencing side of my pursuits was always dogged by people acquiring ridiculous opinions from what they read. It wasn't helped by the fact that there's over 500 years of guff written about fencing with each master proclaiming that theirs was the one true way and then there were the Victorian revivalists!
It is always a difficult balancing act between encouraging people to deepen their understanding of tango and wanting to protect them from... well let's just call it the bad stuff.
Hi LImericktango:
Even when it IS referenced, it is not a fact. It's a suggestion. And one should be evaluative of other people's suggestions. There is no such thing as universal true. At least, that's what happens in science, where my background comes from. ;o)
The thing is that, although Rick McGarrey understands a lot about tango he has only been doing it for 8-9 years. Well, I guess he has been doing it quite intensively and is in contact with most of the real milongueros. That is not a problem to me. My (or rather his) problem is that when he only looks to the front, he's missing the whole rest of the scene on the sides!
The academic community accept something as an established fact if you can show it written by three different authors. Referencing means "don't take my word for it, read these guys too". Which was the point of my proviso, don't just take my word for it, read around.
;o)
The thing about facts is, they're testable. So if someone advises - or even if a lot of gurus advise - something about the way the world works, you can try it and see. If an assertion gives you a hypothesis, and you falsify it, then it wasn't a fact.
If they tell you what happened on some occasion, you can look for evidence, like were they there? Why do they think this is true? What do other sources say? If this is true, would something else be true that I can test?
If it's testable, and it's falsified, it doesn't matter who said it. If it's so consequence-free that it's not even capable of having evidence brought for or against it, then it's probably just someone's personal aesthetic judgement.
Hi MsHedgehog:
My problem is not with facts. He can say whatever he wants, it's his opinion and he is entitle to one.
My problem is with the attitude. Trying to say that tango nowadays is like it was 40 years ago is not just false, it's also misleading. Some people can't get used to that so they keep adamant that things are still like they're used to be. As we say in the place where i come from "Blind is the one that doesn't see but even more blind is the one that doesn't want to see".
My apologies Ms H 'twas I who started using the F-word. Ol' Davey Hume would be proud of your synopsis.
Hume is good to mention at this point given that his pursuit of reason was spurned on by the intransigence of those who wouldn't accept what was in plain sight.
I agree with a lot of the things that Rick Mcgarrey says but I think sometimes he goes to far. I first noticed this in a page he wrote on different styles of tango, saying that there were only two, stage and salon. And that people shouldn't use terms like tango milonguero because it implies that there are other styles of tango, when actually the tango danced by the "traditional" milongureos is the only style of tango. Of course this statement depends on what you mean by tango; but still I think it is a bit narrow minded.
However, it is unfair to suggest that Rick is somehow "living in the past". The tango he sees being danced is being danced right now. And a lot of people want to continue to dance in this way.
Hi James, nice to see you around here. Yep, maybe I exaggerated by saying that Rick is living in the past. In fact, tango salon is livelier than ever (and that IS good, if I had to put a style in my dance I would say it was traditional). However, there is more stuff coming along. And has Supantheress noted a few posts below, the great innovations were always loathed in the beginning but were loved afterwards...
I get this impression that you're looking down below your nose on people who enjoy tango just as a dance, solely as a dance. I think that you can be serious and passionate about tango without philosophising it all. If it's there, it's there. I think that some people do 'just dance' it and actually do it well without the need for loads of jargons.
Hi anonymous, I don't think you got me. I defend exactly what you have just said, that tango is a dance style that can be danced and enjoyed in different ways. The problem is when some people start saying that only their way is allowed to be called tango.
Yes, you can enjoy tango without phylosophying it all. But if you really want to understand the ins and outs of tango (ie, why the embrace is so important, why is important to interpret different orchestras in your dance), then you have to do more than 'just dance'. You don't have to write about it but I do. That's why this blog exists.
PS - I may not be right. But that's still my opinion.
If I could just walk into a room and dance brilliantly without thinking about it, I probably would, but I can't. I need to think about it, and if I just think about the technical things, I get confused, bored even. So I need a philosophy, some idea of what I'm trying to achieve when I dance.
And I think its only natural people will want to talk about tango, people like diffrent music, ways of dancing etc. So people will talk, and I can't see anything wrong with people talking about tango. And if tango discussion leads to discussion of other things, like in the above post, then so be it; and who am I (or anyone else) to tell them what topics they can and can't talk about.
But of course, I agree with you that any kind of snobbery in tango (or anything else) is not helpful, or very nice. But I don't think that is what is happening here.
Sorry, I got carried away and forgot to reply to koolricky's post.
Your right of course, new things can take a while to sink in.And unlike Rick I like a lot of the fancy new moves, especially volcadas and colgadas
I just often think that sometimes people are so worried to show that they are open to new ideas that when they see something that is clearly bad, they do not say anything. That it has somehow become wrong to have your own opinions. Which, (and I realised I've gone round in a circle here) is kind of what you were saying yourself.
James, I think we're exactly on the same wavelength! ;o)
I happen to agree with Rick's comment about GyG's behavior in the group demo. It is the threat that they might bump into somebody that matters. The threat results other couples staying away from them so that they can "make the most of their space". I always make a point not to dance next to people who exhibit this unfriendly behavior in a milonga. It is nothting to do with new ideas and old ideas. It is about being considerate and respectful to other dance floor users.
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