The below conversation was provoked in discussion to an article by Meredith Klein in Tango-L (Tango-L Digest, Vol 8, Issue 14), which she talked abit about the tango nuevo scene in Bs.As. in relation to the traditional milonga scene which the style of 'close embrace' is danced. (Many different definitions of 'close embrace' including 'milonguero', 'tango salon', for the purpose of ease of discussion, we'll name it tango salon, the classic style danced in dancing salons since tango existed.)
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Me: To me, nuevo dancing clashes with a good well behaved milonga. So, unless there is a super big place where people don't really care about navigation in Singapore, nuevo will never have a chance to shine.
B : Ah ha now we know why we need a big dance place.
Me: haha yeap 
Look... I can't imagine YM, GG, HL, CS doing colcadas, big multiple boleos, flying secadas, they will look ridiculous and out of place.
B : Yeah, the rest of the ladies are more sedate.
Me: To me tango is about the music and the emotions translated into the embrace...
B : And frankly, not everybody has the personality for nuevo too i think.
Me: NOW not to say nuevo cannot do it. I've seen Gustavo and Giselle perform to Don Juan, late Di Sarli's version... only thing i can say... second best performance i saw since i came to BA.second only to Javier Rodriguez's performance. Super inspiring, even opened up my mind to listen to Don Juan differently...
B : Wow...thats really something. But Gustavo has super solid classic tango background. You think thats a good reason? that musicality & connection already good base.
Me: And, they are the orgininators of tango nuevo, with none of that arm leading thing going on, which has been perverted by contemporary nuevo teachers. Gustavo's nuevo lies in visual perception of the embrace, so the woman must move into a space that is opened up due to the respect to the embrace, or more correctly due to the respect to the man's position.
B : Ah. Respecting totally the classic relation of body positions.
Me: But a lot of contemporary nuevo teachers teach using the arms to lead the woman. Causing a lot of pushing about the lady.
B : Thats disturbing info on nuevo. using arms is the antithesis of what is the basis of tango.
Me: Anyway... not just that... if you put even the best nuevo dancers on a crowded milonga floor... there will be a lot of figures they can't do.
B : Yeah - nuevo not for supercrowded floor, Its for floor with space. But isn't it true that some neuvo dancers will come to traditional milongas, dance respcting the rest of the couples (ie dance normally) & will only do more fancy things when its really late? That article by Meredith Klein says that.
Me: Well i saw the article by Meredith Klein, she is right in the facts but has errors in the interpretation.
B : Yes?
Me: firstly close embrace is not simple steps. It's much more complicated than that. The reason why they (nuevo people or people who don't understand close embrace) think its simple steps is that they are unable to lead complicated steps in close embrace. Just look at the contemporary close embrace dancers like Javier Rodriguez, Geraldine Rojas, Andrea Misse, Pablo Rodriguez, Ney Melo, Jennifer etc. How much can they do with close embrace!
B : Exactly! Plus its more than "doing fancy stuff" there is so much about subtle body dynamics.
Me: So she is not giving a fair representation to close embrace dancers. Another point about music, minor point, but glaringly misleading. '80% of the music is golden age, just like the traditional milongas'. In traditional milongas 100% of the music is golden age not 80%
Me: Anyway the point about nuevo dancers not connecting to musicality in comparison to their close embrace counterparts is valid...
Because 1. the teachings of nuevo is movement based, not music based. Teaching of close embrace or milonguero salon style is often music based
B : True true
Me: So we are talking about external trends here... even the classes of Gustavo or Chicho, tango is played as some sort of background music, while the people are just concerned about making the figure work
B : Hmmmm,
Me: Whereas for milonguero classes like Susana miller, Ana Maria schapira, Cacho etc... they always stress on beat, music and dynamics of the music. So i'm not talking about personal talent of musicality... i'm talking about you take two groups of people with the same ability, going through 2 months of studying; one with the nuevo group, one with the close embrace school, there is only one logical conclusion, the group studying with close embrace school will learn to appreciate music better...
B : That is completely for sure. The "figures" they do sometimes has nothing much to do with the music too. That's why nuevo seems boring to watch
me: The second point for musicality.. 2. the nature of these figures are such they cannot be used in a small space to express the music. The good thing about close embrace is you can have 0.5m of space around you and you can still dance to the music. But in nuevo i don't think so. So in a crowded milonga, its logical what sort of dancer can express his musicality clearly.
a. The well behaved close embraced dancer, or b. the badly behaved selfish nuevo dancer...
There is no well behaved nuevo dancer who can express his musicality properly in a crowded milonga. And that is only logical, logical like 1+1=2, with no prejudism or subjectivity
B : Unless the dancer dances "milonguero" steps.
Me: Then you are talking about nuevo dancer dancing close embrace which doesnt count.
B : The music and floor space that gave rise to the 2 dances are different anyway.
Me: The point about nuevo scene getting bigger is true... no question of that. But in general, they don't mix. You have the odd pair of nuevo dancers who comes and dance a nice close embrace style... but then again most of the nuevo dancers who cross over to dance in the traditional venues are amongst the worst behaving ones, even if they think they are already very sedated.
B : They can't help it!
Me: I have never been to a nuevo practica so I can't comment on her next paragraph about the huge number of nuevo dance practica venues. But think about this. You are someone in love with tango, travel all the way to BA to dance. You sure u just want to dance in a practica?
B : Thats why i was dubious about what she said.
Me: don't you want to be someone popular and dancing a lot in a proper milonga which gave tango its fame from eons ago?
Me: For her concluding paragraph I must say its correct. In an ideal world, the older generation wishes that the younger generation is dancing a proper close embrace style. But the case as it now, the older generation are indeed glad that the younger generation are at least dancing to 'tango'.
But this is what happens, as they younger generation gets 'older'. They will find themselves looking more and more ridiculous doing nuevo; Be it age limiting ability, maturing of the mind, or becoming of a body size where nuevo doesnt look graceful anymore,
B : Exactly. They will come one big round back to classical. Thats always what happens sooner or later.
Me: Some of them, who have their lives so entrenched to tango will move back to salon style.
Whereas some of them will leave tango completely, maybe regreting not taking close embrace style when they were younger or refusing to start from beginner stage again. Yet they will be some of them who regardless of how ridiculous they look, how hard it is to jump or how heavy they are for colgadas, will continue to do nuevo until they are 70.
Me: Lastly, I want to just tell you what Cacho thinks of nuevo scene.
B:: Yes?
Me: He says it will be very difficult for it to survive.
B : Cacho says? Not surprising. It has run its course already.
Me: Economically,
1. A dance salon which can support 100 close embrace dancers can only support at most 20 nuevo dancer. So it is much more expensive for nuevo.
B : Not like young pple can afford much too. So dance in practicas only.
Me: 2. a traditional milonga which can support 100 close embrace dancers will have better chance of hiring live orchestras or live performances. Whereas it is not economically viable of doing a live orchestra with only 20 dancers. So you won't see that kind of big scale nuevo event very frequently.
B : Nope. But I think nevertheless nuevo will live on, like how tango fantasia did for a while, in oversease communities who don't know any better, have the space and have the $$.
Me: 3. Due to the age demographics, the nuevo crowd is the youngsters, who are still starting out in life. Whereas the traditional tango people are already in their 30s or 40s or 50s, who are in a more financially stable position to take classes, organize things and put money back into the art.
B : Exactly!
Me: Lastly is the age thing i said. Not economical. But just the form of art. You can be 10-100 years old and look elegant and nice in close embrace but once you hit above 40 years old, you run the risk of looking very ridiculous wearing cargo pants and singlet and trying to jump.
B : Was an interesting experiment though. Tango doing through different phases. and, always, classical will survive. thats why its classical.
