¡Nuevo!
Through time, thoughts and social behaviors change, thus tango as a social dance changes too. Yet, dancing the music is like learning and exploring a new (body)language, a language that seems to reflect historical characteristics.
What does the body-language in Tango Nuevo tell us about our today's wishes or attitude of mind?
As the primary focuses of the social dancing are sociability and socializing, subtle changes in social relations are mirrored in new looks of social dance. Behind an appealing new look, which evokes a drive to imitate the new style, is a social change. Today, when your internet access is working fast, you can easily watch (tango)video clips and see the contemporary spirit, witnessing evolutions in time.
Video illustrated Tangopages:
Dance interpretations on Gallo Ciego
Tangodance interpretation on Francisco Canaro's Poema
Walking the tango rhythm
Walking Seduction
Dance is a physical need
Tangowals tangovals Milena Plebs Ezequiel Farfaro and other clips
Online Tangolessen videoclips videolessen updated
Carlos Gavito and Maria Plazaola
Showclips Forever Tango - great milongueros
Selected YouTube TangoVideos:
1. TangoClass - instructional vídeos - TangoLessons
2. Milonga and Candombe dancing
3. Tangovals clips - Tango waltzing - Valse - Tangowals
4. Great Tangoclips - fast internet access needed
5. Fast Links to Selected Tango Dance Vidio Updates
6. TangodanceClips with Humor
Astor Piazzolla's tango nuevo compositions tell us something of our contemporary life. He stretched the classical harmony and counterpoint and moved the tango from the dance floor to the concert stage. Tango Nuevo dancing relates much to modern dance which is a more choreographic performance that needs space, it can't be done in an Apilado hold, tightly together. In our virtual time-frame, choreography or the outward visual aspect, seems to appeal more than the close-embrace intimacy. Tango with a touch of techno is another new development. This bajo fondo underground tango is, in a way, the return of the strong, repetitive (Afro)-beat. As it has a rather aggressive and dominating self-assured character, it tells us something of our present-day lifestyle. It is mostly danced with a lot of nuevo figures such as colgadas and volcadas.
Regarding dancing tango and it's musical evolution or styles in the recent decades, the four representative schools of the Argentine tangomusic are: Di Sarli, D’Arienzo, Troilo and Pugliese. They are dance orchestras, playing music for dancing. When the spirit of the music is characterized by counterpoint marking, clarity in the articulation is needed. It has a clear, repetitive pulse or beat, a strong tango-rhythm which is based on the 2x4, 2 strong beats on 4 (dos por cuatro). Caminar es todo, stepping the rhythm is the art of tangoing. The dancer's musicality and his taste for subtleties makes you see the refinement of the 2x4 tangomusic.
Physical movement has a nonphysical counterpart, a deeper intention: its essence, its movement identity, character. Dancers develop sensitivity in maturity. Mature ballet dancers acquire an attunement to the other that increases their enjoyment of performing. Performing no longer becomes a matter of ‘being seen’, no longer performing an optical illusion of ballerina lightness in front of the mirror, it also invokes the reciprocity of ‘seeing’, ‘touching’ the other, the audience through focus. Focus might be described as a (visual) ‘touching’ of the other, an intercorporeity of subjects mutually constituting each other during the event of performance.
Movement as a form of touch is experienced rather than enacted, invisible rather than observable, independent of, rather than dependent on, a body which may be characterized by youth and a capacity for virtuosity, but may equally be old. These experiences can be described as transient moments, allowing passage beyond conscious control, you are not ‘trying to get somewhere’, signaling an intention of an as yet unrealized action: you are ‘already there’. Ekstasis, a Greek word for moving beyond oneself, does not depend on “how high you can get your leg up” or “the brilliance of your technical appearance”.
Intercorporeity means that the world is capable of encroaching upon and altering us, just as we are capable of altering it. Body and world, like past and present, time and place, are "interwoven", hooked together.
As the primary focuses of the social dancing are sociability and socializing, subtle changes in social relations are mirrored in new looks of social dance. Behind an appealing new look is a social change. A drive to imitate. Style, fashion, vogue, trend: the popular taste at a given time in a specific setting or modern "mise en scene". Popular, pop: new and of general appeal, especially among young people. Sameness or similarity tend to be perceived as belonging together, making it a safe unit, a close group. Social mirroring and imitation has to do with the self-reflection that you see in the eye of the other. Social mirroring refers to individuals' interpretation and internalization of the messages from their environment regarding who and how they are expected or want to be. Mainstream: belonging to or characteristic of a principal, dominant, movement. Mainstream is the common current of thought of the majority in a social arrangement or hierarchical scenery. That tangofigure is outdated: out of date, old-fashioned, antiquated, anachronistic, containing an anachronism, anacrónico - appearing in a wrong time and space.
Spirit of the Times (Zeitgeist): The "timespirit" does not indicate a homogenous state of affairs in which everyone goes along with the same idea, but rather expresses the fact that in any given society, there is a certain “language”, culture or range of concepts in which every dispute, every contradiction must be fought out. This “terrain” which is expressed in the Zeitgeist operates “behind the backs” of the participants, changing minds, persuasion.
There is an inbuilt drive to act like the others in society, an urge to duplicate, it creates an unconscious recurring pattern of behavioral codes. Imitation is a part of prosperous relationship building, which is an important concept to understand if one is to adapt and function effectively in society. The culture of interpersonal connections contains implicit mutual obligation, conduct assurance and understanding teamwork. It governs attitudes toward long-term relationships in the spirit of the age. Zeitgeists: a phenomenon based on destiny where something simultaneously happens everywhere at a certain time.
In today's society, the individual is relentlessly confronted with a massive cultural production of unattainable role models, we find ourselves increasingly under pressure to keep-up. The omnipresence of desirable bodies with luxurious lingerie styling and the knowledge that we will never look like that, creates a paradoxical and artificial web of frustration and desire. A keyword during this decade is Sexyness. Sex appeal or looking sexy is about an exterior appearance. It can be related to self-perception, self-awareness, self consciousness, ego. A feeling of self-consciousness occurs when we realize that we are being watched or observed, the feeling that "everyone is looking". When feeling self-conscious, one becomes aware of even the smallest of one's own actions, self-objectification. Looking sexy and strong successful seems to be the only way to survive outdoors. The pressure to satisfy and keep that goal, along with the insecurity and stress it brings, has doubled. This has created a completely new form of behavior which Ariadne von Schirach calls "Der Tanz um die Lust". Esthetic withdrawal, wrapped up in desirability, allowing not much space to play. Dance however, allows several interpretations.
Musicality comes when you love the music and know it by heart. A pianist says: "There’s nothing quite like learning to play a piece of music to really get inside it. Once I’m inside it, once I’m feeling through the piece with my own hands and working through its many parts with the microscope of learning, once I really start to “get it” about the music … it’s just staggering", it's beyond the boundaries of time.
Music can touch people in a magical way. The rhythmic sensibilities in the music of Juan D'Arienzo and Rodolfo Biagi create a distinctive style which gives shiverings. Rodolfo Biagi was the pianist in D'Arienzo's orchestra in 1935, he created the immensely influential "electric" stacatto rhythm that gives an energy kick. Biagi refined and purified it even sharper in his own orchestra, giving it the character of elegant spanking. It's a very sharp stacatto that electrifies the dancers. It's the Golden Age of Tango, the music is made for dancing. Astor Piazzolla's melodic story line is more complex. When I first heard Piazzolla's music, it had this extraordinary effect on me, I got goose-pimples. Shiverings and goose flesh, they are uncontrollable reactions brought on by cold or fear or by sudden excitement.
Ways of looking at tangos
Las transformaciones en el espíritu del tango
El tango es como un espejo, en su capacidad de reflejar todo el desarrollo de una identidad social y relaciones sociales.
Nada hay tan íntimo y público a la vez… como bailar. El tango, como toda manifestación popular, nace espontáneamente en Argentina, resultado de la necesidad de expresión del pueblo, a fines de la década de 1870. Es el lenguaje del cuerpo que permite al alma expresar sus sentimientos, pasión y fuerza que crea y se recrea en la belleza y la dinámica del movimiento. Fuertes emociones, en particular, que llevan a los órganos a un punto de exaltación que espontáneamente se manifiesta a si mismo a través de movimientos más o menos rítmicos que constituyen lo que se podría considerar como danzas naturales. Las expresiones espontaneas, como tambien el arte de bailar, pueden ser descritos como una expresión de los sentimientos por medio de los movimientos del cuerpo mas o menos controlados por el propio sentido rítmico. El baile, como arte era utilizado para varios propósitos. El arte existe en todos lados de la ciudad y en formas infinitas.
Las transformaciones en el espíritu del tango:
La pregunta que se impone, es: ¿ por qué el tango, música del instinto sexual y de la algarabía prostibularia se convierte en tan pocos años en un discurso que afirma valores morales tan opuestos a los que le dieron origen? ¿Por qué el placer se transmuta en condena y el regocijo en melancolía ?
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