- Milongueros have served as role models for developing male tango dancers for decades, first in Buenos Aires, and thereafter throughout the world. Milongueros value the tango embrace and the emotions shared with one’s partner. Their compact movements respect the space of other dancers on the milonga dance floor. The direction of their movements (i.e., navigation) prevents contact with other couples on the floor. The unique contribution of milongueros is the interpretation of tango music in their dancing.
- Developing tango dancers have learned how to dance from milongueros through direct instruction and through observation of their dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires. However, with each passing year, due to death or poor health, there are fewer and fewer milongueros from the Golden Age of Tango available to serve as role models for tango dancing.
- In the place of milongueros, tango instructors who are stage performers, practitioners of Tango Nuevo, and tango dance competitors have become the new role models for tango dancing worldwide; the expansive exhibitionist movements taught and demonstrated by these instructors fail to provide tango students models for effective navigation in the milonga. Partner connection through the embrace is lost in movement through various partner distances and orientations. Musicality becomes subordinate to utilization of a repertoire of steps. For women, movement of the feet in the air in various directions replaces maintaining a comfortable partner connection as a focus in dancing. This Evolutionary Tango is creating a new identity for tango that is different from that of the Traditional Tango of the milongueros.
- Fortunately, there are numerous recordings of milongueros dancing tango from which contemporary tango dancers can learn to improve their understanding of the essence of Traditional Tango dancing that evolved in the Golden Age. These recordings preserve the vanishing dance art of the milongeuros. Demonstrations of tango dancing usually provide the clearest visual images of milongueros dancing. Rarer recordings of milongueros dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires provide good examples of navigation on the social dance floor.
- This post presents recordings of milongueros dancing tango, in particular those milongueros with whom First World tango dancers are familiar. Their interpretations of popular classic tango music for dancing are compared to recorded interpretations of the same music by contemporary instructors of Evolutionary Tango, in order to show the contrasts in style. An Appendix of video recordings of the dancing of milongueros is provided for further study.
Milongueros are men for whom dancing tango in the milongas of Buenos Aires has been a central part of their lives for decades. These men have preserved the traditions of tango in their dancing, in their knowledge of tango music for dancing, and in their adherence to the codes of behavior at milongas. They had their initiation to tango during the Golden Age (approximately 1930 – 1955), when classic tango music, milongas, and tango culture flourished throughout Buenos Aires.
Milongueros have served as role models for dancing tango for decades. However, most milongueros have either passed away or have poor health that prevents them from dancing. Therefore, authentic role models for traditional tango dancing are vanishing. As the Golden Age in which tango traditions were established fades from the consciousness of tango dancers, so does adherence to tango traditions. This has significant implications for the future of tango dancing, particularly for the entire world outside Buenos Aires, where direct exposure to tango traditions has been rare. The absence of preservers of tango cultural traditions allows for a market driven reformulation of tango that loses the essence and unique qualities of tango. To some significant degree, preservation of the dance images of milongueros in video recordings provides an understanding of the manner of dancing of the milongueros. At this point in history and in the future, this will be all that remains.
Learning to Dance Like the Milongueros
During the Golden Age of Tango, most men first earned to dance tango from other men, either informally or more formally in practicas, typically held at community centers. (Some men initially learned to dance from family members.) Women did not participate in practicas because their social lives were controlled more strictly. Some of the men from whom they learned at practicas were or would have been considered to be milongueros, men whose experience dancing tango actively guided the development of other male dancers (i.e., through interactive learning). Reports of this initial phase of learning to dance tango are often nonspecific with respect to its duration, except to indicate that it was ‘long’ (The Traditional Way to Learn to Dance Tango). At some point the tango dance student was told he was ‘ready’ to go to the milonga. His initial experiences at the milonga consisted primarily of observing experienced dancers (i.e., observational learning). In this phase the milongueros provided models for dancing tango which developing male dancers could emulate.
Since the Tango Revival in the mid 1980s, the conditions for learning to dance tango have changed due to changing social and economic conditions. In Buenos Aires, instructor focused group classes with both men and women students have become the norm for learning to dance tango, thereby resembling, in this respect, First World social dance classes. In some cases private instruction for an individual or couple could be provided. However, few milongueros have taught tango dancing in these classes and private lessons, because they have been interested primarily in dancing in the milongas. Neverthless, some milongueros have taught tango dancing. In any case, in Buenos Aires, the dancing of milongueros in the milongas still has served as an example for developing tango students to emulate, although fewer are dancing there with each passing year.
The experiences of First World tango dancers in learning to dance tango have been very different from that of porteños. People from First World cultures began having their first exposure to Argentine Tango in the late 1980s and 1990s by attending tango stage productions casting Argentine dancers. In some of the early shows (e.g., Tango Argentino), dancers with Buenos Aires milonga experience participated and there were some scenes depicting milongas, but the dancing did not accurately represent the Tango de Salon of the milongas in that movements were enlarged in order to be seen, were made more dramatic to captivate audience interest, and were choreographed rather than improvised (Stage Tango / Show Tango / Exhibition Tango / Tango Fantasia / Tango for Export). Tango stage productions piqued the interest of performance attendees in tango dancing, thereby creating a demand for instruction in tango dancing. Numerous stage performers met this demand by teaching First World developing tango dancers a simplified version of dancing including elements of stage tango. Notably, in this manner of dancing tango there was no embrace between partners, thereby bypassing one of the primary characteristics of dancing tango (The Essence of Tango Argentino). By the end of the 1990s, this manner of dancing tango, which became known as ‘salon (style) tango’ in English speaking countries, had become the predominant form of dancing tango in First World tango social dance events advertised as ‘milongas’.
Beginning in the mid 1990s Susana Miller from Buenos Aires recruited milongueros Pedro ‘Tete’ Rusconi and Cacho Dante to teach in North America and Europe a manner of dancing she labeled as ‘milonguero style tango’. This style of dancing differed from the so-called ‘salon style tango’ taught by most tango instructors by incorporating an embrace maintained throughout the dance as well as smaller, relatively inconspicuous movements. (Salon Style Tango, Milonguero Style Tango, and Tango de Salon in Buenos Aires and in North America). This ‘milonguero style tango’ taught by Miller and some of her North American and European students resembled the Tango de Salon Estilo Milonguero (Estilo del Centro) danced by milongueros, but in the absence of the milongueros themselves teaching (as became commonplace), these instructors could not provide examples of the complexity and uniqueness of the dancing of milongueros. In general, developing tango students in North American and Europe had limited exposure to Tango Estilo Milonguero in their home environments, and the information they received was conflated with conflicting images provided by instructors teaching a modification of tango dancing designed to appeal to the cultural tastes of First World cultures (Trans-Cultural Diffusion and Adaptation of Tango Argentino in the 20th Century). Nevertheless, despite the abundance of misinformation regarding social tango dancing provided by tango instructors, some developing First World tango dancers traveled to Buenos Aires to witness the tango danced in the milongas – Tango de Salon – of which Tango Estilo Milonguero, broadly defined, has been the most prevalent stylistic variant [Tango de Salon: the Tango of the Milonga (Part II of ‘Tango Styles, Genres and Individual Expression’)].
Beginning in the early 2000s, variations and derivations of Tango Estilo Milonguero, often labeled as ‘close embrace tango’, became a popular dance style in First World countries. In the United States, organizers of the Denver Tango Festival invited North American and European tango instructors, most of whom had learned directly from Argentine instructors, to teach ‘close embrace tango’ [The Rise and Fall of Tango Milonguero in North America in the 21st Century (Highlighting the Denver Tango Festival)]. This festival, as well as later similar festivals in San Diego and Atlanta, became gathering points for aficionados of ‘close embrace’ tango. However, these festivals rarely included milongueros on their teaching roster, with the appearance of Ricardo Vidort at the Denver Tango Festival in 2005 (video) perhaps being the only such occasion. After Gustavo Naveira, co-founder of Tango Nuevo, taught workshops in 2009 in Boulder, Colorado (a suburb of Denver), advertised as ‘Tango Milonguero’, the Denver Festival (and the San Diego and Atlanta festivals) began to replace (First World) instructors teaching their (‘close embrace tango’) interpretation of Tango Estilo Milonguero with instructors teaching more contemporary adaptations of tango (e.g., Tango Nuevo, Tango Campeonato) that were becoming the stylistic variants of choice for aspiring tango students.
In 2006 the Chicago Mini Tango Festival was initiated and focused primarily upon teaching various representations of Tango Estilo Milonguero, with Susana Miller and Maria Plazaola from La Academia de Tango Milonguero in Buenos Aires as the primary instructors. In subsequent years, several milongueros were invited to teach tango, including Pedro ‘Tete’ Rusconi (2007), Roberto ‘Pocho’ Carreras (2008), Ruben Harymbat (2008 & 2009), and Alberto Dassieu (2010). The instructors invited to the Chicago Mini Tango Festival subsequently toured North America and taught Tango Estilo Milonguero in local tango communities. However, during the 2010s the Chicago Mini Tango Festival, which had been the only North American tango festival that regularly had hosted milongueros to teach, has shifted away from Tango Estilo Milonguero to Tango Campeonato as a primary focus (See 2018 instructor list and accompanying videos).
In the late 2010s there have been few, if any, milongueros invited to teach tango in North America, primarily because there have been fewer active milongueros available to invite, due to mortality or poor health. To have danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires, even during the end of the Golden Age in the mid 1950s, one would need to be about 80 years old or older in 2018. One milonguero who is still teaching tango outside Argentina is Ernesto Hector ‘El Flaco Dany’ Garcia, who has recently been living part of the year in Romania (Todotango) and teaching tango (primarily) in Europe. In 2018, there do not appear to be any milongueros teaching tango in North America. Nestor La Vitola, who toured North America in 2008, still appears to be teaching tango in Buenos Aires. Cacho Dante also still appears to be teaching tango in Buenos Aires. Pedro Sanchez, with whom many First World tango dancers have studied tango, may also still be teaching in Buenos Aires.
Nevertheless, with the few exceptions mentioned above, for the most part today there is only one way to learn to dance tango from the milongueros of the Golden Age of tango – by observing their dancing, of which there are two means to do so, either by watching those still dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires, or by studying the video recordings of their dancing. For those who do not travel to Buenos Aires and directly observe dancing in the milongas there, the only accessible means of observing milongueros dance is via video recordings. These recordings are of two types – recordings of their social dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires (see Jantango’s YouTube collection, as well as Milongueros Dancing Tango in the Milongas of Buenos Aires) or recordings of their demonstrations (typically at milongas), of which there are many available on YouTube. Since it is this latter category that reaches the widest audience, an examination of some of these recordings is insightful for the purpose of evaluating the exposure of developing tango dancers to role models for tango dancing today.
Examination of Recordings of Tango Dance Demonstrations: Milongueros vs. Contemporary Tango Instructors
The recorded demonstrations of milongueros dancing tango are a lasting resource for developing tango dancers to consult in their education regarding how tango has been danced for decades in the milongas of Buenos Aires. Although recordings of milongueros dancing in the milongas provide the ultimate verification of their dancing in the appropriate social context, and should be studied in any case, most recordings of this dancing are brief and the observer’s view is often obstructed by the movements of other dancers; the recordings of demonstrations provide an unobstructed view of dancing to a complete song.
Referenced below are recordings of the demonstrations of tango dancing for 6 milongueros, 5 of whom are deceased at the time of this posting. There are 2 demonstrations each for tango, vals, and milonga. These men have all taught tango in First World countries. The demonstrations of the milongueros are contrasted with tango dance demonstrations given by popular contemporary Argentine tango instructors who tour in First World countries. This contrast is provided to indicate the different images presented to developing tango dancers by contemporary tango instructors compared to that provided by milongueros. These different images have different influences on the development of tango dancing in First World milongas.
A.Tango
1. Carlos Di Sarli “Comme il faut”
a. Ricardo Vidort (1929 – 2006) & Myriam Pincen
This dance is characterized by small steps and therefore slower movement. The repertoire of movements is diverse but limited to standard elements of tango social dancing, including walking inside and outside partner, in parallel and crossed feet positions, sometimes resulting in a cruzada, as well as back ochos, the ocho cortado, and clockwise and counterclockwise giros. Ricardo times his movements in close connection with the rhythm of the music. The embrace is maintained throughout the dance, which in conjunction with the softer and slower movements communicates an impression of an intimate partner connection.
b. Julio Mendez & Mariana Galassi
This dance is characterized by long steps and therefore rapid movement. Opening the embrace creates space for conspicuous movements. The repertoire includes numerous elements designed to attract attention, such as arrastres, back sacadas, colgadas, cuatros, deep sacadas, ganchos, high boleos, planeos, sweeping turns and volcadas. The long rapid steps and high kicks would create navigational hazards on the milonga dance floor. The dance is directed outward towards the audience, not inward within the couple’s embrace.
2. Juan D’Arienzo “Amarras”
a. Ruben Harymbat (1939 – 2015) & Enriqueta Kleinman
This is a relaxed dance, with the partners maintaining the embrace throughout the dance. Both Ruben and Enriqueta keep their feet close to the floor with small steps, creating a smooth dance. Much of Ruben’s dance consists of walking, using both single and double time steps in playing with the music, but he is never in a hurry. His steps are simple, including some back ochos, the ocho cortado, and giros, but with the exception of several sacadas, nothing that is particularly attention attracting. Enriqueta occasionally uses subtle ornamentation; the few boleos she uses are all led and maintained close to the ground.
b. Ezequiel Farfaro & Noelia Hurtado
This dance is characterized by long steps and therefore rapid movement. Ezequiel’s use of paradas on several occasions breaks the connection with the music. His dibujos are conspicuous in covering a wide radius. Noelia lifts her feet high off the floor on several occasions, and even her low boleos have a wide radius. On a few occasions Ezequiel uses deep sacadas as well as a deep gancho (i.e., both make contact high on the thigh); use of these movements at a milonga could be considered vulgar because of their invasiveness. There is frequent interwrapping of legs that is a conspicuous feature of this dance.
B. Vals
1. Juan D’Arienzo “Pabellon de las rosas”
a. Pedro ‘Tete’ Rusconi (1936 – 2010) & Silvia Ceriani
Tete and Silvia dance in an embrace throughout the dance; the position of their arms is stable. They use small steps and keep their feet close to the ground. Neither Tete nor Silvia use adornments. Tete keeps Silvia’s turns compact. He is constantly playing with the rhythm of the music, alternately stepping on either 1, 1 & 2, and 1, 2 & 3 of the vals rhythm. He also creates pauses and suspensions in Silvia’s dance, giving her time to complete her movements.
b. Daniel Martinez & Adriana Salgado Neira
Daniel and Adriana’s dance is characterized by flexibility in partner position, including an embrace, an open hold facing each other with both hands on the partner, a side by side position with both moving facing and moving forward and arms outstretched forward in the direction of movement (0:16 – 0:19) [a modified promenade position], a one hand hold transition position, and the al reves position (1:29 – 1:40). Their dance is rich with conspicuous adornments, including high kicks by Adriana, and ganchos and large radius dibujos by both dancers. Other stage tango moves include jumps and lifts and twirls.
2. Juan D’Arienzo “Valsecito criollo”
a. Alberto Dassieu (1936 – 2013) & Elba Biscay
Alberto and Elba dance with their feet close to the ground, taking small steps. The dance is structured around small radius turns. Alberto waits for Elba to complete her movements. He repeatedly plays with the rhythm, stepping on counts 1, 1 & 2, and 1 & 2 & 3 of the vals rhythm. Neither Alberto nor Elba use adornments during the dance. They maintain their embrace throughout the dance.
b. Fernando Sanchez & Ariadna Naveira
This dance begins with Fernando and Ariadna dancing facing each other at arm’s length and the entire dance sequences through numerous variations in partner hold, including an embrace, dancing side by side, release to a one hand hold with an under arm turn, as well as a complete separation of partners. These changes in partner position occur rapidly. Close partner connection is not emphasized in this dance. Back sacadas are used by both Fernando and Ariadna as part of the changes in partner orientation. To add to the exhibitionist nature of this dance, Ariadna lifts her legs high off the floor and directs these movements outwards on several occasions, which would be a collision hazard on the milonga dance floor.
C. Milonga
1. Francisco Canaro “Milonga sentimental”
a. ‘El Flaco’ Dany Garcia (b. 1936) & Silvina Vals
Dany leads the dance with smooth, soft steps. He engages in considerable improvisation involving changes in timing (in conjunction with the rhythm of the music), varying degrees of weight changes, varying foot positions, including numerous changes of direction. He leads small radius turns. With the exception of a final high boleo, Silvina conservatively interjects soft, discreet, and relatively inconspicuous adornments (mostly taps) that accent the music. An embrace is maintained throughout the dance and, with the one exception noted, feet are kept close to the floor.
b. Chicho Frumboli & Eugenia Parilla
This dance is very dynamic, including changes in posture, the embrace, and the position of the feet. There is noticeable vertical movement of the torsos throughout much of the dance. Eugenia repeatedly lifts her feet off the floor in walking and often uses high kicks. Chicho’s left arm is active in shifting Eugenia on her axis, which does not always remain perpendicular to the floor; this results in vertical swaying of the shoulders and the hips. The dance begins in an embrace, but the embrace is opened about one-third of the way into the dance, at which point movements become larger and more varied, including rapid changes of direction at several points. In addition to high kicks by Eugenia, other conspicuous movements that are uncharacteristic in dancing milonga include an arrastre, a back sacada, a colgada, and a saltada. This is a dance designed for display not for close connection with one’s partner.
2. Francisco Canaro “No hay tierra como la mia”
a. Osvaldo Cartery (1939 – 2015) & Coca Cartery
Osvaldo and Coca take small steps close to the ground, using simple movements such as walking, la cunita, and the ocho cortado. They use small radius turns. They do not use adornments. Their movements are not hurried, even when transitioning into a quick time rhythm. They maintain the embrace throughout the dance, in a stable body position, without significant vertical movement.
b. Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes
This dance is characterized by sharp and rapid movements, including stomping and kicking high off the floor. There are conspicuous vertical body movements while walking. There are numerous variations in partner position utilized, including an embrace, an open hold (with rapid changes in partner body orientation at times), a one-hand hold, and complete partner separation. Numerous exhibitionist stage movements are used, including lifts, jumps, ganchos and sentadas.
Contrasts in Tango Dance Role Models: Traditional vs. Evolutionary Tango
The Traditional Tango of the milongueros focuses on the embrace, the connection between man and woman, and the interpretation of the music. It is in the embrace that emotions are shared. In their dancing, milongueros show that they value the embrace, by maintaining it in a comfortable position. The message communicated by contemporary Argentine tango instructors is that the embrace is a starting point along several dimensions of varying distances and orientations between and around partners that are explored for movement possibilities. Lost in this transition is the intimacy of which tango is capable. Instead, this Evolutionary Tango is built on outward display.
The Traditional Tango of milongueros is characterized by small partner-oriented movements, with little fluctuation in the vertical plane. This results in a soft and smooth progression across the floor that supports a calm and stable partner connection. Much of the dance of Evolutionary Tango instructors consists of rapid progression, punctuated at times by vertical movements (e.g., ganchos, boleos, cuatros, saltadas) and quick changes in orientation or direction in the horizontal plane.
In the absence of large and conspicuous movements, expression of the music becomes prominent in the dance of the milongueros. Musicality is evident in changes in velocity (but rarely size or intensity) of movements, as well as by pauses and suspensions. Evolutionary Tango instructors indeed have musical expression, often translated into intensity of movement. The musicality of these instructors often becomes obscured behind the rapid movements along different spatial dimensions.
With the loss of milongueros from the worldwide tango scene, mostly what remains as an example of tango dancing is the exhibitionist dance of the Evolutionary Tango instructors. In Buenos Aires, the example of Traditional Tango dancing is maintained in the traditional milongas, and by tango instructors who teach this manner of dancing. In contrast, in First World countries, there is rarely the community standard of the traditional milonga [Do Milongas Exist outside Argentina? (The Milonga Codes Revisited)], with regional encuentros milongueros serving as the only refuge for tango traditionalists. There are still a few traveling tango instructors who visit First World Tango communities and teach their interpretation of Tango Estilo Milonguero, but most are women (e.g., Susana Miller, Alicia Pons, Monica Paz). Their instructional content is not inherently misrepresentative, but inevitably incomplete. A woman instructor may be able to communicate effectively the woman’s experience dancing with milongueros (in terms of the woman’s role in partner connection and communication), but cannot convey the experience of milongueros as creative improvisers of movement linked to tango musical variation. Given that musicality is such an essential feature of dancing tango, workshops given by these instructors are often reduced to practicing step patterns. Argentine men who dance Tango Estilo Milonguero and travel to teach are an almost extinct class, and men from First World countries who teach their interpretation of Tango Estilo Milonguero can only communicate what they have learned, which is a knowledge of the dance that has been diminished by cultural filters and considerable distance in time and space from the milongueros who have danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires for decades. This is not to say that studying with these aforementioned instructors is a complete waste of time and money, but it is insufficient to achieve mastery of the dance.
In contrast, almost all Evolutionary Tango instructors travel as couples, with the male instructors generally capable of demonstrating clearly their skills in exploring the spatial dimensions in partner connection. Since it is the man who leads and thereby determines the character of the dance (although women can certainly apply their influence in kicking), Evolutionary Tango instructors have a greater impact on the development of dancing within tango communities. Therefore, in First World countries, the influence of Evolutionary Tango instructors and their disciples is more prominent, and it is not at all surprising that many First World milonga floors have become a stage for exhibitionism.
Given the nearly complete departure of milongueros from the First World tango scene, the most authentic role models for Traditional Tango dancing are no longer available in First World tango communities. Instead, a brand of Tango Milonguero (or ‘close embrace tango’) is marketed under the One Tango Philosophy umbrella, and in a blatant misrepresentation Evolutionary Tango instructors have even been inserted in place of milongueros in the depiction of Tango Milonguero (see Wikipedia: Tango Milonguero). Indeed, Evolutionary Tango instructors such as Gustavo Naveira & Giselle Anne, Homer & Cristina Ladas (video) and Joachim Dietiker & Michelle Marsidi (video) [the latter two couples under the guise of the ‘close embrace tango’ rubric (Variations in the Tango Embrace – ‘Open Embrace’ and ‘Close Embrace’ Styles of Tango: The Evidence from Buenos Aires Milongas)], teaching as couples and offering the embrace in tango as one option among many variations for dancing tango socially, have displaced Tango Milonguero only instructors as role models for social dancing.
In order to develop a deeper understanding of the tango dance of the milongueros, today it is necessary to study the recorded legacy of their dancing. Of course, the subtlety of their dancing may not be appreciated without prior exposure to Tango Milonguero. Instructors who specialize in teaching Tango Milonguero may be helpful in providing an introduction to this style of dancing. Immersion in the traditional milongas of Buenos Aires (not the tourist traps or practicas nuevas) is also a necessity for understanding the how milongueros dance tango. In any case, with repeated study of the way milongueros dance tango, a tango dancer will be developing a manner of dancing that is appropriate for the social context of the milonga, as well as rich in the interpretation of classic tango music for dancing.
APPENDIX: Milonguero Video Library
Included here are recordings of milongueros’ dance demonstrations and dancing in milongas. Recordings of this type may be difficult to find if one searches for tango videos on YouTube without specific mention of the names of milongueros. The milongueros selected here are known in First World countries either because they have taught tango there or because tango dancers from First World countries have taken classes or private lessons with them in Buenos Aires. These videos could serve as a course of study for developing tango dancers. An astute observer will notice the stylistic differences among the milongueros, in choice and style of movements and in interpretation of the music.
Additional videos of milongueros dancing are available in Jantango’s video library.
A. Ricardo Vidort (1929 – 2006)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Myriam Pincen: Di Sarli – Comme il faut (Tango)
(2) with Myriam Pincen: Canaro – Chique (Tango)
(3) with Liz Haight: Canaro – Poema (Tango)
(4) with Liz Haight: Fresedo – Tigre Viejo (Tango)
(5) with Anna Maria Ferrara: D’Arienzo – Milonga vieja milonga (Milonga)
– Dancing in milongas
(1) Lo de Celia (1)
(2) Lo de Celia (2)
(3) Bien Jaileife
B. Pedro ‘Tete’ Rusconi (1936 – 2010)
– Demonstrations (all with Silvia Ceriani)
(1) Laurenz – Orgullo criollo (Tango)
(2) Biagi – El recodo (Tango)
(3) D’Arienzo – Pabellon de las rosas (Vals)
(4) Calo – Bajo un cielo de estrellas (Vals)
(5) Laurenz – Paisaje (Vals)
C. Ernesto Hector ‘El Flaco’ Dany Garcia (b 1936)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Silvina Vals: Canaro – Milonga sentimental (Milonga)
(2) with Luna Palacios: D’Arienzo – Milonga vieja milonga (Milonga)
(3) with Muma Valino: Canaro – Milonga criolla (Milonga)
(4) with Elina Roldan: Caceres – Tango negro (Milonga)
(5) with Maria Plazaola: Canaro – Milonga del 900 (Milonga)
D. Ruben Harymbat (1939 – 2015)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Enriqueta Kleinman: D’Arienzo – Amarras (Tango)
(2) with Alicia Pons: Fresedo – Tigre viejo (Tango)
(3) with Susana Miller: Donato – El acomodo (Tango)
(4) with Ana Maria Shapira: Troilo – Flor de lino (Vals)
(5) with Enriqueta Kleinman: Canaro – Negrito (Milonga)
E. Alberto Dassieu (1936 – 2013)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Eva Garlez: Pugliese – El arranque (Tango)
(2) with Eva Garlez: Pugliese – A Evaristo Carriego (Tango)
(3) with Paulina Spinoso: D’Arienzo – El cencerro (Tango)
(4) with Elba Biscay: D’Arienzo – Valsecito criollo (Vals)
(5) with Paulina Spinoso: Donato – La tapera (Vals)
– Dancing in milongas
(1) Glorias Argentinas (1)
(2) Glorias Argentinas (2)
(3) Plaza Bohemia
F. Osvaldo Cartery (1939 – 2015)
– Demonstrations (All with Luisa ‘Coca’ Anaclerico Cartery)
(1) Di Sarli – Ensueño (Tango)
(2) Donato – El adios (Tango)
(3) Canaro – Noche de estrellas (Vals)
(4) Canaro – No hay tierra como la mia (Milonga)
(5) Canaro – La milonga de Buenos Aires (Milonga)
– Dancing in milongas
(1) Caricias
G. Roberto “Pocho” Carreras (1931 – 2012)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Nelida ‘Nely’ Fernando: Pugliese – La tupungatina (Tango)
(2) with Rosita Cove: Calo – Un crimen (Tango)
(3) with Nelida ‘Nely’ Fernando: Canaro – Milonga del 900 (Milonga)
(4) with Nelida ‘Nely’ Fernando: Canaro – Reliquias porteñas (Milonga)
H. Pedro Sanchez (b 1935)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Tina Ferrari: Di Sarli – Nobleza de arrabal (Tango)
(2) with Tina Ferrari: D’Arienzo – Hotel Victoria (Tango)
(3) with Cherie Magnus: Di Sarli – Alma mia (Vals)
(4) with Eva Garlez: Canaro – Negrito (Milonga)
– Dancing in milongas
(1) Lo de Celia
I. Jorge Uzunian (b 1930)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Myriam Pincen: D’Arienzo – El cencerro (Tango)
(2) with Heather Whitehead: D’Arienzo – Champagne tango (Tango)
(3) with Haydee Malagrino: D’Arienzo – Papellon de las rosas (Vals)
(4) with Milva Bernardi: Orquesta Tipica Victor – Intima (Vals)
– Dancing in the Milongas
(1) Lo de Celia
J. Nestor La Vitola (birth date unavailable)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Veronica Olivera: Pugliese – Emancipacion (Tango)
(2) with Monica Paz: Pugliese – Para dos (Tango)
(3) with Veronica Olivera: Canaro – Invierno (Tango)
(4) with Enriqueta Kleinman: Canaro – Milonga de antaño (Milonga)
K. Osvaldo Centeno (1937 – 2017)
– Demonstrations
(1) with Ana Maria Shapira: D’Arienzo – Ya lo ves (Tango)
(2) with Monica Paz: Troilo – Cachirulo (Tango)
(3) with Erzsebet Tamas: D’Arienzo – Pensalo bien (Tango)
L. Oscar ‘Cacho’ Dante (b 1939)
– Demonstration
(1) with Monica Paz: Di Sarli – Ensueños (Tango)
– Dancing in Milongas
(2) Plaza Bohemia
Tango Voice 
you don’t mention Raúl Bravo, who has been performing and teaching tango for more than 50 years. He just turned 85 last week. He is more of a tango escenario teacher, but his knowledge and excellent teaching make him a living legend, el “maestro de maestros.” Raúl teaches mon, wed & fridays at el Tacuarí in San Telmo.
Raúl también es cariñoso, cálido, y totalmente sin pretensiones. El trata igual a los principiantes y los más avanzados… una cosa casi único entre los maestros de tango de hoy. saludos.
Excellent post and a wonderful appendix. I’d only add that you could have included: El Chino Perico; Ismael HelJalil; Juan Topalian; Luisito Ferraris; Roberto Calaza; Eduardo Masci; etc. Also, as I understand it, Tete Rosconi never considered himself a milonguero and his dancing has always struck me as both atypical (for a milonguero) and rather showy.
When he was invited to dance on an empty floor..he danced to entertain..There are a few youtube videos showing dancing in the pista along with everyone else.. And then he danced close embrace without being a show off..
My memory of Tete dancing Vals at El Beso was a dance full of fun, energy, movement and lightness, occasionally dancing into the corner aisles, just for fun. Totally different from everyone else, his dance was a joy. In doing this he did not interfere or interrupt other dancers, though I’m not sure everyone approved. We learned a lot from him about dancing with energy.
There are many milongueros whose dancing can serve as a good role model for developing tango dancers. The ones that were selected for inclusion in the video library are those who (1) have danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires for decades, (2) who have taught tango in classes and/or private lessons, (3) have multiple videos of their dancing in demonstrations, and (4) [not stated specifically] are practitioners of what most tango experts what identify as ‘Tango Estilo Milonguero’. [See Tango Estilo del Centro (Tango Downtown Style): Reclaiming the Term as a Replacement for Tango Milonguero]
Regarding Tete, yes, he was capable of being showy and his demonstration videos were carefully selected. However, he was a regular and skillful dancer in the milongas for decades.
The heart of traditional Argentine tango has always been close embrace and dancing the music…
But as in any art form, there has also always been different styles. For the past 20-30 years, Argentines have earned a living teaching folks from other countries these other styles..
Why ? Well they are more showy and ‘specy’. And some folks want to learn such stuff in order to impress and be admired… That’s being human…
But after a while, these folks discover the joy and and the beauty of simple close embrace.. And for many women dancing as followers, this is why they are at the milongas.
Many thanks for persevering.
Nuevo has connection, has musicality and floor craft. People who follow traditional tango can display poor floor craft, e.g. traffic jams, charging down dance floor without looking. Not dancing to music, e.g. dancing tango to milonga music, ignoring changes in tempo as if the music is not even there, As for connection, some just hang on their partners. Top tango instructors treat all styles with respect. Arrogance and snobbery is rampant in tango and needs to stop, you are killing the dance.
Nuevo dancing’s reputation for anti-sociality is well deserved, and is reinforced by its most prominent instructors e.g. https://www.tangoandchaos.org/chapt_6school/36nav3.htm
Oh, I’ve always loved that page, Kung Fu Tanda, one of my favorites. However, I can confirm the same behavior from personal experience on crowded floors, where some spirited couple just has to try out their pseudo-neuvo moves. Makes life miserable for everyone around them. Personally, I don’t stay well away; I give them the space they deserve, that everyone deserves, but not nuevo space. For that, there’s the stage. On a crowded floor nobody owes you more space than the next couple. Share and share alike. Dance as a unified group.
Of course there are poor tango close embrace dancers. Just as there are poor open embrace tango dancers.
But while I have seen many wonderful Nuevo style dancers over the years. it is always only in ‘performances’ with none else on the floor. Never in the pista.
And it is the poor open embrace dancers who are the major problem.
I am reminded on the milonga I attended last Sunday night. A milonga set up vy teachers of Tango Salon style for tango salon dancers, with a smaller floor. Yet one couple -who only dance with themselves – were there doing huge complicated steps and demanding lots of space to do it.
At one point I was dancing behind them and staying well away as I know this leader and follower always do big showy stuff… Despite this my partner & I were crashed at one point by the other leader. And there was this dirty look from his partner directed at me… I just ignored her..
They sat down at the end of the song. And left shortly after. The rest of us heaved a sign of relief.
There are several things that need to be taken into account in response to Julian.
First, with regard to floorcraft, there are varying degrees of expertise in navigation for tango dancers of all stylistic preferences. However, all other things being equal, larger movements and faster movements (characteristic of Tango Nuevo) are more likely to infringe upon the space of other dancers than are smaller and slower movements (characteristic of Tango Milonguero). Tango Nuevo instructors also encourage exploration of the various dimensions of space, thereby creating greater unpredictability of movement and some movement that may go against the direction of the ronda. Opening the embrace (not to mention extended one hand holds and soltadas) increases the distance between partners, thereby creating a larger ‘couple space’ on the floor. Therefore, by its very nature Tango Nuevo poses greater collision risks than does Tango Milonguero.
Regarding connection, it is true that Tango Nuevo dancers have a connection. It is necessary to perform off axis movements. However, all other things being equal, a close physical connection is more stable than a more distant connection, and a maintained constant close distance (i.e., in the embrace) is more stable than a varying distance. That only addresses the physical aspect of connection. In the embrace, emotions are shared by being able to feel the breathing and heartbeat of the partner; i.e., there is direct communication of one’s emotional state. At an extended distance one can engender an emotional response in one’s partner by the movement that is created, but there is less direct communication of what the actor is feeling.
With respect to musicality, any tango dancer regardless of style can express musical creativity in movement. However, when one is giving attention to exploring space, all other things being equal, there is less attention paid to exploring music (i.e., timing of movement with respect to rhythm). The highly skilled Tango Nuevo instructors may be able to be quite creative in their musicality, but the average Tango Nuevo student is usually thinking about movement possibilities learned in class.
To assume that Tango Nuevo dancers are better at navigation and musicality than are Tango Milonguero dancers, one would need to believe that Tango Nuevo dancers are more skilled and more intelligent than are Tango Milonguero dancers. Perhaps there are some people who hold this belief.
With regard to respecting all styles of dancing, respect is given where respect is due. Proposing a new idea alone does not justify its acceptance. Not all new tango ideas are workable on the social dance floor. Tango Nuevo is not adapted to the milonga dance floor; it belongs in its own separate environment, the Practica Nueva, which is where it lives in Buenos Aires. First World tango dancers can learn something from the segregation of environments of the different tango dance genres in Buenos Aires. The tango promoters who most respect all styles of tango are those who espouse the One Tango Philosophy that believe that stage tango, Tango Nuevo and competition tango all deserve space on the social dance floor. That works well for their economic agenda.
With respect to arrogance, it is the Tango Nuevo dancers who are arrogant in their belief that their collision bound manner of dancing is adapted to the milonga environment and that their new ideas must be accepted without evaluation of their impact on the social dance floor. With respect to snobbery, there is a sufficient amount of snobbery in believing that there is an impetus towards evolution in tango and that change in tango is inevitable. In fact, Tango Nuevo appears to have lost its momentum because after all of the money spent on classes in Tango Nuevo, there are very few dancers who achieve competence in this style and these are the attention hogs who create the most navigational hazards on the milonga dance floor. Perhaps the failure of Tango Nuevo workshops explains in part the decline of Tango Festivals and the increased prevalence of Tango Marathons.
With regard to killing the dance, the agenda of Tango Nuevoists is designed to kill Traditional Tango.
Larger and faster movements? Sure there are the occasional rogue Nuevo dancers whom do that, ditto the trads whom I have seen charging down the dance floor without even looking, at least the Nuevo dancers are looking. Going against the line of dance? Only if there is space and trads do too without regard to space. Unpredictable? No we are dancing to the music, while you may be predictable you can’t say then that you are dancing to the music, Nuevo music is fast so you should keep up and not create traffic jams. If you can’t dance stably open then you can’t dance stable close, you are just relying on your better partner to support you. Nuevo dancers rarely collide, and usually are the ones whom avoid the collisions in the first place as trads often aren’t looking where they are going. I have been on dance floors with majority Nuevo, no collisions occurred. Nuevo is what the young want, not traditional. As for musicality, ask yourself, what is more important the moves or the music? Music I am guessing, then why play music which lacks variety, it encourages Nuevo dancers to become unpredictable as they will just ignore the music and turn the social into a practica. Next time you see a Nuevo dancer not dancing to the music, listen to music carefully and you will hear why. It is hard to dance to a funeral march.
As I said Julian : they were at a Tango Salon milonga with Golden Age music being played on a rather small pista…
But they danced Nuevo with flashy big steps.. And finally crashed into me & my partner even though I was a good 6 feet behind them.
I think such behaviour is selfish and self centered. I was indeed relieved when they left the floor & left the milonga…
During the rest of the night there were no other ‘crashes’.
But you seem to think such actions are normal and accepted. Sorry mate they are not..
I see so if your style does it, it ain’t one of yours, right okay, well it ain’t one of mine either mate. Nuevo instructors teach floor craft a lot and their students follow those teachings. I see students of traditionalists practise bad floor craft all the time including kicks which get blamed on the Nuevo, sorry but they ain’t our students, they are yours, we know who all our students are but current and former. Maybe if traditionalists actually taught how to do kicky moves properly, i.e. not on crowded dance floors.
Julian, If I could actually understand your latest comment.. I would attempt and intelligent response..
But as you are merely fulminating I won’t.
As described above Nuevo & Neo Tango are developments of Argentine Tango from another perspective., ie a development of performance into a social dance or a response to other music, either non-rhythmic Tango or other rhythms (jazz, rock and pop fusion). These dances are enjoyable for some, however they have evolved so differently that they have developed into a different dance. The dynamic, the flow the music are incompatible. It is like suggesting foxtrot and jive should be danced together. It is far better to understand that these are completely different dances (not just different “styles”) and segregate them.
Not true I have seen both dance to music on the same night together and no collisions, everyone having fun. Hint, in the 1930s people were around in their 20s, what did they want to dance to…, what did you want to dance to when you were in your 20s.
I have, on every occasion, seen accidents and injury where high figures are tolerated on a crowded dance floor. The circulation and mood is completely different between the different dances and they are not compatible. Typically, the Nuevo dancers are having fun and oblivious to the disruption around them. Others might tolerate them, but that’s all. The 30’s / 40’s was my parents time, when they danced around the floor in exactly the same way that Tango is danced. There was no swing or jive mixed in. By the 60’s many dances followed a 60 / 40 format, with 60% “ballroom” brackets (tandas) of 3, (foxtrot, quickstep, ballroom Latin, swing, jive) and 40% “old time” brackets of sequence dances. Young people also frequented dance clubs with rock bands where the dancing was exclusively rock / pop genres. We danced every one of those dances, every week. I have never seen incompatible dances together at the same time, until Tango.
I have seen swing, modern jive, west coast swing, and tango all dance on the floor at the same time. It is called floor craft. Hybrids of the two styles are the majority, we try and accommodate the traditionalists as much as we can, but floor craft is for everyone, not just everyone else but you. Blocking other dancers on the dance floor is bad dance etiquite, so is crowding people. Everyone is allowed equal space on the dance floor, your dislike of their style and attempts to bully them just gets you kicked off the dance floor not them. Learn to improve your floor craft and you too can enjoy socials too. Time you stop hanging on to the past, all dances evolve over time, tango is no different. Even our oldest say so.
Not many Portenos in Blackpool John, even now never mind the 1920-30’s…Nor any milongas I suspect…
I just want to say that I love this Blackpool video! One thing I think the video displays very nicely is that when many people dance in a similar style then certain crowd effects (i.e. flow-like behavior) can emerge which would not occur otherwise. These crowd effects can in turn have a major impact back on the dancers’ perception of their activity and can be immensely joyful.
Unfortunately in tango this added crowd effect almost never exists (I could count on one hand the number of times I experienced something similar in a milonga), partially due to the fact that the pista is shared by people who dance in quite different styles and with quite different musical understanding. I know of very few milonga videos that would display similar flow effect to the one seen in Blackpool; maybe this one (which was shot in Club Akarense in 1990) could qualify:
The latidobuenosaires.com YouTube collection (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrCSnBkavgnRIGWZ5Y4xCwA) of videos of dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires provides many good (and some bad) examples of flow of the ronda in Buenos Aires milongas. The good examples (i.e., traditional milongas) may be instructive (perhaps for tango teachers) in educating dancers regarding maintaining flow on the pista.
Also plenty of video her http://www.airesdemilonga.com/ A lot of demo / performance at milongas, but also a variety of milonga shots
True Bill. The question was, did dancers of the 20’s to 60’s mix a variety of dances on the dance floor at the same time? The answer is no, they did not, although most dance events had a variety of dances they were played in brackets of 3. Typically the dance was announced, “Gentlemen, take your partners for a foxtrot / jive / cha-cha, whereupon couples would enter the floor before the music started. They were certainly expected to dance the bracket of whatever was announced. From the 50’s to 60’s rock / pop venues became popular and these were more “single-genre”, but by then the ballroom social scene had started to die away. In my experience “circulating” dances were never mixed with “static” dances.
A great post. Thank you! There is a tiny mistake in your listing: Osvaldo Cartery is dancing „Nostalgias“ (in the milonga „Caricias“).
Please keep on writing, I love your thougths.
Positive feedback is always greatly appreciated.
The citation refers to the milonga, not to the music. Sorry that was confusing.
“the trads whom I have seen charging down the dance floor without even looking”
There’s nothing traditional about charging down the dance floor without even looking.
It sounds like you mislabelled some Nuevos there, Julian.
Remember, if it quacks like a duck…
Just a small question for starters: You are rather frequently using the term “First World”. What do you want to express with it, exactly? Not-Argentina, defining it as Third World? How about Second World, then? I would appreciate if you could explain this co-ordinate system a bit.
As for your classification, it appears that you believe that fast, expressive movements cannot create the feeling of closeness or connection. Perhaps you haven’t made respective experience yourself. I can assure you that shared dynamic movement can create an intense feeling of connection and closeness whixh is at least equivalent to that produced by slow movements in close embrace.
The terminology was developed during the Cold War (http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm) but, in the absence of new terminology, is still to some degree a useful classificatory tool today. First World countries include the USA, Canada, the more affluent democracies of Western Europe, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. With respect to tango development, the longer existing (1990s) First World European tango communities have been in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland. (European readers may wish to add to this list.) The term ‘Second World countries’ has referred to Soviet bloc European countries. Some of these are becoming more economically advanced and tango has spread to many of them in the 21st century. This category is not very useful today. Third World countries are economically developing countries. Argentina is typically considered a Third World country economically (https://www.quora.com/Is-Argentina-a-third-world-country), but culturally has more in common with Western European countries although, with respect to tango, it is unique.
Regarding ‘connection’, indeed this term can be applied to tango in various ways. In Tango Milonguero the connection between partners is close, comfortable, and constant. The position of the torso and arms change little during a dance. It is easy to relax in this connection. Emotions (often romantic) are readily communicated in maintained chest-to-chest contact. It is a relaxed connection. This is how milongueros speak about a tango connection. In Tango Nuevo there is a different type of ‘connection’. The distance and angle between partners changes throughout the dance. More energy and therefore tension is required to maintain this connection. It is a connection associated with a higher level of arousal. Emotions shared are associated with physical sensations of arousal caused by large and rapid movement.
Sorry Tango voice, I have to disagree with you about the discussion of First World, Second World & Third World…
It is now a bit passe…
I have danced in the UK in Australia ( which btw has a lively long established tango community ), Argentina ( BA’s and in the Philippines.
The Philippines is a nation with a huge amount of poverty. It is truly a developing nation with a long way to go before the basic needs of everyone are satisfied…
Argentina does have a significant poverty problem but it is far smaller in scale than the Philippines.. And many of the homeless people are recent migrants from other, even poorer countries like Bolivia, Venezuela and parts of Africa..
Argentina is an enigma economically. In the early 20th century Argentina had one of the most economically viable economies in the world. However, corruption and mismanagement in the latter half of the 20th century destroyed much of the potential for continued economic development. In recent years Argentina has been rocked by inflation and stagnation. There is a crumbling infrastructure. In this and other respects, Argentina falls far below nearly all Western European and many Eastern European and some East Asian countries in economic development. Nevertheless, employment opportunities have attracted immigrants from all over South America, as well as from Asia and Africa to some degree. Education and medical care are good in Argentina. There is a wide range of cultural activities. Argentina has the resource base to once again join the class of First World countries, but this potential has not yet been realized.
Yes, the classification of countries into First, Second, and Third World countries is an oversimplification. With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, there is no longer a meaningful Second World category. And, yes, THird World countries vary significantly in economic development. However, in this blog, use of the term ‘First World’ (the only terminology used consistently) is an appropriate and necessary convenience to categorize a group of economically developed countries (mainly USA, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand) that also have 20-30 years of established tango communities and many traits of these communities in common. This may change rapidly with the development of tango communities in Eastern Europe in particular. However, for the present, using the term ‘First World’ is an accurate convenience that is preferable to listing each country individually every time a concept common to all or mostly all of these countries applies.
About the xth world terminology…I really think this makes no sense in the Tango context. It has no real explanatory or diffentiating power. When I think about reasons to use it, the only “purpose” coming to my mind is that it could be an attempt to push some I political correctness buttons. Doesn’t work. I suggest using a more precise terminology.
It would be more precise to label the countries referred to as ‘North America / Western Europe / Australia – New Zealand’, which share many common traits with respect to tango. This is precise, but it is not concise. ‘First World’ is concise and understandable. No political correctness is implied.
Sorry but they do, and some of their teachers teach it, oh look fast music take big large steps, but what about people in front of you, oh they will get out of your way. So the ducks are traditionalists, granted there are some teach themselves dancers too So if tradionalists display bad floor craft, should they too leave the dance floor?
I agree that it is absolutely essential that we recover and systematise a pedagogy that approximates the process and the results of the traditional teaching of tango, and that this means that we need to resist and counteract the current studio dance teaching system, because it is at the core of the development of what I would broadly call ‘contemporary tango’.
Btw. Having just returned from Spain I can report that the state of the tango scene in Madrid and Barcelona closely resembles that in Asia and Australia, despite many classes and milongas being run by Argentines. I have visited most of the events on their calendar there and have not found any with a satisfactory sound quality (not a DAC in sight), music selection, or dancing skills. Direct invite and women asking men were standard. So what that is telling me is that cultural proximity does not make any difference, ie., cultural difference or language is not the cause of the deterioration.
I agree with the following points in this article.
1. The need for an interactive pedagogy: Some of the men from whom they learned at practicas were or would have been considered to be milongueros, men whose experience dancing tango actively guided the development of other male dancers (i.e., through interactive learning)
I have written (An Interactive Pedagogy for Tango) on this and have argued that given that we cannot replicate the ‘tango dancing uncle’ model of teaching (advocated here so vehemently by Chris) primarily due to a global shortage of ‘uncles’, we should make use of taxi dancers, though perhaps we might call them something else due to the negative connotations of this term.
I have found myself that I am effectively a ‘taxi dancer’ for both, my female and male students. One might also observe that the same sex dancing by women is a case of this, and the only problem is that they do this at milongas. Practicas is the proper venue for this, and instead of practicing steps with another learner, learners should be simply dancing with experienced ‘taxi partners’.
2. Using videos: Nevertheless, with the few exceptions mentioned above, for the most part today there is only one way to learn to dance tango from the milongueros of the Golden Age of tango – by observing their dancing, of which there are two means to do so, either by watching those still dancing in the milongas of Buenos Aires, or by studying the video recordings of their dancing.
I have greatly benefitted from seeing some milongueros from Buenos Aires who immigrated to my home town in Australia, and subsequently I have made extensive use of Youtube videos. I have also analysed these videos for some technical aspects of the posture and embrace that I will publish on my blog in the near future. This may be useful because a big problem is that, watching someone dance, it is very difficult to see what is going on there. One gets a general image but it is difficult to understand what are the key aspects. It is similar with pronunciation: people learning a language may listen to native speakers and yet be unable, even after many years of study, to reproduce some of the sounds without explicit instruction focusing on some specific aspects.
Having said that, as an observer of social and political events as they are rapidly unfolding in the First World, it cannot escape one that there is a general shift away from musculinity, ‘whiteness’ and discipline. In education, for example, the values of the First World countries, as they became successful up to the first half of the 20th century, are now regarded as patriarchial and fundamentally oppressive. Feminine and matriarchial values are now preferred, and these do not seem (to me at least) compatible with traditional tango and its method of teaching/learning. If we see a complete inversion of values in society as a whole, why would we not expect it in tango?
1). DJ’s – Re music and systems, no DAC will compensate for badly reproduced music. DJ’s everywhere routinely beg, borrow and steal poor quality music rather than pay for properly restored music and as good a quality audio as you can afford. It is disrespectful to their clients, the dancers and it turns people off Tango. I have purchased and used only high quality restored music from Totango.net since 2005 (no commercial connection, but a valued friend). A milonga never goes by without someone complementing the music. Most DJ’s are amatuer (that’s OK) and lazy (not OK), not taking the time to learn and listen. I learned a lot from former professional DJ, Keith Elshaw, (50 years in radio and music production) over years of conversation and specific DJ workshops in Australia.
2) Teachers – “in spite of Argentine teachers” should be “because of Argentine teachers” (see this post). These people tour the world relentlessly teaching teachers and dancers adapted performance as social Tango. It may be a new form, but it is just an impression of the Tango developed in the milongas of Buenos Aires). Teachers of genuine social Tango are few and far between). I agree that teaching in milongas is bad-mannered and/or ignorant.
3) Invitation – I have a different view of cabaceo / mirada. In order for it to work formally, the milonga has to be set up formally with segregated areas for women, men and couples. We prefer to sit with our friends (practica style). I noticed this in the well-known Sunderland milonga too. As a result women are not perched on the edge of their chairs on the lookout for an invitation and men are not scanning / cruising the floor. However, cabaceo works in a more subtle way (as it has always done) with direct invitation, where a prospective invitee will look away or engage in conversation if they do not want to be invited. It takes a brave or dull man to persist.
4) This blog post – Thank you for the post and the work that went into collecting and collating examples. I am using them, with attribution to Tango Voice, for our students and small community. It helps a great deal to “brand” our Tango so people know what to expect at milongas and in teaching (another Tango Voice idea).
However, cabaceo works in a more subtle way (as it has always done) with direct invitation, where a prospective invitee will look away or engage in conversation if they do not want to be invited. It takes a brave or dull man to persist.
And persist they do…. Women also need to be educated to look for the cabeceo. There are some women who wonder why some good dancers won’t dance with them. It could be because they are not paying attention to the cabeceo and only dance with men who approach to the table.
It helps a great deal to “brand” our Tango so people know what to expect at milongas and in teaching.
Hopefully this will help in attracting the right kind of dancers. Labeling needs to be coupled with education regarding the advantages of observing tango traditions (e.g., choice in partners, best music for dancing, optimal enjoyment of music, many benefits of embrace, plus recognition that competency is attainable, not the elusive realm of tango athletes).
Some good dancers who use the cabacero still may not getting many dancers from top dancers because they rely on the guy to initiate and never initiate themselves.
Djs who go out and buy good quality music, I salute you.
Re music and systems, no DAC will compensate for badly reproduced music. DJ’s everywhere routinely beg, borrow and steal poor quality music rather than pay for properly restored music and as good a quality audio as you can afford. It is disrespectful to their clients, the dancers and it turns people off Tango
I don’t understand what you mean by the first sentence: you need a good DAC to reproduce music well, and a good DAC is an essential part of the whole Tango DJ setup. I agree with you about the fact that most Tango DJs, as far as I can assertain, fail to invest in the best music possible. Once I hear that the music doesn’t sound well I take a peek if they have an external DAC and you can also sometimes see if they use iTunes. Because you can’t play FLAC files on iTunes, and anyway iTunes is a piece of junk so you know you’re dealing with a hack.
Teachers of genuine social Tango are few and far between
It helps a great deal to “brand” our Tango so people know what to expect at milongas and in teaching (another Tango Voice idea).
Agreed, the vast majority of people are clueless as to what is “genuine social Tango” and so we need a “brand”, but I don’t think it’s TangoVoice idea, it’s my idea, and I haven’t seen that he’s come around to it yet.
The reason we need branding, ie., some sort of Quality Assurance certification of the sort you get from TangoTunes or Tango DJs For Good Sound, is that in the current situation there is no incentive for a teacher to teach proper social tango because they get no recognition for it. Without the TangoTunes Badge there is no way for me to signal to students or organisers that I’m any different from the typical MP3-playing hack that calls themselves Tango DJ.
It’s the same if I teach traditional tango milonguero but have to compete with a bunch of local outfits that do the standard tangotainment routine and squeeze me out. There no way for me to compete with all the marketing produced by the Argentine governent, all their shows, and magazines and websites and noise. On the other side I get attacked by ‘traditionalist’ trolls like Chris for ‘pretending’ to teach traditional tango because, by their lights, you can only learn that in Buenos Aires.
Btw. When I go back to Australia I might move to Gold Coast.
Agreed, the vast majority of people are clueless as to what is “genuine social Tango” and so we need a “brand”, but I don’t think it’s TangoVoice idea, it’s my idea, and I haven’t seen that he’s come around to it yet.
See Creating a Tango-Brand: The Role of Language in the Marginalization of Argentine Tango.
See Creating a Tango-Brand: The Role of Language in the Marginalization of Argentine Tango.
I’m confused. In that post you appear to be either against branding or are just discussing branding generally without endorsing the idea. It’s a very long article but I don’t see anywhere that you endorse my position, which is that there is a need to create a ‘traditional tango milonguero’ brand, to counteract the marketing efforts of the Argentine tangotainment industry, that you associate with the First World, but that I blame on the Argentine govenment/tangotainment industry because without their ‘stamp of approval’ the First World people would find it much more difficult to gain legitimacy for export tango, which is why it’s called ‘export tango’, it’s exported by the Argentines, in particular, the Argentine government. It is unreasonable to expect individual teachers/organisers/DJs who want to promote ‘traditional tango milonguero’ practice and culture to do so individually when we face such a well organised opposition. So what is needed is a ‘brand’ that is an umbrella for traditionalists that supports and incentivises the teaching, organisation and promotion of traditional tango milonguero. I don’t see that you say anything of the sort. As I wrote in my “Critical History of Tango” post, I see you as holding the belief that by providing information on this blog people will prefer tango milonguero, but I don’t see how that’s going to work unless they travel to Buenos Aires, but then in this post it’s starting to dawn on you that the ‘milongueros’ are dying off and then even going to Buenos Aires will be pointless because the tango marketing machine will take over the place completely, but I’m just speculating here. Yeah, I don’t see anywhere that you agree with me on this and so the branding idea is mine. You’re against branding and marketing and so good luck with that. But do correct me if I’m misinterpreting you.
Terminology is important here. Creation of a Tango-Brand is a marketing strategy. ‘Salon Style Tango’, ‘Milonguero Style Tango’, ‘Tango Nuevo’, ‘Villa Urquiza Style Tango’ are all Tango-Brand names that have been developed to identify a product competing in the tango marketplace. While deriving income from promoting tango is not inherently destructive to tango culture, a goal of maximizing market share often is because it caters to consumer demand (based on local cultural proclivities), giving it primacy over maintaining cultural integrity.
Milongueros were not entrepreneurs, they were practitioners of tango culture. This is how tango was in Buenos Aires during the Golden Age. Tango was part of the daily lives of the populace, a source for recreational activity (among other things). Today tango has become mostly a business (even in Buenos Aires).
It would be better to think of the effort to spread Tango Milonguero (or more broadly, Tango de Salon) as developing a cultural identity to share (including the dance, the music, and the practices, such as the cabeceo). It is not important at all to maximize market share. This will never happen unless somehow in the future followers of Tango Evolution evolve to such a place that they feel that appropriation of the ‘tango’ name no longer serves their entrepreneurial interests. [They may declare the ‘death of tango’ (their own doing) and announce that a New Day has arrived with a new name for their enterprise. (One can hope.)]
What practitioners of Traditional Tango culture need to do is to develop their own environmental niche in which traditional tango culture is celebrated. This is discussed in some detail in Factors Affecting the Survival of Argentine Tango Cultural Traditions in Non-supportive First World Cultural Environments (The Dominance of Tango Extranjero), particularly under the subheading ‘(3) Segregate from the larger tango community and form a smaller community that promotes Argentine tango cultural values’ near the end of the post.
“ have not found any with a satisfactory sound quality (not a DAC in sight)
Most milonga DJs’ DACs aren’t in sight. They are in-built to the player/computer.
In this reply you provide conclusive evidence that you lack knowledge and merely have an insider agenda. I will not attempt to educate you as your ego is in the way.
I can say however that I did educate a DJ in Madrid who runs a popular milonga using mp3s and no external DAC but was smart enough to listen, and I hope is currently on the market for a DAC. I explained the importance of using only lossless FLAC or equivalent files and a quality external DAC.
For myself I can proudly say that I just received the Quality Music Badge from TangoTunes for purchasing all my music in the highest quality lossless format, and am a member of the new website Tango DJs For Good Sound. If you go there you can see the sort of setup that DJs require. I would suggest that we should support both these websites in their promotion of good quality sound at milongas which is sorely lacking.
Plugging the audio cable into the audio output of the computer is simply not adequate.
No External DAC + MP3/No FLAC = Garbage Sound = Noise
The problem with sound quality is that you can’t tell the quality without any way of comparing it. We are exposed to bad sound everyday in the form of MP3s and cheap sound technology such as Bluetooth speakers and the outputs of electronic devices. I have been to events where Bluetooth Speakers were used. Even PA speakers are not satisfactory.
Unlike bass-heavy electronic music or even rock music, Golden Era tango music suffers severely from thse sorts of setup.
Tango music demands an audiophile level setup in terms of source and reproduction (software, DAC, amp/speaker). iTunes is rubbish and most DJ software is also inadequate as it’s designed for electronic music. The DAC inside the computer is not adequate personal listening to any quality recordings of instrumental music, not to even mention for events.
I would put this problem at the top of the list of the Argentine Tango disasters above lack of manners and poor dancing and everything else, because if the sound quality were adequate I would feel much better about wasting time and money at an event, as at least I would be listening to decent sound. But when you are exposed to bad sound that pretty much kills it for me.
Sadly the masses, Matrix-like, are unaware of the assault on their ears as the days of the audiophile seem to be well over. Even in my own case, I had to re-learn everything as the last time I did the audiophile thing was still the era of vinyl and I’m myself still relatively new to the computer-based audiophile.
In this regard, I really hope that Christian Tobler gets his blog for Tango DJs translated into English as it is essential that we move to dealing with this issue. I also urge people reading this to actively support the websites I mentioned above and the DJs who care about sound quality at tango events. It’s a first order issue.
Sorry but playing Golden Era music from the standard MP3/iTunes/internal DAC/PA speakers set up just doesn’t cut it.
The best way to get good quality sound is from modern recordings, hoping to clean up old recording is just wishful thinking. Lots of djs hearing isn’t the best so may not hear the static, booms and screaches. It never hurts to get a second from a young person with good hearing
Modern tango recordings have better sound quality than those from the Golden Age, but it is rare to find modern recordings that have the clear pulsating rhythm and emotional vocals of the Golden Age recordings. (Most modern recordings lack vocals.) This is at least one of the reasons DJs in milongas in Buenos Aires (and worldwide) continue to play tango recordings from the Golden Age.
“No External DAC + MP3/No FLAC = Garbage Sound = Noise”
“In this reply you provide conclusive evidence that you lack knowledge and merely have an insider agenda”
I challenge you to conduct a properly set up blind experiment to contrast the MP3/FLAC and the external DAC/internal sound card distinction. I submit that when the setup is done right (i.e. proper equalization and sound level settings) you will
* not perform better than chance in telling which heard recording gets reproduced from an internal sound card (of a Macbook Pro or equivalent quality laptop) and which recording gets reproduced from an external DAC,
* not perform better than chance in telling which heard recording was decoded as a 320 kbps (or even as a 256 kbps) MP3 and which recording was decoded as a FLAC.
FWIW I have conducted these tests myself with several people using various DACs and encodings, with said results.
The DAC and the encoding are in fact the two least important factors in the resulting sound quality. IMHO the most important factor is the source transfer – does it come from a CTA, BATC, AMP, CdT, Audio Park, Archivo RCA, Reliquias, Disco Latina, El Bandoneon, TangoTunes etc etc transfer? Different songs sound different on these different transfers, and a 196 kbps MP3 from an Archivo RCA will typically sound much better than a FLAC from an El Bandoneon (not to mention that choosing the right source transfer for a tanda does not only depend on a one-dimensionally definable “quality”). The second most important is the speaker setup, then the amplifier/mixer and the cables, then maybe the software used to play the music. The external/internal DAC and the FLAC/ 320 kbps MP3 differences are minute or even non-audible compared to these other factors.
I’d also challenge you on your “Noise = Garbage Sound” equation. In many cases the transfers which have less noise are the ones with poorer sound quality because the noise filtering procedure applied by the sound engineers to get a clean sound heavily distorts the music; this is typical for instance for the El Bandoneon transfers. In a typical milonga setup (good but not high-end quality large speakers) the noise reproduction is diminished and so transfers that sound noisy with a headphone will sound fine on the large speakers.
Ceteris paribus holding tango music in FLAC (vs 320 kbps MP3) only makes sense from an archival perspective but not from a DJing perspective. I understand this is difficult to accept for DJs who invested heavily in obtaining FLAC versions of their transfers and/or spent considerable amount of money (as I have in the past) to buy and test various DACs, but then again remember that there are also “audiophiles” out there who invested heavily in buying Monster cables…
re: gvb
First of all, I lose respect for anyone who argues that MP3s can be used in an audiophile setting. I admit that I’m not a professional in the field and therefore instead of having an obviously pointless argument with you, someone who listens to MP3s, I defer to the informed opinion and authority of professionals like Christian Tobler. I do use my own ears and I tested his recommendations for myself.
I stopped listening to MP3s years ago and as I developed an audiophile setup the sound quality improved dramatically. But that means that the whole system has to be set up. Eg., if you use a rubbish speaker the difference might not be that great. For the DJ in Madrid I did a simple test: I plugged my setup into her milonga system and really you’d have to be deaf not to hear the difference. Each individual component (file, software, filter, DAC, etc.) makes some difference and collectively its a very large difference between substandard sound that you normally get at these events and professional level sound that brings out the full impact of the music that you want.
If you advocate using MP3s and this is somehow the ‘informed’ opinion on the tango scene I guess we need to take into account the sorts of people we are dealing with and decide how to deal with it. Because TangoVoice complains that tango has deteriorated, and this is a really good example of why and how it is has deteriorated, ie., people who listen to MP3s are in some sort of influence or offer their opinion. We need to somehow get rid of that.
As for the Noise = Garbage Sound, what that means is that at each point you get reduction in the quality of the signal, the digital information. The noise in the actual recording is not the main problem. As is widely available in the audiophile discussions, for a computer-based audiophile setup, the internal noise in the computer, not to mention the reduced resulution of the MP3 file, is the primary source of reduced quality sound. Finally, apart from everything else, I have yet to read anywhere that the internal DAC in the laptop is designed for quality sound reproduction, which is why audiophiles spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on external DACs. But I guess all these people would fail the double blind test. I stand corrected.
Re: DJ Polaco
First of all, I lose respect for anyone who argues that MP3s can be used in an audiophile setting. […] instead of having an obviously pointless argument with you, someone who listens to MP3s, I defer to the informed opinion and authority of professionals
I suggest you to listen to the evidence instead. The comparisons I’m referring to have been repeatedly done on a wide scale; with a minimal effort you could also find references on the internet. For instance here are the results of one study conducted with the participation of 580 people about their ability to discern 256 kbps lossy vs lossless formats:
http://cdvsmp3.wordpress.com/cd-vs-itunes-plus-blind-test-results
The results are pretty clear: practically no-one is able to perform beyond pure chance, regardless of their youth, musical training, or quality of their sound equipments. Even the single person out of the 580 who seems to have been able to distinguish the two sound samples have spent 2 hours (!) on comparing the two sound segments – mind you, in an ideal environment with no external disturbances, which does not come even close to being able to make distinctions in a milonga environment we are talking about. (Not to mention that the source masters for the used sound samples are themselves incomparable in quality to the tango transfers that are available from any of the sources.)
But if you are still not convinced, why don’t you try to test yourself? Here is an online test for you:
http://abx.digitalfeed.net
For instance here are the results of one study conducted with the participation of 580 people about their ability to discern 256 kbps lossy vs lossless formats:
This is just so sad. I was vaguely hoping for a refereed journal study, although I’m not even all that confident in those as, as I already mentioned, you need an expert to interpret those and I am not one. But I have enough expertise to know that when I read “The test was available online for almost a year” … enough said. Science requires that the hypothesis makes prima facie sense. The hypothesis in this study makes zero sense. At no point has anyone claimed that lossless formats can be discriminated by the average Joe under any conditions. The claim is that lossless makes a difference under some specific conditions. So you need a hypothesis and a study that takes these conditions into account. As far as I can tell this study does not control any of those conditions. The conditions would be something as follows:
1. Golden Era tango music: Tobler’s claim is that specifically Golden Era tango music suffers severely from compression, NOT that ALL music suffers equally under all conditions from compression. If you read his blog, he points out that they initially thought that AAC format would work OK for tango music but they subsequently discovered that these restorations do not sound good in this format. It’s a very specific claim and I have spent many hours checking this because I already purchased hundreds of tracks in the AAC format, to the point where I re-purchased hundreds of tracks that I originally got in AAC format which took me additional hundreds of hours to do. I guess in your world I’m just an idiot who wastes time and money.
2. A sound system that is up to the task, that is, suitable player software such as Audirvana Plus, USB DAC model that is recognised for this sort of thing, eg., DragonFly is a basic model that would be adequate, and an amp/speaker setup that is recognised as adequate, eg., PA systems, earphones or cheap headphones, most bass-heavy bluetooth speakers, would not be acceptable because tango music requires a strong mid-range and only studio monitor speakers are really up to that.
3. Subjects who are familiar with the specific music and general features of what music is supposed to sound like. Listening is genre specific: you don’t listen to jazz the same as you listen to classical music. Now, I listened to the clips in the test and I think that I can tell the difference on my system, eg., the bass in the jazz clip sounds different to me. I agree that with these pieces of music it’s not easy to pinpoint exactly what the difference is but I have a general image of what MP3s sound like and they have a specific sound, typically in the bass and high end definition. I would not want to listen to these MP3s. But in my case these are subjective judgements and also if you’re used to MP3s or you don’t have a sound system that can reproduce these differences it might not appear to bother you.
But in comparing formats or equipment such as DAC or speaker, I use tracks that I know really well and that have specific features, eg., where the violin, the piano or the bandoneon stands out in a specific way that has a specific aesthetic effect. So when choosing speakers I would use the same laptop / player / DAC / tracks; when comparing formats I would use the same laptop / player / DAC / speaker. You see how that goes: you need to control all the variables except the variable that you want to test. This is a completely different scenario then what is presented in this online study, which merely tells us that normal people can’t tell the difference on their sound systems listening to this music. So what?
As Don Xello points out on the other blog, people are used to ‘clean’ sound and that’s all they really look for in trying to tell the difference. They don’t know how to discern certain nuances that are specific to the genre. But as I said in my reply to Chris, you’re confusing the ability to tell the difference and the fact that it actually makes a difference. There is a reason we listen to classical music in concert halls and not shopping malls. Those differences are multiplied when you play the music in a larger venue and then try to manipulate the music what you find is that, apart from everything else, the loss of dynamics in compressed formats, which means the music loses energy and depth and you get the sort bland of ‘wall of sound’ effect, leads pretty much uniformly all DJs to turn up the volume and then the listening fatigue and noise is multiplied to the point where, in my case, I just leave the venue.
If you study psychology you would understand that there are many things that make a difference at a non-conscious level, ie., people don’t know that it makes a difference. Example: the layout of stores is designed to make you buy more, but the normal person would not be aware of this, yet it influences them, right? It is not the business of tango dancers but of DJs to know what is acceptable sound. My motto is: “Once you go FLAC you don’t go back”, because once you get used to listening to FLAC files on a good sound system you can then tell when it’s not FLAC … which is why audiophiles listen to FLAC files and buy software that plays them.
This is why I don’t ask normal people about this issue, because they wouldn’t know, it’s too complicated, and should be discussed by professionals who will look at your study and laugh. It’s a long process of training to be able to tell what is or is not good sound, and this is what we should pay DJs to do. It’s ridiculous to ask ordinary people to discern these differences. Unfortunately, it seems that it is these ordinary people who decide that organising and DJ-ing tango would be a good hobby business and so that’s what we end up with.
gyb: But if you are still not convinced, why don’t you try to test yourself? Here is an online test for you:
http://abx.digitalfeed.net
Did this test and couldn’t tell the difference. However, the test is completely useless because the music samples are tracks that are already compressed, ie., in the mastering phase they compress the music to sound good in MP3 format. That’s why people think that contemporary tango music sounds so much better. What they mean by ‘better sound’ however is a very specific thing, namely, the sort of sanitised sound that you get from contemporary recordings that lack any nuance. This music sounds nothing like acoustic or live music at all. It’s completely artificial without feeling or nuance. The country music sample, for example, I tried to hear the double bass or the banjo guitar but it has no character of an actual instrument, because they run these tracks through filters and compressors that sanitize everything and make sound good in most formats and most devices. But you get this sort of ‘wall of sound’ effect where everything is loud and there is no dynamics. Golden Era music, and good classical music, is exactly the opposite of that and the reason to listen to that instead of the products of pop music industry. But by playing MP3s and modern tango music we are just regressing to the same sanitised stuff. If you want a rock record that would give you more nuance than Hotel California (why would you want to listen to lossless version of that??) you’d use something like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon master recording release, and then I’d be very surprised if you’d get no difference, I mean my head would be literally spinning.
Re: DJ Polaco:
Again, why don’t you test yourself, and see whether you yourself can spot any difference? Here is a readily available test that meets your three concerns: choose a Golden Age recording you are familiar with, take your FLAC file, and using a halfway decent MP3 encoder (i.e. Wavepad) save it as a 320 kbps MP3 (controlling for volume, of course). Then line up 50x the FLAC and 50x the MP3 version in your favored playing software’s playlist. Randomize the playlist (if the software has no such option, ask someone to do this for you by dragging the pieces around). Then, using your best audio setup, listen to the songs in the playlist one by one, and write on a piece of paper whether you think you heard the FLAC or the MP3 version. When you are done, compare what you have on the paper with the real order in the playlist. (Instead of full songs you may want to use 10-15 sec segments to speed things up.)
I submit that you won’t do better than chance: you won’t be able to get more, say, than 70 out of the 100 trials right.
After you do the test and realize that you hear no difference, we may continue pondering esoteric topics such as you not being able to hear the difference but it still having some unconscious effect on you.
(“this online study, which merely tells us that normal people can’t tell the difference on their sound systems listening to this music.”
Nota bene if you already conceded that normal people can’t hear the difference even in their home environment my point about FLAC vs 320 kbps MP3 already stands with respect to DJing in the milonga environment. Re: normal people, it was also made explicit by the author that the ability to hear the difference is NOT correlated with youth, musical training, and quality of equipment, but I already mentioned this.)
(Re DJ Polaco: I wrote the previous comment before seeing that you did the first test; doing the test I just proposed should take away the rest of your caveats, although your confidence that the mentioned factors will make any difference, despite you failing the test which uses much better quality music, baffles me. Your faith is strong, man.)
Again, why don’t you test yourself, and see whether you yourself can spot any difference? Here is a readily available test that meets your three concerns: choose a Golden Age recording you are familiar with, take your FLAC file, and using a halfway decent MP3 encoder (i.e. Wavepad) save it as a 320 kbps MP3 (controlling for volume, of course). Then line up 50x the FLAC and 50x the MP3 version in your favored playing software’s playlist. Randomize the playlist (if the software has no such option, ask someone to do this for you by dragging the pieces around). Then, using your best audio setup, listen to the songs in the playlist one by one, and write on a piece of paper whether you think you heard the FLAC or the MP3 version. When you are done, compare what you have on the paper with the real order in the playlist. (Instead of full songs you may want to use 10-15 sec segments to speed things up.)
First, lets say that I do this and can tell the difference. You can still claim that nonetheless the average person can’t tell the difference. If on the other hand I don’t 100% I can still claim that my hearing discrimination is not good enough and I have to train my ears better. Or I can claim that it doesn’t really matter because I can still claim that the test does not mean anything for the following reasons:
1. The argument that mp3s are as good as CDs has been made since the beginning of mp3s. I spotted the difference (what you may hold is merely subjectve) from the outset and burned all my CDs in .wav. Yet this hasn’t stopped a lot of people who care about music more than the average person to get their music in .flac format. So all these people are by the standard of this test (as the only ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ standard) are irrational.
2. I have a major in psychology which is basically a major in experimental design for discrimination tasks like this. I have never read anywhere that a difference you cannot tell or consciously perceive is thereby not a real difference. That’s a confusion of reasoning. For example, original discrimination studies used skin pricks to tell the point were the subject could not tell different spots on the skin. On your reasoning, when the subject perceived two spots as being the same they there ipso facto the same. But we have other ‘objective’ standards to tell that they are different, and all we have shown is the subject’s threshold of discrimination.
3. On your argument, to say that what we cannot discriminate isn’t there is ‘esoteric’. This is the standard argument for mp3s: “The range of human hearing is generally considered to be 20 Hz to 20 kHz”, and those who argue that high fidelity music files are a waste of space point to this. The problem with this argument is that we are not computers or robots but rather biological organisms, and how we respond to sound is very complex. You can call this ‘esoteric’ if you want but I can equally label your position ‘reductive’. My position is not anti-scientific, it’s just not reductive like yours. If you want to simplify you can simplify. On that reasoning eating your nutrients in pill form is equivalent to eating biologically organic food and to deny that is ‘esoteric’.
4. The online study is specific to the type of music and online streaming. So it does not apply to different music and different setup.
5. if you already conceded that normal people can’t hear the difference even in their home environment my point about FLAC vs 320 kbps MP3 already stands with respect to DJing in the milonga environment.
I fail to see your logic here. First, in their “home environment” does not help because (a) the music comes from some sort of a streaming service and is reproduced via some inferior setup like no DAC, bluetooth speakers or cheap headphones, so contrary to your assumption, that will actually make it more difficult to hear any difference; and (b) in a milonga environment the small differences are actually exaggerated because you have the music amplified and pumped through large speakers; and finally (c) the problems are greater for Golden Era tango music. The last two points are made by Christian Tobler.
6. After you do the test and realize that you hear no difference, we may continue pondering esoteric topics such as you not being able to hear the difference but it still having some unconscious effect on you.
But I do hear the difference. On your argument, when we decide that we like one sort of apple over another, or anything else, we should conduct a blind test because we’re probably subject to confirmation bias. You are committing a fallacy of extending a very specific issue, ie., MP3s vs. FLAC for contemporary, heaviluy mastered music streamed online, to just about everything in life. Moreover, you simply state without any argument that contemporary music is “much better”.
But I already stated that it is NOT “much better” because it does not sound like real music. Tell me this: when was the last time that you heard a musical performance without any electrical amplification in an acoustically well-designed space, because my bet is that you only ever listen to electronic and contemporary recorded or amplified music, and so that sounds “much better” to you given your preferences, which are completely at odds with Golden Era tango music.
7. Finally, the fundamental fallacy of your argument is best exemplified by the fact that you want me to compare FLAC to 320kbps MP3. Following your logic I can equally then argue that you should take the following test: line up two tracks, one 320kbps, and another 256kbps and then see if you can tell the difference. Then, if you find that you cannot, you must then draw the conclusion that you don’t need 320kbps. I would then invite you to compare 256kbps and 124kbps, and so on ad infinitum. If on the other hand, you find that yuo can hear the difference, I can then conduct an online poll that shows that most people cannot hear a difference and ergo, we can use 128kbps files at milongas, although we can show through this line of reasoning that 64kbps would do just as well, and so on ad infinitum.
This is called the reductio ad absurdum of your argument.
re: DJ Polaco – I made testing between 256 kbps lossy and FLAC lossless easier for you (or for anyone who is interested), it takes only 7 minutes. The basis for comparison is a 20 second segment from Aníbal Troilo’s “Te aconsejo que me olvides” (1941, singer: Francisco Fiorentino); this should qualify as a familiar Golden Age recording. The chosen segment has all the instruments as well as vocals. I used the transfer from TangoTunes.com (available in their “Golden Ear Edition”, so it should be of their highest quality). To create the test file I cut out a 20 sec segment from the original TangoTunes FLAC file, saved it both in uncompressed FLAC and in 256 kbps AAC formats, reopened the files, created a new file with 10x the FLAC and 10x the AAC versions in it in some order, and saved it as a FLAC. (I used 256 kbps lossy instead of the better quality 320 kbps lossy to make the results more compatible with the study I referred to above.)
(The correct order could be of course easily guessed by wavefront analysis but I trust you will use your ears. For fun I also created a difference file to show that there is indeed a coding difference in the FLAC and the AAC encodings – indeed the song itself could be easily recognized from the difference file itself! My claim is that even though there is a coding difference, this coding difference does not lead to an audible difference between the FLAC and the AAC encodings under the test circumstances.)
Here you can download the .zip archive:
https://archive.org/details/lossy_vs_lossless_test_troilo_te_aconsejo_que_me_olvides
The .zip archive contains three files: the test file (~7 minutes, from 20 x 20 secs), a difference file (20 sec), and a password protected zip file with the solution for the correct order of the FLAC and AAC encoded segments.
So your task is to guess the correct order of FLAC and AAC segments by listening to the test file. Use your best audio setup. Post your guess as a comment here, then I’ll tell what the correct solution is (the password for the solution file).
If you get 18/20 or more right that would make it likely that you are performing better in spotting the difference than random chance. Otherwise I expect you will concede that you were wrong and that you stop baselessly berating DJs who do not play directly from FLAC formats.
“For myself I can proudly say that I just received the Quality Music Badge from TangoTunes for purchasing all my music in the highest quality lossless format”
I suspect it’s no coincidence that the few DJs on _the official list of Gullibility Badge recipients_ that I’ve heard are ones I hope never to hear again.
The audio quality of the TangoTunes tracks I’ve bought is dire. E.g. compare a regular CD release with a TangoTunes so-called “Golden Ear” release _here_.
I wrote: “The audio quality of the TangoTunes tracks I’ve bought is dire. E.g. ompare a regular CD release with a TangoTunes so-called “Golden Ear” release”
Oops, that audio comparison link doesn’t work. Trying again
_here_.
Yes, thanks Chris! The discussion below the blog post you linked nicely reinforces my point in response to gyb above: professionals trying to reason with plebs: a lost cause, exercise in futility, waste of precious energy, …
Sadly, it is the latter that seem to have the greater influence due to ‘democracy of the market’. I can only imagine what Apple products would be like if Steve Jobs conducted polls. Once again, more proof that we need to create a brand and stop listening to the uninformed masses.
I think that what TangoTunes and the guys at Tango DJs For Good Sound are doing is absolutely the correct approach, and I think that TangoVoice should follow their lead in advocating with me that a similar sort of Quality Assurance system be created for other aspects of tango teaching and event organisation along the lines suggested on this blog.
Such a system should require minimal use of studio lessons, maximal use of some sort of interactive pedagogy and video, adherence to codigos, and all the other things we’ve been talking about here, but most importantly of all, if we care about Golden Era music, it cannot be merely music selection but just as importantly, the quality of sound reproduction, including the source file, the DJ setup and the room acoustics.
Since I do not enter into futile arguments with ignorant plebs incapable of basic conceptual thought, I write this for the information of those who are willing to listen and have the intelligence to understand some simple concepts: the sound engineer at a concert hall, nor the sound designer of the concert hall itself, does not conduct a poll of the audience to determine the correct sound design.
Although, and I ask myself why I need to point this out, the audience are not in position to tell the difference, that does not mean that it does not make a difference, otherwise we’d be listening to classical concerts in shopping malls and not specially designed concert venues. Room acoustics and sound engineering are scientific disciplines and presumably we do not expect physicists nor say construction engineers to decide their theories and models based on polls.
Finally, the typical dance studio nor night club is not equipped for quality sound reproduction. These venues are designed primarily with pop and electronic music in mind. There is very little relationship between ‘produced’ music, ie., music which is computer generated, bass-heavy, and undergoes a lot of mastering to make is sound good on any cheap device or PA system, and audiophile classical recordings, including Golden Era tango recordings which belong to the second category.
You need a completely different approach for the latter, and you also need to learn to listen differently, so I expect that people say that they prefer MP3s and CDs because that’s what they’re used to. So that poses an interesting question: what people listened to during and shortly after the Golden Era was audiophile quality sound. What people are used to now is heavily compressed, bass-heavy, electronic sound. In other words, in the following snide response on the blog post linked to …
“I have no idea with which audio equipment you are listening.”
I call them “ears”.
Felicity demonstrates common misconception among the MP3-listening masses that our ‘ears’ are unchangeable and not subject to training. Yet she’s talking to Christian Tobler whose basic point on his blog, that he repeads ad nauseam, is that as a Tango DJ you have to spend the majority of your time on training your ears. I feel truly sorry that this guy, who I believe has contributed more than anyone to progressing tango DJ-ing, has to suffer this sort of thing.
I admit that trying to give a reason to an MP3-listener why he should listen to high fidelity sound is no different than trying to explain to a junk food afficionado why he should really eat fresh home made meals. They will tell you that they like it that that they don’t notice any deterioration in their health. People don’t notice things if they are used to it. But apart from the lower aesthetic experience, compressed and noisy music causes something called listening fatigue.
What I would suggest as a starting point for people is attending a few classical music concerts in a good concert hall to get a basic idea of how good sound quality makes you feel. I prefer chamber music because I can hear every instrument and I’m close to them, and I tango orchestras are smaller ensembles. It is only once you learn to hear how different instruments are supposed to sound like (piano, violin, bass, etc.) that you can evaluate the quality of recordings and reproduction equipment, ie., then you will have better ears.
Comments on tango music fidelity have digressed sufficiently from the topic of this post and will no longer be published.
Agreed. Thanks for the initial post.
I have maintained all along that for tango to progress beyond the mass marketing of the Argentine state and the individual teachers and organisers so that people become more informed consumers of tango product whose reputation is currently on the level of Chinese fakes what you need is an open, moderated forum. I don’t mind the push and pull of the conversation here and TVs moderating, but obviously this blog is not the appropriate mode of doing it. I agree with TV about some things and not others and so does everyone else. Uninformed consumers of tango product ought to have access to the views of more experienced discussants, and really, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. Tango suffers from ‘quietism’, and sloganeering and unchallenged partisan opinion is considered information, and so here we are.
Tango-L, despite its shortcomings, was a good general forum for discussion of differing views on tango, but it died almost a decade ago. Now tango discussion is dispersed among numerous blogs and Facebook pages, many of which are mainly advertising for some tango enterprise. So, yes, most tango dancers are exposed to misinformation or a lack of information about tango, its cultural heritage, and the value of getting to know that heritage and preserving it.
I engaged in some discussion forums in the early 2000s but there were two things about those.
First, while I felt from the outset that tango is being taken over by a particular set of people and taken in a direction I didn’t like, at that time we had relatively little access to knowledge for the following reasons: (a) most outsiders like myself were still relatively new to tango and have not had enough experience to understand the nature and scope of the issues to really confront the problems; (b) it was Web 1.0 which was very limited and basically allowed the unscrupulous organiser-operators to dominate online as they do off-line; and (c) the general amount of information about tango in the form of text and video (other than brute force marketing) was virtually non-existent.
Second, it is relatively clear to me that a discussion forum about tango in general is too broad a category because people with other agendas will dominate, so that while you don’t want to narrow it down excessively, what is needed is a forum that is specifically dedicated to ‘traditional tango’, or something of that nature. Ten years ago it was still relatively unclear what the issues are, but as I said, now there are people who have enough experience outside of Argentina to have some relatively good idea what is the range of issues that need to be addressed, such as, that Tango Nuevo and Traditional Tango cannot possibly co-exist in the same space, and so on and so forth.
So the difference is that (a) a general tango forum what be too broad and for our purposes it would have to be defined more narrowly in terms of goals; and (b) the time that has elapsed since the development of globalised tango, and the availability of online information other than brute force marketing, both make a huge difference in terms of the pool of knowlege and experience that we have access to. So instead of looking backward in time to an era that I would call the ‘dark ages’ I would suggest looking ahead and developing new projects.
Tango Voice focuses on Traditional Tango and its place in the tango landscape. Many differing views are represented in Comments, but the purpose of this blog is to broadcast through the media congestion caused by Evolutionary Tango. To some degree, this blog or any forum that focuses on Traditional Tango will primarily reinforce the tango worldview of Tango Traditionalists, which is a good thing, as followers of Traditional Tango are often swayed by the overwhelming propaganda promulgated by Tango Evolutionists, but its impact on those enticed by Evolutionary Tango is limited to some of those so influenced who take the time to read this blog.
A forum that allows free expression of ideas regarding ‘tango’ (as did Tango-L) could have an audience with a diversity of views, and these views could compete in the arena of public opinion. Given cultural biases and economic interests, Traditional Tango perspectives would represent a minority of opinions, but the values and strength of ideas of Traditional Tango could result in a reapportionment of views held by tango dancers. At this point in time, most tango dancers worldwide do not have an educated view of Traditional Tango, so an open tango forum could benefit Traditional Tango. The only such forum that appears to exist today (that is free of commercial advertising) is Dance Forum: Tango Argentino (https://www.dance-forums.com/forums/tango-argentino.9/), which is imbedded within a larger, mostly ballroom dance platform, and does not appear to have the widespread readership that Tango-L did.
TV wrote: Tango Voice focuses on Traditional Tango and its place in the tango landscape. Many differing views are represented in Comments, but the purpose of this blog is to broadcast through the media congestion caused by Evolutionary Tango. To some degree, this blog or any forum that focuses on Traditional Tango will primarily reinforce the tango worldview of Tango Traditionalists, which is a good thing, as followers of Traditional Tango are often swayed by the overwhelming propaganda promulgated by Tango Evolutionists, but its impact on those enticed by Evolutionary Tango is limited to some of those so influenced who take the time to read this blog.
and earlier he wrote re: branding:
Terminology is important here. Creation of a Tango-Brand is a marketing strategy. ‘Salon Style Tango’, ‘Milonguero Style Tango’, ‘Tango Nuevo’, ‘Villa Urquiza Style Tango’ are all Tango-Brand names that have been developed to identify a product competing in the tango marketplace. While deriving income from promoting tango is not inherently destructive to tango culture, a goal of maximizing market share often is because it caters to consumer demand (based on local cultural proclivities), giving it primacy over maintaining cultural integrity.
Milongueros were not entrepreneurs, they were practitioners of tango culture. This is how tango was in Buenos Aires during the Golden Age. Tango was part of the daily lives of the populace, a source for recreational activity (among other things). Today tango has become mostly a business (even in Buenos Aires).
I’m starting to penetrate the layers of confusion underlying TangoVoice’s position which does not benefit Traditional Tango but only succeeds in maintaining the tourism paradigm of those like jantango who provide support to this project.
The view of TangoVoice is something like the following:
The branding of tango is an economic activity by promulgators of Evolutionary Tango and as such stands in opposition to Traditional Tango which is essentially convivial culture. This is really a very ‘left’ or socialistic type of philosophy which is really an ideology that has no evidence to support it.
I would say that, to the contrary, it is very unlikely that so many great orchestras could have produced so many great recordings had it not been for the profit motive. In fact, they were quite capitalistic about it: apart from D’Arienzo’s well-known business acumen, Canaro is known for having instituted the copyright for songwriters, allowing them to earn an income. Excuse me, but aren’t things like copyright and patent law among the least socialistic of practices? Ie., the turn ideas into private property, and property is theft, right? So please tell me who in the Golden Era are the musicians who wrote music, performed and recorded it for free?
The confusion seems to be that the producers of tango are the dancers who are said to “produce tango culture”. This is some wonky economics. If I go to a nightclub, buy beer and dance to the music I am not a producer but rather a consumer. The producers are the people who make the beer, create the music, and the owners of the venue that make these things available to me. The socialistic ideology only ever makes sense if we are blind to the capitalistic logistics that deliver the product to the consumer. Socialism only produces one thing: lines for bread.
Unless it’s a open mic and me playing my guitar is a form of ‘prosumption’. Yes, sometimes people produce things for themselves, but that does not render it somehow a non-economic good. There is always a choice of either purchasing something (like a meal) or making it yourself. As we move to a more differentiated and complex society we make less and less ourselves and purchase most of the things we consume. This does not create some huge philsoophica gulf between the two modes of production, but rather is a matter of comparative advantage, economics of scale and therefore efficiency. Prior to the Golden Era playing music was probably convivial, however, by the 1930s it was quite definitely an econoic, capitalistic activity because running a tango orchestra requires economics of scale, provided by large audiences and sale of records. If dance teaching has become an economic activity this is not fundamentally a different process, just a delayed one.
So the claim “Milongueros were not entrepreneurs” is both correct and confused: milongueros are prosumers of tango. But the production part of the “prosumer” does not really mean that they produced tango culture: they produced some elements of it, but some major elements of this culture, namely, the composition, performance and recording of tango music, the venues, and the reproduction of the music, are all firmly in the ‘enterprise’ category, ie., they are mainly productive economic activities for the purpose of earning income and making profit. Therefore, the opposition that TangoVoice repeatedly makes between enterprise and culture is a false dichotomy. For example, if the codigos are ‘produced’ by the milongueros, then that’s not much different than consumers of say fashion ‘producing’ the orderly lines to the checkout. And trust me, some pre-capitalistic countries do not have lines to the check out, it’s every man for himself.
Now, I would argue that the corruption of tango music and the relegation of tango to people’s living rooms is the result of socialism in Argentina, ie., that tango developed in the era of small government, free enterprise, and prosperity, and that as the economic fortunes of that country deteriorated due to the statism of the Peron regime tango became a ‘culture’ where previously it was production and consumption.
From an economic point of view, the real problem is statism and regulation: as countries become heavily regulated it is more and more costly to do anything. For example, I cannot legally teach tango in China because my visa does not allow it. In a city like Sydney, Australia, the cost of rent of any space, and all the layers of regulation is such that unless I engage in heavy duty, brute force marketing I will be wiped out and/or burn out. Therefore, statism rewards those who have the biggest war chests for their marketing campains and who can pander to some interests of the state, hence what you find these days is large scale, mass entertainments because only these have the budgets to satisfy the state’s hunger for tax revenues.
So TangoVoice and I differ quite radically in our analysis of the economics of tango, and because of this our prescriptions are different: whereas he thinks that saving Traditional Tango requires moving away from economics, I think the exact opposite: locally the traditionalist lacks the economics of scale to counter the Argentine state-supported marketing machine of Evolutionary Tango. But in the era of globalisation and the internet, this sort of distadvantage can be counteracted via the power of the internet.
The difficulty (which is not insurmountable) is that Evolutionary Tango had a 3+ decade head start in developing its marketing product, and it is only now with Web 2.0+ (Youtube, phone apps, etc.) that Traditional Tango has the tools to resist … and yet we fail to use them. The problem is the mindset that posits a false opposition between traditionalism and economics, due to their confused economic analysis and socialistic mindset.
Portraying differences of opinion as a contrast between capitalism and socialism or between ‘left’ and ‘right’ is both unjustifiable and nonproductive, in part because these labels attribute a collection of beliefs to Tango Voice that are not stated within the blog. In any case, economic systems that are purely capitalistic or purely socialistic are rare and outside the realm of the proximate and more inclusive environments in which tango has evolved. Even in its early stages of evolution, tango musicians needed to purchase musical instruments to play music for tango dancing (capitalist activity) and today the government of Buenos Aires financially supports tango activities (socialist activity). Throughout its evolution in Argentina, musicians played for payment, dance space was rented, musical recording required capital investment, etc. However, prior to the globalization of tango, the manner/style of dancing and social customs associated with social dancing were not sold and subject to profit (at least not to any significant degree within Argentina). What has happened in recent decades is a massive acceleration in the commercialization of tango, the selling of tango as a product with a brand name (e.g., Tango Nuevo, Tango Estilo Villa Urquiza, Tango Estilo Milonguero), something that was rare (if not nonexistent) prior to the globalization of tango. In its directed response to market forces, this commercialization has promoted changes in tango music and dancing that has caused the erosion of tango cultural practices that were the result of Argentine cultural influences that created the Traditional Tango identify. In claiming that “tango belongs to the world” Tango Evolutionists have replaced Argentine characteristics of tango with foreign (mostly First World) cultural practices that have resulted in tango losing much of its unique Argentine character.
To be clear, the primary focus in this blog is the cultural battle between Argentine and (primarily) First World influences on tango. Forces of capitalism have played a significant role in destroying the Argentine character of tango, but nowhere in this blog is it argued that socialism is a redeeming force for tango culture, nor it is argued that all profit seeking activities are the enemy of Traditional Tango.
The song for the Nestor La Vitola – Veronica Olivera dance video (for which you wrote that it’s song is “Canaro [unidentified]”) is Invierno (1937) from the orchestra of Francisco Canaro with the singer Roberto Maida.
Thank you very much.
It’s been more than a few years since I last saw Cacho Dante teaching in Buenos Aires. He’s retired and living in Mar del Plata. I found nothing about classes from a goggle search. Roman Rodolfo “Rolo” Tomas and Ariel Romero are two more milongueros living in Mar del Plata.
Not only are there very few milongueros viejos going to the milongas, but the milongas are also facing extinction. Their number has gone from 137 in 2000 to 75 in 2017. If anyone is interested in seeing the real tango by the men who still dance, don’t postpone your trip to Buenos Aires any longer. Within five to ten years, they’ll all be gone.
Where to find them? — Lo de Celia (Sunday), Obelisco Tango (every day), El Beso (Tuesday and Thursday), and Salon Canning (Sunday).
Thank you for this information.
tangovoice wrote: “A forum that allows free expression of ideas regarding ‘tango’ (as did Tango-L)”
For the record, the Tango-L forum most certainly did not allow free expression of ideas. The operator Shahrukh Merchant was well-known for berating and banning commenters for breaching of unstated rules of his own ad-hoc creation, particularly on opinions unflattering to named high-profile commercial tango dance instructors. The effective death of Tango-L rapidly followed a 2009 occasion on which the operator banned almost all the regular posters.
Nevertheless, in the late 1990s and early 200os, there was a diversity of opinion in discussion on Tango-L. There were some abusive individuals who made ad hominem attacks and were disruptive forces and some of these were banned.
Any specific information on the 2009 ban, if available, would be appreciated.
“a diversity of opinion” is very different from what you claimed.
Also false is your claim that Dance Forum allows a free expression of ideas. And whereas Tango-L’s censor takes responsibility for his actions by being open about his identity, Dance Forums’ censors hide behind assumed names.
If all you see of a forum is the posts that the forum’s moderators have allowed you to see, you might be able to judge there’s a diversity of opinion, but you can’t judge there’s a free expression of ideas without seeing posts that have been censored.
TV said: To be clear, the primary focus in this blog is the cultural battle between Argentine and (primarily) First World influences on tango. Forces of capitalism have played a significant role in destroying the Argentine character of tango, but nowhere in this blog is it argued that socialism is a redeeming force for tango culture, nor it is argued that all profit seeking activities are the enemy of Traditional Tango.
Right, you have a particular filter or interpretation of the situation, and this is the primary point of contention.
First, my point was not that you think that socialism is ‘redeeming’, but that the false dichotomy that you implicitly make between ‘culture’ on the one hand, and ‘capitalism’ is typical of socialist ideology and not based in any fact.
Second, your ethnocentric view that the First World is negatively influencing tango this or that way is also empirically unfounded and based on pure ideology. The tango product that you dislike is the product of Argentina, not the First World, more specifically, it is the manufacturing of culture for the purposes of export and, more significantly, tourism. Tourists no more create tourist product than iPhone users produce iPhones or French wine drinkers produce French wine. Some products will necessariy be ‘niche’ and to supply these niche markets for ‘authentic’ cultural products you don’t need less capitalism, you need more, ie., you need economic freedom.
Third, my point is that it is the forces of socialism which have impoverished Argentina to the point where it has to pimp out its culture in this way, more specifically The Argentine state must find new creative ways to fund its deficits. In fact, it is arguable that tango was already distroyed in 1950 (see Economic History of Argentinawith the arrival of one Juan Peron who decided to turn the country into a statist utopia. I admit that wealth is a curse for all Western countries with rempant statism and declining freedom in the so-called First World (see Public Spending. The fact that we are relegated to consume depleted tango export product is not a sign of capitalism and freedom, but of statism and taxes funding a state indoctrinated ‘middle class’. The state only likes culture it can control and tax.
Fourth, the anti-marketing rhetoric of this blog is wrongheaded and confused, and the way in which TV uses the word ‘capitalism’ suggests to me a confused leftist ideology. In particular, it only makes sense if ‘capitalism’ means ‘corporatism’ which is not free entreprise at all, but rather statist capitalism.
Because TV consistently makes this conflation, it is impossible to have an intelligent conversation. I say ‘marketing’ or ‘branding’ and TV hears ‘capitalism’. Marketing and branding done by purveyors of Evolutionary Tango is state sponsored and so a product not of the free market but of corporatism, ok? When I speak of marketing and branding I am talking about engaging in free enterprise, which is precisely what people like Canaro and all the Golden Era tango orchestras engaged in. Please stop conflating these two forms of ‘capitalism’ which, apart from having the same word to denote them have nothing to do with each other. The state engages in marketing and branding, when it calls state indoctrination ‘public education’, and when the state bails out companies that are ‘too bit to fail’ that is not the ‘free market’, ok?
So, Evolutionary Tango is ‘capitalism’ in the sense of ‘corporatism’ and not if we mean the ‘free market’ (free from regulation, taxes, inflated rent, etc.). It is the product of socialism/corporatism in that it is actively promoted by the Argentine State in numerous ways. Therefore, it is also not the product of the First World, but of the Argentine State. I agree that the First World contributes to the depletion of culture because both Argentina and the First World suffer from state sponsored mass indoctrination in the form of so-called ‘public’ schooling which has the effect of destroying all culture and replacing it with a giant tax farm.
One more point. You may respond to me by saying that you’re not against capitalism or the free market, but still insist that marketing inherently depletes tango culture because tango is a ‘free good’ commonly owned by Argentines, and as such it cannot be privatized, packaged and marketed. In other words, in Argentina it is a culture and as such it is a ‘commons’, and this is incompatible with attempts at marketing and branding without somehow depleting or corrupting it. To my mind this is again an inherently leftist perspective which I grant is not inherently statist. In that sense it is left libertarian or left anarchist. So you might be as critical of Argentine statism as I am (I’m not saying you are but for the sake of the argument), and still maintain that tango is not private property to be marketed because it was created and is owned by the community as a ‘commons’.
The right libertarian/anarchist response to this is to point to the tragedy of the commons, ie., the idea that when a good is owned collectively it risks being expoited and depleted. This is in fact what seems to be happening to Argentine tango: a public or common good is privatised (in my view with the help of the Argentine state, in your view by First World marketers). Now I sort of agree with your ‘localist’ position in that I do believe that ‘global’ marketing risks being authoritarian and detrimental, but on the other hand, the reality of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ is that local teachers and organisers lack access to the economics of scale to counteract Evolutinary Tango marketing, which is why I predict that your approach will not work.
My proposal does meet your approach half way in that, while you are proposing that a local organiser should distance themselves from the mainstream tango community, my proposal is to build an online community that is separate from the mainstream tango marketing. I believe we can maintain the ‘commons’ aspect of traditional tango while building in the incentives inherent in private property rights. Without the latter, what happened with tango milonguero in your area, where people abandon the project, will continue to happen. Because I’ve seen this happening for years, and there’s no reason why it won’t continue to happen if you don’t change the incentives.
So what we are seeing is the emergence of a ‘sharing economy’ in which online platforms allow local owners of some assets to ‘share’ them for a fee: Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, BlaBlaCar, etc. These platforms radically change the dynamics whereby, previously if you had an asset you could not make if available: only licenced taxi drivers could earn money from rides, and only hotels could provide accommodation, say. The platform provides a vehicle for people to offer their services, and the users of these services give each other rating and review, thus building trust and reputation. The platform does not represent any particular owner or user, but takes a fee for using the site to connect owners and users. It incentivises people to provide truthful description of their service or product, and to provide better value. I honestly do not see why such an app would not work for traditional tango, and if I could raise the funding I would build it myself.
“My proposal does meet your approach half way in that, while you are proposing that a local organiser should distance themselves from the mainstream tango community, my proposal is to build an online community that is separate from the mainstream tango marketing. I believe we can maintain the ‘commons’ aspect of traditional tango while building in the incentives inherent in private property rights. Without the latter, what happened with tango milonguero in your area, where people abandon the project, will continue to happen. Because I’ve seen this happening for years, and there’s no reason why it won’t continue to happen if you don’t change the incentives.”
This comment makes more sense. Establishing a Traditional Tango community requires some ingenuity. Separation from the mainstream Evolutionary Tango community is most likely necessary because of the effects of contamination. There are several ways to do this and what matters is the result, not necessarily the method. One option mentioned previously is to establish a tango club that reinforces the cultural values of Traditional Tango [Factors Affecting the Survival of Argentine Tango Cultural Traditions in Non-supportive First World Cultural Environments (The Dominance of Tango Extranjero)]. Whether such a subcommunity operates completely as a non-profit enterprise or whether payments are made to instructors, DJs, or milonga organizers is not particularly important (except that a profit motive is more likely to lead to infiltration by the more financially lucrative Evolutionary Tango, which has occurred in numerous North American tango communities); what is important is the commitment to Traditional Tango cultural values (thus, a contrast along the cultural dimension, not the capitalism – socialism dimension) [Strategies for Tango Community Development: Profit and Non-Profit Models and the Perspective of Maintaining the Cultural Integrity of Tango]. Appropriate advertising of tango activities to emphasize the Traditional (Argentine) Tango cultural identity to differentiate it from the Evolutionary Tango (Cosmotango) identity is also important [Creating a Tango-Brand: The Role of Language in the Marginalization of Argentine Tango]. Encuentros milongueros at the regional level may assist in supporting local communities by providing a cultural identity at a more inclusive level.
TV said Whether such a subcommunity operates completely as a non-profit enterprise or whether payments are made to instructors, DJs, or milonga organizers is not particularly important (except that a profit motive is more likely to lead to infiltration by the more financially lucrative Evolutionary Tango, which has occurred in numerous North American tango communities); what is important is the commitment to Traditional Tango cultural values (thus, a contrast along the cultural dimension, not the capitalism – socialism dimension)
Such a subcommunity will not operate for the economic reasons I have outlined. You may want to ignore the economics and the wider social context if you wish, and narrow down the discussion to a few variables, labelling anything else as irrelevant diatribe. But you cannot wish your desired communities into existence. But I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Lets say we keep some sort of a tally whether Traditional Tango is growing or dying, so we can have some objective measure whether your efforts are making any difference, and come back in 5 years to see who’s right, how about that? Because other than that it’s my diatribe against yours.
The role of economics definitely is not ignored in this blog (e.g., Strategies for Tango Community Development: Profit and Non-Profit Models and the Perspective of Maintaining the Cultural Integrity of Tango).
‘The wider social context’ is part of the cultural milieu of tango communities, which is a major focus of this blog [e.g., Factors Affecting the Survival of Argentine Tango Cultural Traditions in Non-supportive First World Cultural Environments (The Dominance of Tango Extranjero)].
TV said Tango Evolutionists have replaced Argentine characteristics of tango with foreign (mostly First World) cultural practices that have resulted in tango losing much of its unique Argentine character.
To be clear, the primary focus in this blog is the cultural battle between Argentine and (primarily) First World influences on tango. Forces of capitalism have played a significant role in destroying the Argentine character of tango, but nowhere in this blog is it argued that socialism is a redeeming force for tango culture, nor it is argued that all profit seeking activities are the enemy of Traditional Tango.
The way that TV frames the debate precludes or forecloses important issues that need to be discussed and debates. In other words, if you frame the issues in this way, you have already positioned yourself towards certain conclusions without having to provide evidece.
Question: “Just how uniquely Argentine is tango?”
I submit that this is an empirical issue, and not one to be either prejudged without evidence as some transcendental self-evident Truth. The idea here appears to be that there is a ‘cultural foundation’ that is like ‘the earth’ or something.
Lets get real ladies and gentlemen. Tango did not emerge out of nothing. It was created by real people with real interests who had some prior knowledge and skills, in particular: knowledge and skills related to music and dancing. The musicians had some prior knowledge of music genres and techniques, and partner dancing was also not non-existent.
Just how uniquely Argentine is tango?
Fact: In 1895, immigrants accounted for 52% of the population of Buenos Aires (Wikipedia). Argentina had the largest number of immigrants (6 million) after the US at that time. In other words, the population of Buenos Aires at that time was only half locals. I assume that’s very different now.
So tango might be identified with Argentine culture now, but that is different than saying that tango itself is uniquely Argentine. There seems to be a logical/conceptual confusion here. Just because Argentines identify with tango does not mean that tango is uniquely or inherently Argentine, any more than the English language is uniquely or inherently English. English language has antecedents (eg., German and Latin) and is now the mother tongue in a variety of different countries. Point: there is no simple one-to-one identification of culture and locality or group of people.
My claim is that Evolutionary Tango is bad not because it does not have an Argentine character, but because it’s simply bad dancing and bad music (choice and reproduction). I agree that Argentine probably do it better, and so we shoud learn from them. But that is a very different statement.
Finally, by framing the discussion in this way and making the ‘Argentine character’ of tango a basic, uniquestionable, a priori truth, and thus foreclosing alternative position (such as that Tango is characteristically European, etc.) Tango Voice is doing something which I think are very bad: he is engaging in a sort of marketing and tourism which playis right into the hands of the Argentine tourist industry.
Thus, TV is against marketing, but what is marketing? It is a set of techniques used to sell a product. Well, such techniques include branding and social proof. By identifying Argentine Tango with Argentine culture, and then defining that through as set of ‘milongueros’ and their names, TV is engaging in a sort of marketing strategy. This is the standard sort of thing in tango, and it’s very bad.
Because we are not discussing ideas and instead we are discussing particular individuals. Generally, while ideas are identified with individuals, the ideas stand on their own. Eistein does not make his physics true, and the fact that Einstain is from a particular place of origin does not render his theories true either. But in for some reason in Tango it has become the norm to identify dancing with particular individuals without specifyng any ideas. A video is not an idea, it’s a image of some people dancing.
In this I actually agree with Bonnonno’s blog article on role models and in my comment I try to explain what ideas the milonguero culture had that is useful to us, namely, an interactive pedagogy.
By contrast, when these names dissociated from any specifiable ideas or concepts, they become a mode of branding and marketing. So I actually see TV as engaging in a marketing exercise, whether or not he is willing to admit it, and doing so precisely by the way he frames the discussion. It’s a very sneaky rhetorical strategy. I expect that TV will view ideas as what he calls ” foreign (mostly First World) cultural practices”.
I put it to him that tango is a First World cultural practice from the start, and if there are problems it has nothing to do with culture, but rather whether things are done well or badly. Doing something badly is not a cultural practice.
Tango evolved as a music and dance in Argentina and Uruguay in the latter half of the 19th century. There were indeed dance and musical influences from European and African immigrants, but the unique combination that became tango had a unique identity of its own that reflected social and economic conditions in the Rio de Plata region at that time. The customs associated with milongas (e.g., cabeceo, tandas with cortinas, etc.) developed within the porteño culture.
Contemporary Evolutionary Tango culture borrows directly from First World dance and music practices that are uncharacteristic of Traditional (Argentine) Tango (e.g., in adoption of electronic music and non-tango rhythms, in partner distancing and emphasis on exhibition in social dancing).
Marketing of tango is not opposed in this blog (Creating a Tango-Brand: The Role of Language in the Marginalization of Argentine Tango), only the kind of misrepresentative marketing of tango (i.e., Evolutionary Tango) that has become widespread worldwide.
Much of this diatribe misrepresents views expressed in this blog. Responding in detail is nonproductive, given that these misrepresentations have been repeated several times regardless of responses made. Nevertheless, a few clarifications may be helpful in informing readers of the misrepresentation and misinformation in these comments.
“First, my point was not that you think that socialism is ‘redeeming’, but that the false dichotomy that you implicitly make between ‘culture’ on the one hand, and ‘capitalism’ is typical of socialist ideology and not based in any fact.”
No dichotomy between culture and capitalism – socialism is proposed in this blog.
“Second, your ethnocentric view that the First World is negatively influencing tango this or that way is also empirically unfounded and based on pure ideology. The tango product that you dislike is the product of Argentina, not the First World, more specifically, it is the manufacturing of culture for the purposes of export and, more significantly, tourism.”
The diffusion of tango around the world, as well as much of its economic support in Argentina is financed by money spent by First World tango consumers, through sponsoring of touring instructors and by tango tourism in Argentina. Argentines are the primary actors in these enterprises, but without First World investment, most of these activities would not exist. Argentine actors are creating tango products that meet First World tango consumer demand.
“Encuentros milongueros at the regional level may assist in supporting local communities by providing a cultural identity at a more inclusive level.”
Aren’t encuentros organized by invitation only? That would make them exclusive rather than inclusive.
There are too many arguments swirling around in this thread to address them all coherently. But a couple of minor points that seem to have been overlooked:
1. I’ve never seen a local tango event advertised that wasn’t billed as “traditional” tango. This doesn’t mean that everyone participating understands (or cares) what traditional Argentine tango is. Any local milongas that include “nuevo” do so in an “alternative” room with a separate DJ.
2. I’ve never read of or met an instructor who teaches in North America who wasn’t billed as a “traditional” Argentine dancer. Most interactions with “teachers” are personality driven.
3. There is tremendous ignorance in the US tango community about the history of tango, its evolution in B.A. and around the world. I guess most dancers have an awareness of the difference between “traditional” (however that is defined) tango and “nuevo” (however that is defined) but not all of them see them as distinct. Many (most?) dancers are unaware of traditional codigos (which may vary slightly from place to place), use of the cabeceo, or floor craft, all of which are part of the traditional Argentine tango you speak of. There’s a lot of education to be done.
4. Beginning dancers assume (for the most part) that they are learning “traditional” tango and are unaware of any distinction between it and other forms of tango (ballroom tango, for example). Sometimes instructors inform them, sometimes they don’t. Few instructors take the time out to sketch the history of tango or even the codigos, and many are unaware of it themselves. Instructors generally want to get students dancing as quickly as possible. Students don’t understand why, for example, they should wait before trying to dance at a milonga.
All of these are factors that make it difficult, if not impossible, to develop any kind of coherent approach to shaping a “traditional” Argentine tango community in North America.
‘Inclusive’ in the sense used here means that Tango Traditionalists can find a larger group with similar tango values outside the local community in a larger more geographically inclusive community, i.e., in encuentros milongeros. Encuentros are indeed exclusive in one sense in that they are designed to exclude those who do not share Traditional Tango values. However, as far as can be determined, they do not exclude anyone from attending; i.e., attendance is by self selection (although individuals who do not abide by Traditional Tango customs have been observed to attend these events).
It is indeed true that most (if not nearly all) Evolutionary Tango instructors claim a respect for Traditional Tango and claim it as a foundation for their own manner of dancing and teaching. The Tango Investigation Group began this hypocrisy. This is another example of the appropriation and redefinition of tango terminology (Creating a Tango-Brand: The Role of Language in the Marginalization of Argentine Tango). However, as mentioned, they do little to teach and reinforce Traditional Tango customs (e.g., cabeceo, floorcraft), and often contradict them. For example, the embrace is presented as transitory, emphasis is placed on exploring one’s own space rather than respecting the space of others, and the boundaries of music for dancing are expanded to the point that the character and uniqueness of tango music have been obfuscated.
Nevertheless, it is the mention of Traditional Tango that (hopefully) may be indeed the Achilles’ heel of the Tango Evolutionists in that it creates an awareness (Eve’s apple) and a curiosity that is not satisfied. By teaching about the values of the embrace, Classic Tango music, floorcraft, cabeceo, etc., the Tango Traditionalists build and reinforce an coherent identity. The short-lived popularity of Tango Nuevo may be due in part to its inability to engender a sense of identity in tango dancers because of the lack of a coherent underlying value system that is based on something more than it is new and experimental. The current fad in the tango instructional world is Tango Campeonato (under the deceptive disguise of ‘Salon Tango’). This movement probably will have more persistence because it is more accessible (although Tango Milonguero, once one gets past the intimidation of the embrace, is the easiest version of tango to learn and the most satisfying, if one is open to the emotional experiences it can generate).
Yes, given all of the misinformation being circulated, it is a difficult task to create a Traditional Tango community in North American and other First World countries. However, the alternatives are to move to Buenos Aires, just live within the existing tango Towel of Babel (aka One Tango Philosophy), or just give up dancing tango (except perhaps in your home dance studio) [Factors Affecting the Survival of Argentine Tango Cultural Traditions in Non-supportive First World Cultural Environments (The Dominance of Tango Extranjero)].
(DJPolaco)
TangoVoice wrote: Yes, given all of the misinformation being circulated, it is a difficult task to create a Traditional Tango community in North American and other First World countries. However, the alternatives are to move to Buenos Aires, just live within the existing tango Towel of Babel (aka One Tango Philosophy), or just give up dancing tango (except perhaps in your home dance studio)
There is a potential inaccuracy and a depressing prognosis in this. The idea of ‘misinformation’ makes sense if we were doing science, but the reality is that we are dealing with politics on both sides and so there is no correct information vs incorrect information. The people on the Evolutionary Tango side interpret the situation as it fits them, whereas the Ethnocentrists and Tourists have their own interests at heart as they interpret the situation in a way that serves them. The only thing that might tell us which interpretation is more valid is their respective predictive success of some sort. Since ET has more teachers, events, etc. from their point of view that validates their position and by virtue of that it is in some sense true.
The problem with traditionalism is that it focuses on the past as the benchmark of truth, but that is not an absolute. It then offers us a rather depressing alternative to Evolutionism: go to Buenos Aires to learn the ‘real’ tango, and then come back and dance in your living room.
But if you look at the way that Traditionalists/Ethnocentrists talk (Chris is the most honest and upfront about this, but TangoVoice is basically the same, though he pretends not to be, or perhaps isn’t self-aware, hard to tell), no non-Argentine should be teaching tango because that would be, by definition, Evolutionary Tango and thereby misinformation.
In other words, TVs and Chris’s Traditionalism is really a political position that semantically and logically excludes. Of course they won’t say that, but even on a more ‘accepting’ and ‘open’ position the non-Argentine teacher is always in the position to gain the validity of their teaching, the stamp of approval or authenticity from Argentines like themselves, and they will always have the power of veto by saying somethin to the effect: “Oh, in Buenos Aires they do/don’t do blah blah blah”.
So if that’s your political position, you wil never have people on board with you. Because it’s not a very comfortably position for a non-Argentine teacher/organiser to be in. You’ve defined truth or information in such a way that you will always be in a position of power and decision-making, which effectively means that the people you’re trying to attract to your side have zero autonomy. You are always their final judge.
So we are faced with the rather depressing options of Evolutionary Tango on the one hand, and Ethnocentric Tango on the other. I decided that neither of these options are acceptable to me and have been looking for a third alternative. I have to acknowledge that this approach draws on my discussions here with Chris (esp. whether you can teach tango formally), TV, and Bononno.
In response to the discussion, I have looked to Steve Paxton’s ideas on whether you can teach any improvised dancing and have developed an approach based on his idea that you can teach the foundation for improvisation. For those interested in this project you can follow its progress here: 100 Argentine Tango Hacks. I believe that this forms an alternative to the two unsatisfactory alternatives being currently presented to us. The truth of any approach is whether it works in the long run. There is no ‘truth’ or ‘correct information’ other than whether it works. Knowing about the history and the tradition is only useful if it helps us today. The fundamental problem for Traditionalism is (a) the boring and disempowering Ethnocentrism; and (b) a lack of any viable teaching system that can work outside of Argentina.
“The problem with traditionalism is that it focuses on the past as the benchmark of truth, but that is not an absolute.”
A couple of things to add a bit of nuance to your statement: first, “traditional” tango is a living thing given that it has been danced almost continuously since the beginning of the last century in BA and around the world. It is not as popular as it once was in BA but it is still popular there and abroad. It is not merely a fly stuck in amber as many have implied; second, there have always been divisions, dissensions, etc., within the tango community in BA itself as to how it should be danced, but with tango “milonguero” coming out as the de facto standard. Tango is both inherently atavistic and absolutely contemporary–it may look to the past for its origins and inspiration but is danced today in communities around the world.
I’m not sure what others think but I have never believed that only Argentines (from BA?) should or can teach tango. Most of my “teachers” have been non-Argentines, for that matter, and they were all good. Most of them were better as teachers than the Argentines I studied with. And for anyone so inclined, BA is a plane ride away if you want to get a dose of the “real thing.”
And, it should be noted, that even in politics there are facts and truths, which can be ascertained. If by politics you mean an unwavering personal attitude or belief, well, true, that’s very difficult to change. However, why do we need to change people’s opinions? As TV has stated repeatedly, if you want to dance nuevo, please do, just do it at your own milonga, which is pretty much what people are doing anyway. And for those individuals who insist on introducing nuevo dancing to traditional milongas, well, eventually, they realize they’re in the wrong venue. I find none of this depressing, however. (Just annoying at times.) None of the traditional milongueros seem to be in the least concerned by the antics of Gustavo Naveira and his followers. I see no reason to be either. I don’t know what “third way” you’re looking for or feel the need to engage with, but, right now, you can embrace the old way or you can follow Naveira and Chicho and go with the nuevo crowd. Or you can dance West Coast Swing. You have choices.
Tom (DJPolaco) says:
“There is a potential inaccuracy and a depressing prognosis in this. The idea of ‘misinformation’ makes sense if we were doing science, but the reality is that we are dealing with politics on both sides and so there is no correct information vs incorrect information. The people on the Evolutionary Tango side interpret the situation as it fits them, whereas the Ethnocentrists and Tourists have their own interests at heart as they interpret the situation in a way that serves them. The only thing that might tell us which interpretation is more valid is their respective predictive success of some sort. Since ET has more teachers, events, etc. from their point of view that validates their position and by virtue of that it is in some sense true.”
The determination of cultural validity can be an objective scientific investigation devoid of politics.
Tom classifies Tango Traditionalists as ‘ethonocentrists’.
Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture (Wikipedia).
This is generally considered to be a pejorative term.
It is the Tango Evolutionists, who modify tango to adapt to foreign (non-Argentine) cultures, who are the ethnocentrists, in that they fail to understand tango in terms of the culture in which it evolved.
The idea that Evolutionary Tango has greater validity because it is more widespread than Traditional Tango has its roots in the ‘Might makes Right’ philosophy:
“The idea associated with the phrase connotes that a society’s view of right and wrong is determined, like its perspective on history, by those currently in power.”
Tom says:
“The problem with traditionalism is that it focuses on the past as the benchmark of truth, but that is not an absolute.”
The tango traditions of the past comprise most of what is practiced today in the milongas of Buenos Aires. However, the Gold Standard for modeling tango practices worldwide is the characteristic environment of the milongas of Buenos Aires as they exist today. Tango Evolutionists provide misinformation in portraying tango as something different (Tango Nuevo, Tango Escenario, or Tango Campeonato as milonga appropriate dance genres; Tango Alternative music as milonga appropriate music; ignoring the cabeceo as the standard means of dance invitation).
Note: Nowhere in Tango Voice is it stated that non-Argentines should not teach tango or that only Argentines can provide a valid representation of tango. Most Argentine tango instructors who travel worldwide today cater to local customs in order to profit from their instruction.
BonnonoI don’t know what “third way” you’re looking for or feel the need to engage with, but, right now, you can embrace the old way or you can follow Naveira and Chicho and go with the nuevo crowd.
It’s really very simple: if you’re interested in this project then follow the link. If not then just ignore it.
You consistently make statements here and on your blog yet no one knows what authority you have if any. You seem to be still learning tango and to be quite clueless about it. Yet …
Consistently the number of words you use is disproportionate to the content of what you’re saying, and furthermore …
You equally consistently refuse to engage logically with the arguemnts of the person you’re responding you, ie., you’re simply ignoring what the other person has said, ergo …
You cannot be taken seriously. You’re not interested in either the approach I propose nor the reasons I propose it … nor do you address my arguments other than to simply dismiss them on the basis of some of your personal opinions … so what’s the point of your response then? Are we interested in your opinions?
Unfortunately, Tom, you always descend into ad hominem attacks rather than address the substance of what someone is saying. It’s a characteristic of yours. And as for verbiage, please. What I said was short and to the point, so I’m not going to repeat it. It’s really not that difficult to understand.
What a pity to descend into name calling. The original post and responses are thought-through and reasoned opinions, worthy of discussion and the benefit of others’ experience. From the other side of the Pacific, I see the tsunami of “modern” Tango is sweeping away classic Tango (for the second time in 100 years). It is not “nuevo”, it is an adaptation of the performance / demonstration dance, driven by an unending deluge of entertainers doubling as teachers. Everything about it – technique, attitude, objective – is different. It is a different dance and has been so since the beginning of Tango, just as Fred & Ginger were entertainers, based loosely on a combination of social and performance dance. It may be a splinter, but it is not an “evolution” of social “salon” dancing. The other proposition that I find difficult is that “change” is necessarily positive progress. There are many examples where change has led to a dead-end, to a diminished society or to something entirely different (eg., ballroom tango). Only history will be the judge. The following disrespectful, arrogant attempt at marketing is a sad reflection on what is happening in our region, “Magdalena & German will explore with us ways to rescue the “yeites” (sic) of the old milongueros and make them relevant for our tango today”.
The determination of cultural validity can be an objective scientific investigation devoid of politics.
Yes I agree. It would be mere anthropology. And I think that much of what TangoVoice writes does fit the definition of anthropology. The problem is that TV wants to move from an “is” to an “ought” and as those who are trained in philosophy might know there is no simple logical connection between them, if any at all. Just because certain traditions exist does not make them “right” or “valid”. This is just another version of TV confusion between “value” and “values”. TangoVoice affirms certain values but does not tell us why these values should be preferred by others. That would require him to explain what value, as in economic, hedonistic, or other value they have so that people might prefer them.
Tom classifies Tango Traditionalists as ‘ethonocentrists’.
Ok, I agree that I have a perhaps an idiosyncratic use of the term. What I mean is simply the prevailing view in Argentine tango, exemplified by people like Chris, that only Argentines have a final say in tango, but it is also implicit in TVs anthroplogical approach.
This is again a logical confusion. The “Argentine” in “Argentine Tango” can be understood in many different ways: place of origin, people who practice it, the culture with which it has been loosely associated, or even just as a convenient brand to distinguish it form other forms of tango. But the unfortunate consequence is that it allows people to say that it means that it is somehow “approved” by Argentinians. On this logic, even a non-dancing Argentine has more say than a non-Argentine dancer, which is obvious non-sense.
I teach English, and some English teachers believe that they can teach English by virtue of being native English speakers. The situation is exactly parallel. First, English originates in England, and English people identify the English language as their language. But there is no correlation between English and English people, obviously. If we were, and some people do, to argue about English the way that some people argue about Argentine tango as being somehow ‘intrinsically’ Argentine, well, first of all, that would be really alienating to a lot of people who want to learn English, but are not prepared to undertake extensive studies in local English pub culture and customs in I don’t know, Oxfordshare or whereever. Nor are they particarly interested in nor capable of reading Shakespeare or Emily Bronte.
My point is that when you look at people learning something from that cultural perspective, and you don’t look at their specific interests and immediate context you’re thereby just being ethnocentric, for lack of a better word. And yes, that is a negative thing and so the word is pejorative. Because it is kind of arrogant and not particularly high-minded or sensitive to people who come from a different culture and need to decide what it is that they want from your culture.
My point is: you don’t get to decide that (and I really don’t want to get into the whole conversation about “cultural appropriation”). What you can do is to look at their situation and to try to convince them … in their own terms, not yours what value they might get from doing things a particular way. Anyting else is just you being ethnocentric, ie., just affirming the values of your own culture and thus kind of imposing them or insisting that others accept them without any good reason. Because that’s what “affirming values” is … values are based in a cultural whole that does not need a rational justification. “Insiders” don’t ask why things are done a certain way, and to aske “outsiders” to do things that way is to ask them to assimilate to your culture (here’s my article on that for further explanation) … and apart from a few tourists I say it ain’t happening.
The idea that Evolutionary Tango has greater validity because it is more widespread than Traditional Tango has its roots in the ‘Might makes Right’ philosophy.
My point is that there is no truth other than “predictive validity”, in other words, other than affirming your own cultural values as “your truth” and perhaps as “anthropological fact” that again does not determine per se what one ought to do, or why one way of doing something is better than another, prediction is the only sort of “objective fact”.
You might be correct as a matter of anthroplogical fact, but that’s a different question about what ought to happen in tango, what people should practice and learn. Evolutionary Tango people simply pick out what is true or valid in terms of prediction, ie., they predict that if we take aspects X, Y, and Z out of the cultural whole of tango, we can run tango classes and have a tango scene, whereas if we take your preferred aspects of tango P, Q, and S we won’t have any students and hence no tango events at all.
The tango traditions of the past comprise most of what is practiced today in the milongas of Buenos Aires. However, the Gold Standard for modeling tango practices worldwide is the characteristic environment of the milongas of Buenos Aires as they exist today.
Here you’re doing exactly what Bonnono is doing, namely, simply contradicting what I’m saying without any further justification. This is merely an unsubstantiated assertion, and you can talk like that to school children but please do not insult my intelligence or else I might regress to ad hominems.
Nowhere in Tango Voice is it stated that non-Argentines should not teach tango or that only Argentines can provide a valid representation of tango. Most Argentine tango instructors who travel worldwide today cater to local customs in order to profit from their instruction.
No, it’s not stated but this is the normal strategy … it’s heavily implied and basically inevitable given the way that the whole tango discourse has been constructed. So Bononno is right that there are only the two options … within the existing tango discourse. That means that you don’t have to say it. But in assuming that anthroplogy leads to some prescriptions means that at least that the primary knowledge of the tango teacher is in-depth textbook anthropology knowledge of tango in BA. Well, excuse me if I consider that to be a bit of an unreasonable barrier to teaching tango. I don’t need to know indepth the intricacies of English pub culture in order to teach English, I just need to know English and teaching.
Because of this construction of tango discourse I’m actually looking for ways to distance my preferred approach from traditional tango milonguero, because the whole brand of tango, including the traditional stuff, is going down … it’s not cool or inspiring. It’s too associated with tourism, cultural appropriation, folklore, all these boring things.
However, I still believe that in tango there is a kernel of beauty, aesthetic experience and the sublime, but when we descend to mere anthropological descriptions of the ‘folk’ and their local rituals we’re really missing the fundamental point that tango is not a mere local ritual, but rather these rituals are the last remnants of a tradition that I believe is deeply rooted in 19th century Romanticism. Now, when I tried to communicate this idea to Bonnono, who at that time I thought might be an intelligent person, he dismissed this with “you’re a bit off mark” … of course without providing reasons. So I’m rather sceptical that I’m dealing here with people capable of having bigger thoughts than mere anthropological descriptions of the folk and their customs (and sorry I’m being ad hominen, I guess I can’t help it).
“However, I still believe that in tango there is a kernel of beauty, aesthetic experience and the sublime,…”
With the above, I completely agree. However, although there is something very “romantic” about tango, I see no indication that
“these rituals are the last remnants of a tradition that I believe is deeply rooted in 19th century Romanticism.”
I mean, yes, you can find elements of it in tango music and lyrics (despair, the spurned lover, lost love), but its traditions originate elsewhere, especially if you are referring to tango as a dance form. Are you implying that The Sorrows of Young Werther or Elective Affinities are constituents of tango?
Well, thank you for actually bothering to try to construct something that at least sounds like an argument as opposed to mere assertion or rude dismissal. I sometimes wonder whether I should conduct a reasoning workshop for people in order to bring awareness to the distinction between an unfounded assertion and an argument … hint: the latter has premises to support a conclusion, so that we can argue with argument but not with an assertion. Got it?
Wikipedia: Romanticism (also known as the Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution,[1] the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature—all components of modernity.[2] It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, … The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience …
Obviously tango is the product of inter-mingling of a variety of folkish forms. However, usually the direction in which things are taken is strongly influenced by the zeitgeist of the time. It is not automatic that people look to music and feeling because in many societies such as in Asia the control of feelings and restraint are
a predominant cultural value. In other societies, feelings are expressed immediately and violently without much sublimation as in African cultures where little or no repression or sublimation of impulse is evident.
What you need is a culture that elevates feeling but has the mechanisms to sublimate it in an artistic form. That is precisely what European Romanticism proposed. Prior to romanticism, art and culture is primarily either religious or expresses the interests and values of the artistocracy that seeks to distinguish itself from the folk. Its highly formalised.
Romanticism takes the forms of high culture and naturalises them and elevates feelings and aesthetic experience to the highest place of individual, personal spirituality. So we move from Bach to Chopin. Chopin takes the sentimental and aesthetic aspects of the Polish countryfolk, extracts them from their ‘folkish grounding’, as it were, and elevates them in form of elite classical music.
The goal here is to retain the feelings within a classical form, and thus universalise them without becoming merely formal. Similarly, in tango, what was an urban form of music and dance underwent a process of formalisation but because of the consciousness of the elites and the trained artists retained the Romanticist understanding (Romanticism was a movement of the elites after all, they are the ones who would’ve been listening to Chopin), they could see how this ‘folkish’ movement could be turned into their own Argentine or European form. You see, without the Romanticist elevation of folk culture and the process of sublimationin a higher art form, the elites would have rejected it because prior to Romanticism the goal of elite art was primarily to distance themselves from the folk, it was about class differences.
So to your question: I mean, yes, you can find elements of it in tango music and lyrics (despair, the spurned lover, lost love), but its traditions originate elsewhere, especially if you are referring to tango as a dance form. Are you implying that The Sorrows of Young Werther or Elective Affinities are constituents of tango?
You seem to be literate and so I’m puzzled by your inability to see this. The only way I can understand it is that you’re trained into this Americal post-modernist mindset that characterises the Zeitgeist of today’s educational and cultural elites that are busily in the process of destroying all of our institutions, which of course rejects Romanticism, is probably disgusted by it, is the diametrical opposite of everything it stands for.
Why else would we have the situation where it’s a complete waste of time to see any contemporary art because you’ll be exposed to things that are ugly, disgusting or have zero aesthetic value. Postmodernism has eliminated aesthetics from art, and replaced it with politics. It has got rid of all language of aesthetic experience, and replaced it with ‘liberation’ and precisely the sort of impulse expression that renders sublimation impossible. In dance you move from Cunningham or Paxton’s Contact Improvisation and end up with today’s therapeutic and expressive 5 Rhythms.
Even the darling of the progressive left Herbert Marcuse recognised in “The Aesthetic Dimension” that you shouldn’t get rid of aesthetic experience, and that actually the burgeois art of the 19th century succeeded in the task of sublimation so that to get rid of that is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Frankfurt school is a case study in the truth of the dictum: be careful what you wish for.
Conceptually connecting tango tradition to a Romanticist understanding of art and culture, sublimation, folk, etc. gives us a perspective that satisfy both the requirements of TangoVoice’s traditionalist instincts, but without the mere affirmation of the values, customs and habits of a specific folkish group that have little or no obvious relevance to those asked to assimilate, so that we end up with chauvinism, ethnocentrism or anthropology.
This is desirable precisely because we want to be able to communicate to a wider community and I argue that from a pedagogical point of view we cannot do that effectively from this sort of ingroup perspective, which is the reason why things are the way they currently are. This is therefore in my opinion a promising way forward.
Tom (a.k.a. DJ Polaco?) wrote: “…the prevailing view in Argentine tango, exemplified by people like Chris, that only Argentines have a final say in tango…”
This Chris does not exemplify that view. In fact he believes no one can have a final say in tango whilst is it is still being heard and felt by even one person.
Chris wrote: This Chris does not exemplify that view. In fact he believes no one can have a final say in tango whilst is it is still being heard and felt by even one person.
I don’t even know what that means but anyway … you don’t have to say something explicitly nor think it to yourself but I’m trying to point out the logical the implications of your stated views. If your view is that tango is not a dance but first and foremost a culture, and you cannot really separate any aspects of tango dancing from the culture, then the implication is that you have to be culturally Argentine to teach tango, ie., you have either to be a native Argentine or at least you have to be assimilated. In order to understand what “assimilated” means you can think in terms of language: you are indistinguishable from a native speaker or very close to that.
That would mean that a tango teacher should invest most of their time and effort becoming as much like Argentines as possible. Instead of studying dance pedagogy, for example, they should learn Spanish, esp. Argentine variety of it, and even learn Lunfardo, acquire the tastes of Argentines in terms of food and dress, etc. I’m not against people doing that, and whole websites devoted to tango are written by people like that and we all know them. My point is that when you require people to do that, both as teachers and students, that is chauvinistic, pedagogically backward and self-defeating.
It’s chauvinistic because it does not look at the matter from the learner’s perspective, but only the native’s. The learner will not necessarily share the native’s values at the outset and to require them to do so and judge them by that standard is unreasonable. People come to share those values as they move along the developmental path but that is not something you can demand of them but only facilitate by keeping them motivated.
In order to motivate, teachers need to appeal to values and interests that the learner already is likely to have that will move them in that direction or at least enable them to move in that direction when that impulse arises at a latter time. Typically, the initial impulse and interest in learning tango is an interest in dancing. Expecting that learners already share your values or have an interest in them will alienate them and destroy their motivation and therefore your goal of growing the number of people learning traditional tango will not be advanced.
I wrote an article on motivationexplaining why requiring people who want to learn to dance tango to travel to Buenos Aires or making the Buenos Aires culture a standard (Golden Standard, etc.) of tango a motivation killer: its too far and too abstract for the average person. You need to make things present and concrete. Which does not mean that at some stage in their development process it won’t become immediate and concrete, it might just not be right now.
Tango consists of tango music, a dance that is danced to tango music, and a set of customs that are associated with the music and the dance.
One does not need to be Argentine to teach tango in a culturally valid manner. Learning tango from an Argentine does not guarantee that one is learning the tango danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires; there are Argentines who are more interested in making a living than in promoting their culture. However, those who have best understood the music the dance, and the customs are Argentines (specifically porteños) who have immersed themselves in the culture. The best of these have been the milongueros, who have been the role models for the culture. Nevertheless, there are some individuals who are not Argentine and who have immersed themselves in Argentine tango culture (as best they can) who can at least provide an accurate perspective on some aspects of the culture and therefore serve as the best available role models within foreign cultures.
Teaching people around the world a version of tango that is comfortable for them because it has familiar characteristics of their own culture will start them on the path to misunderstanding tango. They will be learning Tango Extranjero, not Tango Argentino. Telling them later that there is an Argentine Tango that is not what they have learned reveals the instructor’s underlying dishonesty.
The goal in building an Argentine Tango community should be to educate dancers to understood, at least in part (i.e., they have not been misinformed) the characteristics of the music, dance, and customs as practiced in the culture of its origin. Otherwise, the outcome of one’s efforts will be to have some inaccurate imitation that borrows the name ‘tango’ for some other purpose (profit, popularity, excuse for a party). It is important in building a tango community to have quality and cultural validity, not quantity.
TangoVoice says: Tom classifies Tango Traditionalists as ‘ethonocentrists’
The goal in building an Argentine Tango community should be to educate dancers to understand, at least in part (i.e., they have not been misinformed) the characteristics of the music, dance, and customs as practiced in the culture of its origin.
Well, the sacond statement certainly seems to proves the first one to be correct. But actually it does not for the following reason: I cannot classify traditionalists as ethnocentrists or chauvinists, because in case you haven’t noticed, I consider myself to be a traditionalist. Perhaps you believe that I cannot be traditionalist because I’m not Argentinian or a ‘native’, or do not agree with the second statement, so let me explain further: perhaps we have a different concept of what “traditionalism” is.
Initially, I thought that you and I want the same thing, but over the course of the discussion it’s clear that there is a different understanding of the matter, so I want to get to the bottom of the disagreement. What I mean by “traditionalism” is a particular style of dancing, comprising of the following identifiable elements:
– a particular embrace
– particular type of movement
– to particular sort of music
– with good connection to the partner
– good connection to the music
– and a good overall atmosphere at the venue.
For me, this
(a) distinguishes traditional tango from non-traditional tango because the latter lack these elements; and
(b) is necessary because, from my point of view, these elements are necessary to achieve the sort of aesthetic experience that I see as desirable and as the primary interest, value or benefit of tango.
So unlike you, I do not view the cultural aspects of tango: the style of dancing, the rituals, etc. as intrinsically valuable because it’s not my culture and I have not emotional or sentimental attachment to these things. Rather, my interest is instrumental: these things are necessary in order to attain the aesthetic experience that is available in tango.
Now, although our interests are not identical—because you’re sentimentally attached to tango culture in a way that I am not—, the final result might be very similar, or similar enough so that I could participate in your events, and you could find my events also satisfying enough because the style of dancing, the music, and the rules are very similar.
So lets say for the sake of the argument that our goal or objective is the same or similar enough. The really fundamental difference that I see between you and I is that you take a Product approach whereas I take a Process approach.
Your textbook sort of anthropological description of traditional tango culture is a description of a particular product or package. I view that as mostly useless from a learning or pedagogical perspective because learning is a process, where you start at point A and aim to reach point B. Point B is the product that you describe, but it is only the terminal point of the process of learning.
Simply describing the product does not tell us the path, the way, the process whereby you reach or attain that goal. From the perspective of the learner, this feels chauvinistic: you’re telling them where they should aim to get, but you’re not providing them with the path or the tools whereby they can reach it. I seriously doubt that even travelling to Buenos Aire would do in this respect, because you really would require extended periods to develop the skills to dance, especially if you’re a man.
For example, I don’t see that you could learn to lead effectively over a couple of weeks in Buenos Aires. So its not your traditionalism that is ethnocentric or chauvinistic, it’s the product orientation of your blog, with no concept of a process to attain that product, in particlar, when the stages of development in that direction are simply judged against that product and not in their own terms as minor achievements.
All that going to Buenos Aires might do is make you more likely to prefer a teacher from there, if you live in a large city where this is available. And so you aren’t expecting large numbers of people. People like Bonnono and Chris have access to that and so they make their glib commentary, but I would like to see what would happen if, due to work or other reasons, they had to move to any other place where this is not available. They’d be royally screwed tango-wise. The whole discussion is an exercise in selfishness, uselessness, chauvinism etc etc. It’s extremely disappointing and does not predispose me positively to such people, and I would not welcome them at my events. I find such attitudes completely distasteful, regressive and increasingly irrelevant. If milonguero culture is a static culture, it will die.
Tom said:
“The really fundamental difference that I see between you and I is that you take a Product approach whereas I take a Process approach.
Your textbook sort of anthropological description of traditional tango culture is a description of a particular product or package. I view that as mostly useless from a learning or pedagogical perspective because learning is a process, where you start at point A and aim to reach point B. Point B is the product that you describe, but it is only the terminal point of the process of learning.
Simply describing the product does not tell us the path, the way, the process whereby you reach or attain that goal.”
The Traditional Tango promoted in this blog is a culture, not a product.
The process of creating this culture has been discussed repeatedly in this blog. For example:
Use of the Cabeceo and Gender Segregated Seating in Milongas in Buenos Aires and Elsewhere in the World
Strategies for Tango Community Development: Profit and Non-Profit Models and the Perspective of Maintaining the Cultural Integrity of Tango
Preventing Teaching on the Milonga Dance Floor: The Role of the Pre-Milonga Lesson
The Role of the Milonga Organizer in Creating an Environment Promoting Argentine Tango Cultural Traditions
Creating a Tango-Brand: The Role of Language in the Marginalization of Argentine Tango
Tango Manifesto: A Declaration of the Rights of First World Tango Dancers to Have a Tango Environment Supporting Argentine Tango Cultural Traditions
TangoVoice said: The Traditional Tango promoted in this blog is a culture, not a product.
The process of creating this culture has been discussed repeatedly in this blog
As with the word “value” previously, you’re conflating meanings of words. I suggest you start using a dictionary. The way you use the word “product” is different from the way I use it and so as often is the case, you address a total red herring for the purposs of winning an argument.
Dictionary.com:
Product =
1. a thing produced by labor: products of farm and factory; the product of his thought.
2. a person or thing produced by or resulting from a process, as a natural, social, or historical one; result: He is a product of his time.
3. the totality of goods or services that a company makes available; output: a decrease in product during the past year.
As you can see, you use it in sense 1 or 3, whereas I use it in sense 2. So now that we’ve got that cleared up, here’s why what you said makes zero sense:
You have not discussed the “process of creating this culture”. You simply take what you know about the culture and make it prescriptive, as a recipe for mechanically and unreflectively replicating it.
The culture, however, could not itself have been created through such a process of replication by an unreflective application of a recipe or set of recipes, as this is obviously logically impossible. Instead, the culture evolved through a process similar to any other evolutionary process, namely, trial-and-error. All evolutionary processes—biological and cultural—proceed in that manner.
Taking a culture at any point in time and using is prescriptively is viewing culture as static, and therefore not in terms of a dynamic process of trial-and-error and emergence. If you don’t understand the idea that culture is the product of an evolutionary process that means that you don’t understand evolutionary theory and the way it applies to humans in whom the primary mode of evolutionary development is not through genetic but cultural mutation.
In saying this I do not need thereby to be endorsing what you call Evolutionary Tango, which is really the claim that tango evolves in a particular direction. Evolutionary theory is not compatible with a “One Tango” philosophy because what evolutionary theory says is that there are many experiments and so it leads to diversity. It is therefore compatible with your claim that there isn’t just one tango, but several. In my writing I identify three broad categories: Salon Style Tango, Tango Milonguero and Tango Nuevo, and there will be sub-species of those. I offer a particular take on Tango Milonguero, you offer another take on it, and both of these are evolutionary experiments which will either survive or die.
You describe the cultural structures that have evolved in order to maintain the milonga system in Buenos Aires. You take it for granted that since they function in that place they will therefore function well anywhere else. But this premise is not supported empirically. Now, perhaps your view is that people lacked the knowledge of the facts that you enumerate, but the question is why this information hasn’t spread earlier? I know many people who have travelled to Buenos Aires, who apparently sought to learn traditional tango, took some lessons with traditional dancers or teachers, but I didn’t notice that they were in any way more enabled or empowered to produce traditional tango dancers or events.
It is due to my observations of these failed investments that I am sceptical about your approach and seek an alternative. I’m more with Chris in the view that this type of approach can only ever work in Buenos Aires or that area, and evidence suggests that even there it’s kind of dying out. In places like Australia and Hong Kong I see people attempting to set up Tango Milonguero classes and events, and time and time again all I see is that after a while all that’s left is an out of date website, the remnant of another failed attempt.
I myself have take lessons with traditional sort of teachers. That’s a particular style of teaching. While I have benefitted from their instruction, my own view is that I would not recommend this process to other people as the ideal process of learning, because I think there are better processes which are more advanced. One old Chilean guy came to Sydney from Perth, and danced beautiful milonguero style. For a $100 private lesson what I got was this: lead with your eyes closed. The lesson lasted something like 15 minutes. Afterwards he forbade his partner from dancing with me and tried to kick me on the dancefloor at the milonga by walking backwards into me. The lesson was totally worth the 100 bucks, but is that a process you would recommend to people??
Anyway, the basic question is: does your information offer something more over and above that which will help people successfully teach and organise traditional events? Do you provide a process or a recipe for success? You see, you complain that Evolutionary Tango people win due to “power”, but that’s totally wrong. The reason they have “power’ is that they are winning, ie., sucess leads to power. If you were successful, you would have power. You don’t have power because you’re not successful, ie., you’re failing. So unless your information leads to success all it is is just self-gratificaiton, but without any consequences if you fail, just endlessly claiming victimhood at the hands of evil tango marketers.
Unless you show that your recipe/process can lead to success, you can link to your own posts all you like, it’s completely meaningless. But if you can show some results, you will win my respect. But only then. At that point you will also have power and I’m sure that you’ll enjoy having it.
Tom commented, “I myself have take lessons with traditional sort of teachers. That’s a particular style of teaching. While I have benefitted from their instruction, my own view is that I would not recommend this process to other people as the ideal process of learning, because I think there are better processes which are more advanced. One old Chilean guy came to Sydney from Perth, and danced beautiful milonguero style. For a $100 private lesson what I got was this: lead with your eyes closed. The lesson lasted something like 15 minutes. Afterwards he forbade his partner from dancing with me and tried to kick me on the dancefloor at the milonga by walking backwards into me. The lesson was totally worth the 100 bucks, but is that a process you would recommend to people??. Hey Tom, That’s not a style of teaching, it is a very particular person. He “had it” as a teacher (of men) for those who were prepared to put in, building the dance together over time as we all grew in knowledge and understanding. Sadly, he just kept shooting himself in the foot with behaviour such as you describe and worse until he ran out of friends.
No mention of Finito, Portalea, Pupi, Petaca, Pepito avellaneda, Turco Jose, Petroleo, Todaro, El Chino, Toto Faraldo, Milonguita, Lampazo. Where they milongeros? Did they dance like Vidort? What does El Chino, Toto Faraldo, Facundo Posadas or Nito Garcia have to say about your idea of how a milongero danced in the golden age?
These dancers have been discussed previously (Tango Estilo Villa Urquiza) [although this terminology has its limitations: (Tango Estilo del Barrio (versus Estilo Villa Urquiza) / Tango Estilo del Centro (versus Estilo Milonguero)].
Recognition that some practitioners of Tango Estilo del Barrio could be classified as ‘milongueros’ has been discussed previously [Tango Estilo del Centro (Tango Downtown Style): Reclaiming the Term as a Replacement for Tango Milonguero].
Any writer choosing to highlight certain individuals and their accomplishments has the prerogative to define the population from which selections are made. The sampling frame for this study includes dancers identified as miongueros whose style of dancing can be characterized as Tango Estilo Milonguero (or Tango Estilo del Centro). This was the predominant style of dancing tango in the milongas of Buenos Aires at the time this article was posted (February 2018). (It is not immediately obvious what style of dancing will predominate when milongas resume after the Covid pandemic subsides.) No bias or misrepresentation was introduced by not including dancers of Tango Estilo del Barrio; their style of has been incorporated, somewhat incorrectly, into the omnipresent Tango Campeonato that is silently passed off as social dancing in contemporary tango teaching environments.