In Spanish, there exists only “el abrazo“. Why then in English do we say anything more than “the embrace” (when referring to a chest-to-chest embrace – in whatever “style”)? It seems to us that one of the reasons there is a problem with the embrace outside of Argentina is due to English-speaking people having created terms, and thus concepts, such as “close embrace” and “open embrace”. The two of us will now make a conscious effort (in our teachings and in general) to refer only to “the embrace” and “open hold”.
The topic of the month seems to be Chicho and the interviews he had with the ATDRC and El Tangauta magazine. Personally, the interviews irk us on so many levels (starting with him calling himself a milonguero!?), but whatever. There’s no point in discussing that. What we did want to bring up deals more with Chicho’s floorcraft and that of Nuevo Tango dancers (although Chicho claims to dance straight-up Tango). It’s been said that Chicho dances “properly” like the other dancers in a traditional milonga. Anyone who has been to Sunderland Club in Buenos Aires has most likely seen Chicho show up to dance towards the end of the night. This means they’ve also seen how he goes into the middle of the floor, claims his space, and dances there for most of the night. He may move around, but what you will definitely see is people making space for, or steering clear of, him and his partner’s flying legs. It’s true, you can see he’s aware of the people around him and ready to adjust his movement, but nonetheless, he’s taking up more space than any other couple on the floor and he’s not following the unspoken rules of the milonga such as keeping your feet low to the ground.
All this to say that Nuevo Tango dancers may be very aware of the dancers around them and ready/able to adjust their dance, but it doesn’t change the fact that the very dance they’re dancing is not conducive to a small or crowded dance space. Simply by being in an open hold, you are taking up almost twice the space of a couple in a close embrace. And when the most common nuevo move (the boleo*) is inserted into an open hold dance, you are taking up a crap load of space and infringing on someone else’s space.
By the way, there’s also a fantastic example of Gustavo Naveira’s horrible floorcraft on Tango and Chaos.
We’re doing it. We’re coming out of the metaphorical closet we’ve been in since we began this blog. Although most people in our Tango community knew who we, the authors, were (that is if they were aware of this blog at all) and some were happy to send our friends and previous teachers emails complaining about the blog (rather than coming straight to the source), we’ve decided to make it official. Now you can get a real look at the wackos who post here:
That’s us: Jorge and K.
This picture was taken over two years ago and we were just having fun being goofballs on our 6-year “together” anniversary before heading out to a milonga… and it seemed like the perfect picture to use here :) We have names and we have a background… and we have a website (with only a somewhat better picture of ourselves). We even have an email address should you feel inclined to write.
We are relatively young Argentine Tango dancers who are married both to each other and the dance. We set out on our Tango pilgrimage in October 2008. We learned and danced Tango for 6 months in Buenos Aires, we traveled in South America for 4 months, and we returned to Buenos Aires for 2 more months before returning home.
We are not aspiring authors and our writing skills are questionable, but we write our truth.
