A few people recently have asked me to blog about the three main styles of tango: tango nuevo, milonguero and salón (the latter of which is roughly synonymous with what many people are calling estilo Villa Urquiza). So here goes. This entry will be a little more technical and less personal than most.
A month or two ago, the realisation dawned on me that it´s been a long time since I danced with anyone who dances tango nuevo. I remember when the Tangocool milongas at Villa Malcolm were a menagerie of dancers trying out acrobatic new moves and the room was full of bodies whirling in every direction and flying legs. I was once hit on the shoulder by a tall and exceptionally flexible follower´s boleo. But, although the tango nuevo gurus like Chicho Frumboli and Gustavo Naveira & Giselle Ann remain as venerated as ever, very few of the hip young things here in Buenos Aires seem to be following in their footsteps. Naveira´s own children, Ariadne and Federico, both dance primarily salón. Perhaps it´s partly because Práctica X, the tango nuevo Mecca, moved location from the huge, beautiful, ice-cold box in Palermo that some people called “the aquarium” and which reminded me of the turbine hall of the Tate Modern, to the gloomy, troglodyte surroundings of Viejo Correo.
But in any case it´s been a while since anyone careered around the floor, throwing me into crazy out-of-axis positions, or sent my free leg flying in a lineal boleo. And I miss it. Dancing with a good nuevo dancer is like getting to ride on the swings, roundabout and slide at the same time. And I have always thought it was a shame that they don’t have children´s playgrounds for adults.
Here is Chicho Frumboli, who, with his long-distance lorry driver looks, is the unlikely icon of tango nuevo, improvising with his partner, Juana Sepulveda:
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the sobriety of milonguero style. People argue a great deal about what this entails in terms of technical detail: how much pivot it involves, whether to step on every beat or use pauses, etc. But, for me personally, milonguero style is when I remain pressed against the man’s chest, my left arm reaching around his shoulders and my head nestled next to his, for the entire dance. The older men generally dance this way and in fact most dancers change over to milonguero style automatically when the dance floor is crowded enough. The moves are more limited, in general, but there is a compensating snuggliness. Relatively few of the younger men dance this style, except as a space-saving measure at a busy milonga.
I am told that in Europe the situation is different. The person to tell me this was a visiting foreigner whom I’ll call Il Ingenere. He is young, handsome and skinny and so I automatically expected him to dance salón. I´ve come to associate milonguero style with a soft tummy bumping against mine, the feel of a scratchy jacket under my left hand and the smell of old-fashioned cologne. Or, rather, I didn´t have any conscious expectations of his dancing style, but my body clearly did and we struggled through a first, awkward tanda before I managed to adjust. It took a while to learn to squeeze myself across his chest in the ochos, rather than opening out and taking space, to dance a style that is twistier and more dynamic than most, but most definitely milonguero.
Here’s my current favourite milonguero dancer, Carlitos Espinoza, dancing here with Noelia Hurtado:
My favourite style, salón, is definitely flavour of the month at the moment. I am tempted to get a T-shirt printed with the slogan “I was a salón girl BEFORE it became trendy!” I love the elasticity of the embrace (ah, the satisfaction of closing up into a sweet cuddle after being separated for a while) and the dynamic turns which feel like flying. And I feel that in salón I have more freedoms to play, to decorate, to express my musicality, to control the tempi of the movements and to dance, rather than merely follow.
At the end of a long night of dancing milonguero-style, I feel a certain sense of freedom and relief as the floor clears and the dancers are free to pull out their salón moves. I’ve written elsewhere about the Villa Urquiza style cultivated at the Sunderland práctica. And I also love to dance with the fast-paced, high-energy leaders at Práctica 10, a milonga full of pretty Argentine boys who alternate between drinking the chemical-tasting local brew, Quilmes, and taking to the dance floor in their jeans and sneakers.
Salón dancers Lorena Ermocida and Fabián Peralta show us how it’s done:
PS I’ve begun to have some doubts about the validity of dividing tango up into three major style tendencies like this. (I often change my mind about my opinions on tango). I’d welcome further feedback and thoughts from readers.
You are so fair and so kind. Another great piece. Love the Ricardo Vidort video, beautiful! I have been told, by someone who should know, that I ‘lean’ towards a Milongeuro style. Like yourself I love the closeness, and similar associations. I also practice and dance Salon, and when you get the T-shirts made up, please put me down for one! Nuevo, are you sure its going, going, gone ….
I never did like it myself. Thanks again for an interesting view.
Thanks, TinaDiva! I have to confess that of the three styles milonguero is probably my least favourite. But I do enjoy dancing it too. There are some guys who dance milonguero whom I *love* dancing with. I have catholic tastes when it comes to tango. In answer to your question, I think nuevo will revive. I hope so, because I think it’s an important innovative force in tango. I’m guessing that the craze for Villa Urquiza style is a fashion and, like other fashions, will pass — and then maybe come back into style again later. And, of course, there are people who are dancing a mixture of styles and who don’t like to define themselves. It’s very fluid.
The three divisions are less and less meaningful now. fusion rules.
Thanks for this perspective, Sin-ming shaw. You are probably right and I don’t want to be guilty of pedantically defending terms. But the three divisions often do still make sense to me, at least, with some dancers and in some contexts. I think that if you choose never to open the embrace (the embrace is still flexible, but in a lateral plane, but doesn’t open and close, chests touch throughout) in your dancing that has repercussions for the vocabulary you employ and possibly also for technique questions (I’m not so sure about this latter point). And therefore I think it’s useful to have a term for those who never open the embrace while dancing because this seems to me like a clear stylistic choice.
Also, when someone asks me (which happens constantly), do you dance milonguero or salon? I tend to have a very good idea of what they mean. And if they say, I dance salon, then I often, but not always, have a pretty clear picture of what they mean. But not always. Also, since nuevo in its more flamboyant manifestations, is very out of fashion at the moment, some people are describing dancers are ‘dancing tango nuevo‘ when it looks like they are dancing a pretty classic salon style to me. (This is especially true when the speaker is using the term ‘nuevo‘ as term of abuse).
You’re right: language is fluid. This is definitely not worth arguing about. So this answer is not a defence of the three-way division: more a way of thinking aloud. The way people use the terminology is changing all the time and it may have lost its validity. But I don’t see the resulting style as fusion. For one, I think many milonguero dancers still dance their style in a quite pure form, i.e. they stay in close embrace throughout the dance (fusion for them would mean opening and closing the embrace). And, of the three styles, nuevo has definitely the loser, at least recently (this could change). I feel sometimes that it’s less the case that salon has incorporated nuevo moves as that salon has eaten nuevo alive. Classic Villa Urquiza style salon is very, very popular right now here in Buenos Aires. Especially among younger dancers. Of course, oops, we may mean different things by this term, I’m very willing to stand corrected on this.
But the term fusion itself implies a style to me. And if I’ve understood it right (I understand it to mean a salon dance with lots of nuevo influences) then, actually, no, I don’t see many people dancing that way. Styles are, of course, a fleeting concept. And when I try to describe it’s less like defining something, for me, and more like capturing an impression or taking a snapshot. I say more about this here.
If you ask Fabian he would tell you he is a milonguero dancing salon. He often dances close embrace as well. Except for the old biddies at Sunderland or niño bien few young people dance with close embrace throughout. Cerntainly not preferred except when the floor is like a tokyo subway in rush hours.
Calitos you describe as milonguero walks like a fusion of salon and Nuevo. No old biddies walk like him. Noelia is definitely a young cross between nuevo and salon slash milonguero. The pure nuevo crowd consists of essentially Chico and Salas. Gustavo is a cross of fusion of old and new. More new than urquiza. His children for sure are fusion, but more old than new. They learned from Olga, not from daddy. But as they all work together more the kids are picking up more Gustavo’s chamuyos. In the end your point re language debates is fine. We dance how we like as long as there are sparks in those three minutes. Pedantry or punditry can be fun but has its limits. Long live Gavito.
Yes, Sin-ming, this is exactly why I don’t often write these kinds of posts: they can quickly degenerate into just meaningless personal and subjective opinions (there’s no scientific test of what style someone dances). I’m not as interested in definitions as in experiences. I try (not always successfully) not to be pedantic. And I’m definitely not qualified to be a pundit.
Live long — and may all your tandas prosper.