Talk:Milonguero style

Confusing
I doubt that such a self-contradictory definition will have much support, in many places or for a long time. Delete ? Or split into two pages if we feel they are really different ? In the UK, salon-style tango is often seen as distinct from milonguero-style. I believe BsAs usage differentiates 'salon' as 'ball-room' - more upmarket and suburban; but 'milonga' as 'dance-hall' - more downmarket and central. Or something ? See also Argentine_tango
 * "The two uses of the term do not necessarily intersect: milonguero-style tango is not specifically danced by milongueros."
 * "Argentine word for a tango dance salon: milonga"

Milonguero-style tango is more often taught by foreign teachers, or teachers that have learned abroad, who specialise exclusively in tango : Salon-style is often taught within general local 'schools of dance', with a full-repertoire 'Ballroom and Latin' IDTA background (+ ballet tap and modern for youth), as an alternative to 'Ballroom Tango'. Differences include close/open embrace, musicality/embellishments, improvisation/choreography, technique/steps+figures+patterns, social/medals+performance+competition, changing-partners/fixed-partners, lead+follow/man's-part+lady's-part, line-of-dance-pista/convolution, syncopation/strict-tempo, apilado/upright, chest-connection/hand-connection etc. More Nuevo than Milonguero/a, surely ? Although I believe he (as a founder of Nuevo) said "There is no Nuevo - it's all just Tango !" Does this paragraph belong ? Should we delete it, or expand it into a 'Tango terminology around the world' section ?
 * "Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne"
 * San Francisco ... Athens

We will never have clear definitions - boundaries among styles are fluid and arbitrary. In any case, it is considered poor form to mimic another dancer - in terms of 'intellectual property theft'. There are as many styles as dancers - each must evolve their own individual style. There will always be exceptions, and most people probably dance a mixture of styles under different circumstances.

Maybe there should be a separate page for Tango styles, with a table with columns of the distinguishing characteristics, and a row per style ? Or a binary key like those used to identify insect species from a Taxonomy in Cladistics ?

Thoughts ? ---19S.137.93.171 (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This article could be split to article names such as Milonguero (person) and Milonguero (dance style) but I was interested in nipping in the bud the the confusion between the two uses, with many thinking they are from the same origin. Our sources (Denniston, Klein) put a great emphasis on this, so deletion is definitely not going to help people understand the subject.
 * Regarding your other ideas, they are good proposals but we need to have WP:Reliable sources for them rather than taking it off the tops of our heads. Can you suggest some sources? Binksternet (talk) 21:04, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "The two uses of the term do not necessarily intersect: milonguero-style tango is not specifically danced by milongueros."
 * OK - I've now read the citations 1+2, but with a different conclusion! They seem to be calling for inclusivity, whereas non-intersection is exclusivity.
 * I'm not sure what 'specifically' means here - non-milongueros can dance 'Milonguero-style' ? IE 'milonguero-style tango is not exclusively danced by milongueros'. Not sure who, when, where or why ? I've helped run a dance-tent at a local festival, and pitting Tango against Irish Step, Arab-Egyptian, Flamenco, Modern Jive, Majorettes, Zumba and Capoeira was an interesting contrast - even explicitly Neo-Tango (=Nuevo?) was the least showy ! One Jive friend even said "There's no passion in Tango"!!!!!! It's danced for the dancers, not as a performance for spectators. I've seen a YouTube video of a couple of Milonguero Maestros who outwardly just seemed to shuffle round the floor, then stop every so often. The audience went wildest when they were doing the least. I couldn't work out why - something totally internal, I guess.


 * Denniston - "a young dancer had said that he was not a milonguero because he danced with steps." Her point being 'milongueros do not exclusively dance milonguero-style tango'. Notably when they are doing an 'exhibition dance' with the whole floor to themselves (or being video-ed for YouTube), they will dance differently from when on a crowded floor.
 * I'm sure most Milongueros can also put on an impressive show when the occasion calls for it.


 * Klein - "Since 1870, all the natural tango dancers in all the styles were called 'Milongueros'. That's why the old milongueros smile when they hear the phrase 'estilo milonguero'. -Ruben 'Milonga', Milonguero"
 * Again the tone is inclusive - it's all 'estilo milonguero'. Like Naveira's 'It's all Nuevo since the influence of the 1980s'.


 * I'm still not sure what distinction you're trying to draw ? One problem is that 'Milonga' is 4 things:
 * a dance, like a fast, joyous kind of tango
 * the music for the dance, maybe with a Habanera/Candombe rhythm
 * a place where tango is danced
 * an event when tango is danced
 * Are you saying 'estilo milonguero' refers to the place/event, rather than the person ? Or the other dance ?
 * Are you saying milonguero is not the only 'authentic' tango ?
 * Are you saying one must have danced in BsAs pre-1955 to qualify as a milonguero ?
 * ---19S.137.93.171 (talk) 00:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm confused by your contrary interpretation. You might want to spend more time reading the sources. I fear the article is not at all up to the task I gave it—the task of clarifying the terms. Binksternet (talk) 02:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "The two uses of the term do not necessarily intersect: milonguero-style tango is not specifically danced by milongueros."
 * Ah! Perhaps 'intersect' means something different to you. I use it in the mathematical sense - Venn Diagram and Intersection_(set_theory)- the cases where both are true. It occurs to me that you may be using it to mean 'same', 'synonymous' or 'co-terminous' (having the same boundaries) - no cases where one is true, but not the other. We may actually mean the same thing, but you are using the word in an almost opposite sense. This is not uncommon in Brit/US English - eg "I could care less" = "I could not care less".
 * Define:intersect
 * Define:specifically
 * Do you envisage non-milongueros dancing 'estilo milonguero' ?
 * Do you envisage milongueros not dancing 'estilo milonguero' ?
 * Argentine_tango is a clear and plausible alternative way of expressing it - would you duplicate that here instead of the ('not intersect' ... 'not specifically milongueros') sentence that I am finding confusing ? I'm tempted just to delete + link to that instead of duplicating info !
 * I changed the wording to "have no relation" rather than using the concept of intersect. Binksternet (talk) 00:36, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


 * "Susana Miller created the term "Milonguero Style" mainly to help distinguish it from North Americans' perception of Salon Tango. This had the unfortunate side-effect of offending milongueros who would state that they consider themselves milongueros but they don't dance the way 'Tete' did or with the methods Susana Miller teaches"
 * ---19S.137.93.171 (talk) 00:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC)