Re: The dance called WCS (was Re: Is Ballroom Dancing a dying Art?)

Date: 3 Jul 2003 17:22:51 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.dance
Size: 2,280 bytes

Richard,
Unfortunately, I am feeling verry hampered by the crude editor/interface
I have right now to the internet. The Tango-L archive, and
although I can't cut and paste the URL, Google will get it
for you right away, is worth peeking into from time to time
for anyone interested in Argentine tango.
There has been debate going on there that in some ways mirrors
this WCS thread about what is authentic.
I had contributed the observation that different posters could
be characterized as "lumpers" while others are "splitters". For
anyone wondering those are terms from some academic fields such
as biology or anthropology where argument about catagories go on.
I do tend to be a lumper but in this case I think they are two different dances
in perhaps even a greater degree than ECS and Lindy are different.
I think both ECS and Ballroom tango were simplifications to make a dance
more accesible, but the simplification made fundamentall changes so
they were different dances at inception though inspired by the music and style
of their predecessors.
I've on one or two occasions danced with a new comer who had ballroom tango
background. OH! The leaning back away from is hard on my arm and back.
The embrace is so different.
Popular social dance is not often well documented. History will always be
subject to interpretation. Neither am I a dance historian,so
I just go by what others have said and analogies such as Lindy and ECS.
But no, I don't think the Arentines dance leaning back away from each other,
nor did they ever do a repeating SSQQS step. I think the men lead each step
one step at a time as they chose, and that takes to long to teach. North Americans
seem to have a firm idea that social dance requires repeating patterns.
Even now beginning classes in AT often teach a "basic" pattern though that is
not how the dance is based or choreographed.
Again I apologize for typos. I can only correct the line I'm on, and
if I retype this document I just introduce new typos ad infinitum.
The Tango-L Archive or other AT web sites can be informative.
It is interesting to me how dances develop, split off and move in different
directions, and the partisanships that develop. It's another expression of the
variety and evolutions of human culture, no?
Nelf