Tell a milonguero that it is possible for tango to evolve is like telling an Argentine that Dulce de Leche was actually invented in Chile.  Be prepared for a fight!

the other day I was at a milonga with a dear friend of mine, a woman who runs a traditional milonga in BA.  I was admiring one of the dancers when she stated, as if reading my mind, “que feo!” referring to that same dancer.  “Really!?” I replied. “I hope I am that good some day”.  She then began to lecture me on how his ‘nuevo’ style was an insult to tango, and that all nuevo teacher are just greedy opportunists catering to tourists and selling otu their own culture.

OK, yes… I should have known better than to  engage in a ‘conversation’.  I reminded her that tango, as she refers to it, had it’s own evolution as well, and if she wanted to be a purist, then the Bandonion itself is not an authentic to tango as the roots of tango proceed the German immigrants that introduced it.  I also pointed out the hypocritical irony that the ‘original’ tango was the result of world cultures fusing together in the melting pot of BA… just as nuevo tango is a fusion of cultural influences that changed tango from around the world, a world that the original tango artists were more than happy to introduce tango to.  Paris. NYC, London… these were the ideal destinations of the tango greats.  So, basically, my argument to her was 1) tango has continued to evolve and 2) if the creators of tango didn’t want anyone in the world to know about it they should have kept it a secret!

Her response was a bit drastic, but quite predictable… “Nothing you can say will ever change my mind.  I will not listen to any arguement… and don’t ever come to my milonga again!”

okaaaaay.

BUT! That is really not the point of this post.  The point is another thing that traditional tango and nuevo tango has in common.  When the military was in power in Argentina, milongas were mainly underground.  The government know that to erode the sense of nationalism that worked against them, they needed to import the ‘modern’, ‘progressive’ pop culture of the west. Tango music was no longer played on the radio.   Instead you heard Rock and Roll.

Milongas were closed down.  So, they went underground, like the SpeakEasy’s of the roaring 20’s in the states, and the jazz/swing clubs of Nazi Germany.

After the dictatorship fell, and the new government brought back some of the old culture that was lost, milongas were allowed to open.  Being that milongas were culturally ‘grandfathered’, the state came up with a special classification for milongas that allowed them to exist under much easier circumstances than say, a caberet.

This exists today, and the law states very clearly that in order to be a milonga at least 70% of the music must be ‘tango’ music.  They are very unclear as to what the legal definition of ‘tango’ music is…

(ok, I will finish this later as I have to go set up MOBA righjt now… stay tuned)