It’s very common to see Argentines wearing shirts with statements in English. The other day I saw a woman wearing a shirt with these words: COPY MY STYLE.
I thought about those words as they relate to tango. I recall what Ricardo Vidort always told his students: you can copy my steps, but you can’t copy what I feel. All the milongueros developed personal styles.
Dancers with international experience have a tremendous influence in tango today. Their students place them on pedestals, admiring and copying them.
These Argentine trend setters are famous thanks to the internet and YouTube where their names are household words and fans study their videos. They have adopted something distinctive that seems modern and creative. That appeals to the younger generation of dancers who are consumers of whatever is new and fun. They are examples to many dancers who don’t question whether they have good technique or just the latest gimmick. Fashion trends are bought as the latest style from Buenos Aires.
One popular fashion trend is a new technique for women. Men seem to stay with what has worked for decades. Women are fashion conscious and want to keep up with the latest trends. This video gives examples. All three women have won a championship title in Buenos Aires; the first two examples show the vogue in tango, and the third combines beauty, simplicity and elegance that will always be in style.
Tags: Ricardo Vidort
Tango Chamuyo 
October 10, 2011 at 3:05 am
Thanks for the information on your site. I have only been dancing tango for 3 years so I still have a whole lot to learn. However, why does only 1 posture, embrace, etc have to be right and the others the latest fashion? I watched the video of the 3 women’s feet and I personally liked number 2. I thought that her feet are “prettier”; at times the third woman was dancing with toes that were a bit inward. Aurora Lubiz explained in a class that I once attended that some things are absolutely right/wrong in tango and others are a matter of personal preference. I personally try to understand the why behind various options in tango and then will choose based on what works best for the way I like to dance (recognizing that I might need to change in order to accomodate my parter’s preferences) and also what I think looks best.
March 4, 2015 at 11:43 am
Thank you very much for this interesting video. I can definitely appreciate the simple elegance of the 3rd dancer (looks like Coca?), but the 1st and 2nd dancers also seems to exhibit a more ornamented quality which is pleasing to the eye as well. Therefore, I suppose my question is, in your opinion and experience, is there any practical disadvantage to dancing the style of 1st/2nd dancers, compared to the 3rd dancer?
March 4, 2015 at 12:42 pm
The third dancer in the video is Delia Nasra Filippini, who unfortunately is no longer dancing because of her husband’s health.
The key word is exhibit. They are dancing for an audience, not in a milonga for one another. The exaggerated steps, ballet foot positions, and heels lifted off the floor are no part of social tango. Embellishments focus attention (by the dancer and audience) on the feet. The dance is more than steps. With so many examples like these, women are trying to copy bad habits in tango.