Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. In teaching a class recently, I made a point of letting my students know exactly where I originally learned the sequence I was passing along to them. In this particular case, I had received my knowledge through Domingo (Mingo) Pugliese -- who had, in turn, learned the sequence from his own teacher, Carlos Estevez, whose nickname was "Petroleo."

As Tango has evolved over the years, dancers have taken great pride in developing their own individual steps and sequences. In fact, there was a time, when it was considered completely inappropriate for one dancer to "steal" another dancer's material. These days, however, it seems that a lot of this tradition is being lost as dancers routinely have ready access to the complete repertoire of anyone who has ever found their images on YouTube.

My own preference is to always try giving as much credit as possible to the generations of dancers past, without whom there would be no viable Tango tradition to build on. Whenever someone shows me a step or sequence, I attempt to find out where it originally came from. If that's not possible, I give credit to the person who taught it to me in the hope that this information will offer some provenance beyond myself. My role as a teacher is to pass elements of the tradition along as I have received them from those who have had the skill and generosity to pass them along to me.

In today's Tango environment there exists a great deal of (let's call it) "creative exploration" in an attempt to recast the traditional dance in an entirely new light, to give Tango not just an overhaul, but a completely new identity. El codigo del Tango (the manner in which Tango is danced) has been turned completely on its head as a new population of dancers have made a push to put their own personal stamp on the tradition.

In my observation, there has been a distinct break with the long-standing codes of Tango in the service of constructing a totally new entity called "Tango Nuevo" or neotango. What I dance, what I teach, what I have spent many years trying to learn and perfect, is now dismissed by a certain group of dancers and teachers as "retro." The implication of such a comment is that my dance -- and the dance of everyone who helped to build the Tango tradition up to now -- is passé and somehow unworthy of emulation by this more "elite" group, who think of themselves as progressive innovators.

I don't agree.

I admire creativity. I admire invention. I admire the heady exhilaration of discovery. I believe that the way in which a tradition stays alive and well is through an ongoing process of imaginative evolution that includes and enhances the existing traditions. What I do not subscribe to, however, is the wholesale dismissal of a body of tradition -- out with the old, in with the new -- in order to forcibly transfer ownership to oneself rather than pay respect to, build on, and find a place of ones own within an existing tradition.

When I fell in love with Tango, my goal was to try my best to become as much as possible a part of a magnificent, unique tradition of dance. If my initial exposure had been to the colorless, acrobatic, exhibitionist melange one is exposed to today, I would have stuck with Foxtrot.

Just my opinion, folks. In the long run, of course, it will be up to you to make up your own mind.

The following folks helped set up, break down and clean up before and after the milonga. Without them, there would be no Firehouse Tango.

• Kathy Dignam - Pretzels
  
• Judy Assisi - Pretzels
  
• Eva Roth - Egg Meat Loaf
  

• Barbara Lombardi
  
• Giuseppe
  
• Mike Casale
  
• Meryl Shapiro
  
• Georgina & Dan
  
• Bob Brillo
  
• Rich Abrahamsen
  
• Tom Rodgers
  
• Camille
  
• June Stahl
  
• Elena Syrett