November 7, 2011

The Forbidden Dance



She dances with her partner while the crowd calls her a prostitute. The church during the renaissance would scold the idea of scientific technology. Tango, an Argentine form of dance was treated with the same hatred. The new advancement of the renaissance brought new instruments, new genres, and different styles of musical composing. Many of the composed pieces in music and instruments were created for the church and chapel services. Instruments used for personal gain and with intent to distant people from the church were not allowed. The Tango was a dance developed in the slums that was viewed with negativity for its dramatic display. Only men would dance the tango with each other when it first originated because women were looked down upon if they were to sing or dance it. The dance of Tango would stage stories of a pimp and his prostitute, a duel between two men for a woman, and a lost love. In the new age of the Tango it is danced by displaying a story of love and passion. The lute, organ, recorder and harp in the renaissance which gave ideal bringing to the guitar, accordion, flute, and famous bandoneon are used in the Tango. The renaissance writers composed poetic Italian songs that were distributed by the new technology of the printing press through inexpensive books to low income families so they could learn music as well. The Tango is composed of poetic and theatrical words of the Argentine culture that mix many Italian and Spanish linguistic versus that even experienced singers of the genre may sometimes not understand its true meaning. This is a part of my culture that I have to thank the renaissance for influencing the building of the Tango. It is a very popular genre in the Argentinean culture which I hope to see flourish into new heights because of how tiny a seed of influenced history rooted into a tree of ideas. The Tango Renaissance Association has brought the history of significant power to our modern day life.

http://www.tango-renaissance.com/

1 comment:

  1. OK, so you say that, "The church during the renaissance would scold the idea of scientific technology." I find this statement unsupported. Yes, the church did persecute people when their scientific discoveries (not necesarily their technology) clashed with the personal ethnocentric beliefs of the church leaders. Such as when they persecuted Copernicus for rightfully claiming that the earth orbited around the sun, and not the reverse. Although, I admit, some instructors teach this story in a way that seems to support your statement.
    Also, I thought it was interesting that early on in the Tango's evolution that men only danced it with other men. Does that mean one of the men would dress or act as the woman to play the woman's part in the story? Or did the Tango not start to portray stories until women started to be allowed to take part in them?
    Altogether I enjoyed reading this post. It was interesting, informative, and well written.

    Group 3

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