Tango Nuevo by Carolyn Merritt (review)

Writings—be they books, memoirs, diaries, articles, poems, or travelogues—on the subject of tango have become nearly as abundant, and quite frequently as clichéd, as images of the fedora- and fishnet-clad tango dancing couple used to market tango in its renaissance over the past thirty years. Given tango’s popularity as both a symbol and site of exoticism, passion, and machismo, approaching the topic from a fresh angle is no easy feat. Nor is it a trivial task to present a serious academic study of tango that does not destroy its appeal through exposition of the mechanisms by which tango seduces its devotees. Carolyn Merritt meets this challenge beautifully in Tango Nuevo, an insightful ethnography of tango in Buenos Aires at the height of the tango nuevo boom, 2005–2007.

Although even dancers most often cited as its founders—Gustavo Naveira, Olga Besio, Fabian Salas, and Chico Frúmboli—often deny its very existence, tango nuevo can be described as a new analytical approach to the study and teaching of tango that, through its systematic investigation of the principles and basic building blocks of tango technique, led to rapid innovations in vocabulary and style. The resulting dance is often characterized by a more open and flexible embrace that requires both partners to maintain their own axis (center of balance); athletic movements requiring extreme torsion; more frequent use of off-balance moves; incorporation of vocabulary from ballet, contemporary dance, and other social dances; and more fluid conceptualization of gender roles. During the mid-2000s, tango nuevo was often practiced by younger dancers than the tango had attracted in decades, with the youth popularizing casual dress and electronic tango music.

The birth of tango nuevo is frequently traced back to the Cochabamba investigation group formed in the 1990s, but it was not until the early 2000s that the term tango nuevo and its associated controversy began to gain traction. Reactionaries critical of these innovations condemned tango nuevo as devoid of feeling, inauthentic, not real tango. From their point of view, only close-embrace or the newly coined “milonguero” tango allowed access to an authentic tango experience. Merritt probes deeply into the question of whether or not the phrase “tango nuevo” describes an actual phenomenon or is merely a marketing ploy alternately used to discredit its authenticity by its detractors or to attract a younger audience by its adopters. Merritt stops short of coming down on one side of the debate, but she highlights a point raised by many of her informants, who reject the nuevo label even as they adopt many of its techniques. To call it “new” is to deny the innovation and experimentation that has characterized tango throughout its history.

In her epilogue, which is based on a 2010 visit to Buenos Aires, Merritt suggests that taste is swinging away from the nuevo aesthetic—a trend that I can confirm based on my own research in Buenos Aires in 2012 and 2014, by which time tango nuevo had fallen so far out of fashion that dancers referred to it as “vintage” and “antique.” Even though tango nuevo is already perceived as outmoded in Buenos Aires milongas (tango dances), the issues Carolyn Merritt raises in her thoughtful investigation of its controversial existence are still current. How do tensions between tradition and innovation play out in the evolution of a dance? How is local cultural heritage protected in the midst of its globalization and commodification? How do formerly colonized peoples resist paternalistic gestures from wealthier nations to help protect and preserve so-called traditional culture? These central themes are explored as they relate to the specific case of tango, but Merritt’s insights are relevant to dance, music, and other forms of expressive culture studied by scholars in the fields of dance, ethnomusicology, and cultural tourism.

Readers eager to see Merritt take sides on the debates she presents might be disappointed. Her strength as an author is the balanced and nuanced way in which she...