What is Nuevo?

Nuevo tango is largely a pedagogic approach to tango that emphasizes a structural analysis of the dance in which previously unexplored combinations of steps and new figures can be found. It can be danced in a open or a close-embrace. It is a result of the work of the "Tango Investigation Group" pioneered by Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas in the last decade in BsAs. By taking tango down to the physics of the movements in a systematic way, they sought to create a method of analyzing the complete set of possibilities of tango movements, defined by two bodies and four legs moving in walks or circles.

While tango as an improvised folk art had already tested and accepted many of the available possibilities, their investigation gave them a view of a structure to the dance that was expressed in a systematic way.

In walks, their explorations pioneered what were once called "alterations" and are now called "changes of direction". In turns, they focus on being very aware of where the axis of the turn is (in the follower/in the leader/in between them). This tends to produce a visible style that appears "liquid", "flowing", like eddies in a stream with the partners rotating around each other on a constantly shifting
axis, or else incorporating novel changes of direction.

Many of the recent popular elements in tango vocabulary, such as single-axis turns, owe their debut on the tango scene to the popularity of Gustavo's and Fabian's approach.