Many excellent points!
From tangoreviews.com/2011/05/12/interview-with-ney-melo-part-2 :
A.M. Comparing the many tango communities that you have met here in the US and abroad, is the level of tango comparable?
N.M. The US has a nice and friendly tango atmosphere. I love to go out dancing in different cities in the US. But I will be frank: the level of tango is better abroad, even if you just travel a few hours to Montreal, you can see the difference. The foundation of the way they dance tango is from Tango Salon. Whether it veers off to more Nuevo, or more apilado, one can still recognize the Tango Salon in the dance. I am not sure where the style that Americans dance came from. Americans don’t interpret the dance with their feet but with their bodies; they don’t place importance on their footwork. Also, they usually dance with alot of flexion, they take huge steps, and they do some funky wiggle with their bodies. The men don’t really embrace (they don’t give their chest and they don’t hold you with their arms) and the women don’t adorn. And to top it off, the musicality! It is very literal (no one dances the mood of the music) and it is very whimsical (they interpret things in a way that is almost comedic, there is no gravitas in their dance). Anyone that has spent a long time in Buenos Aires or in Europe and then comes back to dance in the US will tell you that it is a big shock to the system!
I was once hanging out at the studio of a well-known tango couple from Buenos Aires (who dance a very modern/tango nuevo type of tango). We were looking at the teacher performances from a large festival here in the US. They looked at me afterward and asked “Y que es esto?”. Americans have become too nuevo even for the BsAs dancers who dance nuevo! Perhaps we are uber-nuevo?!
Why is this? One reason is that American tango dancers take classes from teachers with different techniques and and then try to include everything in their dance. I say “If you try to be everything, in the end, you are nothing”. You cannot mix technique. If I want to dance like a certain teacher, then I will take classes from that teacher and do EVERYTHING that they do. I will copy everything about their dance and stick with their technique for a long time.
Another reason is that good tango teachers who teach social tango make more money abroad. Therefore, all the Argentine teachers go to Europe and the US dancers that get recognized enough, eventually just go to Europe and mainly work there. I know tango couples that have more work than they can handle in Europe but then go to the US and have to fight for every dime. Why don’t Americans support their local teachers? I think Americans still have a bias against either non-Argentines or non-Champions who teach Argentine tango and they also, many times, don’t know the difference between show tango and tango de salon. This is a recipe for disaster. This allows for Argentines who don’t know how to dance to just claim “I am Argentine!” and start teaching badly, or for a couple that claims that they were Tango Champions in “such and such years” to get a following of students.
All of this is ironic because not even the Argentines have this bias (as evidenced by the winners of their Mundials during the last couple of years). It is the same thing in Europe, Europeans don’t care if you are white, black, or blue, if you can dance and you can teach, then you are in. From the beginning of me and Jennifer’s career, Europe and Asia appreciated our dance and invited us to their countries to learn our technique, our musicality, and our views on the dance not to watch us do gymnastics on stage.
That being said, things are getting better here in the US. There are organizers that strictly promote tango salon and there is a new
generation of Tango Salon dancers, especially in Los Angeles, that are starting to change things.