If you ask the people who dance here about the competitions, most ignore them. They have no interest. In this years Campeonato the organizers were desperate to find couples to compete. In previous years there were as many as 60 couples competing in a milonga. This year at one milonga I was at there were 5. At every milonga I attended during the competitions the organizor begged me to dance, she or he would find me a partner. No thanks.
Those of you who write that competitions have been around in Buenos Aires for years are correct. But not in the commercialistic, sensationalistic manner it is done today. There was no international advertising. There were no special glossy magazines devoted to it. No costume changes, no hours and hours of private lessons and choreographed routines. Tango businesses did not elbow and vie and pay for booth space. Special t-shirts were not printed. Tango competitions were done in the neighborhood milongas as entertainment. People danced traditional tango. I can assure you there were no flying boleos. People liked to demonstrate their skills for their friends. It was nothing more than that. It was done for fun. It was not the serious shark like competition that it has become. I for one do not like these competitions. They are in my opinon helping to destroy traditional tango. What passes as salon tango in these competitons is not salon tango. If you have to talk about boleos, you are not talking about salon. The competitions are not judged fairly. They are judged on aspects completely unrelated to what it is being danced. Tango is a social dance. It is supposed to be improvisational. It is supposed to convey the feelings of the music through dance. These commercialistic competitons push this social art form in the same direction as ballroom. What a shame. What is next? Learning to dance with a rose in your teeth while people film you and post it on the internet? On Saturday I was at El Beso. I ran into an old friend. He was one of the first people I met in 2000 when I came here. I was shocked to hear the anti-foreigner sentiment coming from his mouth. This is a guy that loved to have the foreigners in the milongas and to visit. He used to say it made him proud that people would come here to his country to dance his dance. Now he is talking about people ruining "our family." Taking over "our places", not respecting "our culture." He blames the foreigners for the rising prices. How sad if this were to turn into a backlash. I have met so many fine people from all over the world. Unfortunately it is always a few who do not understand and ruin it for the rest of us. As for Janis. Probably it is best she answer on her own. We talked about this. This year she does not have the desire to stand in line forever to get a ticket for this event. She has covered it in the past because she thought people who could not come here might be interested in her perspectives of the event. Believe me, she does not support this commercial format. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
