Deby, Your comments and views from Buenos Aires are always much appreciated and frequently thought-provoking. Im afraid your latest regarding your conversation with a friend at El Beso may have provoked a little too much thought on my part.
Do you agree with your friend, that foreigners appear to be increasingly taking over social tango in Argentina, and if so why? Is it because of the commercialization? The prices at the milongas? To me, it almost appears that the underlying problem is that the real growth of interest in dancing social tango is mostly occurring outside of Argentina. From my little experience there, but supported by what I hear you and Janis say, is that traditional social tango and the culture that goes with it seems to be dying among the Argentines. Outside of the milongas, Im not sure Ive yet to meet one single Argentine that was very interested in actually dancing tango. Some listen to the music but dont dance. The most frequent comment I heard was they thought it was too hard and it took too long. Theyve often wanted to know if I danced salsa. So is it really a question of the foreigners killing social tango in BA or are they simply coming to a wake? Will it eventually become like going to Harlem to try to find lindy hop? [In case someone might not know, lindy was born there, but doesnt exist there now. Worldwide, yes, Harlem, no.] If the tradition of Argentine social tango is to be kept alive in Buenos Aires, it has to come from a desire within the culture, from growing and encouraging a next generation of Porteno tangueros, not just as performers, not so they can be teachers, but as pure social dancers, tango for the experience. I cant say it for a fact, but it sounds to me that the traditional tango culture in BA might have a tendency to eat its young. If they are not excellent, they are ignored at best, criticized and shunned at worse. If they are excellent, they become performers and teachers and leave social behind, to the foreigners. It also appears to me that there are two seemingly divergent claims one is that the local social dancers pay little or no attention to the commercial tango ventures and the other claim is that the commercial ventures are killing local social tango. Personally, I believe they probably both need each other for long-term survival in Buenos Aires. If they dont figure out a way to help each other, it will be to the detriment of both. I understand the popular milongas are getting more expensive for Portenos, but if its their very culture at stake, perhaps they must find alternate times and places to dance. And there are perfectly acceptable ways to charge less to regulars, through season passes or other methods without it simply appearing as a higher charge for foreigners. (But interestingly, when Ive talked to Portenos outside the tango community, theyve never mentioned expense or commercialization as factors for not learning tango. And there seems to be plenty of successful salsa venues in BA.) I understand folk dances are taught in school in Argentina. I wonder, is tango taught in BA schools? I certainly dont pretend to have the answers but I just dont think railing against commercialization (particularly in a cash-starved economy) and bemoaning the popularity of tango and BA with foreigners will provide a solution. I certainly dont blame Portenos for complaining about the growing number of foreigners and the impact they may have on their culture as we are frequently very adept at that here in the US. Neither do I blame them for not being interested in commercial tango, even though, ironically, it is often the commercial tango that generates the initial interest in learning to dance tango in other places of the world, something that appears to be sorely lacking among native Portenos. I guess my question is, what are the social tangueros of Buenos Aires going to do to reverse the trend, to breathe new life into their tango traditions, to encourage and pass on those traditions to their own next generation? Are the older men still dancing tango with the young men? Are they dancing tango at home and at family events with their daughters and nieces? Are the women taking their younger sisters and daughters to the milongas? At this point I would ask what we as foreigners could do to help, but they already know we love them to death. WBSmith Original Message: ----------------- From: Deby Novitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:25:14 -0300 To: [email protected] Subject: [Tango-L] Tango Competitions 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com What can On Demand Business Solutions do for you? http://link.mail2web.com/Business/SharePoint _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
