Hey, Culturally, I see big differences as far as socializing goes compared to western (from where I am from) and latin europe. I mainly know Boston, but there's little things that don't seem to be very usual in US. For example, rarely anyone stays talking for an hour in a restaurant after the dinner, just having some drink and chatting. People eat and leave. It's as if restaurants are only there to eat and after that, off you go! This surprises me as the best part of going out to dinner, to me, has always been the lively chat after a good meal, *slowly* savored. Having dinner is a good excuse to get people together, because, you know, everyone normally has one every night.
When I go to milongas, I like to sit, watch the floorcraft and listen. This has surprised many of my friends since they go to milongas to dance! I love dancing, but I don't need or want to dance everything. I'm sure I will probably be dancing more as I get more experienced, but right now, I like to learn music, listen to what music compose the tandas and, try to socialize a bit. I also like to watch dancers I like and try to understand why I don't like so much others. I believe tango is a very social dance and it only makes sense as such. I believe you shouldn't go to a milonga for dancing alone, but for the whole experience, for the atmosphere, friends and socializing. Argentines by drop boston milongas and aren't always dancing. That surprises some of my friends and I don't understand them. Learning and dancing AT would not make sense to me if I couldn't also enjoy the unique atmosphere that is (hopefully) created at milongas. I think creating this culture of more than just *a dance* would help to keep communities going. This would make communities friendlier and more amenable to welcoming new elements. There are interesting phenomena that happen when cultures or religions are emulated outside their origins. There's a tendency towards extremes. It's funny that some milongas outside BA are probably much more unfriendly than BA's most unfriendly. It's interesting but at the same time hurtful to the communities. peace b On 3/7/08, 'Mash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To be honest I think is most likely to do with how unaccommodating the Tango > community is becoming. That Tango appears to be less and less about people > coming together to dance and more about being part of a kind of > self-righteousness elitist group who hold a kind of religious belief about > Tango. -- Bruno Afonso http://brunoafonso.com (personal, mostly portuguese) http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:BrunoAfonso (Professional, english) _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
