Every few weeks, it seems, a brawl takes place in this and other like forums over what is REAL Argentine tango.
You will never see such over what real British tango is, except maybe its name. The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance about a century ago renamed it International tango to make it more popular. More recently the ISTD and its less offensively named cohorts have also named it Standard and (most recently) DanceSport tango. British tango is what you see on "Dancing with the Stars" (a spin-off of the Brit series "Strictly Come Dancing"). And British tango is what you will see in the Olympics when the ISTD and its fellows get ballroom dancing made an official Olympic sport. There is no argument about what is TRUE BritTango because there is a book that defines it in so much detail that you could almost program robots to do it. This situation was the background to the first feature film directed by Baz Luhrman (of "Moulin Rouge" fame). It was titled "Strictly Ballroom" and was especially hilarious to anyone who knows the International Ballroom world because it had so little exaggeration. And every few weeks we see people in this and other like forums who seem as if they would be happy to imitate the British model - if only their idea of Argentine tango were declared the only real, true, AUTHENTIC Argentine tango. There are even some Argentine tango teachers who sell collections of tapes and DVDs separated into bronze, silver, and gold levels just as the International world does each of their dances. The tango police most recently have declared that it is only REAL tango if a woman and a man dance it - but only if the man is the leader and the woman the follower. At other times they declare that nuevo tango (whatever the heck that is) is not REAL tango. Some people say only if you dance body-to-body are you doing TRUE Argentine tango. Others deride this as vulgar "belly-bumping" and inelegant. A milonguero, they say, is some street trash who drives a taxi or works as a janitor or short-order cook - if they even have a job. This view of the milonguero, incidentally, is not an unusual attitude of Argentines of older generations. And, of course, that favorite of clueless journalists looking for a sound bite - tango is SEXY! A "vertical expression of a horizontal desire" sounds so, so, ARGENTINE! And they haul out the myth that tango was invented in brothels. So what is the real nature of the Argentine tango? Maybe its flexibility, the difficulty of defining it in some hard-and-fast way, is part of the answer. It is like a good outfit which is high-quality but also easily tailored to our own body and needs and abilities - and each of us is the tailor. Which would explain why there are so many angry arguments over tango's true nature. Because each of us creates a version that satisfies our deepest needs, a version that is a reflection of our true selves. Thus anyone else who wants us to change our tango to match their version seems to be attacking us on our deepest levels rather than "correcting" superficial matters. So maybe those of us who stand back and watch these battles over what is real tango with amusement should be grateful for them instead. Because when they quit tango will have died and been replaced with an embalmed corpse. Larry de Los Angeles ____________________________________________________________ Save on Cell Phones. Click Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2131/fc/Ioyw6iifqvwj3oEzpaVdLl5Ghg5CMzORkh9lncP9n9DILpNtamQrBI/ _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l