<[email protected]> says: > It's my opinion that non-Argentine tango dancers ON THE AVERAGE do > dance better than Argentine tango dancers ON THE AVERAGE.
It wasn't until I read peterwesser's indignant reaction to this assertion that I realized that it was actually saying the opposite of what I assumed after a "speed-read" scan (I thought Larry was just restating the mantra that Argentine's dance Tango better than non-Argentines). Jack Dylan's theory to explain this um ... non-conventional-wisdom was that perhaps "Larry has had more success dancing with his fellow-Americans than he has with Argentines." I might venture a guess, somewhat less condescendingly, that since Larry is a self-proclaimed Tango nuevo dancer, he speaks from that perspective. And, notwithstanding that Tango nuevo was "invented" by Argentines, and the best PERFORMANCE practitioners of it are probably Argentines, it is still very much a fringe phenomenon as a SOCIALLY relevant dance form amongst Argentines who dance Tango. Hence, it is quite possible that non-Argentine tango dancers indeed are more proficient in this form of Tango than Argentines (if you exclude the Argentine professionals who are mainly dancing for exhibitions or performances anyway), since they are probably more numerous. And any "connection advantage" that a porteño has from his understanding of traditional Tango music, the lyrics, the cultural context, etc., is negated when one is talking about nuevo tango music, much of which is mediocre techno pop with bandoneon added. But enough of putting words in Larry's mouth :-) he's quite capable of explaining himself. So, Larry, care to elaborate? (I hope you don't say that it was a typo and you meant to say the opposite -- that would be most anticlimatic after all this build-up!) Shahrukh _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
