Well, in Buenos Aires, its de rigueur not to dance the first piece played by the orchestra. Very often, the floor remains empty into the second and third piece. The latter is certainly not required or expected, but often happens, and is influenced by a combination of:
- The mix of the crowd and/or the type of milonga (if it has mostly diehard dancers or not) - The mood of the crowd--if the crowd is enraptured by the musicians and the live music and applauding them heartily, it's pretty intimidating (since it would feel intrusive) to get up and dance in the middle of that. - The quality of the orchestra--this is related to the previous point. A really good orchestra will get 2-3 songs where most or all of the people are sitting out. - If some old and highly respected musician is being featured (think Alberto Podestá or Horacio Salgán), that can prolong the sitting out sometimes indefinitely. The only real no-no, though, is dancing the first one. Usually, if a brave soul gets up for the second number, others will join in (everyone was waiting for the first one to get up). And on the flip side, if no one is getting up and dancing by the 3rd or 4th song, someone from the orchestra will often encourage the dancers to do so. I don't think this rule transfers, culturally, to the US. At this point, I'm too used to sitting out the first piece, and so I wouldn't initiate an invitation myself, but on the other hand if someone asked me and the floor were already crowded with lots of other dancers, I'd probably shrug and join them. It would not come across to me as a faux pas outside Argentina. Shahrukh _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
