[Tango-L] Live music

[astrid]

Kace, Singapore:
> But when a dancer is given a task to perform for an audience, he has an
> obligation to get off
> his high artistic horses and think satisfying the low-brow audience
> expectation as well.
> At the very least, this means wearing a suitable costume, and
> choreographing a few technical
> moves to reflect the highlights of the music.
> Most dancers won't even be able to pass this test, so what position are
> they in to criticize the
> musicians?
>
This reminds me of the autobiography of Isadora Duncan:

When she (14) and her mother had almost finished off the box of tomatoes
they had bought from her last money as food supply for a week, she went to
audition for someone who ran the Mason's lodge club or something to get a
job at last. She danced her Greek dance in her blue tunic. He told her, it
was nice but that it needed "more pepper" and a costume that showed more
leg, to satisfy the audience. She told him she would be back the next day
with the costume and the"pepper".

A colleague of mine went to Sydney and visited the theater and the opera,
and said, she very much enjoyed the show of the dance between the ballerina
and the cripple.

Well, that aside, the basic condition for dancing is that the music played
needs a regular definable beat. Believe it or not, most music actually has.
Some bands of old tango afficionados in Tokyo have such a regular beat, it
drives me to disctraction.

Astrid