[Tango-L] Truthiness and Style "Fights"

[Tom Stermitz]

On Jul 6, 2006, at 10:53 AM, astrid wrote:
> ...
> And as for that discussion on whether to take classes or not, in my  
> opinion,
> this subject is ridiculous. This is starting to remind me of the  
> fanatic
> milonguero fraction putting everyone else down for being  
> inauthentic, and
> the "salon" dancers" fighting back by saying, milonguero style  
> people can't
> really dance.
> ...
> Astrid


TRUTHINESS.

We have a new word in English. It describes the degradation of the  
public political discourse in which extreme right-wing voices are  
advocating opinions that they WANT to be true, as opposed to ACTUALLY  
being true. Clever anecdotes like the "welfare mom with the  
cadillac", or politically convenient battle slogans like the  
nonexistent "Weapons of Mass Destruction", are TRUTHY because  
political powers and the right-wing want them to be true. These fake  
ideas become believed by many people because they sound believable  
and are repeated over and over on talk radio.

Truthiness is about creating a false reality, or a strawman or a  
whipping boy.


Anyway, Astrid dips her toe in the truthiness pond with the anecdote  
above.

Astrid repeats the false accusation about an imaginary "fanatic  
milonguero faction", a false dichotomy between styles, and a fight  
between salon dancers & milonguero.

If you look back in the Tango-L you just won't find many fanatic  
milongueros criticizing someone else's STYLE. However, you will  
frequently find the ACCUSATION that they do so. The accusation comes  
from a very few voices, repeated frequently because it is TRUTHY,  
because they WANT to pick a fight. (Don't ask me about why...  
probably something psychological...).


IT IS ABOUT CONTEXT, NOT STYLE

Show Tango is great on stage if done with skill and quality.  
Milonguero would be a bit boring for a crowd to watch. But those  
comments are not criticisms of the styles themselves.

Authenticity is important, but it is about energy, connection,  
embrace, musicality, navigation and feel, which is relevant to all  
styles.

Many N. Americans dance without the "authentic feel" of tango,  
because we are learning tango "second-culture", and we don't have  
very many good, social argentine dancers to learn from. Put someone  
who has primarily learned tango as show figures on a dance floor in  
Buenos Aires and the natives won't dance with them.


Actually, most of the dancers in most of the communities in the US  
are some mixture of Milonguero, Salon, Fantasy & Nuevo. However, only  
a very few communities have significant numbers of milonguero-style  
dancers.

Probably 75% of the teachers traveling the US are Fantasy or Nuevo  
dancers. Look at their advertised credentials, who they claim as  
teachers, and the content of their classes. A much smaller minority  
are teaching milonguero or social-salon.


GOOD NEWS

One good thing about tango travel and festivals is that the quality  
of social dancing in the US has improved immensely. You used to go to  
cities and find milongas full of people doing show vocabulary at arms  
length. compared with five years ago, you now find more milonguero  
and social salon.



Tom Stermitz
http://www.tango.org