[Tango-L] Multiple personalities

[Sergio Vandekier]

I did not intend to answer your gratuitous attacks but you repitedly asked 
for a reply, here it is:

1 - "First off, you're issuing forth an idealized, Star Trek version of
gender roles (minus Captain Kirk, I might add), and asking us to believe
that this pipe-dream of equality is not only behind the brothel-born
tango, but a uniquely Argentine phenomenon, which the rest of the
cement-headed world has never even heard of."

Not true, I merely described the culture where tango roles came from.

2 -"Secondly, you haven't done Squat to describe what those roles actually
are, besides assigning (tautologically) the man's role to the man, and
the woman's role to the woman."

  I was going to describe exactly in detail how those roles are played in 
tango but you suddenly appeared from nowhere and decided that my 
participation on this subject had finished.

3 - "Thirdly, you seem to have reached your conclusion about the place a
leading woman has in the tango world Well Before posing the question to
anyone here, so I don't understand how you can even maintain the
pretense of presiding over an open discussion."

I would like to know what conclusion I had reached.

You gave me the titles of president and moderator of the list. I was neither 
of them. I spend about 5 months a year in Argentina , period during which I 
do not even read the list. The discussion had started because somebody asked 
about "Women leading".  I was moderating nothing. I was not presiding over 
anything.

4 - " Like many a pedant before
you, you arrange the available evidence (or the portion of it you find
attractive) so that it seems to support your prefabricated conclusion,
sweep the rest under the carpet, and voila-- Thou Art the Very
Mouthpiece of The Trumpet of the Tango."

Another gratuitous accusation but I concede defit on this point. You win: 
nobody will ever be more pedantic than you.

5 - "Meanwhile, voices dissenting
from yours get the spit-valve concession of being perfectly acceptable
if they squeak, but no longer "Argentine," because they depart from this
walking caricature you insist on equating with real life."

Again all your own fabrication.  We were having one of the best discussions 
the list had ever had.

It may come as a surprise to you but there are places where men and women 
are happy, enjoy being what they are and they respect each other.  What  I 
described is the truth. It was also described by Nicole Nau in detail in her 
book "El Tango un Baiole bien portenio" .

7 - "To your credit, you reverse your statements in light of contrary
evidence, as you did when reminded of the charming story, "Rudolpho Goes
to the Wrong Neighborhood," which paints Buenos Aires in a
less-than-heavenly light."

You painted a picture of a city bitterly divided  due to tango styles.  
Something like what happens in New York or L.A. with gang members killing 
each other  over insignificant disagreements.

I explained to you that that was not so.  All that you had to do to go to 
another neigborhood milonga was to dance the style most people danced there 
and behave properly till they got to know you. If you went there as a 
"Compadrito" dancing in a way that was disturbing to the members of the club 
(this happens today in many places in the USA) the organizers of the milonga 
would ask you politely to stop doing that or to leave the dance floor.  The 
city was not "bitterly divided over tango styles".

8 - "The simple fact is that there is a wide variety of opinion as to the
woman's role in tango, and that a lot of this variety has come from
people posting IN Buenos Aires. They've spoken for themselves, and your
simplistic summaries will not smother them out."

I wonder what is that you are talking about.  Again it may come as a shock 
to you but the human race is divided in males and females.  Members of those 
genders in Argentina ( I mention In Argentina because this  is relevant as I 
am talking about tango roles as a reflection of society as a whole) are 
equal but different and this is described by Nicole in her book and by many 
others.
Tango has two distinct roles : feminine one and masculine the other. There 
is plenty of literature about this including the book I have mentioned . 
Those roles are played in the dance. I was going to describe them in detail 
but you came in, barking and spitting poison.

9 - "Neither, for that
matter, will appeals to Buenos Aires as the tabernacle of authenticity.
By the time we're done sorting out tango propaganda from tango history,
we've still got the great variety of how people actually dance, and the
everlasting plurality of styles-- plus the innovative dancers known as
artists, who set fire to all these useless blanket statements and modify
tradition by the presence of their own blazing originality."

Buenos Aires continues to be the tabernacle of authenticity.  I wonder if 
you or anyone could mention only one variation in tango dancing that was not 
created in Buenos Aires. Only one.

The truth is that tango all over the world looks at Buenos Aires for 
inspiration and try to duplicate all the styles that are in experimentation 
there.  The only real innovators that were not Argentines were the creators 
of the ' International Tango style", the variation of the same known as
''American Ballrom tango" and the " Finnish Tango that created an 
amalgamation or fusion.

Finnish tango can be seen as reflecting Finnishness at a meeting place 
between cultures. Pirjo Kukkonen, an academic who has studied the matter, 
identifies numerous borrowed elements in the Finnish tango, the sounds of 
faraway Argentina, a German march style and the romantic longing of Russia. 
"It is a product of cultural fusion," she says, "but it contains a Finnish 
dynamic and identity.

So anything else was born in Argentina.

Summary:  You came from nowhere spitting venom like a cobra. Accused me of 
all sort of things, gave me titles that I did not have (president and 
mooderator) then proceeded to show another one of your personalities: the 
easy going, flrolicky fox that was KIDDING, made references to me as " our 
dear Sergio" promised to behave well and to make this forum very 
interesting.

Despite of your promises you insulted Lucia yesterday telling her in a 
dialect used by jews Kiss my ass.

This list has no president and no modertors we are all equal contributors.

So you were misguided when took "the Kingdom" off my hands,  unfortunately, 
there was no king, there is no throne or palace.  I welcome you to the list, 
I like your notes, mostly the 'One liners' about tango moments. By the way I 
would like to ask you how is that you have several hours of Tango moments 
while most milongueros in Buenos Aires only get some transient episodes and 
very far in between. I am very anxious to learn from you in this respect and 
many other subjects related to tango.

Welcome to the list, no hard feelings on my part.  The stage is all yours.

Sergio

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