[Tango-L] Cabeceo, again

[Chris, UK]

spatz at tangoDC.com wrote:

> both topics ARE essential to dancing _without being an ignoramus_.

The advantage of not being an ignoramus is... what, I wonder.

> Plus, the tango attracts intelligent people

It sure does. But they don't go these classes in this stuff you rightly 
describe as neither necessary or effective.

> And is it such useless knowledge anyway? Well, what if some eager 
> student decides to visit BA after five weeks of dancing?

If her teacher is as you describe, she'd be mad. Five weeks is just not 
enough for all those classes in how to get from the hotel to the milonga, 
how to pay the entrada, how to put on her shoes, how to drink wine without 
falling off her chair, how to do the cabeceo of course, how to understand 
the Spanish chat-up, and how to get out of the telo without waking him up.

Here's news: some people travel after zero weeks of dancing. They do so to 
/learn/ how things work, not to play out imitation behaviour taught them in 
classes.

> And what if someone does a performance that plays with the 
> cabeceo creatively?

Based on the five-minute cabeceo lesson? What happens is the teacher dies 
with embarrassment. Please. Hopefully his replacement is one who'll help 
this student learn that any performance worth making comes not from a 
five-minute imitation, but from the performer's own personality and feelings.

Chris

PS “I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” 
Socrates