[Tango-L] the video, definitions, etc.

[TangoDC.com]

(excerpted from what) Derik Rawson wrote:
> I looked at the video...  Very nice dancing and cool steps, but ZERO
> ELECTRICITY.
>   

Er, look. If you object to a comedic performance not being "electric" 
(by which I assume you mean something like "full of earnest passion"), I 
think you might just be applying the howitzer to the mosquito, to 
paraphrase Mark Twain. I mean, the dance also had ZERO HATS, and ZERO DI 
SARLI, and ZERO PAINTINGS OF NAPOLEON IN THE BACKGROUND, any of which 
other performances might very well include; but their absence isn't 
really grounds for complaint, now is it?

Or should every tango be danced to the same end, for the same purpose, 
with the same mythology swirling invisibly around it? Is this 
"electricity" a sine qua non?

I'm rather new to this list, but I've been on it long enough to see that 
you have a number of things to say, Derik. So far, however, I've only 
seen you object to practices at variance from the norm (or that which, 
in light of tango posters, "history," and other such propaganda, is 
commonly accepted as normative). That, at least, seems to be what you're 
defending: some sort of "real" tango that most people, as far as anyone 
can discern, believe most authentic.

For my benefit, if no one else's, could you take a minute to describe 
what this "real tango" is? I'm actually at something of a loss to pin it 
down and pack it in a box. It seems to involve a hetero couple... but I 
truly wonder what that entails. Is projecting a traditional, dramatic, 
hetero image a core part of it? Or is it something that happens inside 
the embrace, steeped in a vague (or not so vague) eroticism, which would 
be just as accessible to two lesbians as to a hetero couple? and what 
about two gay men? I hesitate to ask what the chances for an authentic 
tango are when you match up a straight man with a lesbian, or a bisexual 
with someone chaste, or an impotent man with a woman who's never had an 
orgasm. And since dating couples (of whatever persuasion) often 
encounter as much chaos as bliss in the dance, I have to wonder if being 
single is an essential part of "the real tango," and if that's why so 
many songs are about betrayal and loneliness, despite my hunch that a 
good portion of the commonplace romance in the lyrics is actually 
tongue-in-cheek, and really about hookers.

But I'm jumping the gun and presuming I'm already on the right track. 
Could you please fill me in?

A media luz,

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC