[Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainwashing

[Christopher L. Everett]

Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com) wrote:
> Bravo to Robert for spitting on the unfounded arguments recently put 
> forward. I have only a few points to add...
>
> (1) If you're talking about community building as a spectator, you had 
> better be getting your ass on the floor and giving people good dances. 
> To cast aspersions on teachers, organizers, performers, or even DJs, 
> without having first shut up and done your part to be a good community 
> member, is poop.
>   
Nice strawman.
> (2) This home-town crap (tango in BA, bop in NYC) is ludicrous. Tango 
> and jazz both went abroad to find their first audiences and devotees on 
> the world stage. Thanks be to the greater aesthetic sensibilities of 
> Europe for that (and to the erstwhile cheap rents of Paris). Many of the 
> great jazz musicians (like many in tango) lived in and on Europe. Only 
> when these arts had risen to glory (and commercial promise) did their 
> home countries accept them back, and make a big ruckus about national 
> treasures, which is pure hogwash.
>   
Mmmm.  Beg to differ here.  They left when they had already
mastered their instrument and developed their style.  Ben 
Webster, Dexter Gordon, you name em.  And they left for
more reasons than audiences and cheap rent.

> (3) America isn't the country that came up with tango electronica, and 
> it wasn't Americans living in Paris either. Also, there's more to the 
> good stuff (as opposed to the crud) than a bass beat and a bandoneon, 
> which should be readily apparent to anyone with a keen ear for music.
>   
There's not a lot of the good stuff and a lot of crud.
> (4) The "BA milonga experience," to the best of my knowledge, consists 
> of overcrowded floors (which eliminate the possibility of dancing 
> fantasia, which appears to have been a social form before it was taken 
> to the stage in the rock n' roll era), of tourists aplenty, and of 
> inexpensive but good quality beef in large, lean cuts. If anyone wants 
> to introduce a good, cheap steak to the DC milongas, you have my full 
> support.
>   
I went in June, July and August.  Few tourists, still crowded. 
Even at 4 in the morning, none of the locals are dancing
fantasia.  Not even Oscar Mandagaran.

Most milongas don't serve food.  And the really cheap cuts
are pretty damned chewy and usually overcooked anyway.
But if you must indulge, I recommend vacio if you're being
cheap or try bife de ojo or bife de lomo if you have cash.
Avoid the costada.
> (5) Saying that everyone has to go to Buenos Aires is like saying 
> everyone in BA has to go to La Viruta. Are these people in advertising?
>   
La Viruta is a young person's place.  I would tell people to
avoid that place like the plague.
> (6) There continue to be plenty of Argentine dancers living and teaching 
> in Europe and the US. I wonder how much they want to re-create BA abroad.
>   
They go abroad because they can't make a living teaching and
dancing in BA and that's all they know how to do.  A starring
role at a nightly tango show pays like 800 pesos a month. 
These people are doing it for love not money.  If it was up to
them, they might never have left.

There are no more than 10 people dancing and teaching full
time in BA.  The rest have day jobs.

The best teachers and dancers never leave.  They're people
you never heard of.  Do they never leave because they're the
best, or do they become the best because they didn't leave?
> (7) I know plenty of musicians who are fine dancers, and it's too early 
> in the game to decree that they must become mediocre tango musicians. 
> This type of binary thinking (I hesitate to call it thinking) is really 
> becoming an epidemic, here and elsewhere. Either/or is for switchboards, 
> not the alert human mind.
>   
Fine is a Matter of Opinion.  Excellence requires years of
*study*.  I accept that you study tango, but even people
taking classes, if they don't practice what they get taught
aren't studying.

> Spatz
> DC
>
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