[Tango-L] Cortinas (not the old car from the '70s)

[Alexis Cousein]

nina at earthnet.net wrote:
> We want to fantasize about being more  
> free, more independent, etc, but it remains a fantasy.  

No, it isn't. Stop caring about gossip and you're on the path to
freedom.

I'll proclaim it loud and clear: I don't play traditional tandas.
I mix orchestras. I know what I'm doing, and very often I do things
just to wrongfoot people's expectations, just to challenge them.
People will change partners at natural borders ,which there will
always be (unless you're stupid as a DJ), or they won't (and
as I and others in this thread have observed, some partners will
cling like leeches to good dancers regardless of whether there
are tandas or not).

My attitude had always been that there's room for something different,
and if some people think there isn't, then they are free to walk.

I don't do that because of my big ego (even though it towers above the
ego of many), but because there *are* people who find some conventions
stifling, especially if things like tandas start to act like crutches
on the unimaginative DJs who play safe for an entire evening,
boring their audience to death (unfortunately, from what people tell
me, there is little comfort in the fact that this torture is
inflicted in a culturally correct way).

Note that I'm not saying that you can't be a decent DJ if you use
tandas, just that there *are* other ways to structure an evening
-- and I'll confess, I find it actually more hard work to play a
sparkling set with tandas, cortinas and the use of exactly one
orchestra and period per tanda - my hats off to those who can
(with ease).

Oh, people who walk are also free to gossip about me - there's no law
against it.

People who just read my heretical take on tandas and don't know me at all
are also free to gossip - I don't care.

I am what I am, and I'm not forcing the entire world to hug
me, nor even to respect my choices (though the latter would be the
Christian thing to do, of course).