[Tango-L] The call to tango, and "gender polarization"

[Brian Dunn]

Dear list, 

Kace wrote a great message in another thread about what several things that
attracted him to tango, and I wanted to respond in part:
>>>
...I'm going to state my own definitions
of what attracted me to Tango in the first place were:
(Numbers 1 through 4 omitted from current commentary)
5. Nostalgia -- tango is a mirror to an earlier, more romantic era.  In 
the "good old days" gender roles were clearly defined...Tango lets us break
out of our political correctness and return temporarily to a more macho and
sensual age when men and women know how to treat each other with respect.
<<<

Concerns like these are, for my partner Deb and me, at the center of our own
call to tango.  In my view, Kace, you are correct in seeing a misplaced
“political correctness” as one of the inhibiting restrictions on our free
expression of our innate masculine and feminine natures (and just to
forestall flames, can we all agree that each of us has some elements of both
masculine and feminine archetypes in our core identities, expressed in
different ways to different degrees, regardless of whether we are
physiologically male or female?  If not, those who disagree may want to hit
delete now...). Certainly, hearkening back to an era that was more
gender-polarized along these lines than our current culture is one way to
permit the re-emergence of a healthy distinction in the expression of these
paired archetypes.

>From my perspective, however, I view tango’s focus on what I would call
“gender polarization” to be, not a nostalgic call to the past (which we may
agree had its own problems between the genders), but rather a harbinger of a
new and more richly textured relationship between men and women.  The last
forty years in the United States and other Western-European-culture
countries has of course seen lots of gender upheaval (free-love hippies,
feminism, gay culture, AIDS, etc.).  In many ways these impacts are not yet
fully assimilated by the popular culture in these countries. 

While I understand the easy framing of the male-female spark in tango as
nostalgia in the face of these upheavals, I feel in our own call to tango
(and many others concur in this) a forward-looking cultural developmental
drive to a new progressive synthesis of “healthy polarization” between the
genders, on the one hand, with (among other things) the social and political
empowerment of women, on the other.  This social and political empowerment
is a new and permanent part of the cultural landscape in the aforementioned
countries, and is largely the fruit of the upheavals mentioned before.  

With such a new synthesis, in our teaching, in our performing and organizing
for the naïve public that is drawn to the new dance TV shows, and in our
social tango encounters within our growing tango communities, we all can
gracefully and powerfully exemplify the masculine and feminine archetypes in
their strongly polarized tango expressions.  Yet the new synthesis would
provide this tango sweetness within a context that can actively cherish the
forward social progress of the last forty years, and in turn be nourished by
it.  Within this new polarization, tango can be a fantastic forum for
romance and flirtation to respectfully and energetically combine in a
celebratory festival of rejoicing in simply being leaders and followers,
pairing off temporarily in public, but nevertheless giving our best to each
other in every magical tango moment.  In this emerging culture, the
decisive, reliable macho masculine and the sensually alluring surrendering
feminine are both encouraged to find their full expression in tango, in all
of us, for the increased happiness of all.

We're actively seeking to network with others who respond to the call to
tango in ways that resonate with this vision. Please make contact off-list
in order to keep in touch.

Kace made some other great comments in this thread, and I hope to respond to
them soon.

All the best,
Brian Dunn 
Dance of the Heart
Boulder, Colorado USA
303-938-0716
www.danceoftheheart.com
“Building a better world, one tango at a time”