[Tango-L] Light shed

[Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)]

List,

The actual difference between cultural "nods," as far as I can 
determine, is that in the US (most likely in Canada too) men routinely 
nod _to other men_ in silent greeting or acknowledgment. This is a habit 
probably acquired by every young man in high school, around the age of 
fourteen. Seldom if ever is it used with a girl in that context, unless 
you're trying to say hello while one party is mid-conversation with 
other people, and don't want to interrupt.

What you actually may observe in a North American milonga is that men 
make eye contact with each other frequently. The gesture already has a 
quiet semantic value.

Likewise, male friends in North America do not routinely hug & kiss upon 
meeting: a handshake-only salutation is not interpreted here as a sign 
of distance and formality. No, we use eye contact and sternness, 
mid-shake, to communicate that. Most people here will immediately 
recognize a more full-body greeting b/w men as something foreign. Same 
with the collar opened two buttons. North America en masse is not 
ignorant of these details: they simply have other conventional meanings 
here.

Giving eye contact & "the nod" a different context and meaning is bound 
to create a little confusion for some; and, as already mentioned, the 
thing only works well between acquaintances anyway. If you're trying to 
get a stranger on the dance floor without using speech, you have to 
create some social theater first, a little flirtation. I think the issue 
is more that people in the US, whether they're from here or not, often 
don't know how to flirt, or make small talk with their body language-- 
mainly because this continent specializes is making everything 
convenient and nothing easy.

Learning a new move ("Let's do the cabeceo!") isn't going to change 
that. On the contrary, if the behavior is at all mystified, it'll more 
probably result in some really pathetic, over-eager posing. The aim is 
to put people at ease and avoid shame: the means thereto should be 
adapted thereto, not imported and imposed as artifice.

Moreover, I think the orthodox attitude of assigned seating and bright 
lights (while it certainly might have its occasion) would in most cases 
sacrifice more ease and casual atmosphere than it could introduce. But 
such codes of conduct are meant to be formal, distant, forbidding. 
That's what you _need_ in Argentina. In North America, where the dance 
is far more white-collar than blue, we most often need the opposite. I'd 
say the chit-chat "tradition," enforced, would get more accomplished 
than the winky-winky wordless nod at thirty yards.

Jake Spatz
DC