[Tango-L] Expanding social dancing to exhibition level?

[ceverett@ceverett.com]

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:20:36 -0400, "Carol Shepherd"
<arborlaw at comcast.net> said:
> Ron:
> 
> I second your observation on this trend.  All dance, when it comes to 
> America, seems to not only gets transmogrified into something different, 
> it also gets turned into a competitive sport;

Read up on your tango history.  Competition between dancers 
has been the *number one* factor in the evolution of tango.

Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this discussion, tango
would have become historical reenactment at best before 
the turn of the last century.

Formal tango competitions occured as far back as 1926.  
Informal competitions went on continuously.  Men guarded 
their steps jealously from competitors, and sought to steal 
steps from other dancers at the same time.

The cultural underpinnings in Argentine society during 
proto-tango times are the same cultural underpinnings 
that made Afro-American dance from cakewalk to Lindy Hop 
to breakdance what it is and was and probably always will 
be.

Famous dancers built teaching careers as early as 1910. 

Dancers like El Cachafaz and Petroleo were so admired as 
innovators that in the space of a few years, all of Buenos
Aires changed how they danced because of them.

Something as simple as the cruzada, didn't get the exploration 
it deserved until the late 30's.  That exploration so changed
the face of tango that it made close embrace possible: a woman 
can't comfortably do a molinete in close embrace without it
unless she has double jointed hips.

Why did the guy even bother to take the risk of exploring the 
possibilities in the women's front cross, when he could have 
been getting ahead incrementally by exploring the same space 
in the dance as the other guys?  Could it have been because 
he was looking for something to put his own stamp on the dance 
with?

Why did all the other guys who observed the phenomenon before 
him then pass up the opportunity to explore cruzada-space?  
Could it have been because it was so simple on its face they 
didn't think there was anything important to learn there?

Today's best leaders are constantly playing off each other
*on the dance floor*, being inspired by other's best stuff 
and showing off their own best stuff.  This includes people
who are considered strict milonguero style dancers.

Every time we want to put a circle around the some part of
the dance and and point at it and say "everything in there, 
that's the real tango", something or someone comes along and
tells you how little you know.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  

Be grateful for competition.  We would still be dancing polka 
and schottiche without it.

Christopher