[Tango-L] "Alternative" Music....

[Huck Kennedy]

Kat <hellkat_13 at yahoo.com> writes:
> Huck Kennedy <huck at eninet.eas.asu.edu> wrote:
> 
> >      How about Teeny Bopper To Twenty-Something (And
> > TBTTS Wannabees) Tucked Out Shirt Over Cargo Pants
> > And Resoled Converse Sneakers Dancing?
> 
> Ooh, does that mean we can start alternately calling
> pure Argentine Tango "Slicked-Back-Hair,
> Rose-in-the-Teeth, Pretentious Windbag Dancing?"

     I was thinking of just calling it "Argentine tango,"
because that's what it is.  Besides, it wouldn't be
fair to name an entire dance just after me.  :)

     But to explore this "pretentious" idea a bit
further--I don't think it's pretentious to vastly
prefer to enjoy Argentine tango for what it actually
is.  Is preferring to play football on a football
field instead of a baseball diamond pretentious?  Is
preferring to dance fox trot to Sinatra instead of
cha-cha music pretentious, even if you are able to
make the fox trot moves fit the cha-cha music (which
one most certainly can)?

     As Nina points out, tango is the music--the
dance is just icing on the cake.  If anything need be
labeled, I'd say presuming to hijack someone else's
culture and transform it into something entirely
different, while still calling it the same name, is
presumptuous.  I also agree with Nina that doing so
betrays a confusion between dance movement that has
evolved around tango, and tango itself.

     Now having said that, actually I'm all for the
American tango festivals offering alternative-music
milongas in the late afternoon the way many of them
have been doing the last few years, because that way
the people who like to do that sort of thing can just
be together and get it out of their systems all at
once, rather than diminishing the actual AT milongas
that occur later in the evening by clamoring at the
DJ all night hoping to get him to insert some
alternative-music tandas.

     And if I were in a town someplace and the choice
of what was available that night was either an
alternative milonga or nothing, I wouldn't choose
nothing just to stubbornly prove some kind of purist
point, as if by going to the alternative milonga
I'd be "selling out the Argentines!!" or something.
I'd no doubt go to the alternative milonga, have some
fun, and enjoy it for what it was--hey, dancing of
just about any kind is fun, and as Stephen Stills once
said in a song, if you can't be with the one you love,
love the one you're with--but after it was over,
I certainly wouldn't delude myself into thinking I'd
just enjoyed an evening of Argentine tango.  And if
the choice were three-way, between an alternative
milonga, nothing, and, say, a movie, if the movie was
good enough, it might be awfully tempting, whereas if
the milonga were genuine instead of alternative, the
movie wouldn't stand a chance.

Huck

PS  By the way, the slick-backed hair idea is coolly
    authentic, but to the best of my knowledge, the
    rose-in-the-teeth caricature is more associated
    with International Standard ballroom tango.    :)