[Tango-L] World Class tango dancers....

[Deby Novitz]

Nino wrote:

If you are not Argentine, you cannot be a world-class tango 
dancer and might as well forget about it because the world of tango, 
with all the "classy" dancing,  begins and ends in Argentina.:)  This 
is an absolute. 


Well Nina, you might want to rethink what you have written.  Junior 
Cervila,  he is in my opinion an excellent dancer and 
from..........Brasil.  The same for Paulo Araujo.  In NYC there is Angel 
Clemente Garcia, one of the best ..... and a Mexican.  There are people 
from other places as well that are wonderful dancers.

I have been dragged and pushed around the floor like a dust mop by 
several Argentine name brands who without a choreographed dance could 
not lead their way out of a dark cave with 1000 lit torches.  There are 
many Argentines who cannot dance gracefully or elegantly.  Sometimes I 
watch them and I cannot for the life of me figure out what people think 
is so great about them other than they speak English, charge lots of 
money, and are arrogant, therefore, they must be good.

Now another myth....there are not a million wonder dancers here.  It is 
all relative.  When I came here in 2000 I thought each and everyone of 
them was wonderful, incredible.  I marveled at what I thought was 
dancing to the music.  Now I live and dance here and I can tell you, 
that here is no better here than there.  (Wherever there is) There are 
maybe less than 10 men I want to dance with.  Here is the 
difference...we have more dancers, more places to dance.  So it might 
seem like there are lots more good dancers.  It is all relative.  If you 
live in Iowa then San Francisco seems like Mecca.  I lived in San 
Francisco and as I commuted to Buenos Aires, San Francisco did not seem 
much like Mecca to me.  The percentages of good dancers "should" be 
higher when there are more dancers....because there are more dancers.

Dancing with bad dancers.  I don't do it.  Not knowingly.  The best 
dancers here male and female sit until they want to dance.  When the 
music is right, when there is someone to dance with.  Once this 
gentleman I know came into the milonga. He came to get me to dance to a 
tanda.  He told me that I was going to be his only tanda of the evening 
and then he was going to leave.  His reason was the women left him 
uninspired.  Maybe this sounds harsh, but this is not unusual here.  One 
night we went to 3 milongas because we as women were uninspired.  We 
were trying to find out where the men were to dance with.  We ended up 
drinking champagne in Gricel.

What happens when I accept a dance with a man who is not that good.    I 
dance with him if he is a nice guy.  It is not his fault we both made a 
mistake.  If he is completely undanceable, at least for me.  I have no 
choice but to end the dance.  To walk off the floor here is an insult to 
one of the parties.  Usually it is a verguenza for the man, not me.  
Here you need to earn the right to walk off the floor.  I can do it, but 
I do not like to.  Not unless the man is a total jerk, or he is hurting 
me with his horrible dancing.  How do I dance with them?  I concentrate 
very hard on my balance and axis to stay upright, and many times I have 
to look at the floor because there is no lead.  Even more so I do not 
dance close embrace if the dancer is really poor.  Then I would really 
be dragged around.  If the man is from the U.S. and used to dancing 
patterns, I have to watch his feet.  I no longer live in the U.S. and 
therefore do not know what patterns are now being taught, so I have to 
figure out the steps before they happen.

The point is that tango is tango.