[Tango-L] Origins

[Konstantin Zahariev]

Hello,

Carol wrote a beautiful post addressing this from a more general
perspective, and I agree with the totality of her points and would
have said similar things.

I just want to offer an even broader comment, not just about dancing.
I think it is interesting and significant that the last fifty or so
years have possibly been the first period in human history that we
have shifted on a large scale from being mostly creators to being
mostly consumers of music and other performing arts(*). We are into
uncharted territory.

Up until recorded music, radio, television and other media really
changed the way we viewed entertainment, it was a totally different
way of life with practically everyone in every family either playing
an instrument or dancing or being a storyteller or a singer, and
people created entertainment instead of consuming someone else's
creation.

Just some scattered thoughts..(**)

With best regards,

Konstantin
Victoria, Canada

(*) Yes, various disclaimers apply. The Romans were a special case of
proto-consumers with their proud inability and lack of desire to
create music (they hired others to do that). Other examples probably
exist.

(**) And dancing was indeed huge until the Great Depression or so.
I've read some estimates from papers, with astonishing figures from
the 1920s in the US, like: some 65,000 people would go out in Chicago
to dance every night of the week, or that in San Francisco there would
be more than a hundred dancing halls within a six-block radius
downtown, and that some dancing halls would regularly host up to 5,000
people at a time. I am going by memory, but can check the actual
statistics. In any case the numbers were absolutely mind-boggling.


On 7/19/07, 'Mash <mashdot at toshine.net> wrote:
> What about looking around at people today.
> What class would you say are the predominantly dancing now?
>
> 'Mash
> London,UK
>
> "May we be cautious in our perfection lest we lose the ability to dance."
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 12:53:58PM -0700, Konstantin Zahariev wrote:
> > On 7/18/07, Andy Ungureanu <abungureanu at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Konstantin
> > >
> > > Am 18.07.2007 19:29 schrieb Konstantin Zahariev :
> > > > In regards to biases and prejudices influencing the narrative, it
> > > > seems quite self-evident now that (1) tango originated with the
> > > > working classes,
> > > >
> > > What makes you believe, it was the "working" class? I rather believe
> > > someone working 10-12 hours a day as usual at the end of the 18th
> > > century cannot spend too much time hanging around and dancing.
> >
> >
> > I don't have to believe; it is what makes most sense and it is what
> > was done in other countries in similar circumstances. That was
> > ordinary people's entertainment. You have to remember the 1900s was an
> > era without radio, television, movies, or recorded music of any kind.
> > Secondly, do not assume long hours or hard work meant no fun and play
> > in the evening; people are amazingly resilient and adaptive even under
> > most difficult conditions. A friend likes to say that they composed
> > tangos even in Auschwitz. I don't know if this is true, but it is
> > perfectly plausible because this is the nature of people.
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Tango-L mailing list
> Tango-L at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
>