[Tango-L] just walking

[Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)]

List,

Why is it that certain people _assume_ every tango class will be about 
Social Dancing, regardless of how it's billed? If you do this, and then 
turn around and declare yourself free of bias about whether "the real 
tango" can occur on a stage, doesn't that make you rather a hypocrite?

And why is it that certain people, who probably have no experience of 
stage performance (that doesn't involve sitting down and watching one), 
feel confident to speak of a "dichotomy" between social and stage 
dancing, as though the two were utterly different things? If you think 
there's no tactile & emotional connection in an open embrace-- or 
likewise propose that every stage performance excludes a close embrace-- 
can you honestly say you have full knowledge of what you're talking about?

If you think there's a gulf b/w open & close embraces as regards 
fundamental technique and/or movement, I'd say your view is already 
quite distorted, and that you probably aren't dancing in Either form as 
well as you could be. Most arts have these silly debates; it's like the 
prose vs. verse "dichotomy," or the one between mass drawing (i.e., 
painting) and line work... Only people of a limited purview put the 
values of One over the possibilities of the other.

Honestly, I don't understand why so many dancers choose Bad Examples for 
the definition of their terms. They end up lacking meaning.

Spatz
DC