[Tango-L] Milongueros for Hire

[Astrid]

> Paying for dances is quite an interesting subject. I have heard that in 
> Japan there are far more women than men who dance tango, so the Japanese 
> women have to import men (Argentinians naturally) to dance with. I don't 
> know if that is true, but that is what I have heard and if it is true it 
> is a perfectly understandable reasonable solution to a local problem.

Victor,
this is a half-truth. Or maybe your misunderstanding of what you have heard. 
The true part is, yes, in Japan, there are far more women than men dancing 
tango (probably 2-3 times as many at times?) but that "Japanese women have 
to import men (Argentines) to dance with" is a rather twisted interpretation 
of what is going on here.
Ok, here is the reality of Tokyo:
Some men are imported from Argentina, yes, but not by the women themselves 
but by the dance schools or those promoting tango events. And not as "men" 
but rather, as tango teaching assistents and performers. They have an extra 
job as taxi dancers during the milongas, unless they are otherwise engaged 
with some performance on that day, and this is how they help the schools 
survive. Because many women come to the tango studios specifically to dance 
with these guys, sometimes for lack of other options, sometimes because they 
are more fun to dance with than the rest of the men at the milongas. The 
taxi dancers at the milonga do not cost anything, and they are not obliged 
to dance with any particular women, although those that book loads of 
privadas probably get preferential treatment.
It goes without saying that if an attractive male star dancer comes over 
from BA, he gets lots of bookings for privadas from those (same?) women, who 
often just want to have the experience to have a really good dance partner 
all to themselves for a while. And this results in tipping the scales even 
further in favour of good female dancers vs. mediocre male dancers who don't 
work very hard on their skills as they are flooded with offers from those 
2/3 of women who would rather dance with them than sit around most of the 
evening waiting while the one third is dancing...
All in all a very sorry state of affairs, really, but what can one do in 
this situation, and that way, at least, all the good milongas here have a 
few imported Argentine males participating regularly.
If you watch the movie "Shall we dance" (Japanese version) you can see what 
qualms many Japanese men have about dancing, the movie is a bit silly but 
not exaggerating the situation all that much. It gave me the creeps when I 
watched it, actually, I could not laugh...