[Tango-L] Tango Creeps - A Question for Halloween

[Keith]

I've always been taught that the woman determines the nature of the embrace. 
The man simply opens his right arm and the woman completes the embrace. Whether 
she takes an open or a close embrace - the man respects it. It's not uncommon 
for a woman to start in an open embrace and, by the end of the tanda, the embrace 
is close. There should never be any question of the man pulling in the woman or 
of women ... "fighting like bucking broncos to break the embrace".

If the man doesn't like the woman's choice of embrace, he can simply choose not 
to ask her to dance again.

Keith, HK


On Fri Oct 26  0:42 , "Tango Society of Central Illinois"  sent:

>On 10/25/07, Neil Liveakos neil.liveakos at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> All,
>> Has anyone encountered the situation where open dancers regard
>> close-embrace
>> dancers as creeps?
>>
>> Neil
>> http://milonga.us
>> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
>Yes, but it is mostly the dancers who are not good at dancing in the (close)
>embrace who get this reaction, from what I have seen. What I'm referring to
>are the men who usually dance tango in an open frame and while dancing they
>bring the women close to them, often holding them too tight because they
>lack the proper technique, or maybe because they are motivated by hormonal
>surges. They are selective with regard to the women upon whom they bestow
>this (dis)honor, and they have motives other than good tango dancing. It is
>the creeps like these who give tango a bad name. I tell our women students
>it is OK to drop these Neanderthals in the middle of a tango.
>
>When we teach tango, we emphasize the embrace is like a hug (same word
>'abrazo' in Spanish). It is firm but not confining. It is affectionate but
>not lascivious. The embrace is an essential defining quality of tango. The
>Argentines know this. To break the embrace is to transform tango into just
>another ballroom dance.
>
>Given that, I have occasionally encountered women fighting like bucking
>broncos to break the embrace. Once in another community, a woman told me she
>felt confined in the embrace. That was because she was dancing with her
>weight back on her heels. You can't dance in the embrace with your weight
>back on your heels. It becomes a belly dance rather than una conexion de los
>corazones.
>
>Of course, there are those who won't dance tango close because of the strong
>Puritanical values that pervade our American culture. Tango is not a good
>dance for people like these.
>
>Ron
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