[Tango-L] communites of all gender leading

[Konstantin Zahariev]

On 9/13/07, Igor Polk <ipolk at virtuar.com> wrote:
> [...]  it happened everywhere ( in
> jails, at schools, at factory parties) and in all historical periods, with
> all dances, but only if there was not enough of the opposite sex to dance
> with.


I think you are right. One other factor that contributed to this
phenomenon, but is sometimes overlooked, is that all music was live -
there was no recorded music. Consequently, dancers depended, in part,
on chance encounters with street musicians or impromptu bands if they
wanted to practice or dance. Hence they had to do it with whomever was
at hand when they happened to be in the vicinity of (live) music.

An eyewitness account describing this in a tango context (as something
normal and out of necessity to use every opportunity to practice) is,
for example, in the memoirs of the police chief (I forget the exact
reference but can provide it if needed).

I suspect that tango was no more men-with-men dance than any other
dance in the 19th century. There is scant photographic evidence from
the late 19th and very early 20th century, and unfortunately the one
series of five photos of men posing (dancing? fooling around? playing
up on what the photographer expected? how would we know?) has been
extrapolated from and interpreted as representative, amplified beyond
any justification, and of course connected back to that enduring
stereotype of tango as 'dirty and exotic'.

With best regards,

Konstantin
Victoria, Canada