[Tango-L] "Save the last dance for..."

[Nina Pesochinsky]

I deleted Astrid's original post from this e-mail because it made it 
too long to be posted.  To make sense of my comment, you need to read her post.

Astrid,

Beautiful and sad post.  Tango as we knew and loved it is dying.  If 
we don't admit it, we might miss the right moment to say goodbye 
properly before its last breath.

Instead of seduction and pleasure, it has become a dance of 
engineering figures.  It takes both partners to know their part on a 
level that goes beyond the movement in tango.  Astrid, the ladies 
value the kicks because this is all that they might get in that 
dance.  The men, on the other hand, might make it a sport to control 
the wild, kicking partner and try to make something of the 
dance.  They call it "connection" and marvel at how well each "leads" 
or "follows".

Here, you might see milongas where men no longer lust after the women 
they dance with.  They don't even pretend to lust after them or after 
a dance with them!  Not even out of politeness!  And the women try so 
hard to have a  bit of some exciting energy with the men that they 
loose their dignity pursuing it.

This beautiful dance of men and women came into a culture outside of 
Argentina that has long ago suffocated the sexy and exciting energy 
between strangers.  And now it's suffocating this dance, because it 
"loves" it and has "embraced" it...  And now the dance does not even 
exist in Buenos Aires.  There are some precious exceptions, but they 
are dissappearing.

Argentine tango, which we knew and loved, is dying.  Every day, I 
honor it and try to keep the memory.  I don't want to miss that last 
moment, one and only chance, to say goddbye.

Nina