[Tango-L] The real, true, AUTHENTIC Argentine tango

[larrynla@juno.com]

Every few weeks, it seems, a brawl takes place in this and other like 
forums over what is REAL Argentine tango.

You will never see such over what real British tango is, except maybe 
its name.  The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance about a century 
ago renamed it International tango to make it more popular.  More 
recently the ISTD and its less offensively named cohorts have also 
named it Standard and (most recently) DanceSport tango.  British tango 
is what you see on "Dancing with the Stars" (a spin-off of the Brit 
series "Strictly Come Dancing").  And British tango is what you will see 
in the Olympics when the ISTD and its fellows get ballroom dancing made 
an official Olympic sport.

There is no argument about what is TRUE BritTango because there is a 
book that defines it in so much detail that you could almost program 
robots to do it.  This situation was the background to the first 
feature film directed by Baz Luhrman (of "Moulin Rouge" fame).  It was 
titled "Strictly Ballroom" and was especially hilarious to anyone who 
knows the International Ballroom world because it had so little 
exaggeration.

And every few weeks we see people in this and other like forums who 
seem as if they would be happy to imitate the British model - if only 
their idea of Argentine tango were declared the only real, true, 
AUTHENTIC Argentine tango.  There are even some Argentine tango 
teachers who sell collections of tapes and DVDs separated into bronze, 
silver, and gold levels just as the International world does each of 
their dances.

The tango police most recently have declared that it is only REAL tango 
if a woman and a man dance it - but only if the man is the leader and 
the woman the follower.  At other times they declare that nuevo tango 
(whatever the heck that is) is not REAL tango.  Some people say only if 
you dance body-to-body are you doing TRUE Argentine tango.  Others 
deride this as vulgar "belly-bumping" and inelegant.  A milonguero, 
they say, is some street trash who drives a taxi or works as a janitor 
or short-order cook - if they even have a job.  This view of the 
milonguero, incidentally, is not an unusual attitude of Argentines of 
older generations.

And, of course, that favorite of clueless journalists looking for a 
sound bite - tango is SEXY!  A "vertical expression of a horizontal 
desire" sounds so, so, ARGENTINE!  And they haul out the myth that 
tango was invented in brothels.

So what is the real nature of the Argentine tango?  Maybe its 
flexibility, the difficulty of  defining it in some hard-and-fast way, 
is part of the answer.  It is like a good outfit which is high-quality 
but also easily tailored to our own body and needs and abilities - and 
each of us is the tailor.

Which would explain why there are so many angry arguments over tango's 
true nature.  Because each of us creates a version that satisfies our 
deepest needs, a version that is a reflection of our true selves.  Thus 
anyone else who wants us to change our tango to match their version 
seems to be attacking us on our deepest levels rather than "correcting" 
superficial matters.

So maybe those of us who stand back and watch these battles over what 
is real tango with amusement should be grateful for them instead.  
Because when they quit tango will have died and been replaced with 
an embalmed corpse.

Larry de Los Angeles


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