[Tango-L] Argentine Tango Dancer Census: Increasing, Decreasing or Dividing?

[Bruno Afonso]

Hey,

Culturally, I see big differences as far as socializing goes compared
to western (from where I am from) and latin europe. I mainly know
Boston, but there's little things that don't seem to be very usual in
US. For example, rarely anyone stays talking for an hour in a
restaurant after the dinner, just having some drink and chatting.
People eat and leave. It's as if restaurants are only there to eat and
after that, off you go! This surprises me as the best part of going
out to dinner, to me, has always been the lively chat after a good
meal, *slowly* savored. Having dinner is a good excuse to get people
together, because, you know, everyone normally has one every night.

When I go to milongas, I like to sit, watch the floorcraft and listen.
This has surprised many of my friends since they go to milongas to
dance! I love dancing, but I don't need or want to dance everything.
I'm sure I will probably be dancing more as I get more experienced,
but right now, I like to learn music, listen to what music compose the
tandas and, try to socialize a bit. I also like to watch dancers I
like and try to understand why I don't like so much others. I believe
tango is a very social dance and it only makes sense as such. I
believe you shouldn't go to a milonga for dancing alone, but for the
whole experience, for the atmosphere, friends and socializing.
Argentines by drop boston milongas and aren't always dancing. That
surprises some of my friends and I don't understand them.

Learning and dancing AT would not make sense to me if I couldn't also
enjoy the unique atmosphere that is (hopefully) created at milongas.

I think creating this culture of more than just *a dance* would help
to keep communities going. This would make communities friendlier and
more amenable to welcoming new elements.

There are interesting phenomena that happen when cultures or religions
are emulated outside their origins. There's a tendency towards
extremes. It's funny that some milongas outside BA are probably much
more unfriendly than BA's most unfriendly. It's interesting but at the
same time hurtful to the communities.

peace
b


On 3/7/08, 'Mash <mashdot at toshine.net> wrote:

> To be honest I think is most likely to do with how unaccommodating the Tango community is becoming. That Tango appears to be less and less about people coming together to dance and more about being part of a kind of self-righteousness elitist group who hold a kind of religious belief about Tango.


-- 
Bruno Afonso
http://brunoafonso.com (personal, mostly portuguese)
http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:BrunoAfonso (Professional, english)