[Tango-L] Fw: Stone Soup 2008 Follow Up

[Chris, UK]

Astrid

In the rest of the tango world, the majority of dancers don't do classes. 
They just dance. Whether they started in classes is irrelevant - they 
either didn't, or did and outgrew them.

Cut to USA. This "overwhelmingly popular" festival is packed with 
presentations, seminars, practicas, classes and privates... and one 
milonga per day which Miles' video shows is half empty.

Weird. If the dancing is that unpopular, why are these people spending so 
much time studying for it?

--
Chris

PS Americans visiting Europe might like to consider OsterTango, one of our 
best festivals. Daily there's an afternoon milonga, big evening ball, then 
night milonga until 6/7am. And some classes.







> *Subject:* [Tango-L] Fw:  Stone Soup 2008 Follow Up
> *From:* "Astrid" <astrid at ruby.plala.or.jp>
> *To:* <tl2 at chrisjj.com>, "Tango-L" <Tango-L at mit.edu>
> *Date:* Fri, 9 May 2008 12:59:29 +0900
> 
> >> > Why are you people in the US so obsessed with classes?
> 
> Frankly, Chris, the only one I can see here who is obsessed with 
> anything is you with your obsession about not taking classes. You keep 
> harping on the same subject, over and over again, and I have yet to see 
> a feasible explanation of yours on what is bad about taking classes, 
> and a description of how you learned to dance without ever taking 
> classes.
> I have also yet to meet a dancer who can dance tango without ever 
> having learned it from a teacher, just because he was born with "Tango 
> running in his blood", and this is the truth, no matter what Argentines 
> will have you believe.
> >
> >> Uhm......because we have seen what inbreeding in a small geographical
> >> area produces?
> >
> > If you don't like BA-style tango, then there are easier ways to avoid 
> > it.
> 
> I think, you have not paid much attention as to who Nancy is.
> 
> >> I'm so glad to see that list members are stepping up to say negative
> >> things about Argentine Tango in the US
> >
> > Can we take that to mean at least one US person agrees class 
> > obsession is
> > negative? ;)
> 
> getting your hopes up, eh? At least one in the US and at least one in 
> the UK...
> >
> >> and this apparently overwhelmingly popular and positive event.
> >
> > Overwhelmingly popular with overwhelming class-goers, no doubt.
> 
> as I said, on and on and on. One starts to suspect you have to 
> compensate for or justify something, running around with the torch for 
> non-lesson tango all the time.
> 
>  But what
> > about regular dancers?
> 
> how do you define the "regular dancer", Chris? I am under the 
> impression, you mean those guys who have never learned dance technique 
> or taken a three months crash course at some cheap studio and then were 
> off to troll the milongas. Berlin has quite a few of those.
> At least in BA, the men who could not dance would dance with other men 
> before they dared to impose themselves on the women.
> (no more, i am afraid)
> 
>  Let's hear from some of them, please.
> 
> if my impression is based on misunderstanding, I am open to being 
> enlightened by you, but otherwise, would you PLEASE change the subject 
> every once in a while, Chris, or is that too much to ask?
> 
> 
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