[Tango-L] What do you think?

[Vince Bagusauskas]

Brian,


>"Pay lots of attention to the opinions of world-class experts when they 
>discuss their own area of expertise, and routinely ignore them when they 
>express opinions in areas in which they have no expertise".  Lately we've 
>heard lots of critique of the aesthetic choices of some good social tango 
>dancers on "style" grounds,

You speak of different tangos and seem to suggest that just because
someone is a real and talented expert in several different tango forms that 
the average social
dancer should just bow down to these experts and we should bask in their
greatness and cater for their needs?  I disagree.


>Yet in this thread we hear so much of "why don't they just stop calling it 
>tango?"


What you seem to dismiss, is that many people on this list, who have danced 
many
many more years than me and are expert at it, love a particular form of 
tango and the
traditions that go with them.   That is all they are asking.  If you want to 
go to a nuevo tango styled
event (eg Practica X) then find one and go for it.  If however, the
organiser promotes their event as a traditional Argentine tango
event where ganchos, leaps, and raising the leg above the knee line is
strictly prohibited, then the nuevo reformists should respect the
boundaries.  Where I came from, there are tango events catering for the
nuevo dancers and one had the freedom to go there if social tango was not
for them.  While you would think this would keep everyone happy, it was 
always the nuevo dancers who pushed the envelope trying to get their way.


>The really good dancers are the ones everyone wants to dance with, ...... 
>we envy them a little bit their universal desirability at the milonga, 
>?right?


You also talked about an envious factor.  I guess all dancers want to be
popular, but sometimes humility gets shunted aside.  As an example, in my 
salsa days a work
colleague of mine had a placing in the Australian salsa championships.  If
not for an old torn knee ligament injury he may have won.  He said to me 
once "I know
how good a dancer I am, because of all of the girls lining up to dance
with me."  Obviously to my eyes many women get a buzz from such a
testosterone filled attitude and wanted to dance with the best.  But my
reaction to this was somewhat different.

V