[Tango-L] Music preferences/Social-ethical behaviours

[Sandhill Crane]

--- On Mon, 8/9/10, johnofbristol at tiscali.co.uk <johnofbristol at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> Both these threads are interesting, illustrating as they do the 
> differences between Argentine and European (and possibly
> US) customs. Here it would be considered rude to ignore
> your partner's friends, or your friend's partner.

I have a different explanation for the difference in custom.
>From a North American perspective, even if a woman arrives
with a man, she can still decide for herself who she wants
to dance with. To assume that a woman who arrives with a man
is off-limits to everyone else, is similar to assuming that
she is his property, something very out of date, from a
North American perspective, as I was saying.

Now if the two of them choose to exclude everyone else,
that's all well and good, but one wouldn't assume from
the outset that they can't dance with other people.

> It may be something to do with the ballroom 
> tradition that everyone present must do their bit to ensure
> that the event is a success: men must not allow women to be
> wallflowers, etc. From what I have read, the Argentines
> have no such scruples. 

Well, there is a practical problem for most tango
communities outside of Argentina. Usually there aren't
so many people in the community, so if you want to
have someone to dance with next week, it's probably
in your interest to try to make sure everybody has a
good time this week. If there were always lots and lots
of people, you could afford to not care so much whether
everybody gets to dance.