[Tango-L] What's in a name?

[Sandhill Crane]

--- On Sat, 12/25/10, Michael <tangomaniac at cavtel.net> wrote:

> The major divisions I see in tango are traditional music
> vs. alternative music; close embrace vs. open, and social
> vs. stage (performance.) To me, social dancing's objective
> is pleasing your partner; stage (performance) dancing is
> pleasing the audience or those not dancing.

This isn't too far off the mark, I think, but it seems
a more useful distinction among tango styles is the social
context for each one.

One social context is the stage performance: a group sits
and watches somebody else. Another context is the milonga:
a group dance at the same time. Everybody recognizes these
two contexts, so I won't say more about them.

Another context which has arisen, as far as I can tell,
in the last few decades, is the workshop. One person tells
the others what to do, and they practice that. That makes
it possible to do some really complicated stuff, but
pretty much only with the people who go to a lot of
workshops.

Maybe tango teachers and classes have always existed,
but from what I can tell, it wasn't anybody's primary
context for the dance until pretty recently. These days
in the US (maybe elsewhere, I don't know), there are a lot
of people for whom tango as a dance is best experienced
in a workshop.

I'm not too picky about what people do at a milonga,
but it has to suit the ronda, and it has to suit your
partner. To do otherwise is quite literally unsociable
 -- it is ignoring the social context in which
you find yourself.