[Tango-L] Why are you dancing tango if you don't like tango?

[Lois Donnay]

I heard the strangest thing last night, and am still puzzling over it. I was talking to a young woman who recently moved here, and she said she had been dancing quite some time, and teaching, in her previous city. We talked about a variety of things, and got to know a little about the differences in our two cities. She remarked on the prevalence of close embrace dancing, and I admitted my firm believe that it is necessary to learn and encourage close embrace from the beginning, or tango dancers will never understand how the dance works and be able to give a good embrace. She thought it was OK to start in open as long as you emphasize a good frame. 

But then she asked me about the Nuevo scene we have. I said we didn't have too much, and I'm not fond of dancing to non-tango music myself. She said she dislikes tango. She much prefers to dance to tango Nuevo. She doesn't have much interest in dancing to traditional tango, and suggested that this may be the reason that young people in our community tend to create their own events.

So my question is: why would someone get involved in tango dancing, so much so that they choose to teach, when they don't like tango?

Lois Donnay
Minneapolis, MN