[Tango-L] Tango's Cutural Heritage

[tony parkes]

i think a lot of work has to be done in this regard if we want to
preserve tango as we know it. i recently attended the friday night
tango festival ball in berlin and felt compelled to send the following
email to the organisers....

my name is tony parkes, an australian dancing tango for 7 years. i
have lived the last one and a half years in buenos aires, dancing on
average 5 nights a weeks. because i am visiting friends here i
registered for the 2010 berlin tango festival. your details are "
Registering for the festival for Anthony Parkes:- Your dancer name:
Anthony138 and your password: ZFI2HT "

the purpose of this email is to convey to you my immense
disappointment at the ball last friday night. tango friends here in
berlin advised me not to go thursday night because they expected that
it would most likely be an indulgence in nuevo tango, and some who
went confirmed this. but we all expected the saturday ball to be more
conventional tango. three of our group of six have danced in buenos
aires, and all 6 of us as i said above, were immensely disappointed.
apart from the music played by the dj, there was nothing else at the
ball that anyone who dances traditional tango could enjoy. and that
includes the "buenos aires tango orchestra" who played nuevo music. of
the several hundred people on the dance floor, 99% were dancing nuevo
with no knowledge of the line of dance nor respect for the space of
others. there was no tango energy, just couples dancing mindlessly,
selfishly, arrogantly - and no dancing with the music. the music could
have been jingle bells or happy birthday and they still would have
performed their same extravagant, exhibitional gyrations. there were
but so few people attempting to dance with feeling, connection with
their partner and love for the music

i am aware that the nuevo phenomenon is happening in north america and
in other places in europe which saddens me. in buenos aires i have
enjoyed many dances with both north and south american women, and of
course european women too, and i expected something similar here in
berlin. so now to attend what you have labelled a tango festival hurts
me. please answer me ....how can you use the word tango ?

the reality for me is that you have falsely labelled your festival (i
have been told that in past years it was traditional tango) so people
like myself and my friends who enjoy tango pay money to you in
expectation of another enjoyable tango experience. there was no chance
of that on saturday night. and for the first time in my 7 years of
dancing i walked off the pista during a tanda - to carlos di sarli no
less. i am not asking for my money to be returned, i just ask that you
look at yourselves and have the honesty and dignity to remove the word
tango from your marketing.