[Tango-L] Better? Worse? Just different.

[Myk Dowling]

On 16/04/11 02:29, Anton Stanley wrote:
> My last comment. If over time, I keep adding more and more sugar to my
> coffee, I'll either develop a taste for very sweet coffee or I'll stop
> drinking coffee. Extrapolate this through a tango community and you retain
> those with a sweet taste at the expense of those that don't. :)
That seems a silly analogy. Why would you keep adding more and more 
sugar if it isn't to your taste?

There is a phenomenon that appears almost everywhere we look in the 
world - competing forces reaching a balance. Incoming heat from the sun 
is balanced by "black body" radiation to keep the Earth's temperature 
relatively stable. Increasing numbers of a particular animal puts too 
much pressure on their food source, leading to starvation and over time, 
fairly stable population sizes. And in human culture, competing 
interests generally don't lead to one interest triumphing at the expense 
of the other. A balance is found.

In the end, traditional tango will only die if people stop wanting to 
dance it. I certainly don't see that happening. I see new students 
learning tango, some of whom want to go the nuevo route and some of whom 
want the traditional style.

I tend to think of nuevo as a style within the tango umbrella, just as 
Vals and Milonga are.

Myk,
in Canberra