[Tango-L] regional varieties of tango, was: Melina's two cents

[Anton Stanley]

We may well believe that Tango is not a single dance, as has often been
mentioned on this list. It can be danced in many ways, ranging from a
variety of accents, flavours to total reconstructs. But to call all of it
tango, there must surely be a binding force. What is this force? What makes
us call some forms of dance NOT tango? Is it a mindset; the steps, the
music? Absolutely not! All these elements are constantly changing, sometimes
very dramatically. It would, from a logical viewpoint seem that tango only
exists in the imagination. Only limited by the cerebral neurons of the
practitioners. But I think we all possess an almost primeval intuition that
this isn't so. In fact we all seem to apply instinctive, though undefined
boundaries when we think tango. But are these boundaries the same for us
all? Who knows! But therein lies the definition and future of tango. Some
say don't think about it, just dance. Well, I for one, am not going to
settle for the tango vision of my hometown Beenleigh. Nor for that matter
Brisbane. Probably not even Australia ... can you imagine a Waltzing Matilda
version of Tango?
I'll take the conservative road and gain inspiration and direction from
Buenos Aires.

Would you call this dance tango if it wasn't called something else? If not
why doesn't it qualify? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRw62Ouq-0A

Anton

-----Original Message-----
From: tango-l-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:tango-l-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf Of
Sandhill Crane
Sent: Wednesday, 26 January 2011 7:32 AM
To: Tango-L at mit.edu
Subject: [Tango-L] regional varieties of tango, was: Melina's two cents

--- On Tue, 1/25/11, Anton Stanley <anton at alidas.com.au> wrote:

> Personally, I don't prefer internationalisation of tango.
> Where every variation or deviation is legitimate.
> In the future we might get accustomed to US Tango,
> British Tango, Canadian Tango, Turkish Tango, Iranian Tango,
> Russian Tango, Mexican Tango etc. Each maybe different;
> each legitimate tango.

I dunno, I think that would be kind of cool.

Traveling these days isn't as much fun as it was
in the old days. Nowadays everything is homogenized.
I would like it if I could go to another city and
have a distinctly different tango experience
(as well as distinct food, distinct language, etc).
I could see a different way of looking at tango
by visiting another city.

That's really the benefit of travel -- that you
see that yours is not the only way of looking at
things. Travel teaches you that it's possible to
live with a different set of assumptions; that
takes the edge off a person.

At this point there are some regional differences
but communities derived from the post-1982
tango renaissance are too young to have really
developed their own character. I'm looking forward
to different communities really developing their
own flavor.



      
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