Tom, you're just brilliant. You had me rolling on the floor laughing. Until just now, I never understood exactly what I couldn't stand about those early tango lessons. These moves are truly the opera bouffe of the Tango Borg.
You reminded me of Milan Kundera's philosophy of kitsch (not just that kitschy culture is sentimental and facile but that the prevalence of kitsch in art is a form of totalitarianism imposing a sanitized view of culture in which all answers are already known before the question is asked, and in which complexity, irony and ambiguity are precluded. That's an interesting read on the reasons for the development of the highly regimented and sanitized 'ballroom' tango (kitschy) out of the murky, beautiful, and improvisational Argentine Tango. Certain community leads know me from those days and they're gonna lead that stuff and expect compliance, and unfortunately I can't play dumb like some of these sweet younger things. Now I know what to say, "that's so 1995, I really don't even remember it." > > I remember the dreadful parada, sandwich, shoe-shine, gancho scare of > the mid 1990s. How kitsch that move looks today, as the woman rubs her > shoe with pretend skankiness up his leg. > > A bunch of people will go to Buenos Aires and see a woman with her > nose pressed against his cheek, or her left shoulder cranked up with > elbow poking up at the ceiling, or her butt sticking way out, and > start imitating it. > > Each year it seems like a particular new move is the rage: big > sweeping volcadas (2003), or a 45 degree plank (1995). > > > Tom Stermitz > Denver, CO 80207 > -- Carol Ruth Shepherd Arborlaw PLC Ann Arbor MI USA 734 668 4646 v 734 786 1241 f Arborlaw - a legal blog for entrepreneurs and small business http://arborlaw.biz/blog _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l