Brian,
>"Pay lots of attention to the opinions of world-class experts when they >discuss their own area of expertise, and routinely ignore them when they >express opinions in areas in which they have no expertise". Lately we've >heard lots of critique of the aesthetic choices of some good social tango >dancers on "style" grounds, You speak of different tangos and seem to suggest that just because someone is a real and talented expert in several different tango forms that the average social dancer should just bow down to these experts and we should bask in their greatness and cater for their needs? I disagree. >Yet in this thread we hear so much of "why don't they just stop calling it >tango?" What you seem to dismiss, is that many people on this list, who have danced many many more years than me and are expert at it, love a particular form of tango and the traditions that go with them. That is all they are asking. If you want to go to a nuevo tango styled event (eg Practica X) then find one and go for it. If however, the organiser promotes their event as a traditional Argentine tango event where ganchos, leaps, and raising the leg above the knee line is strictly prohibited, then the nuevo reformists should respect the boundaries. Where I came from, there are tango events catering for the nuevo dancers and one had the freedom to go there if social tango was not for them. While you would think this would keep everyone happy, it was always the nuevo dancers who pushed the envelope trying to get their way. >The really good dancers are the ones everyone wants to dance with, ...... >we envy them a little bit their universal desirability at the milonga, >?right? You also talked about an envious factor. I guess all dancers want to be popular, but sometimes humility gets shunted aside. As an example, in my salsa days a work colleague of mine had a placing in the Australian salsa championships. If not for an old torn knee ligament injury he may have won. He said to me once "I know how good a dancer I am, because of all of the girls lining up to dance with me." Obviously to my eyes many women get a buzz from such a testosterone filled attitude and wanted to dance with the best. But my reaction to this was somewhat different. V _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l