"Did the world really change around me, or did my perception of the world change?"
That's the crux of the question, isn't it? Please tell me what in this world has not changed since 1993? Whether it's the same as it was "then" or not isn't relevant, especially to people who came to tango much later. What is important still is that Buenos Aires offers a depth, an understanding, an immersion in tango that doesn't exist anywhere else. Like Nancy said, where a taxi driver will sing you his favorite tango at 2 a.m. Take me, for example: last week on an excursion with tango tour clients to La Boca, where I've been a million times, the truth of living in a "conventillo" finally hit me--I could really see clearly what it meant to sing about the hard and crowded life there, a popular tango theme. There is always something to discover new here about tango. Sure, it's not as it was in 1997 on my first trip here, when foreign dancers were a novelty. Maybe middle-aged foreign women are a dime-a-dozen today, and we are less "special" than we once were and are treated more like we are "back home." After dancing tango for a decade or more, "we" are also different. This nostalgia for what used to be, that life, people, things, milongas aren't what they once were, is very tango! But Buenos Aires will always be the Mecca of Tango. And every serious dancer will make the pilgrimage one day. It's worth it. http://tangocherie.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
