The Tango-L mailing list archive
Digest from 13 Mar 2000
to 14 Mar 2000
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 03:00:26 -0500
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Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 13 Mar 2000 to 14 Mar 2000 (#2000-71)
There are 8 messages totalling 456 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. What is Tango?
2. Earlier "Dancing Houses" (2)
3. Dancing with Beginners and the Concept of the Tanda
4. Looking for solotango-Juan Fabri
5. ToTANGO! Milestone / Websites
6. Same-Sex Tango
7. Etiquette
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 12:59:49 +0100
From: Peter Niebert <Peter.Niebert @IMAG.FR>
Subject: Re: What is Tango?
Sergio Suppa writes:
> A. Tango is unique in many aspects. I will mention 10 main differences.
... and gives a lot of points to which I agree to some degree, but not
to the following:
> 5- Ballroom dances are done for fun. ...
> A. Tango is done for feeling...
and similarly
> 10- Ballroom dancing is generally, upbeat, happy, done with a smile.The
> feeling is light.
> A. Tango is "a sad feeling that can be danced", "A conversation of two
> sad faces and four legs". Generally done with an expression of high
> concentration, almost like being absent.The feeling is heavy, strongly
> opinionated.
While it CAN be as you describe, it CAN also be very different!
Think only of some of the Tangos (I do not even speak about milonga)
of Canaro, which are so utterly funny that I could cry about those
couples who keep up their serious or even dramatic expression when
they are played.
Tango can be very playful, ironic, ridiculous and - yes - light. I am
glad that such Tangos exist and I love them, because they are
perfectly suited for a particular kind of flirt: Entertaining the
woman, making her laugh out loud. Among my favourite.
Some Salsa people once said that their impression of Tango events is
that of a funeral. This is clearly the DJs fault. I love Di Sarli and
Fresedo, but not all evening.
Peter
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 12:45:26 -0500
From: Sergio Suppa <sersupa @INFOVIA.COM.AR>
Subject: Earlier "Dancing Houses"
Early dancing places as discussed earlier were bars, cafes, gambling places,
quilombos (prostitution areas).
A second stage, when it comes to dancing places were "Casas de Baile",
(Dancing Houses).
Two of such houses were very prestigious and still carry an aura of legend.
They were "En lo de Laura" (Laura's) and
"En lo de Maria la Vasca"(At Maria la Vasca's). At this last place, the more
modest one, it was possible to dance with women provided by the house for 3
pesos per hour. (Monthly salary for an unskilled worker at the time was
100-120 pesos). La vasca was married to a big guy, an English immigrant who
acted as bouncer (security).
The house was an old mansion, beautiful, gracious, door with arabesques made
of iron allowed to see the plants in the garden. The largest room was
destined to the big events. The smaller multiple rooms were assigned
according to the number of friends that came together. The owner required a
reservation in advance in order to know how many lady dancers were going to
be required. The dance was usually started with a polka, it concluded when
the clock indicated the right number of hours reserved. The musicians were
paid 5 pesos per evening. There was only a piano, at the begining; later
on, two violins, flute, and finally the bandoneones were added.
Laura's was a place more elegant and expensive. It had a very selective
clientele. The vermouth (early)section was for younger dancers, and special
sections of the week were destined to the elderly. The women were of high
quality. The house was decorated with French furniture, the walls covered
with mirrors, and expensive paintings. A mayor attraction was the pianist,
Rosendo Mendizabal, who released his famous tango "El Entrerriano" in this
house. Also were part of the entertaiment famous names such as Vicente Greco
and the duo Carlos Gardel-Razzano.
Another interesting place was "En lo de Hansen" (Hansen's); Johan Hansen,
started this restaurant with dancing floor in 1875. ...but this is another
story.
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 19:31:37 +0100
From: Peter Niebert <Peter.Niebert @IMAG.FR>
Subject: Re: Dancing with Beginners and the Concept of the Tanda
Leonardo Tanguero writes:
> [...] Thus, at least for small emerging tango communities, we may need to
> be more eclectic in our selection of dance partners. This may result in less
> tango passion at the milongas, but then perhaps we can save our passion for
> the 'tango para dos' in our living rooms.
You forget: Octopusses and human beings (among them beginning Tango
dancers) also learn by watching. It would be a pity if you lock your
passion away at home.
Does not mean that you are not allowed to take it home either ;-)
Then you write something about the coexistence of beginners and
advanced dancers, somehow as though it were an antagony.
To me it has always been exciting to watch advanced couples. At times
I just sit and watch.
You make the point that these advanced couples can be intimidating to
beginners. That is unfortunate. Is that true anyhow?
When I went to a milonga as a beginner and saw two, maybe three
advanced couples, some more intermediate couples and the rest just as
much beginner as myself, this just did not discourage me. I cannot
remember that such an emotion ever occurred to me. Of course, I did
not even consider to invite the advanced ladies.
The presence of the advanced may be discouraging for you if your aim
is to "become" a hot shot. But social Tango is not about becoming a
hot shot. You are a hot shot if all the others around dance worse than
you. This is nothing you should wish for! Instead, you should rather
strive to personally dance better than before.
I do not think that there are many dancers on this planet that have
reached their personal limits. Beginners may not realize this
sufficiently, but Tango remains a challenge for all of your dancer's
life. In an interview, Pablo Veron said that he choses his
choreography not in order to impress the public (which is very easy
for him) but so that it is invisibly difficult for himself (in order
to be "present", I guess). So even this guy finds difficulty in Tango,
his personal difficulty.
Peter
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 14:36:02 -0800
From: Jorge Luis Gonzalez-Becerra <jlgb22 @PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Looking for solotango-Juan Fabri
Hi everyone,
I am looking for the e-mail address, phone # or any other way to contact
the solotango, tango TV Channel organization.
Thank you for your help.
George
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 14:26:39 +0000
From: Keith Elshaw <elshaw @INTERLOG.COM>
Subject: ToTANGO! Milestone / Websites
Hello everyone;
The meaning of numbers being relative, it is nonetheless very pleasing
to me to see the continuing growth of interest in Argentine Tango. One
way of measuring it for me is to see the increase in traffic through AT
sites.
This weekend, someone will be the 20,000th visitor to ToTANGO! I think
that is quite neat - especially as I used to see only 60 or 80 visits in
a whole month when I started.
I have been operating out of Toronto, as you may know. But there is no
Tango to speak of here (for a hard-core person), and I realized it was
sort of killing me. I've been to Montr=E9al so often in the last 15 month=
s
that I decided I have to live there. So, I will as of April 1.
I will maintain listings for Toronto as well as Montr=E9al on my site -
but it continues to grow into a more than local site of interest, I
hope; continually adding new articles general interest.
On TANGO-L, I don't recall much comparative discussion of web sites,
although I'm sure most people appreciate the efforts of the major site
developers that have been up for years.
I know for a fact that the web has been a great ally in the growth of
Tango in the last 5 years.
What's missing that you would like to see/hear? How can web sites help
even more?
I for one am always interested in receiving submissions of articles,
etc. from anyone, anywhere.
I'm now into my 11th year of this craziness, this beautiful obsession
called Tango, and it continues to pull me deeper. Thank you all for
being there and contributing to everyone's knowledge by your submissions
to the list. I don't know what I would do without you!
With Best wishes for a lifetime of great Tango moments,
Keith Elshaw
ToTANGO!
http://www.interlog.com/~elshaw
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 12:33:31 +0100
From: Natarajan Balasundara <rajan @EMC.COM>
Subject: Re: Same-Sex Tango
Original Message-----
From: Ann Gazenbeek <ANN.GAZENBEEK @prodigy.net>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 1:05 AM
Subject: Same-Sex Tango
>to dance. He then goes on to say that they practiced and improved
together
>so that they could later attract and impress ladies. Would they impress
>ladies dancing together (with a man) and showing off their skills or
impress
>ladies while dancing WITH the ladies? I have wondered about this for
quite
>some time. Also, if the men invented the steps and movements amongst
>themselves, how did the ladies know their part? A Compadrito would
hardly
>TEACH a woman her part right there on the spot!!
One could to assume that a compadrito had magical
powers and then anything is possible: a beginner who
started dancing with him would by the end of the the
tanda would be as good as a stage dancer.
However, to me it seems reasonable to assume that
not all compadito were alike: some were beginners,
some were intermediates and some advanced(some
were comparditos, some were comparditos before
others, and some were first among comparditos).
A beginner could only dance what he knows and from
discussions in the list it is clear that the ladies were quite
choosey and probably advanced ones would not
dance with him anymore than they do now (probably told
him to go dance elsewhere and comeback at a later
date. BTW, there was a posting on this list a while ago
which said this is what even Carlos Copes was told by his
first partner-- so one can imagine the fate of lesser mortals).
So, probably a beginner only danced with a beginner.
An intermediate one could only dance with an intermediate:
he would not want to dance with a beginner and an advaced
dancer would not dance with him.
An advanced dancer is one who can dance with anyone:
a first dance probably would be a diagnostic dance with
very little lead which will naturally divide what the follower
knows into three categories: those that she can do well,
those that she does exactly know but with a little more lead
will be able to follow, and those that are better not attempted).
Now, a beginner dancing with him would improve -- and as
sergio pointed out, if she happens to very beautiful as well,
it would help a little more :-)
Where as the comparditos danced amongst themselves
and improved themselves, it seems they went back and
danced with the women as much, so the women also danced
as much as the men, only a little later in time(with a phase lag,
if one wants to put it that way).
Besides, while no one mentioned it, it does not say anywhere
that the ladies did not practice amongst themselves to impress
the some of the men(after all some men were more desirable
than otheres?) just the way men danced to impress some of
the ladies-- probably men danced tango and women milonga.
So, all in all everyone seems to have practiced just the
we do now except in two sessions-- one amongst themselves
and one with the members of the opposite sex. This is how
most teachers even now teach new step, by separating men
and women.
rajan.
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 09:54:22 -0500
From: Christina Burtis/HQ/IFC <Cburtis @IFC.ORG>
Subject: Re: Etiquette
Ladies, especially all those hard-core feminists out there, try hard not to
beg. It is incredibly pathetic.
Regards,
CB.
***************************
Posted you know where by you know who. Read on.....
At a Saturday night milonga a woman suggested to one of the hosts that
Tango
teachers should give men some pointers in their dance classes about things
like escorting the woman back to her seat after a dance.
Teachers teaching in the area where also present at the milonga, but they
got the woman's request the next day via a confused host who did not know
exactly what to say on the subject.
One wonders how she'd react to a couple of suggestions.
How about, "Could you walk me back to my seat, please?" [to be said after
the dance]
Or, "I'd expect you to walk me back to my seat after we dance." [said as a
pre-condition to accept the invitation to dance]
Common sense and good manners tend to go the passion way when people enter
the Tango trance. Escorting a woman back to her place after a dance ends,
is
gentlemanly behavior, as the host of the milonga expressed later. But then,
Joe G. is a gentleman to begin with.
What about the other woman, the one who runs across the floor "to
intercept"
the suggested gentlemanly gesture by grabbing the man's arm, begging for
the
next dance even if that means that the escorted lady suddenly finds herself
dumped?
Should we ask Tango teachers to give women some pointers in their dance
classes about things like "no begging, no intercepting?"
Will the recipient of these pointers complain later to the host that she
was
yelled at by the teacher? Will she describe how painful of an experience
the
humilliating lecture was, rather than profusely thank for the free lesson?
It has been my experience that the degree of misbehavior at milongas
relates
to places of origin, gender, and religious background. It is a cultural
thing. A Russian woman I recently met in DC was at a New York milonga the
week after. We exchanged pleasantries as we run into each other, she
managed
to look through my companion as she did not exist, and "made a reservation"
for a later dance.
Halfway through a tanda, I saw her literally dump her dance partner (there
ain't no walking you back to your seat Lucille this time...) and cutting
across the crowd waiting for the next tango to start, she grabbed my free
arm (the other one was embracing my partner) and said "can we dance NOW?"
I could have said, "Yes, but first help me dump 'whatshername's body," or
"OK, one leads, one follows and one gets the hell out of the way," but my
supply of sarcasm was running on empty so instead I indicated that I was
already dancing with somebody, and that I felt uncomfortable to be made the
target of rude and unconsiderate behavior on her part. If she would let me
know where she was seating, I'd go ask her to dance when I finish this set.
For the rest of the evening this woman sulked, avoided eye contact and
therefore did not get the dance for which she was willing to make an ass of
herself in the first place.
In SFO there is an Oriental women married to a gentle American man who does
not dance. He stays home with the children while she travels the milongas
as
one of the most notorious and obnoxious "dance beggers." On one occasion as
we were closing down on 2 AM at the Powell Studios, because she had brought
a couple a young dancers who were visiting the Bay Area, she felt that she
was entitled to dance with me. For most of the evening, alternating taking
care of the music and dancing with many of my friends, I would literally
smell her presence right behind me. So, as I fired the last tanda I asked
her for a dance. We danced the next tango, and when La cumparsita came on
she reluctantly ackowledged the presence of my co-host and partner, and
stepped aside while we traditionally ended the milonga dancing together as
we try to do. But this is not the point.
Two days later, she cut across the dance floor of another milonga a soon as
I entered the room, and grabbing my arm she demanded that we "finish the
dances I owed her." No, I didn't owe her any dances, I said, and further, I
was fed up with her impertinent and irreverent way to impose on other
people's tango life, particularly in mine. Predictably, she took offense.
Like these, there are scores of stories, but fortunately the opposite
occurs
more frequently and given the time limitations of any given day, I rather
spend the time with those who already know how to behave socially. Learning
and enjoying Tango is easier and more enjoyable that way.
Tangazos,
Alberto
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 21:54:58 -0800
From: "Pelayo Llamas, Jr." <pelayojr @LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Earlier "Dancing Houses"
What is your source for this information?
Sergio Suppa wrote:
> Early dancing places as discussed earlier were bars, cafes, gambling places,
> quilombos (prostitution areas).
> A second stage, when it comes to dancing places were "Casas de Baile",
> (Dancing Houses).
> Two of such houses were very prestigious and still carry an aura of legend.
> They were "En lo de Laura" (Laura's) and
> "En lo de Maria la Vasca"(At Maria la Vasca's). At this last place, the more
> modest one, it was possible to dance with women provided by the house for 3
> pesos per hour. (Monthly salary for an unskilled worker at the time was
> 100-120 pesos). La vasca was married to a big guy, an English immigrant who
> acted as bouncer (security).
> The house was an old mansion, beautiful, gracious, door with arabesques made
> of iron allowed to see the plants in the garden. The largest room was
> destined to the big events. The smaller multiple rooms were assigned
> according to the number of friends that came together. The owner required a
> reservation in advance in order to know how many lady dancers were going to
> be required. The dance was usually started with a polka, it concluded when
> the clock indicated the right number of hours reserved. The musicians were
> paid 5 pesos per evening. There was only a piano, at the begining; later
> on, two violins, flute, and finally the bandoneones were added.
> Laura's was a place more elegant and expensive. It had a very selective
> clientele. The vermouth (early)section was for younger dancers, and special
> sections of the week were destined to the elderly. The women were of high
> quality. The house was decorated with French furniture, the walls covered
> with mirrors, and expensive paintings. A mayor attraction was the pianist,
> Rosendo Mendizabal, who released his famous tango "El Entrerriano" in this
> house. Also were part of the entertaiment famous names such as Vicente Greco
> and the duo Carlos Gardel-Razzano.
> Another interesting place was "En lo de Hansen" (Hansen's); Johan Hansen,
> started this restaurant with dancing floor in 1875. ...but this is another
> story.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of TANGO-L Digest - 13 Mar 2000 to 14 Mar 2000 (#2000-71)
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