Cultural Influence on Styles of Tango

[Deborah Holm <dmholm @EARTHLINK.NET>]

Hello, all.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday.

I was very happy to see Astrid's comments:

>>At the risk of endlessly repeating  myself, I'd like to point out, that
>>whether you dance in close embrace is not just a question of sexual mores
>>and how comfortable you feel with a partner. Dancing as close the
Argentines
>>(and many other people) do, requires a certain posture and balance, and
even
>>a certain type of chest (asthenically flat or sunken won't do in the man,
>>nor a chest-back-shoulders-forward type of body) that enable the woman to
>>enter the diagonal without jeopardizing the balance of the couple, and
>>without having to lean on the man's shoulders. This kind of embrace needs
>>considerably more training than dancing straight upright at a distance,
>>where you pretty much just do a synchronized walk, rather than attempting
to
>>move as "one body with four legs".

I'm sorry to hear that "this" kind of embrace needs considerably more
training
than dancing straight upright at a distance.

When I was in Buenos Aires I didn't dance with a man who had a "chest-back-
shoulders-forward" type of body.  And there was no diagonal (in an embrace).

I wonder how the women from Buenos Aires feel when they dance with a man
from ... wherever?

Deborah Holm
San Francisco, California, USA