Re: [TANGO-L] Appropriate clothes + Dress and class in tango

[Dani Iannarelli <dani @TANGO-LA-DOLCE-VITA.COM>]

Hello, Astrid.
 
I think it?s a damn shame that you?ve successfully influenced some poor
submissive bloke into changing what he considers his personal style. . .
that being to wear sunglasses.
 
I paraphrase your quote: ?Sunglasses are not suited to tango??????!!!
?Suited to tango?????? !!!!! What?s THAT all about???
 
Apart from the obvious recommendation of smartening-up for
milongas/practices (which I certainly subscribe to as I hate it when people
turn up with jeans and trainers etc and don?t make an effort ? it?s almost
as bad as smelly people), people shouldn?t be hassled about wearing what
they want to wear and when they want to wear it. If he wants to wear
sunglasses, let him. Don?t interfere nor attempt to influence, control or
belittle. Mind your own business (I?m not being aggressive to you, by the
way ? just matter-of-fact and logical). Anyway, it didn?t do Roy Orbison any
harm?! :-):-):-)
 
Take the analogy of the hordes of mindless automatons who in paranoia
subscribe to wearing whatever the so-called ?fashion? happens to be at any
particular time. Why suppress individuality, be it in personal dancing
style, musical tastes, anything. . . including the wearing of attire
preferred by any individual of which this issue of sunglasses happens to be
one.
 
Who is to say what is suited to tango and what is not?!
 
If you want to discuss general tango cultural style, then it?s easy to see
that it comes from a tradition of ?tackiness? and indeed kitsch. Come now,
red drapes hanging from walls with uncoordinated colours of lacings and
ribbons festooned from tables and light fittings, yecchhy candles and Bombay
Mix, cheap oversweet ?Champagne? (served in cheap plastic glasses) the label
of which bears no resemblance to any known genuine D.O.C and probably
concocted from the cheapest cider with a blob of honey mixed in for good
luck, etc etc etc ? the list is endless. Tango classy style came in when
tango was introduced to the ballrooms of Paris and London in the 19-teens
and 1920s when the men wore top hat, white tie and tails and the
ladies/debutantes of the day worse the finest gowns from Paris and Milan.
Yes, I know this was simultaneously the start of the degrading process of
tango into the sickening ballroom rubbish of today because of the nature of
real tango being too risqué for the social classes of the day. The rot sets
in.
 
Anyway, back to personal choice of attire; perhaps I?ll go to the next
milonga or ball wearing a balaclava . . . or isn?t that suited to tango? ;-)

 

Dani

 
 
>We got a new man in our milonga a few months ago who, had I not known that
>he was the partner of that very skillful Japanese dancer who always shows
up
>with her son at the practicas, would have made me think he is a Yakuza- a
>gang member of the Japanese Mafia.
>He was always wearing dark sunglasses and never took them off!
>The second of third time he asked me to dance, I told him: "You know, in
>Buenos Aires people don't wear sunglasses. This is not suited to tango." He
>was very surprised and wanted to know why. "Because like this you can't do
>any eye play." (I just made up that word in Japanese.) "Eye play??? What's
>that?" I explained it to him (cabezeo and stuff). "I see !", he said, and
>hesitatingly took them off. and shyly looked around. "You know, I have
never
>taken off my sunglasses for half a year", he said. Since that time, he
>always dances without glasses.