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

[Cherie Magnus <MACFroggy @AOL.COM>]

In my opinion there are three stages of American tango dancing. 

The first is the eager and naÃve beginner. 

Then comes the full-blown âLook at me, I am a Tango Dancer.â This person 
buys lots of special shoes and clothes--men black shirts, women beads, sequins 
and fringe.   It is the second stage folks who harken back to the tango attire 
of history, when the men dressed as pimps and Mafiosi, and the women as 
prostitutes and cabaret dancers. If a man is wearing black and white shoes in a 
Buenos Aires milonga, I know he's a tourist. Second Stagers also try to dance every 
dance at every milonga. 

The third stage experienced dancer dresses conservatively and dances only 
when he or she chooses to. 

The beginning dancer has twenty steps, the intermediate twelve, and the 
advanced dancer uses perhaps five, but those five steps are never boring. 

As is often true in other fields of study, the beginning is the most fun. 
Knowledge and skill are dangerous things; whereas at first we are thrilled just 
to dance, later it is much more difficult to find Tango Heaven.

Clothes don't make the tango dancer.

Cherie