512  What pulls 'em in? Performance/salon????

Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 17:05:57 -0400
From: Lucille Krasne <LuKrasne@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: What pulls 'em in? Performance/salon????

Dear Everyone,
I know I miss some wonderful stuff written on the list, but I caught this
from Tom Stermitz who wrote about what pulls non-tangoers into this
experience and I loved it:

> What grabs them (you see it in their eyes, their dropped jaws) is
> when they watch a whole room full of social dancers, moving as if by
> magic through complex and intricate footsteps, while at the same time
> embracing so amazingly close and unified, connected to the music like
> in a trance.

Isn't this a beautiful sentence? And true? Tom, I want to put this on our
website. It is an ideal devoutly to be wished for.

I myself, along with so many, started my tango love affair with Tango
Argentino, on Broadway, the show of all tango shows of '85-/86 (my heart
still goes pitty-pat to think of this) BUT I have witnessed the uninitiated
go ga-ga over social dancing for the almost 8 years I have danced. And
believe me it didn't even have what Tom describes.

It is safe to say The Unwashed really does not know much which end is up and
it is drawn into watching good and bad dancing, social and performance. But
it grasps that something special is going on--not least of which is the
music. Look: I admit to an uncontrollable proselytizing streak within me.

I hit upon the idea of Hit and Run--taking tango outdoors-- yes, because the
first site for this was the exquisite Central Park Bethesda Plaza, BUT ALSO
it was VISIBLE TO LOTS OF PEOPLE (the idea of visibility being a goal
contained within my" hit and run rules to live by")-- we could gather unto
our community the mass of Unwashed!!

(My first co-conspirator in "Hit and Run" was my tango friend, Jerry
Wagner. He and I did look a lot like a couple of odd-ball preachers pulling
in spectators," teaching" and "preaching" and handing out our "religious"
tracts, i.e. weekly calendars, flyers from all over the place, etc. But we
each of us still get a thrill when even today we run into folks who tell us
that he or I were the first to introduce them to the magic of tango years
ago in the park.)

It is a freaky 90 degrees today in NYC. And soon time for our outdoor
dancing. So I say to One and All:
Go outdoors and multiply!
Sincerely, Lucille of La Manzana Grande

PS. We were always illegal at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park and
finally got booted last year to another space. But if perchance you should
run into me, there is a new glint in my eye as I consider the idea of
returning in a surprise "Hit", with 200 candles around the plaza one evening
this summer. The devil makes me do it. I will prepare for the experience
with an emergency button design that reads: "Free the Tango 200". (When I
did this 5 1/2 years ago for a Brigitta Winkler surprise party, the button
design read "Free the Tango 50" although 100 showed up to our "illegal"
night time event--when folks told me no one, but no one would go into
Central park at night in Fall, and our community was easily 1/5th the size.
Happily, there were no arrests. We looked so snazzy that the police
patrolmen smiled benignly upon us no doubt thinking we were there through
the good grace of the mayor himself.)