3744  Blue Tango in Red States

Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:43:03 -0600
From: Ron Weigel <tango.society@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Blue Tango in Red States

On 8/25/05, Sean de PATangoS <patangos@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I dont have any scientific evidence for the following
> observations, and I can even think of a few contrary
> anecdotes. But for the most part, it seems that close
> embrace dancers are located on both coasts, and in
> larger cities in between (the "blue" states); whereas
> the mid-west and deep-south (the "red" states) tend to
> be the homes of open embrace dancers.

Well, Sean, there is indeed close embrace tango in the Midwest, quite
a bit of it, as a matter of fact, and not always in the largest
cities:

Ann Arbor, MI: a real milonguero jewel (OK, Michigan is a Blue State,
but it is in the Midwest)

Champaign-Urbana IL: we are building a milonguero base here (OK,
Illinois is another Blue State, but again in the Midwest).

Now for the Red States with close embrace tango:

Missouri: Probably the biggest Midwest Red State prize, with strong
milonguero contingents in St Louis and Kansas City, not the mention
the great Meet in the Middle (milonguero) festival in Mt Vernon.

Indianapolis IN: a small young tango community, but completely close embrace

Cinncinnati OH: I don't know much about this community, but the
workshops they list on their website are mostly close embrace
instructors.

Cleveland OH: There are a couple of close embrace groups there.

That's just the Midwest.

Some other strong close embrace communities in Red States:

Denver CO
Atlanta GA

There are probably others.

I see a lot of ads on Tango-A for workshops for salon style in Blue
coastal states.

Maybe close embrace is stronger is younger tango communities away from
the coasts because they haven't had the history of the early influence
of tango fantasia.

Ron
Urbana IL