2887  Commenting on other cities

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 13:40:33 -0400
From: Keith Elshaw <keith@TOTANGO.NET>
Subject: Commenting on other cities

If you were into tango before the internet and email, you can't help but be
extremely grateful these innovations came along to make our world smaller -
and you would never take them for granted.

The Canadian Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase "The Global Village" at the
end of the 50's when he wrote about this web that was being developed by
information technology and "shrinking" the Earth. He said it would bring us
back to a web of inter-dependency man lived in before technology "separated"
us from the environment. (I wish a certain world leader could read. McLuhan
- or at least - Charlotte's Web ... if not Bucky Fuller).

And a Tango-L is like a drum carrying messages from tribe to tribe. On a
good day.

I've written elsewhere that Montreal feels very much like a village. When I
first came as a visitor, not knowing anyone, I would be delighted to see
more than one person on the street the next day that I had seen at a milonga
the night before. I have said that a big reason tango was taken to heart
here is because the Quebecois are in fact a tribe with a very strong
identity (something I think tango demands of one - knowledge of self).

Not a weekend goes by that I don't meet a handful of people just visiting
Montreal because they've heard about the tango or made tango friends here.
From every continent. 52 weeks a year. It's wonderful to be in a place so
actively pollinated by the world's tango hummingbirds.

There is a group who drive up from Philadelphia/Washington for a weekend of
dance in Montreal. It is more than 8 hours each way - and they are doing it
regularly now.

I asked them to write a little piece about WHY? Are these people nuts?

(No - but they know how to dance and have fun). :-)

Linda Alila was kind enough to express for herself and her friends the why
and make some comments.

https://ToTANGO.net/ttindex.html