3801 People ignore the cortinas here in Houston too, but we do have them...lol.
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 16:22:51 -0700
From: Derik Rawson <rawsonweb@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: People ignore the cortinas here in Houston too, but we do have them...lol.
Dear All:
People here in Houston, including the Argentines, who
are running things here now (the new day in Houston
actually began several months ago...), ignore the
cortinas, but we have still have them now at all
milongas...lol. I think one reason for this is that
most milongas today are rather informal, so the rules
are more lax. People also rarely wear black tie or
suits to milongas anymore, so it does not suprise me
that they ignore continas. The idea of tango is to
socialize, of course, so whatever makes that happen
best is probably a good thing.
I have an idea! Why don't we create a cortina where
an announcer simply says. "Please clear the floor for
the next dance, and wait to hear the music before
selecting your next partner". Today, people all
follow instructions from announcements at airports
pretty well, so that direct approach might work. It
also explains to everyone, even beginners, how things
can work is a nice way. If the announcement is short,
it should not interrupt the mood, or the feeling of
the music, and there is no way to dance to an
announcement...lol.
I think that the Argentine method of playing nonsense
music, is much more subtle and a rather nice approach,
but in today's world, some people need help, including
me...lol.
Sometimes I am with a girl that I do not want to let
go, so I stand there with her pretending not to hear
the cortina and dance to the cortins with her or talk
with her until the next tanda...lol. With a voice
announcement, this would be more difficult to do, so
things might move along better.
I do agree with Manuel, that music is everything, in
tango. It would certainly be wonderful to hear the
music first and then decide on ones partner. Of
course the problem with that, is that everyone would
want only the very best person to dance with, so there
would be a crush towards a select few, leaving all the
others out... This could be demoralizing for
beginners...lol. Oh well, life is not perfect.
So, what do you think about a soft voice announcement
cortina? Also, since we are being quite formal here,
what do you think about a black tie milongas? We had
one here in Houston at the Cotton Exchange Bar a few
years ago when I found an orchestra to place there for
their CD release party. The club is a
beautiful-elegant place in downtown Houston, which
looks a bit like La Belle Epoque in NY, so the setting
was definitely right....but only the tango orchestra
showed up in black tie. Everyone else waltzed in a
street clothes, including me...lol. We all had a
great time, but it was not exactly formal...lol.
Now, here in Houston, we all pretty much wear the
standard informal tango uniform, which is black slacks
and a black tea shirt. It gets hot dancing in suits,
particularly during fast milongas, so hardly anyone
wears suits here anymore. We all gave up on that
formality, just like we all gave up on clearing the
floor during a cortina. Maybe it would be fun to plan
some new, really fancy formal milonga, with dark suits
or black tie, and do the whole thing just for fun. We
shall see...Could be interesting.... Life is good.
PS- I was wearing a pin striped suit once at a
milonga, and a computer engineer database guy who I
knew from going to Berkeley came over to me and
said,"Hey Derik, I thought that we all got to stop
wearing suits. What happen to you?" I told him,
"Yes, but today I am wearing my suit for enjoyment of
tango, not for work." He laughed when he heard that,
and the next milonga, he was also wearing a pin stripe
suit."
Derik
d.rawson@rawsonweb.com
