3805  using - and not using - tanda and cortinas

Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 07:27:17 -0700
From: Marisa Holmes <mariholmes@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: using - and not using - tanda and cortinas

If you consider it, in many of the communities we have
discussed or experienced in the US, the problem of
finding the partner you want for a tanda (or
conversely, of getting rid of the partner you do not
want) is addressed by the custom of dancing across
tandas, rather than by leaving your partner at the
cortina and waiting to see what is going to be played
next. If you dance across tandas, you can put in a
final dance with the partner you are with, then go
pick up the one you want. Or - if your current
partner is acceptable to you, you can stay with them.

In addition, the custom of dancing across tandas
functions to give the dancers more choices of how long
to dance with any given person without appearing to be
rude when they stop. If you have the custom of
dancing from whenever you start in a tanda until the
end, stopping sooner must be taken as an overt
declaration that you are not having a good time. If
your community routinely dances across tandas, and for
different numbers of dances, the partner you thank and
leave can save face regardless of how long you have
been together. (If you really want to convey the idea
that you are not enjoying yourself you can do it
without relying on the convention of stopping before
the "last" dance - you can thank them and turn
promptly away; you can thank them in a patently
insincere way; you can leave just before the last
lingering note of the song dies out.)

I'm in sympathy with people who would like to try
traditional ways of dealing with tango social issues,
but you can't just assume that anything that varies
from your ideal springs from ignorance or rudeness or
a petty refusal to "do it right". In fact,
communities solve problems in a variety of ways - and
the ways that they adopt have a logic of their own.
The fact that you do not prefer a given method doesn't
make it valueless - it has social value to the people
who accept and use it.

Marisa




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Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:29:36 -0700
From: Huck Kennedy <huck@ENSMTP1.EAS.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: using - and not using - tanda and cortinas

Marisa writes:

> If you consider it, in many of the communities we have
> discussed or experienced in the US, the problem of
> finding the partner you want for a tanda (or
> conversely, of getting rid of the partner you do not
> want) is addressed by the custom of dancing across
> tandas, rather than by leaving your partner at the
> cortina and waiting to see what is going to be played
> next.

There *is* no problem of getting rid of the
partner you do not want. If you aren't sure about
whom you are setting out to dance with, then don't
bet more than a song or two on that person, ie.,
don't ask someone to dance or accept a dance from
someone when there are more dances remaining in the
tanda than you're willing to bet on an unknown.
Then when the tanda ends, you're done, since everyone
leaves the floor. If you two enjoyed each other, no
doubt you'll dance again later in the evening. If
not, you've gotten in and out for good relatively
painlessly.

Once again, decades of milonga evolution by the
Argentines have come up with the perfect solution
by giving us the tool with which to audition someone
for only a song or two, completely guilt-free to
reject, and completely without shame or losing face
to be rejected.

> If you dance across tandas, you can put in a
> final dance with the partner you are with, then go
> pick up the one you want.

Yeah, I suppose, if everyone else is ignoring
tanda boundaries as well. But in real life, the one
you want has already been picked up at the start
of the tanda.

> Or - if your current partner is acceptable to you,
> you can stay with them.

Yeah, I love it when that happens, when guys
try to hog the best dancers tanda after tanda,
without interruption. To quote an old song, "Don't
bogart that tanguera, my friend." And the same
in reverse.

> In addition, the custom of dancing across tandas
> functions to give the dancers more choices of how long
> to dance with any given person without appearing to be
> rude when they stop. If you have the custom of
> dancing from whenever you start in a tanda until the
> end, stopping sooner must be taken as an overt
> declaration that you are not having a good time.

There is no reason for this to happen with
a dancer you know, or presumably you never would
have agreed to dance with him in the first place.
And with someone you don't know, you either should
have observed him on the floor before accepting,
or if you're that concerned, you should not be
accepting unless there are only one or two songs
left in a tanda, so you can "audition" him without
committing to more than a dance or two.

As a leader, in a strange place, when trying
to get a dance with someone I don't know, I'll
sometimes try to ask her halfway through the tanda.
That way, I don't have to commit to more than two
dances if things don't go so well, and in addition,
I've increased my odds of having my invitation as
a stranger accepted, because the person I'm asking
knows she doesn't have to commit to more than two
dances with me either, and can gracefully dump me
if she wants without worrying about hurting my
feelings. In fact, I won't even have the slightest
idea I've been dumped unless I ask her to dance again
later in the evening and she refuses, because
everyone simply sits down at the end of the tanda
anyway.

If you accept an invitation from a stranger at
the beginning of a tanda, then you've made your bed,
either sleep in it or cut the tanda short if he's
causing you physical pain or something, and then just
deal with the emotional consequences. It's not like
this "insult" you're dealing out by only dancing two
songs is the end of the world. If you don't want to
insult anyone, then why not be more careful to observe
strangers dancing before accepting invitations from them
for a full tanda. In your home community, you should
pretty much know everyone anyway, so this shouldn't even
be more than a very rare issue in the first place.

> If your community routinely dances across tandas, and for
> different numbers of dances, the partner you thank and
> leave can save face regardless of how long you have
> been together.

Well, in a word, no. In your system, one or two
dances is an insult, period. In the normal tanda system,
it is not if the one or two dances are at the end of the
tanda.

> I'm in sympathy with people who would like to try
> traditional ways of dealing with tango social issues,
> but you can't just assume that anything that varies
> from your ideal springs from ignorance or rudeness or
> a petty refusal to "do it right". In fact,
> communities solve problems in a variety of ways - and
> the ways that they adopt have a logic of their own.
> The fact that you do not prefer a given method doesn't
> make it valueless - it has social value to the people
> who accept and use it.

I am of the opinion that the traditional ways
have value not simply because they are traditional
and authentic (so what!), but rather because decades
of milonga evolution in Buenos Aires really have
served to hone a superior system. Most communities
that don't emulate this system do so either out of
ignorance (ie., they're a new community and nobody has
even been to Buenos Aires), or simple inertia.

In our community, tandas were routinely ignored
at first, but as more and more people were exposed
to traditional ways, they gradually adopted them,
not because it's the "right" way to do it, but
because they naturally grow to prefer it as its
superiority becomes evident. It's just more
comfortable--you never have to sweat the awkwardness
coming after each and every song of, "Well, should
we dance another? Will she think I'm hogging her?
I really like her, but if I'm the first to say thank
you will she think I don't like her?" (etc. etc.)
With tanda boundaries, you don't have to think, period,
you just dance, and when the tanda is over, you sit down.
Simple. All that anxiety is gone.

This is not to say none of us ever dances across
a tanda--heck, I do it myself on occasion--but at this
point our natural inclination is to head for the seats
when the cortina starts. We don't even think about it,
it just happens.

Huck