The right to judge

I had been meaning to ask a friend of mine, who I know is a very competent tango salon dancer, why she teaches with a guy who dances something - I don't know what it is, but I know for sure it's not tango, yet it's labelled and marketed as tango. Said guy is a nice guy, and I'm sure he's not intentionally tricking people into thinking that what he does is tango. I'm sure that he does not know tango very much. But I know she knows tango, having her roots in Buenos Aires, travelling there once in a while and hanging out with the heavyweights of tango.

She said two things that irked me endlessly: first, that eventually everyone comes back to 'traditional', and second, which I wish to discuss in more detail, that no one has the right to judge anyone's dance. It seems like a trend in the US that tango is classified traditional or modern/nuevo, the latter having a more positive connotation. However, anyone who uses this classification has just put a big label on their forehead that says: I don't understand tango. Because tango is tango; there is no traditional/modern/nuevo. It's either tango or it's not. But more on that later.

The second argument, that no one has the right to judge anyone, irritated me because it seems like it's the political-correctness shield for mediocrity that people who are not confident about their dance use to defend themselves (An alternative argument used is "be open minded". I am very open minded, but crap is crap, no matter how open minded). I told her that she had all the right to judge his dance because she deserves a dance partner that shares her vision of tango, which I hope she has. But it goes beyond that: people learning tango have the right to see what the real tango is, and compare it to what quacks teach and call tango. People who love tango have the right to look down in disgust at those who are spreading something unpleasant looking and giving tango a bad name. Because having a competition of who can do a longer sequence of leg wraps with ganchos and colgadas and volcadas and soltadas is definitely not tango (for this is what the students end up doing, becoming clones of said teacher). People who want tango to be spread around the world the way it should be have the right to judge a teacher who does not know what they teach and harm the quality of local tango communities.

In fact, let me change that: people who love tango not only have the right to judge; people who love tango have the obligation to call out on shitty tango or non-tango.

Constructive criticism for a progressive community

Most of my posts on this blog have been about DJing or tango music, but the truth is that I don't consider the music and the dance separate entities. Sometimes, at the gym, you see people with an imbalanced body: an overdeveloped chest in comparison to the rest of his body, overly big arms compared to the shoulders, bird legs supporting a massive torso, etc. Similar things can happen to tango communities. What I have observed in my community is that people put their standards of expectation for DJs and organizers way beyond their dancing. They invest money buying CDs of rare collections. But they hardly move a finger in trying to improve their awful dance. They expect perfection from DJs. Yet their musicality is limited at best, non-existent at worst. They expect perfection from organizers. Yet they can't even behave in the milonga.

Recently, due to miscommunication between the organizer and the regular Saturday DJ, a newbie DJ had to fill in last minute. I had other plans that night, so I have no idea what was so bad about the DJing, but Mr. Dick Wipe* had to go bitch to the organizer and demanded a refund in front of the DJ. This was obviously not enough, so he had to go on Facebook to publicly bitch about it. But did he have any constructive feedback for the organizer and the DJ? Of course not. It's fine to voice some complaints when they are called for. But tolerance is also needed. Maybe the DJing was mediocre (but so is the regular DJ who is overrated above the heavens, being touted as the best DJ of the continent.... please. But this is a different story), but tolerance is called for especially for a beginning DJ. Just like followers have to tolerate his awful dancing, and just like everyone in the milonga have to tolerate his foul behavior.

Maybe the DJing was really bad - I don't know. But if that's the case, how about some constructive feedback? DJing is a shitty job... No matter how much you love the music, you have to tend to the mood of the room and the tastes of everybody. You have the responsibility of managing the energy of the crowd. And for a beginning DJ, he or she has to spend hours getting to know the music better. Don't make the job even shittier by behaving like an ass.

This is just an anecdote from my community, but I'm sure similar things happen everywhere. So please be more tolerant... and if you can't keep your mouth shut, then try to actually say something of value, something that can genuinely improve whatever it is that you don't like. Also, it's great if you want to know absolutely all tango music ever recorded that you have to spend all your money buying CDs, but that doesn't make you exempt from working on your dancing. And the fact that you have been dancing for 10 years or however long means nothing... especially if it's been a half assed effort.

Here's for a more balanced community: high standards for both music and dancing.

*Not a real name.