polyamory &... tango?

[Ravenscroft]

I wish that I was coordinated enough to even attempt tango... but I'm a fan.

There was that Geico commercial --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RydetszVDkc
Still makes me laugh, too, & it charmed me by reminding me of the awkward persistence of a loving triadic relationship.

It caught on briefly, at least as a novelty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXxIzDmIrKs
Well, more fun (& intimate) than The Chicken Dance, anyway. Again, that awkward sincerity.

But all you have to do is dig into YouTube or similar with Tango de Tres or Trio de Tango or Tango for Three & some remarkable examples appear, for instance,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR5EujZuw-U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP8I8NIoAqI

This one is exceptional: one woman, three men, & interactions that might surprise you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEVEWuCzJ6g

Tango should be the official dance of polyamory.

(Well, as much as there's anything "official" about poly, anyway!)

 

[PinkPig]

Lol, on this. Blue & I are starting ballroom dancing lessons this week! I've never been accused of having coordination, so it'll be interesting to see how I do. If we ever make it to the tango, I'll let you know if it's learnable for those of us who are coordination-challenged Poor Blue, he has rhythm and coordination in spades, don't know how he ended up with me, lol

 

[opalescent]

I've known folks involved in my local tango scene. Ironically, the culture of tango is pretty conservative despite what the dance itself looks like. Of course, this may not be true all over.

 

[kdt26417]

Love how they make it look so easy ...

 

[Evie]

I read this and followed one link then was compelled to watch the pas de trois from One Last Dance.

 

[Ravenscroft]

Generally, social "dance" in our culture has come to mean an interaction of two people, period. In the older styles, it's even further circumscribed, with one who "leads" (masculine) & one who "follows" (feminine).

If you have individuals dancing, or grouping of more than two, it's either some "performance" piece (with some degree of hoity-toity Aht about it), or a bunch of hippies.

While it can be highly formalized, & is used as stage performance, tango is performed just as passionately with no witnesses at all, or on a crowded floor.

The minuet was highly sterile -- they likely thought of it as rarefied elegance -- with only the fingertips touching. If even that was overwhelming, the couple could grasp opposite corners of a hankie!!

So you can only try to imagine how scandalized the "moral establishment" was across Europe when Vienna's waltz became a fad.

This fear/fascination with body contact has been with us for FAR too long, & (as with Romance) is dug into our psyches liike a load of birdshot in a bull's rump. My dad once told me that chaperones at the highschool dances of his day (early 1950s) would prowl the floor during romantic tunes (what us kids would call "slow dances") & ensuring a proper amount of airspace kept pairs separated.

When wiggly, spastic no-touchy dance became popular in the early 1960s, the reactionaries showed their typical "we have always been at war with East Asia" thinking & pronouced the Twist, the Mashed Potato, the Frug, etc., immoral because couples DIDN'T touch.

Thing is, though, even with a hundred bodies fratically windmilling about on the floor, it somehow was still all couple-oriented.

PinkPig, please let me know if there's any recognition of a basic-level "social tango," something engaged in with little or no knowledge of formal tango, much as (motly at weddings, admittedly) we can still see the waltz or foxtrot even if these are nowhere near so maniacally detailed as the "show dance" versions.