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Guest post from 'Tangothinker'
Alexei Sayle…of course, that was you, wasn’t it? The one
with whom I danced in the 1970s to jazz at
I read your Guardian piece with interest. I have to admit that I glowed when you acknowledged some roots of Argentine tango (unsurprisingly my bag as it happens) and was ready to be seduced by your critique, especially when you took hold of the coat tails of your unnamed Argentine friend.
But didn’t you describe yourself as ‘A keen dance fan’ who ‘presented several television shows on the subject in the early 2000s’, with a basic knowledge of ‘the art’, possessing ‘a smattering of tap’, having the dance skills of a north London social worker, and attempting ‘Argentine tango when drunk’?
How does that, liking a bit of Wigan’s Northern Soul, and conflating it with both Granadan sevillana and Shakespeare, help the rest of us gain insight into ballroom dancing and Strictly?
Alexei, let me help you out of a hole. Ballroom dancing is as different from Northern Soul as it is from darts. It is a smooth, elegant, energetic, difficult, poetic dance form that requires years of practice to get right - that thousands of dancers from around the world enjoy. We like the clothes; we love the drama; we adore the flashiness of it on Strictly –just as you loved your flail. Ballroom and Latin have their own place in the rich assemblage of dances.
Had you phoned me I could have helped, after all you might remember me as a Ballroom dance finalist, and know that I am now a tanguero. Perhaps I could have tempered your hatred of the Strictly ballroom, and updated you on Strictly’s massive view figures and the ways in which ballroom dance has influenced the development of our gorgeous salon-style of Argentine tango?
