Decayed and Abandoned Texas

https://decayedandabandonedtexas.com/


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Dwight Yoakam - A Thousand Miles From Nowhere

https://youtu.be/QpQ4c3b_RJ8


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Weekend milonguero private villa

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Michele, my personal opinion is that there is a general (societal?) assumption that people who perpetrate unacceptable behaviors understand what behaviors are unacceptable in social situations/social dance. We're talking about a minority of folks who perpetrate these behaviors, right? In our community of roughly 250 tango dancers, a figure which includes a dozen or two who rarely/never attend, with 100-150 "active" local dancers, 20-30-40 who attend events nearly every night of the week, there are probably 6-10 leaders (leaders vs. followers) that women have complained about/complain about exhibiting/perpetrating borderline to full-blown unacceptable behaviors. Some women in the community "complain-about-or-know-about-but-still-continue-to-dance-with-them", some women avoid these "problem" leaders, and unfortunately those new to the community are unaware, left to their own devices and unfortunate experiences to figure out who these men are for themselves, that is, unless, other women warn the newbies, as is often the case. My personal feeling is that a fair number of new followers leave our tango community and tango the dance for other social dances, early on (within a week or a month or a year) due to these unpalatable repeat experiences, versus other reasons like "tango is just not for me". Quantifying this number is nearly impossible. It's a gut feeling on my part. But, I do know of 2 or 3 who left, and another 2 or 3 who I was told left the community because of one particular repeat/serial perpetrator. We know of three women in the community who have experienced rather egregious harassing behaviors, one over a period of weeks, one over a period of months, and one over a period of many months. Unfortunately for our community, a number of (highly socially/grouply capitalized) people continue to support and enable and excuse this individual, a fact which has unfortunately caused a rift in the community, mostly involving boycotting of events, or dramatically curtailed attendance (by some) at events, or private/invitation only events. These perpetrator supporters feel that the unfortunate but very necessary public outing of the individual after many months of reports to people in leadership positions and no action being taken (a couple of instances of "the talk" did occur and she'll know who she is if she reads this) and being told to leave the individual alone and only seeing the individual continuing to grow in involvement and leadership and ingratiating oneself and rendering oneself indispensable and solidifying a self-anointed-self-appointed public national face of our community outweighed the seriousness of the harassment of these women. Community-level DARVO. Sorry to digress so much. And my apologies for continuing to write without paragraphs. I suppose my point is this: either these few men (6 out of say, 60 or 10 out of 100?) "know" what they are doing, are actively and premeditatively "taking liberties" (inappropriate non-consensual physical touch, physical proximity, or verbal comments being the vast majority of offenses), or they are completely oblivious of their behaviors, or that they are perpetrating these behaviors. (it's just who/the way they are aka Joe Biden effect) (and might benefit from a list of no's, but it's also probably these individuals who would never avail/think to avail themselves of said list) This, combined with the fact that social pressures mean these individuals are rarely confronted on the spot (on the dance floor by the party of the second part, or at the event that night by parties of the third part), and even more rarely are reported to organizers/(unstructured) community leadership. Our community, like most, has historically depended on organizers and teachers to respond to/deal with problems/complaints. In a vacuum without other teachers/organizers knowing of each other's problems/complaints. Or we sweep it under the rug. We have only recently (three months ago) made attempts at a comprehensive community-wide safe space policy, which resulted initially in a positively-worded safe space intention "statement" versus a full-blown policy, which I seriously doubt will ever come into being. Like most tango communities, we are very loosely organically organized and resistant to committees or boards or working groups or elected officers - which makes policy-making difficult/impossible. There has never been, to my knowledge, (in our community - or maybe any tango community, for that matter...) a listing or statement of "no's" or unacceptable behaviors. I take that back, here is a pretty blunt, albeit short list: https://bit.ly/2InCUB8. Kudos to our beloved EsquinaTango for putting this out there. I'm not calling them out here - because they have done more than most - but there it sits, like most, pretty deeply buried on a website, never to be talked about or have a flashlight shone on it in any healthy constructive communicative ongoing ways. Like maybe in a class. Just "touched on", not beat a dead horse talk about it for an hour. Touch on it in a class once a month for five minutes. Post the "List of No's" on the wall or hold up a flyer at a milonga and just mention it. Mention that it's on the website. Sorry, again, I digress. Kinda. What can I say, I'm a wordy kinda guy, perhaps even prone to verbal diarrhea. (grin) People don't want to talk about it. They don't want to hear about it. They don't want to know about it. They think it's bad publicity for the community to talk about it openly. They think people will think there is a problem in the community. (I'll admit there is some validity to these concerns.) Head in the sand shut up we just want to dance normal (un) healthy human inter/relationships group social societal dynamics type shit.

So, a paragraph finally! Yes, I think there should be a long and brutal brutally honest list of no's and specific inappropriate behaviors. Perhaps a mix and negative and positive language. Perhaps touched on in classes. (Perhaps required by policy if teachers wish to operate under the wider community umbrella of the dancers by the dancers for the dancers.) Perhaps mentioned at milongas. (Perhaps required by policy if organizers wish to operate under the wider community umbrella of the dancers by the dancer for the dancers.) Perhaps periodic a few times a year "tango talk" or "men's tango talks" type tango talks about inappropriate behavior bad habits consent respect behavior-change here's what the womenfollowershumans are saying/don't like - you make me want to I want to try to be a better man/human being type shit. Perhaps incorporated into a full-blown code of conduct safe space policy document with what to do who to talk to if you experience something that feels creepy inappropriate and what will happen if you make a formal report and what to expect if you make a formal report and future perpetrators are maybe deterred from current and future creepy behaviors (or maybe deterred from joining the community in the first place) and it's all about consent and mutual fucking human respect because they see this (tango) community is no longer going to abide as in "This aggression will not abide, man."

Yes, most of us, most humans, don't need a list of "what not to do to other people" and general human etiquette/respect. But maybe now it's #metoo time for making a list and talking about it (or listening about it) even though it makes you/us all uncomfortable to talk about it but talk about it openly and brutally honestly because it's the fucking right thing to do. Y'all. Sorry, again, Michele to digress and get so...so...you get my drift, I hope. And I'm sure it's not lost on you this was not so much a reply to your query, but a long overdue long pent-up diatribe dissertation on the subject. Thank you all (all y'all as we say) for reading and listening and pondering and wanting to be better human beings and acting on that.

Lastly, please forgive/overlook all my cis wording/syntax. It's meant for all, with an open heart and open mind.

Last Chance Tango :: Short Film Project :: A film about a man who meets the twin of his deceased wife and tries to connect with her by learning tango together

From Sonja Strathern's Kickstarter page:

A film about a man who meets the twin of his deceased wife and tries to connect with her by learning tango together.


Do you have a dance story? Everyone who learns to dance Argentine tango has a backstory. It usually involves an introduction, maybe like falling in love, and then the hard part involving years of work, like a long term relationship. Those who dance Argentine tango often invest in a life-long learning of technique. Tango is danced in an 'embrace' and fulfills a spectrum of emotional needs as well as being social and fun.


I wrote this story about Daniel, a man dealing with a tragedy, who is just keeping it all together in his life. At an event, he sees a woman named Sarah, who strongly resembles his deceased wife. Miraculously, Daniel and Sarah discover she and his wife were twins, adopted to different families. When they see a tango performance, Daniel asks Sarah to learn tango with him, hoping to connect with her and win her love. But things don't always turn out as planned. Will he get his last chance? Tango is not as easy as he thought.


I drew upon personal experience as a tango dancer, with the generosity and help of my local tango community in Eastern Iowa. I began learning tango ten years go in Houston, Texas, and asked my former teacher, Joan Bishop to be my actress to play herself. She volunteered her time and made the visit in February during one of our worst Iowan winters.

Complete info here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strathearn/last-chance-tango#