Once more unto the breach
On the problem of authenticity (in tango and elsewhere)
Whenever a question of authenticity arises, what we actually want to know is mostly how to tell good from bad and right from wrong (and ‘42′ doesn’t work here).
Sometimes it’s relatively easy. You can judge meat by the amount of soy in it and, if there is too much, you can always say: ‘This is not meat’. Similarly, you can judge a ballroom performance by applying whatever criteria they use there. But you’re in trouble as soon as you encounter something that grows wild and outside of the encyclopaedia-based universe, devoid of industrial standards and lacking a clear definition.
There are several ways of fighting the resulting frustration: (A) One can do some research and create one’s own set of rules and standards (see www.tangoandchaos.org). Chances are high that this work would be rewarded with more than one sigh of relief. And the general public will be quite grateful to the person for giving them something (supposedly) firm to hold on to. (B) Or one can use brands (America’s favourite) – implying that a certain name stands for certain qualities. This strategy is especially sound for marketing things not easily measured (e.g. tango). One can then measure them by their ‘authenticity’. That is to say, a real Gucci bag is doubtlessly better than a Taiwanese-made Glucci bag. And you don’t even have to touch the leather or test the locks to know this. (On top of that – brands sell. Hence, exempli gratia, Ney Melo’s “Villa Urquiza“, Susanna Miller’s “Milonguero“, etc.).
But with both mentioned approaches we are facing a problem of authenticity of higher level. (That is to say, (A) did you really describe the right thing, and (B) is your “real Gucci bag” really a bag?)
Deep scars on Europe’s and America’s tango bodies remind us that being Argentine doesn’t necessarily equal knowing about tango. And even if it did – we are not Argentines – and never will be, no matter how many lessons we take. You cannot become a porteño – you have to be born in BA to be called that. So what we do here is either role-playing (closer to running through forests dressed up as hobbits and orcs than you would think) or evolution of the dance. Truth is – Argentine Tango is no longer only Argentine. Whether we like it or not, people dance it all over the world (and not everywhere do they dance it as badly as they do in some places). This itself is not a problem – it’s a fact. The problem is – how do we tell evolution from (such horrible things as) decay or mutilation then?
My answer would be – backward compatibility. Improving the interfaces (forgive me my IT-language) and widening the range, but not introducing barriers. If you augment the tango by adding some agreement-based ’steps’, it will stop being backward compatible – and you’d better start looking for a new name for what you’re doing.
And here we come to my main point today – a suggestion on how to measure authenticity (if somebody really wants to do this for some reason): A true thing works the way it was intended to. If you can’t carry anything in it, this thing is probably not a bag. Similarly, a bicycle-looking thing can only be a bicycle, if you can sit on it and move forward by turning pedals with your feet. The whole authenticity dilemma boils down to one question, and that question is not ‘can you dance like the Argentines?’ It is ‘can you dance with the Argentines?’ Standards or no standards. Brand or no brand. I can.
