1. At first I wanted to figure out who are the people dancing
Argentine tango in Malmö.
It turned out the “typical” person is academic and without
children or whose children have left home. Little women
between 32-40 years are to find on the floor, while men keep
dancing even at this age.
Most of the dancers are Swedish, minorities are Argentine
and Chilean dancers - very roughly put.
2.
3. There is a slight leaning towards the next bigger city in
the region while going to dance. An estimation was made
that 30-40% of dancers in Malmö on a regular milonga are
from Lund and 20% of dancers in Copenhagen from Malmö.
Copenhagen dancers travel less towards Malmö but find the
festival worth the journey.
4.
5. There are thousands of those curious academia people who
have been across Argentine tango in Malmö since the late
1980’s when it arrived there. Several hundred dance on a
monthly basis.
However, it would be strange to claim that Malmö would
therefore be more Argentinean, as if Argentina had eaten
itself inside the city or down through the ground of it.
Or, that the tango as such still would be Argentinean. Is
it rather a Scandinavian tango they dance in Malmö?
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12. Argentine tango is folkekultur - that of the cosmopolitan
high-educated Europeans or the workers of Buenos Aires, to
say it with clichés - and belongs to everyone.
It evolves, like any culture evolves, in all imaginable
directions through its performers. And by that evolution,
it stays alive.
