[Tango-L] Social vs. Stage Classes

[Ron Weigel]

On 8/23/06, tangosmith at cox.net <tangosmith at cox.net> wrote:
>
> Has anyone considered restructuring the format of the classes they offer?
> Instead of the usual beginner, intermediate, and advanced, perhaps a more
> useful and appropriate divide would be between social and
> stage/performance.  The performance class could be told that the steps they
> would learn were not danced in social settings and that they would not see
> them nor would they be appropriate in milongas.  If that was what the
> student was interested in, then so be it.  Instructors could teach them
> steps until their money ran out.
>
> Social classes could be directly focused on producing dancers for milongas,
> with topics such as walking, connection, floorcraft, and musicality.
> Turnover might be higher (hopefully) among these students but if the
> instructor was being successful at producing good milonga dancers, word of
> mouth would insure a ready supply of new students.

One problem here is defining what is and what is not appropriate for
milongas. In some communities lifting a woman off the floor and
twirling her around in the air occurs at milongas and is accepted by a
significant proportion of the community as as premissable if not
downright appropriate. ('Expressive' is often the euphemism used to
describe this type of dancing.)

In Buenos Aires ganchos are almost never seen. I don't even remember
seeing arrastres, unless they were very subtle. Same for calesitas.
For some reason high boleos abound everywhere, sometimes even at
crowded milongas in Buenos Aires.

So drawing the line between stage and social tango will vary from
community to community.

Even if you teach some version of tango that is presumably 'just for
the stage', what is to stop people from dancing this way at the
milongas?

And as long as stage performers from Argentina are repeatedly invited
to your community to give their popular workshops teaching their stage
moves, what is to stop people from imitating them on the milonga dance
floor?

If you are going to teach tango for the stage - really - shouldn't it
be done demanding all of the quality of dancing needed for a good
performance? It should be taught as ballet is taught, with all of the
necessary technique.

I think the problem stated previously is that instructors are
approached by beginning students wanting to learn steps, not
recognizing the need for partner connection, musicality, and
navigational skills first and that tango is centered around
improvisation not memorized sequences. It is not unusual for Susana
and me to have our beginners asking when they are going to learn
'gauchos' (sic) and 'kicks'. It is their concept of tango, from
exposure to the media at the very least. As an instructor you can
decide that students are consumers and give them what they demand, or
you can decide to teach the way you want students to dance.

The problem of generating good social dancers in a community is an
ever present one. It's a lot easier to have students memorize some
patterns that look flashy and talented to the uninitiated than to
follow the much more difficult path of training students to have good
technique and musicality. There will be a lot of people who teach
steps, many of whom do not hold formal classes, but do teach on the
milonga dance floor, offering their knowledge for free. If one
instructor does not meet demand, another will.

The only way to keep anti-social dancers off the dance floor is to
have private milongas, by invitation only. This is itself would be
considered anti-social at the community level.

This is not meant to be pessimistic. It's just the playing field we
are dealing with. I don't think we will find a solution as long as
there are suppliers of the demand, or the demand changes. Changing
demand won't be possible as long as television, movies, stage
performances and the like are the main entry point for interest in
tango.

Ron