[Tango-L] Social vs. Stage Classes

[Jeff Gaynor]

Ron Weigel wrote:
<snip/>

>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. 
>
You say it like its a bad thing. ;-)  What perpetuates bad dancing, I 
think, is that bad dancers have a different agenda completely than you 
do. They do it to look cool and impress their friends plus they want to 
have fun. The hard work it takes to learn a system of movement with the 
appropriate stylistic constraints is the antithesis of fun. In short, 
they are getting out of it what they want and will view your insistence 
they should do something else as odd at best, partisan at worst. Add in 
a healthy does of cultural confusion (how likely is it that they've seen 
good tango in the first place?) plus mediocre teachers and you have your 
mess.

I really think that a lot of discussions on this list miss the point 
that the bad dancers have a different definition of success and feel 
that by and large they have met it. This should be taken into account... 
As long as they are succeeding, pleading with them to change will always 
fall on deaf ears.

On option I would suggest (which works from another, non-tango 
situation) is to have a performance class and treat it as a performing 
art. This will let you lecture people on good vs. bad tango, plus give 
them a way to pull off a real show-stopping demo if they want to wow 
their friends (and yes they do). This gives you a context in which to 
tell them  that figure X is really completely tacky without embarrassing 
them. It also lets them mull over issues like choreography, costuming, 
lighting and makes them understand *why* stage tango looks the way it 
does and would go a long way to dispelling the notion that people dance 
like that.

Cheers,

Jeff