[Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainstorming

[Robin Tara]

Nina,

You took the words right out of my mouth. Thanks.

Robin Tara 


> From: Nina Pesochinsky <nina at earthnet.net>
> Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2006 10:49:24 -0700
> To: Tango-L <Tango-L at mit.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainstorming
> 
> At 07:22 AM 12/2/2006, Janis Kenyon wrote:
> 
>> I would rather be dancing where there are 20 highly skilled dancers (Lo de
>> Celia in the afternoon) than on a crowded floor like Nino Bien on a Thursday
>> night that is 50% or more tourists.
> 
> Agreed and not agreed, but it is really a personal choice. Skilled
> dancers are not everything.  I can sit for hours, enjoying the music
> and the people, get up once for an tanda of what to me is an amazing
> dance experience with a very special dancer (who does not have to be
> old or Argentine), and then leave feeling that the milonga was worth it.
> 
> 
>> The milongueros make it a milonga, not
>> the collective energy of the dancers.
> 
> This I disagree with.  This says that we will no longer have milongas
> when all the milongueros are gone.  New people do not qualify for a
> term milonguero because they have jobs and lead lives that are
> focused on other things than passing all of their free time at the milongas.
> 
>> Essential ingredients for a milonga begin with a good floor, sound system
>> and a DJ who knows how to program the right music.  Then add dancers, stir
>> gently and see how it turns out.
> 
> This I disagree with.  I believe that the essential ingredient is the
> VALUES of the people who are present at the milongas.  This includes
> the DJ, the organizer and the dancers.
> 
> When the system of values between the local dancers and the visitors
> is vastly different, those who are in greater numbers set the tone of
> the milonga.  I believe that the value systems of Argentine people
> who dance tango, and I stress "Argentines, who dance tango", and the
> value systems of North Americans and Europeans are not only
> different, but often divergent.
> 
> The tourists come to Buenos Aires for a limited amount of time.  They
> often feel pressured to dance, dance! in order to make the trip worth
> the effort.  This brings anxiety to any event where people who value
> quantity of dancing are present in great numbers.
> 
> Personally, I prefer one gorgeous tanda to an evening of mediocre
> dance and personal experiences.  But I dance for almost 12 years and
> I work in dance professionally, so I feel quite jaded.  Beginner
> dancers need quantity.  They need a safe place where they can acquire
> mileage on their legs and movement.
> 
> I think that it is also a system of values that effects the issue of
> communities outside of Argentina being over-focused on growing the
> size of the community and attracting new people vs. focusing on
> quality of the dancers.
> 
> I think that Neil was right when he wrote that the focus on quality
> is almost non-existent and that people do not try to model their
> events on the milongas of Buenos Aires.  I thought long and hard
> about this because I have been involved in building a tango community
> here for almost 11 years.
> 
> When we were beginning to dance, there was nothing outside of
> Argentina with an exception of Berlin and maybe a handful of other
> tango communities around the world.  There was nothing in the United
> States other that the Stanford Tango Week (Thank you, Richard
> Powers!).  Daniel Trenner began to bring tango to different parts of
> the United States.  He truly is the Pied Piper of tango!  He brought
> the dance and the stories.  He was originally interested in contact
> improv, and so the improvisational nature of tango captivated him and
> he focused on the intense connection that the dance required.
> 
> People who became captivated by the dance at that time, all wanted to
> go to Buenos Aires.  The milongas of Buenos Aires were an enchanted,
> magical world.  People were hit in their emotions and
> sensitivities.  Those who went to Buenos Aires at that time, came
> back transformed.  We were not the people we were before.
> 
> I do not believe that this happens now at such a high rate.  Back
> then, the milongas of Buenos Aires had no foreigners.  Those of us
> who danced tango were freaks by all "normal" standards.  So when we
> came to the milongas, we were in a great minority and had no trouble
> getting lost in the crowd.
> 
> We saw pure Argentine milongas, that is without the influence of
> attending foreigners.  Tango tourists have changed the feel of the
> milongas.  When there are 50%+ of foreigners in a place like La Ideal
> or Nino Bien (which I still remember being almost entirely attended
> by Argentines only many years ago), those people who want to learn
> about what milongas are like in Buenos Aires will get a distorted picture.
> 
> I do not believe that events outside of Buenos Aires should be
> modeled on the events in Buenos Aires that have a high number of
> foreigners in attendance.  Instead, they can find milongas that have
> almost no foreigners and see what they are like.
> 
> On another note, if people refuse to embrace the values of the people
> who created the dance originally, then they will not be able to bring
> or create that particular quality in both dance and event organizing.
> 
> People must be able to embrace EMOTIONALLY the values of the culture
> that created the dance and the music.
> 
> It would be very interesting to ask an organizer of some very
> traditional, "non-foreign" milonga in Buenos Aires what he/she is
> focusing on and trying to achieve.  The relationship between men and
> women is quite different in Argentina than, say, in the United
> States.  This also may add to the difference in the values placed on
> the dance experience, but this topic is for another discussion.
> 
> Neil advocated for a shift in values from quantity to quality and he
> even proposed how this can be done.  To that, I would like to add
> that the knowledge of the people who have been dancing and traveling
> to Buenos Aires for over a decade is very valuable for that shift and
> should be shared.
> 
> When communities are new, the beginner dancers resemble
> children.  They take.  They take and they need a lot.  Tango is an
> emotional experience that requires great sensitivities from its
> practitioners.  New dancers need a lot of care and protection.  It
> becomes a part of the responsibility of the teachers to offer them
> those skills in addition to movement.  This is where the codes of
> behavior become handy.  They help to protect the feelings.
> 
> Beginner dancers to not bring quality.  Instead, they need a lot of
> care.  All dance, including tango, is a living art.  It is passed
> from person to person.  It cannot be learned from videos or
> books.  As such, those people who hand the dance to the beginners
> have a huge responsibility to guide them and help them grow in their
> own unique way.
> 
> So Neil is right.  The quality of the teachers becomes essential to
> growing communities that can cultivate not more dancers, but better
> dancers.  There are teachers who sell out for status.  There are also
> dancers who are unable to feel, unable to connect, and so their only
> refuse is movement.   Those who hold the dance sacred keep its flame
> as they discovered it.  The new dancers who want that flame reject
> fake teachers and seek those who can offer them what they need the
> most in the continuum of their development.  But at the end, it all shakes
> out.
> 
> I believe that there is hope in shifting the focus from quantity to
> quality, as long as those who believe in quality do not give up.
> 
> Warmest regards to every one of you,
> 
> Nina
> 
> 
> 
> 
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