[Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainstorming

[Robert Armus]

I quit going to Tango because many of the people are too self-righteous for 
my taste. I am a professional musician and even play Tango sometimes, I live 
in Paris now and have lived and danced in Buenos Aires, Cordoba, NYC, 
Amsterdam,Vancouver and Toronto. I started dancing Tango 15 years ago.

I hate this "in Buenos Aires they do it like this and that is the only way" 
BS. Hear me out, it's like saying if a musician in Sweden is trying to play 
Be-Bop, there is no way they will learn it unless they go to NYC, it's not 
true. Tango is an art form.... that means be creative ! Learn the rules, 
then break them ! Bird said "learn it then forget it and just play".

Tango communities outside of Argentina are still developing, let them 
develop in there own way, who knows maybe a new style will begin 
[sarcasm]God forbid[/sarcasm]. Tango has become an international art form, 
just like Jazz. Tango began as a mix of cultures... let it continue as such.

Can someone here define the word "quality" ?

Astor Piazzolla was one of the most profound musician/composers of the 20th 
century and he called his music Tango but many dancers still think his music 
is not for dancing or not even Tango !?!

Just because someone thinks they dance well or "authentic" Tango doesn't 
make them a superior human being, so why the superior attitude?

I have more to say but will spare you the rant.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Tango Tango" <tangotangotango at gmail.com 
<mailto:tangotangotango at gmail.com>>

To: "Tango-L" <tango-l at mit.edu <mailto:tango-l at mit.edu>>

Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 8:48 AM

Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainstorming



> In most tango communities outside of Argentina, great focus is often 
> placed

> on growing the community. This goal seems to be one of universal appeal 
> and

> as such, becomes something that occupies both the resources and attention 
> of

> the community.

>

> However, you can grow a community on two ways: You can grow it larger or 
> you

> can grow it into a better community with higher communal skill. Which one

> should it be?

> As I have an occupation that involves a great deal of international 
> travel,

> I have been able to visit tango communities all over Europe, US and in the

> Asia Pacific. Among all these, the answer has always been to grow the 
> number

> of attendees at local practicas and milongas. Little or no emphasis is

> placed on increasing the quality of the tango experience within the

> community.

>

> Now, when I use the term 'quality' (which of course is subjective), I mean

> an experience more like the one you will have at a milonga in Buenos 
> Aires.

> When we speak about quality of a community, the gauge should be: How does

> this event compare to an event I could attend in Buenos Aires? Numerous

> factors go into this equation of quality: The venue, the layout of the 
> floor

> and tables, the lighting, the DJ (meaning the material, how it is played,

> how the tandas are structured, type and length of cortina), line of dance,

> conduct of dancers, adherence to tango protocol, etc. The number of people

> attending and the dance skill level are just two small parts of the 
> picture.

> Communities in the US seem to focus entirely on increasing the number of

> attendees at events while just paying lip service to the other elements.

>

> It is a great and admirable goal to create a large community where people

> can dance with each other, but if a community wants to drape itself with 
> the

> term 'Argentine Tango', then at the very least one should expect that

> efforts are made to make the dance experience in that community as close 
> as

> possible to the one you would have in Buenos Aires. If this is not the 
> goal,

> then why call it 'Argentine'? Convenient interpretations of this word in

> order to make it 'fit' the local circumstances is, -quite honestly,

> disrespectful to the originators of this wonderful dance. If embracing the

> whole of tango, -and not just the dance steps, is somehow not deemed

> necessary, then the practitioners of this should call it 'American Tango' 
> or

> something altogether different. Unfortunately, it is much easier to steal

> legitimacy for whatever it is that you are doing by borrowing established

> terminology and hoping that the people you seek to impress do not know the

> difference.

>

> The paragraph above may seem a bit off the subject, but it ties into the

> following: Before the decision as to how to best grow the community is

> taken, you first have to ask yourself; "What KIND of community do we want

> this to be?" Do we want to gather as many people as possible in one spot 
> on

> a Friday night or do we accept the responsibility that comes with calling

> ourselves Argentine Tango dancers and work to recreate a bit of Buenos 
> Aires

> right here in our own back yard? The latter does not seem to be the 
> popular

> option. As a matter of fact, when engaging in proper tango protocol in

> Denver, one will most likely hear: "Oh, don't worry about it! You're not 
> in

> Buenos Aires".

>

> Comments such as this point to a mentality where quantity, not quality is

> valued. This behavior is fueled by people who are uninitiated in tango, 
> but

> nevertheless are billing themselves as teachers of Argentine Tango. The

> teachers in a community are the foremost proponent of habits, -good or 
> bad.

> If teachers churn out large amounts of poorly educated students, does this

> serve the community? If a teacher is afraid of going to Buenos Aires 
> because

> he thinks the floor is too crowded, what does this say about that teacher?

> If a teacher doesn't want to go to Buenos Aires because she says she can't

> get any dances, what does this say about that teacher? Is a 'teacher' who

> has never even been to a Buenos Aires milonga qualified to teach Argentine

> Tango? If we get more of these 'teachers' who in turn produces more people

> that dance like them, we will surely have a larger community, but do we 
> have

> a better community? One could be tempted to say we would then have a

> 'diverse' body of people, but diversity is not really what we seek when we

> join a community that specializes in one single dance form from a very

> narrowly-defined geographical region.

>

> When looking at what motivates students, teachers and promoters in the US

> today, it becomes clear that unless special attention is given to growing

> BETTER communities, then this is as good as tango will ever be in the US.

> The larger a community grows, the less motivated people will be to seek 
> out

> the roots and foundation of what it is they are dancing. (After all, with 
> a

> large group, doing something incorrectly becomes easily justifiable by the

> fact that 'everybody else does it'). Less people will go to Buenos Aires 
> to

> see how Argentine Tango is danced, and the result is that local 
> communities

> develop entire sub-genres of the dance. -American Tango. This new dance 
> will

> naturally draw heavily from the culture in which is was formed as as such

> will appeal to more of the local population. Voila! -We now have a large

> community.

>

> Growing a large dance community is easy: Give the dancers what they want.

> Give them something that is easy to learn but is presented as something

> spectacular and extraordinary. Also, low cover charge, cheap drinks and

> popular music are time-tested methods of drawing large crowds. Creating a

> good Argentine Tango community on the other hand, is far more complicated.

> It must fall upon the few knowledgeable teachers to not only teach steps 
> and

> combinations, but to initiate the student into the world of tango.

> Non-profit organizations can make efforts to promote events that are as

> authentic as possible and support teachers that make an effort to teach in

> that same spirit.

>

> Growing large, or growing better? A community must first grow into the 
> best

> community it can be before the focus shifts to becoming the largest it can

> be. After all, who wants to super-size an airline meal?

>

> Neil

>

>

>

>

> On 11/28/06, Jacob Eggers <eggers at brandeis.edu 
> <mailto:eggers at brandeis.edu>> wrote:

>>

>> I have observed that musicians, people who migrated from other dance

>> forms,

>> and scientific types are all disproportionately represented in the US

>> tango

>> scene. So, focusing recruiting efforts on people from those areas seems

>> like

>> the most successful method to retain new tango dancers. Targeting each of

>> these groups has special added benefits:

>>

>> Dancers already have many skills that'll transfer to tango, and they also

>> might start recruiting their friends and students if they become tango

>> addicts like the rest of us.

>> Musicians might be inspired to start playing tango music, and if they 
>> also

>> dance tango they might even start playing tango music that's danceable.

>> Scientific types--well, I actually don't know of any benefit for

>> recruiting

>> them except maybe that they're generally more affluent and might inject

>> some

>> extra money into the tango community.

>>

>> One way to do recruit these people would be to give out free lesson

>> coupons

>> to people from those three groups. Drop the coupons off at the local 
>> salsa

>> club, give them to street musicians, leave them in music stores, leave

>> them

>> at universities.... Since it would be extra effort to control the

>> distribution of those coupons, I would suggest that passing coupons off 
>> to

>> others is allowed. That doesn't seem like much of a risk since musicians

>> are

>> generally friends with musicians, dancers with dancers, ...

>>

>> These are just thoughts. I haven't tried any of them, but I would be

>> curious

>> if anyone has done something similar, or would be willing to do an

>> experiment. Mainly, I'd just like to start a general discussion on tango

>> marketing concepts.

>>

>> chau,

>> j

>> _______________________________________________

>> Tango-L mailing list

>> Tango-L at mit.edu <mailto:Tango-L at mit.edu>

>> <http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l>

>>

> _______________________________________________

> Tango-L mailing list

> Tango-L at mit.edu <mailto:Tango-L at mit.edu>

> <http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l>

>