[Tango-L] Fisking Chris and Neil

[Tom Stermitz]

On Jan 26, 2007, at 11:46 PM, Tango Tango wrote:

> Chris.
>
> Most people in the US treat tango as a sport, so they are most  
> comfortable
> approaching it in a sweatpants-wearing, water bottle-toting, dance
> sneakers-wearing setting such as a class or a practica.
> ...
> Neil

Neil, This is simply not true.

Most people in the US treat tango as a way to get out, meet people,  
have some fun. Most spend one or two nights per week, but a few  
really get the bug and work 10 or more hours.

Most people wear leather soled shoes and attire that ranges from  
casual to party depending on the situation. At a milonga they dress  
up a bit more. It also depends on the city. Denver and Portland are  
more casual than LA and New York. You rarely see athletic garb  
outside a workshop. Newcomers, often come to their first classes in  
tennis shoes.


> On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 02:20 +0000 (GMT Standard Time), Chris, UK <
> tl2 at chrisjj.com> wrote:
>>
>> OK, I stand corrected:
>>
>>> Denver, a metro area of perhaps 3 million people
>>
>> has not 2 milongas a week, but 2.5. Along with approx. 20 classes  
>> etc.
>>
>>> I'll bet it is the same in pretty much everywhere.
>>
>> No, Tom. A European city of that size has about ten times as many
>> milongas.

Chris, are you engaging in hyperbole or gross hyperbole?

Denver proper is 500,000. Add in the suburbs (30 mile radius) and you  
get 2.5 million. We have 3 well-attended milongas per week. We may  
have as many as 500 different people doing tango any particular  
month, not counting beginners who aren't yet hooked.

By Chris's formula:

London at 7 million would have 70 milongas per week, and Birmingham  
at 1 million would have 10.

The 15th through 26th largest cities in the UK each has about 300,000  
people. So, you must have 3 milongas per week in the following  
cities: Wakefield, Cardiff, Dudley, Wigan, East Riding, South  
Lanrakshire, Coventry, Belfast, Leicester, Sunderland, Sandwell and  
Doncaster.



The sense of space and population is a lot different in the US when  
compared to Europe.

Colorado is twice the land area of England, but has one tenth the  
population, of which half live within 30 miles (50 km) of Denver. The  
nearest cities of any size are about 300-400 miles away (Albuquerque  
and Salt Lake City).

Dusseldorf is a little larger than Denver in population, but there  
are 20 million people within a 60 mile (100 km) radius. The Denver  
metro area covers Dusseldorf, Wuppertal, Essen, Dortmund and Cologne.