[Tango-L] Switching roles

[rockies@comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Lois Donnay" <donnay at donnay.net>
> After my Following for Leaders class last night, the men sat around talking.
> One question came up. We know there are milongas in Buenos Aires where
> switching roles is acceptable. Are there any other communities in the world
> where men are free to dance with men, women with women, etc? Are the
> milongas billed specially or is this acceptable in regular milongas?

In Portland (OR), it's not uncommon to see women leading women, whether at milongas or practicas. Men occasionally dance with each other at the practicas and much less often at the milongas. It is fairly common to see men leading men here at a practica and is accepted. Alex Krebs has a drop in mens class followed by practica where men work with each other. It's a very popular series, and is one of the fastest ways to improve - if you can lead a clunky male follower, well, you can much more easily lead a female follower, but there are also many opportunities for mentorship. One thing it does is make the leaders more sympathetic to the followers - being manhandled is *not* fun.  One of my teachers taught me to follow and I didnt' object, I actually wish it was more common for the ladies to lead the men. There are some excellent women leaders here.  Laurie Ann Greenburg has a womens only leading class which is very popular.  She is said to be one of Portlands best leaders, gende
 r asid
e. There used to be a 'Mini Marshall' milonga here as well, but I am not sure if this is still running. 

I cant' think of many male teachers here who cannot follow (only one comes to mind, and even he is an unknown). Some are much better than others however. Rebecca Shulman said in one of her workshop classes (while commenting on grumbling about gender imbalance by men having to follow other men) that someone had told her she had to learn to lead, and that it was one of the fastest ways to improve your dance. Experience tends to prove this out. I will say however, that given a choice, my preference is to dance with women followers - dancing with the same gender doesn't have the same emotion or passion, even though it can still be fun.  As a man, it would be much more preferable to be lead by a woman than by another man. The women leaders however, do not like to lead men, because (small surprise) they are not as good  as the women followers, in almost all cases (there are two exceptions I can think of locally). Women's motivation for leading most often stems from wanting to dance
  when 
there is gender imbalance - there is usually a shortage of leaders at most milongas. There are some here, however, who simply prefer to lead, and others who take it up because they have danced with some of the women leaders and find it attractive. 

My female teacher friend who leads (and is an excellent leader and follower) said ' leading has definitely cost me a few dances.' She also says that her preference is to dance with men, and that it is 'much less important for a woman to learn to lead than it is for a man to learn to follow.' There are some men who object to women leading, and they will not ask these women to dance. I must admit some of the finest dances I have ever had were with women leaders however, in particular, one from Eugene OR who is one of the best dancers I have ever danced with and a superb leader. I made it a point to ask her to dance at one milonga, simply because of watching her leading skills.

Best embraces to all,

Randy