[Tango-L] Surplus Tanguera - Not

[Brick Robbins]

Another community with too many men (or more accurately, not enough
women) is San Diego.

During prime time at one of our more popular milongas recently, with
maybe 40 couples on the floor, I counted 10 men sitting out.

This doesn't mean that *every* milonga is leader heavy, but it has
become so typical, that at event  recently, a woman complained that it
was"follow heavy." I counted, and discovered that there was actually
one extra man in the room.

This causes some interesting problems.

Most men I know prefer to hear the beginning of the Tanda before
choosing a follower. In this environment, if a man wishes to dance he
must obtain a follower before the cortina ends, so couples often end
up dancing to music that they might prefer not to. Also the cabeceo
becomes problematic, because by the time one makes eye contact,
another leader has verbally asked her to dance.

Sometimes the cortinas take on appearance of a feeding frenzy, with 3
or 4 men standing around each of the better followers, with the
follower begging for the chance to rest. I once found a follower
sitting  behind the counter in the kitchen, hiding. She said she just
wanted to rest a bit without having to turn down someone every 30
seconds.

And as an interesting aside, we have a Tango Studio in town which
primarily teaches "cool moves" and "patterns" and has several "in
house" milongas every week.  For whatever reason, not many of their
students or teachers join us in the general community, nor do the
members of the community often attend their milongas. That studio's
milongas have an excess of women.