[Tango-L] Community building

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

--- "Chris, UK" <tl2 at chrisjj.com> wrote:

> That is nonsense. A good leader needs only the girl to
> stay on his chest. 

Sean here. 99% of what is written on this list is nonsense.
Now I remember why I quit writing. 

But Chris did have some good observations about
communities. As he pointed out, an established community is
self sustaining. There are no essential members. The
problem here in the 3rd tango world is that established
communities don't spontaneously appear. Someone has to
start them from nothing, and those pioneers deserve credit
for that. As the community is being built up, some people
become the essential, sustaining members. Unfortunately,
those members often end up being the very people who arrest
the growth of the community when it is on the verge of
becoming self sustaining. They aren't prepared to become
mere mortal nonessential members. In your words, they don't
want to give up their power. In most cases I think it has
more to do with validation than with power.

I suspect this is what Floyd is going through. For years,
he was the driving force promoting tango in Buffalo. That
brought him a certain status, even stardom on the local
level. But the community grew too big for him to control.
Some rogue members slipped out and went off to a festival
in Toronto where they met some guys who dance very well.
Now those same rouges are inviting outsiders to teach on
his former turf. Floyd went from being the king of tango in
Buffalo to just another non-essential member of the
community in a very short time, and that must be painful. 

Now that they have dethroned their king, the next challenge
facing the Buffalo rouges is to avoid setting themselves up
as the next generation of petty tango tyrants. The leaders
of a proto-community must be marginalized if it is ever to
becoming self sustaining. They can do it themselves,
someone will come along and do it for them, or the
community will stagnate.

Years ago, Trini and I were the rogues in Pittsburgh. We
made some mistake along the way; but we also acted to
marginalize our own importance from the very beginning. Our
most successful strategy for community building has been to
foster our own competition:
- We helped to start tango clubs at two local universities,
and then left them alone. Trini still volunteers to teach
free classes for one of the clubs, but we don't interfere
with their operation.
- Trini promotes everyone's events in a weekly email
newsletter.
- We invite all of the competing teachers in Pittsburgh to
take turns teaching the class before our weekly milonga.
This gives every student a chance to meet all of the other
teachers. As a bonus, it gives the Pittsburgh community
more than one shot to retain new dancers.

I have tough questions for all the self proclaimed
community leaders on this list: 
- Are you building a self sustaining community (one that
doesn't need you)? 
- Are you building a little tango fiefdom, totally
dependent on you, so that you can play petty tango tyrant?
- Or are you just a tango merchant, building a captive
customer base for your personal profiteering?

Sean


PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
  Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh’s most popular social dance!
  http://patangos.home.comcast.net/
   



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