[Tango-L] Argentine Tango Dancer Census: Increasing, Decreasing or Dividing?

['Mash]

On 2008-03-06 22:41+0000, Felix Delgado wrote:
> Are tango numbers actually decreasing?
> 
> One description I've heard is that people aren't staying with tango as long as they used to.
> Many communities are constantly recruiting beginners.
> 
> Or maybe tango communities are just splitting into little subgroups organized by different
> instructors. 
> 
> I don't know. But the large tango crowds seem to be less frequent. 
> 
> This is not healthy for the future of tango.
> 
> Felix

To be honest I think is most likely to do with how unaccommodating the Tango community is becoming. That Tango appears to be less and less about people coming together to dance and more about being part of a kind of self-righteousness elitist group who hold a kind of religious belief about Tango.

I have a good friend who went to a Tango class for the first time and has never given Tango another chance since. She said the people were unfriendly, arrogant and no one seemed to care at all for those who were starting to learn for the first time. All she wanted was to meet people and start a new hobby.

My point is that Tango is no longer just a dance and though it is exciting to discover how much more there is to Tango beside the dance, it is this "attitude" that has made it unattractive, inaccessible and really just soo arrogant. 

If Tango was originally people coming together in small venues smiling laughing and enjoying each others company, the music and practising movements and growing a dance; that is a far cry from what it is today.

Just the level of bickering and patronising on this mailing list demonstrates how people can't even share their opinion without stepping on someones toes.

And toes, dare one EVER bump into someone nowadays in a milonga. It takes weeks to pull out the eye daggers.   

If the Tango community is decreasing it would not surprise me at all.

'Mash
London,UK