[Tango-L] Denver Festival Milonga Floor Metrics Contribute to Lane Formation

[Brian Dunn]

Trini, you wrote: 
>>>
They use periphery vision and look in the distance.  In the distance what do
they see?  They see people aligned to the edge of the portable dance floor,
which is squared to the walls of the room...
Having these portable dance floors delineates the dance floor much better
than a wall-to-wall wooden floor with round tables around the edges.  Chairs
can get pushed onto the dance floor, people can weave in out and of the
dance floor.  The edge of the dance floor is less certain.  
<<<


Your comments on the defined edge of the floor being a key ingredient are
interesting - I think that has an even greater effect than the lines I
talked about, now that I think about it, because it really forces the dense
outer edge to define itself against this obstacle of the floor-carpet
boundary.  

It makes me wonder what it might be like to have glowing lines embedded in a
floor (still smooth of course) or perhaps just sharp-edged lines projected
from above?  Perhaps people would stay out of the overhead-projected beams
(& in their lanes)because they would otherwise be "spotlighted" as crossing
lanes as the beam climbed up their clothes...but then, some would do it even
more, just for fun...

Recently on Facebook, someone has been circulating a video of experiments in
the "Fun theory" - basically, raise the "fun" quotient of something
ordinary, and people will change their behavior to "have" the "fun".  They
showed a video of people choosing a flight of stairs over an escalator
because the stairsteps were made up to look like a piano keyboard, and
played notes as you climbed.

It would be interesting to speculate how to make it more "fun" to navigate
well at a milonga through such passive measures.  

Maybe the better idea would be to project well-defined "linear-V" cones of
light JUST into the lanes, so that leaving your lane would temporarily take
you into darkness?  It would at least make for some nice photographs!

All the best,
Brian Dunn
Dance of the Heart
www.danceoftheheart.com
"Building a Better World, One Tango at a Time"