[Tango-L] How to attract more male dancers

[Eero Olli]

Olivier asked " how can one attract more male dancers on the dance"

I believe that each decent follower in the community should consciously adopt a beginner 
leader for mentoring.  This requires spending a tanda or two with them every week and 
perhaps a little time in a practica regularly giving proper feedback, which is also often helpful 
for the followers own development.  

The opposite is often working already: men notice talented women and spend some extra 
time with them every week, helping them to develop.  The good women should do the same 
with those men they want to keep in the community.   It is a project that takes a few years, 
but if all decent followers would cultivate one new leader the number of decent leaders will 
keep growing.  The benefits of this approach is that the followers
1) can influence who are the leaders who stay (keep the ones you like best!)
2) can influence the style and manner of leading in the community  
3) help promising leaders to develop much faster  
4) always will have at least one eager follower waiting for them
5) help the community to grow

For men it can be quite discouraging to notice that learning tango takes a long time. Some 
positive attention and feedback helps!  Being a male the bottom of the picking order can be 
very hard, particularly for those who are used to be close to the the top in other venues.  
Many people prefer to be on top of a social hierarchy they already know (dancing something 
else) rather than at the bottom in the tango community.  The good followers are often quite 
picky, and will not dance with beginners.  This is of course followers privilege as tango is a 
social dance. But the downside is that for new leaders, the climb up to socially acceptable 
level of dancing can look too hard to be worthwhile.  Having this kind of mentorship 
established, makes the climb easier and more fun. Consequently, more men will stay! And 
perhaps more important, the right men will stay. 

The leaders do this already. Followers can have the same kind of impact on the community 
development, if they choose to.


Sincerely,

Eero