"Working the room"

D

Dave Bailey

Active Member
So, my feeling is that if you're a teacher, and you're running a milonga after your class, then you should make an effort to work the room:
- Dancing with lots of different people
- Encouraging others to do the same
- Promoting good practice with floorcraft
- Acting as "ambassadors for social tango"

To me, this behaviour is self-evidently good practice - and, probably, good business as well.

However, very few of the London professionals actually do this.

So, am I missing something? Is my feeling wrong?
 
I agree wholeheartedly. Sadly I can only think of one London milonga where everyone is actively encouraged to danced with others of all levels. Most suffer from cliquishness. Some male teachers dance at milongas, but I have rarely seen female ones. And when they do it is with the exclusive few. I can only think of one London 'venue' (although they had to find a new home not so long ago) where serious efforts are made to promote floorcraft. It really is such a shame.

To compare with another physical skill, in the martial arts world, I have never seen a teacher worth their salt who doesn't get everybody practicing with everybody else or who doesn't readily practice with every student there whatever their level. With both skill sets, it is a 'feeling' to the movement which needs to be transmitted from teacher to students. And for both, adaptability to different body types is an important skill. The use of a safe working space in order to avoid injury due to collisions with others practicing nearby is also very important.

Interestingly, in martial arts everybody needs to understand both roles by practicing both as attacker and defender. As a leader, I do find it far more difficult to learn to lead when I have such little experience of the sensations experienced by followers. This is at least one thing that seems to work out well in milongas - nobody minds at all which gender takes which role so long as they are dancing safely and respectfully. It's just that few people are inclined to try it.
 
Do you remember ever watching American Bandstand? Do you remember how much fun everyone was having just by dancing?....dancing their own dance?
Now picture; dance 'teachers' doing demos....having a 'class' before the program aired... what would it have been like then??? how about something simular to TANGO TODAY? .....everyone worried about 'doing it right'...everyone doing the 'new steps'...everyone having LESS FUN.
hmmmm, maybe the 'problem' today are the 'teachers'?? and maybe they are not the solution.:rolleyes:
 
I've seen a lot of variation.

In cases where there's a visiting teacher, or there's a workshop/festival setting...no. The teachers dance amongst themselves, or among the select few, if at all.

If there is a regular class followed by a milonga it seems to go either way. Often those classes are by independent teachers, and a lot of the students are not particularly serious. In those cases, the teachers don't ask the students to dance, generally.

The only time I've seen a teacher work a room like that is when there is some sort of studio affiliation (as in, the teacher works for the studio, which is doing the actual hosting). Then, yes, he worked the room.

This is one of the key social differences, it would seem, between BR social dances and milongas. I'm not sure which I prefer.

Mario, your ignorance and bias is showing. Again.
 
Dave Bailey said:
So, am I missing something? Is my feeling wrong?
Click to expand...

There are ups and downs to this. It does make sense if you are affiliated with the milonga and you have a real, direct influence on how people dance. It makes a percentage of sense if you can have some sort of a percentage influence. And on the whole, people's behaviour seems to reflect that.

But if most of the people there aren't serious dancers, don't know or care at all who you are, and are horrible to dance with, then there's a lot less point. You can have more influence by dancing with who you want and just setting as good an example as you can, and adding people to the pool from time to time just like everyone else.

In between those two extremes, a lot depends on context. In a smaller community, you can have more influence, and also the obvious downsides that I would imagine - like people expecting you to dance with them all the time just because you did it once, or like people hassling you with demands so you can't dance with people you actually want to and your whole evening consists of wearing yourself out turning down demands and being bitched about, or like people trying out crap to impress you, or like being wrestled around and having the dance you loved turn into a chore - are probably much more controllable. In a place like London I can see why people are risk-averse, and much more risk-averse in some contexts than others. For one thing, in a small community, it's possible to negate these risks by turning other people into better dancers.

I also do think it's quite an important part of tango that nobody has any obligation to dance with anyone unless they actually want to, for some reason or other. What the reason is, is up to them on the day, and nobody else's business. Influencing people is obviously one possible reason, so is community building, so is getting laid. So is having a good dance. But whatever the reason, the dancer is supposed to be self-determining. And that is one of the important attractions of it and one of the important differences from other dances. And this is 100% OK with me, whichever end of it I am on.
 
In my experience, there are milongas where teachers go to promote themselves and look for more business, and then there are milongas where teachers go to enjoy themselves just as anybody else does. The latter might include, or not, dancing with new people/beginners, the former usually does. In any case, as long as the teachers behave according to milonga etiquette, they set an example to others and are acting as community builders.
 
mshedgehog said:
There are ups and downs to this. It does make sense if you are affiliated with the milonga and you have a real, direct influence on how people dance. It makes a percentage of sense if you can have some sort of a percentage influence. And on the whole, people's behaviour seems to reflect that.

But if most of the people there aren't serious dancers, don't know or care at all who you are, and are horrible to dance with, then there's a lot less point. You can have more influence by dancing with who you want and just setting as good an example as you can, and adding people to the pool from time to time just like everyone else.

In between those two extremes, a lot depends on context. In a smaller community, you can have more influence, and also the obvious downsides that I would imagine - like people expecting you to dance with them all the time just because you did it once, or like people hassling you with demands so you can't dance with people you actually want to and your whole evening consists of wearing yourself out turning down demands and being bitched about, or like people trying out crap to impress you, or like being wrestled around and having the dance you loved turn into a chore - are probably much more controllable. In a place like London I can see why people are risk-averse, and much more risk-averse in some contexts than others. For one thing, in a small community, it's possible to negate these risks by turning other people into better dancers.

I also do think it's quite an important part of tango that nobody has any obligation to dance with anyone unless they actually want to, for some reason or other. What the reason is, is up to them on the day, and nobody else's business. Influencing people is obviously one possible reason, so is community building, so is getting laid. So is having a good dance. But whatever the reason, the dancer is supposed to be self-determining. And that is one of the important attractions of it and one of the important differences from other dances. And this is 100% OK with me, whichever end of it I am on.
Click to expand...

Agree.
 
Dave Bailey said:
So, my feeling is that if you're a teacher, and you're running a milonga after your class, then you should make an effort to work the room:
- Dancing with lots of different people
- Encouraging others to do the same
- Promoting good practice with floorcraft
- Acting as "ambassadors for social tango"

To me, this behaviour is self-evidently good practice - and, probably, good business as well.

However, very few of the London professionals actually do this.

So, am I missing something? Is my feeling wrong?
Click to expand...

"...self-evidently good practice..." To me, this is not self-evident. Does being a teacher give me some obligation that other dancers don't have at milongas?

If I host a milonga but am not a teacher, do I then have a similar obligation?
 
I don't think I've ever seen this in the AT world. In the BR world it seems far more common. I think it's a neat idea. It is a good way to build the community. I had a lot of difficulty getting started dancing and am grateful to the few female teachers that dragged me out of my corner, sometimes prodding me to ask other students to dance.
 
Peaches said:
I've seen a lot of variation.

In cases where there's a visiting teacher, or there's a workshop/festival setting...no. The teachers dance amongst themselves, or among the select few, if at all.

If there is a regular class followed by a milonga it seems to go either way. Often those classes are by independent teachers, and a lot of the students are not particularly serious. In those cases, the teachers don't ask the students to dance, generally.

The only time I've seen a teacher work a room like that is when there is some sort of studio affiliation (as in, the teacher works for the studio, which is doing the actual hosting). Then, yes, he worked the room.
Click to expand...

Generally, I've just seen a lot of variation both in AT and in also ballroom/salsa/swing. I do know of a couple of milongas where the hosts/teachers are very friendly and try to work the room. One event in particular, is very friendly to newbies and I think that's great.

I do think it's very off-putting when the hosts/teachers don't work the room and don't try to make people, especially new people, feel welcome.
 
Dave Bailey said:
... a teacher... should make an effort to work the room:
- Dancing with lots of different people
- Encouraging others to do the same
- Promoting good practice with floorcraft
- Acting as "ambassadors for social tango"

To me, this behaviour is self-evidently good practice - and, probably, good business as well.
Click to expand...

I agree wholeheartedly. That is the way I’ve been brought up in Tango and that’s the way I try to run my Milonga. When I started about one and a half year ago I experienced two kind of reactions toward this concept. People were surprised by the open and friendly atmosphere and enjoyed the event. Eventually the became regular visitors and I’m very happy about that.

On the otherhand, there seem to be people, who can only respect persons, who are treating them inferior. The most arrogant teachers seem to have big fan clubs of groupies, competing about the favour to join the inner circle. Some people seem to cherish the game of social elitism - being with the In-crowed at the In-place - more, than the actual dance. For those people, my Milonga is far from being an In-place, but I’m not unhappy about that.

In the end, for me one question still remains: What can We/You/I do to promote friendly Milongas and good floorcraft?

Obviously one can support the places were teachers work the room and take care about their guest.

One can open up one’s own place and/or work the room.

One can promote or at least mention these ideals during regular lessons.

Encouraging other people to ask a third person to dance is more difficult. While I do have some tricks I would be glad to hear about any of your ideas.

There might be one more hidden problem: monoculture in Tango. At least in Berlin most dancers seem to have an academic or artistic background. If one could win some craftsmen for example, it might have some healthy impact on the scene - less time taking social evaluating, philosophical over analyzing and possible fear of a loss of face but more straight to the point dancing. However I've no idea how to initiate that mix.
 
AndaBien said:
"...self-evidently good practice..." To me, this is not self-evident. Does being a teacher give me some obligation that other dancers don't have at milongas?
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As I said, I specifically restricted it to:
Dave Bailey said:
that if you're a teacher, and you're running a milonga after your class,
Click to expand...
So if you teach and run a milonga after, I think you have an obligation to practice what you preach.

Outside of those conditions, I'd say "it depends". Teachers need some time to enjoy themselves, of course, they're not always "on duty".

On the other hand, other dancers will always look to teachers as examples - whether those teachers are "on duty" or not. If teachers set bad examples (floorcraft, elitism, and so on), those examples will be followed. To quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.

AndaBien said:
If I host a milonga but am not a teacher, do I then have a similar obligation?
Click to expand...
I think in that case your obligation is less personal - you're not expected to be an example of good practice in yourself.

But I think milonga hosts should still try to ensure a good atmosphere at milongas - in London, one example of this "good practice" would be Danny at Carablanca.

I don't think milonga hosts should just take the money and then go away and chat to / dance with their mates all evening long.
 
Dave Bailey said:
... I think you have an obligation to practice what you preach....
Click to expand...

I think everyone has this obligation.

Dave Bailey said:
...I don't think milonga hosts should just take the money and then go away and chat to / dance with their mates all evening long.
Click to expand...

I imagine there are people who sponsor milongas, but don't act as hosts. If they sponsor a good milonga and people enjoy it, I see no problem with that.

As for teaching, I consider myself a teacher only when I'm in class. You're probably correct that dancers look to teachers as role models, but I don't think that generates an obligation for the teachers. There are dancers who don't teach but become role models, for whatever reason. I don't think they have an obligation either.
 
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