Encuentros.. Please explain. thx
- Thread starter Gaiatango
- Start date
opendoor
Forum Master
Of course its also about the dance style (strictly ronda, thus mostly on the spot) and the sort of music (a lot of d'Agostino and OTV is played).
TTanguero
Forum Master
In my limited experience of them so far, it's about four things.:
1. Dancing in sustained close embrace
2. Good floorcraft (especially being able to dance in the available space on a crowded floor)
3. Musicality
4. Attitude (everyone dancing with everyone, leaders listening to followers, etc)
Generally, an organizer will seek out feedback from someone they trust who knows you and your dancing before they will accept your registration.
They are also role-balanced, but that's not unique to encuentros – some festivals and marathons also do this.
1. Dancing in sustained close embrace
2. Good floorcraft (especially being able to dance in the available space on a crowded floor)
3. Musicality
4. Attitude (everyone dancing with everyone, leaders listening to followers, etc)
Generally, an organizer will seek out feedback from someone they trust who knows you and your dancing before they will accept your registration.
They are also role-balanced, but that's not unique to encuentros – some festivals and marathons also do this.
I'll agree, except for
Like any 'milonga', there are levels and good as well as poor.
They basically evolved so that those who considered themselves better didn't have to dance with the hoi polloi, including novices, but could restrict themselves to the hoi oligoi. You may have to 'qualify' by FB information or from others. Good if you fit the mould.
Some of the worst floorcraft I've come across has been at such - but limited. Also some insistence on fotos of everyone to show what a great time we're having. Basically some people too up themselves who think they're better than they actually are. But you find that elsewhere as well
Like any 'milonga', there are levels and good as well as poor.
They basically evolved so that those who considered themselves better didn't have to dance with the hoi polloi, including novices, but could restrict themselves to the hoi oligoi. You may have to 'qualify' by FB information or from others. Good if you fit the mould.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
Imagine an encuentro as a very large (semi-)private milonga where the (presumed) dancers are so attractive that people are willing to travel long distances and stay overnight for a weekend. The participants are therefore both customer and product at the same time.
Everything else depends on the personality of the organizer. Who, of course, first needs enough applicants to be able to make a selection — based on whatever criteria. Only rather objective criteria (close embrace, ronda, changing partners, gender or role balance, ...) are usually named at the homepage of the event, but usually not verifiable and not always decisive..
opendoor
Forum Master
And exactly this i the problem, because too many doublerollers sign up and eventually turn out to be submarines.
pianistamediano
Forum Master
It's not a problem until you realise that (which many organisers are slow to do so, apparently) double-role dancers prefer to dance either role as they feel like it, not when the situation demands they do otherwise in order to maintain the role balance — no one enjoys being forced to do something after all, and they certainly didn't have to sign a contract saying that they'd have to maintain the role balance!
I'd like to think that there's a maximum proportion of double rolers present at a role-balanced event before things start to become potentially chaotic — the stability of the meta-stable role balance decreases with more double rolers! But at some point when they dominate the dancer population (say, double rolers' events), the stability increases again.
Hence, organisers will have to limit their numbers or make it fully double role for some semblance of role balance stability.
TTanguero
Forum Master
Most events I know of do require you to commit to dancing roughly 50/50 in order to register as a dual-role dancer. If you're going to be dancing predominantly in one role, then you need to register for that role.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
This is the truest description I have read.
I have never been invited to an encuentro. We have quite a few of them here, however, and I know regulars and have discussed the subject at great length with them – in part because I feel left out, sure, but mostly because I'm nosy.
In my contacts' opinion, there's absolutely no guarantee of level, style, or floorcraft, because "the personality of the organizer," "whatever criteria," "not verifiable," and "not always decisive" are all true. Role balance is not guaranteed, because the organizers will always let in friends, regardless of role. Age, wealth, beauty, and connections are the real criteria: You have to know the organizers, be a part of the festival-going set to which they belong, fit their subjective picture of what attractive, well-dressed dancers look like, and pay a price set high enough to discourage "casuals," punters, and anybody not rich enough to be well-dressed and have a gym body, perfect teeth, and perfect hair.
I have seen plenty of (sometimes smuggled, officially not permitted) photos and videos. These show a big dose of near-beginners, poor navigators, and technically questionable dancers. Some very capable locals, including teachers and performers, are conspicuously absent. Most of the crowd isn't local. The commonality that leaps out at me is how everyone present is fitter, slimmer, younger, and better-dressed than most people at most local milongas. The exception to "younger" is wealthy older men, dance skill negotiable, with women half their age whose defining trait isn't dance skill, but beauty.
I accept that some encuentros might be more skill- and style-oriented, and invite and admit on that basis or the basis of role, but it's important to be aware of this other set of standards.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Completely true.
"Hours of dance training" is the closest there is to a good, objective measure. However, encuentro organizers place more emphasis on who you've trained with – specifically on your teachers' status internationally – than on how much work you've done. Some seem hostile to longtime students of local schools and coaches, deeming them second-class dancers even if they've done thousands of hours of consistent work that's followed up by local talent instead of scattered one-off workshops with random hotshot Mundial winners who may or may not even be real teachers.
"Years of experience" might be the best one can do. That's no guarantee of skill – many people dance badly for decades, ingraining years of terrible habits, and do zero training – but it may be better than nothing. A lot of organizers seem to value it, so it's a realizable middle ground.
"Teaches and/or performs" isn't a reliable test at all. Anybody can call themselves a teacher or performer.
All the rest is subjective opinions about aesthetics, holy wars about style, and outright snobbery about being able to afford festivals.
TTanguero
Forum Master
My experience differs (speaking as someone who is not young, rich or beautiful), and connections only appear to matter to the degree that you have to be known to one person whose judgement the organiser trusts.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Sure! As I said: "I accept that some encuentros might be more skill- and style-oriented, and invite and admit on that basis or the basis of role, but it's important to be aware of this other set of standards." Around here, the other set of standards is more prevalent, for reasons I don't pretend to understand, and doesn't operate by referral, only by personal acquaintance with the organizer. The most important encuentro is essentially one person's private milonga for their cool friends.
opendoor
Forum Master
Of the regular posters here on DF, I'm one of the longest-serving. I can tell you how the encuentro hype affected the milongas in my city. Around 2009, I noticed that the best and most experienced followers were showing up less often at the milongas. When confronted, they all said in unison: "Why should I sit around in this milonga when I can dance non-stop for a whole weekend?" In contrast, I didn't know a single leader who attended encuentros. My peer group and I despised the downgrading of technique and floorcraft that was celebrated at encuentros. Then there was the clique mentality. The first encuentro organizers all knew each other because they were students of at most three very purist European teacher couples. And of course, I was constantly arguing with them because they were just as arrogant as I was. That was over a quarter of a century ago, but the encuentro category is still tainted for me.
There are probably no universally valid statements about encuentros, Gaia . There are differences between Europe and the Americas, and of course, the first encuentro organizers have all retired by now.
There are probably no universally valid statements about encuentros, Gaia . There are differences between Europe and the Americas, and of course, the first encuentro organizers have all retired by now.
Yeah, seems fair.