Growing Old in Tango

[JournalInTime]

Tango is continuously evolving and if I don't update my dance my steps/tech will feel old fashioned/strange for a young, new dancer. Some years ago I had a shocking experience about that when a leader turned up with steps from 2004, my start year. It looked so odd and it was the main reason I started to update my dance 2019 at the most popular school in town.

My solution has been not to study steps. I use the common names for steps on this forum because I want to engage in clear dialog here, but my opinion is that those names are useful only in these sorts of discussions!

As I've said many times in other threads, in my praxis, I work with "movement fragments": pauses, weight shifts, displacements, pivots, dissociations, suspensions, groundings, embrace changes, axis changes, level changes, etc. and their various speeds, sizes, and angles. I piece these together on the spot to express the music. As a result, my vocabulary has no specific date or school of origin, but is an answer to: (1) Does it fit the music?, (2) Does it fit the available space?, (3) Can I do it?, and (4) Can this partner do it?

I absolutely do recognize that this approach might itself be dated or trace its origin to a specific group of teachers. However, I've had good success dancing this way with people who started 20-30 years before me, just last week, and everything in between. It definitely helps age-proof my tango somewhat.

On the flipside, I acknowledge that each wave or generation of dancers – and each school – has its ideas of What Is Done and What Is Not Done, and that many of my interpretations will fall into the latter category. I may be buying age-proofing at the price of being perceived as weird.

Though to be honest, I wouldn't want to dance with people who were stuck in specific ideas of Done/Not Done anyway. "Not safe" or "I can't do this" is fine . . . I mean, "That's weird, I've never seen it, and I refuse to do it." Whatever else I am as I age, "conservative" isn't it – I'm a progressive in all things, and doubly so in tango. So, that might age-proof my tango somewhat as well.

 

[Bailango]

What's especially frustrating to me is when I see younger, fitter, more handsome dancers who have terrible, terrible technique arm-leading and otherwise muscling advanced tangueras unmusically through oversized steps . . . yet still getting to dance with those advanced tangueras while I get ignored by them.

I am surprised by this part. In my experience, the older men don’t seem to be at any disadvantage. Neither with advanced younger follower nor with average younger followers. I always marvel at audacity of some older leaders whose dancing suffers, have no qualms about dancing with advanced followers.

Like the older terrible dancers, I also see younger terrible leaders dance with good or advance followers. These followers dance with them for two reasons. Either they are friends and/or the followers are too kind to agree to suboptimal dances.

May be it is locale specific or milonga specific. In general I haven’t seen younger followers turn down men much older to them. Is it possible they are not used to cabaceo and instead are getting scooped by walkceo/handceo/talkceo?

"Surprises" is a euphemism for showy and athletic moves: "Oh, my! Nobody ever leads me in those big, deep volcadas. You're so fun!"

Most of the time followers who enjoy these, are themselves incapable of following those moves. How many followers step small enough to make it unable to scada them? Or how many will not step around the leader during molinate. Unless a follower is advanced enough, I find all the rest followers either step incorrectly and/or are not on right axis.

This fear nips at my ankles even now. I have hundreds of tango friends on social media. I see their festival photos in wonderful locations. I don't suffer from FOMO (much), but I do feel envious. I know in my heart that dancing with lots of people of many different cultures, taking occasional workshops with many different masters, and having more free hours in the day and free days in the year to go off and do such things in the first place is going to make them more desirable partners with more years of tango ahead of them than me.

More motivation for you to start giving privates to build that JiT travel fund

 

[JournalInTime]

Like the older terrible dancers, I also see younger terrible leaders dance with good or advance followers. These followers dance with them for two reasons. Either they are friends and/or the followers are too kind to agree to suboptimal dances.

I think a third reason is that they're vigorous, to be honest. I'm not sure why it's so, but it seems that a lot of advanced dancers will dance with vigorous partners irrespective of skill. Bad athletic dancing appeals to a lot of these people more than good, unathletic dancing does. Sufficient athleticism seems to be regarded as a kind of "advanced" dancing in its own right.

Is it possible they are not used to cabaceo and instead are getting scooped by walkceo/handceo/talkceo?

Not merely possible but certain. At the milongas where I'm on the old side rather than the young side, the cabeceo is all but nonexistent. All dances are arranged verbally during chaotic group conversations.

More motivation for you to start giving privates to build that JiT travel fund

First, I'll pay for and survive my move. That's a bigger issue than who will dance with me right now.

 

[tangoing]

So as a younger leader I dance with everyone but I am less inclined to dance with unknown older followers for two main reasons: mobility and fragility.

Mobility: I don’t like being constrained by my followers mobility. Of course if it’s a packed milonga with no space I have to dance constrained anyways, but otherwise I’d rather have the option to be able to do fast and large movements if I want to rather than be restricted from it.

Fragility: I feel like with older followers I have to dance in a more defensive/careful way since if I mess up in anyway (stepping on their foot or collision with another couple), the injuries can be way more serious than if it was a younger follower. I rarely step on anyone’s toes or have had any major collisions but it is a bigger anxious concern when I’m with an older follower.

These factors are only considered for the avg/unknown older follower though. If I know them or they look to be dancing at a high level then they’re equal to the younger ones in terms of who I ask. The majority of my tandas are still with older women who I know in my community.

 

[tangoing]

That is too complicated for me now. There should be a thread here about the origin of French tango from the Argentine style. But I can't find the link anymore. At some point, the English said goodbye to the till then shared style book. They later absorbed all remaining styles except Finnish and Argentinian tango. In my opinion, the American tango is the youngest style of the three. If I remember right, fiesta is expert for American tango! But we should move this topic if you want to go deeper, as it is a bit off topic.
-Argentine
-American
-English

Oh those are just straight up different dances, I thought you were referring to how argentines/Americans/Europeans have different styles when dancing Argentine tango.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

I think the question of whether organizers of events and workshops skew in favour of inviting younger instructors needs to be separated from whether people will not attend due to instructors being older. Here we are saying 50s is older.

Well, maybe. I wasn't thinking about invitations to perform and maybe give a workshop but of resident instructors. Here, we have had young performers, middle-age performers, and old performers. They all gave workshops. Attendance is largely based on reputation and the content of the workshop. It's not so much PR (nobody pays for publicity beyond a couple of flyers and lots of Facebook notices) but reputation. Well-known dancers, regardless of age, generally have good attendance at workshops.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

But the young, acrobatic Gavito of "Forever Tango" delighted older aficionados, while the frail late Gavito inspired the youth.

He wasn't all that young when he starred in Forever Tango. None of them were.

 

[Bailango]

So as a younger leader I dance with everyone but I am less inclined to dance with unknown older followers for two main reasons: mobility and fragility.

Define what you mean by older?

Mobility: I don’t like being constrained by my followers mobility. Of course if it’s a packed milonga with no space I have to dance constrained anyways, but otherwise I’d rather have the option to be able to do fast and large movements if I want to rather than be restricted from it.

I don’t find mobility to be a function of age. I know enough young dancers who lack good coordination and have terrible mobility. I know some older followers that have terrible mobility too. Skillful follower will be the same irrespective of what you are leading .

What do you mean by fast and large movements. If you are trying to do something like performance or show dancing, there may be many followers who don’t like it or can’t do that. There are enough followers in 50s who can follow anything you throw at them. Looks can also be deceiving. Some people look younger than their chronological age. Some look older. I am talking of a difference of a decade.

As a leader you are always going to be constrained by your follower’s mobility. There is not question on that.

Fragility: I feel like with older followers I have to dance in a more defensive/careful way since if I mess up in anyway (stepping on their foot or collision with another couple), the injuries can be way more serious than if it was a younger follower. I rarely step on anyone’s toes or have had any major collisions but it is a bigger anxious concern when I’m with an older follower.

I never had a collision with anyone and nor stepped on my partner’s foot. If someone else steps on your follower from your blindside, there is nothing you can do about it. Fragility is almost a non-issue.

 

[Bailango]

Well, maybe. I wasn't thinking about invitations to perform and maybe give a workshop but of resident instructors. Here, we have had young performers, middle-age performers, and old performers. They all gave workshops. Attendance is largely based on reputation and the content of the workshop. It's not so much PR (nobody pays for publicity beyond a couple of flyers and lots of Facebook notices) but reputation. Well-known dancers, regardless of age, generally have good attendance at workshops.

The OP of this thread I believe quotes a blog where instructors in their 50s are complaining about no longer getting invited by organizers. Compared to their younger days.

Hence it is necessary to separate the two. Organizers not inviting older instructors doesn’t imply people don’t want to take classes with older ones instructors. My experience is the same as yours. I don’t see age being a determining factor. Rather it is name recognition and popularity.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

There are definitely different factors at play when it comes to aging and tango:

Ouch. Well, you pretty much summed it up. You can definitely dance as you get older, assuming you're a good dancer, but getting dances doesn't get any easier for the reasons you describe. But, hey, that's life, and we do the best we can. Just let's do it with dignity and style.

 

[Brummbaer]

What do you mean by fast and large movements. If you are trying to do something like performance or show dancing, there may be many followers who don’t like it or can’t do that. There are enough followers in 50s who can follow anything you throw at them.

From at least two different incidents I'm aware of, you can turn that around. As an experienced, advanced, follower, and teacher/performer, maybe it's just not worth the risk with a younger, wild, leader. It's not 'fragility'; it's about injury and your livelihood. Safer to dance with other 'advanced', or other professionals.

 

[tangoing]

Define what you mean by older?

60+ in general

I don’t find mobility to be a function of age. I know enough young dancers who lack good coordination and have terrible mobility. I know some older followers that have terrible mobility too. Skillful follower will be the same irrespective of what you are leading .

I mean on average younger people in general are going to be more mobile/athletic than older people unless the older ones have a history of some type of dance/sport.

What do you mean by fast and large movements. If you are trying to do something like performance or show dancing, there may be many followers who don’t like it or can’t do that. There are enough followers in 50s who can follow anything you throw at them. Looks can also be deceiving. Some people look younger than their chronological age. Some look older. I am talking of a difference of a decade.

I mean for example if I decide to lead some fast pivots they’re not going to lose their balance and lean into me. Nothing regarding show dancing at all, just on average the unknown older follower will have worse mobility/balance than their younger counterpart. Can say the same for leaders in general too.

 

[opendoor]

Funerals and memorial milongas are also part of growing old in tango. It's sad when long-time companions die.

 

[Rabbit]

I think a third reason is that they're vigorous, to be honest. I'm not sure why it's so, but it seems that a lot of advanced dancers will dance with vigorous partners irrespective of skill. Bad athletic dancing appeals to a lot of these people more than good, unathletic dancing does. Sufficient athleticism seems to be regarded as a kind of "advanced" dancing in its own right.

From a leader perspective: because it's enjoyable to dance with people with lots of physicality and little tango experience, channel their movement, and see what we can create. The dance usually feels good, some of the responses to leads will be unexpected and the improvisation is part of the fun.

It's just a question of how much value you assign to each attribute of a "good" dancer and we just have to accept that other people have different preferences. I'm also not sure why some people dance with others that I consider to be poor dancers (when we dont have the dance stealing issue from the other thread), but they just have some unidentified factor that they like or aren't bothered by the flaws that bother me.

 

[Rabbit]

The OP of this thread I believe quotes a blog where instructors in their 50s are complaining about no longer getting invited by organizers. Compared to their younger days.

Hence it is necessary to separate the two. Organizers not inviting older instructors doesn’t imply people don’t want to take classes with older ones instructors. My experience is the same as yours. I don’t see age being a determining factor. Rather it is name recognition and popularity.

i think it's a question of style, there just isn't much demand for "milonguero" style classes for example