pianistamediano
Forum Master
There's a grey area between teaching on the pista and enduring discomfort, unfortunately; I leave it to the couple to decide if it's appropriate or not.
Leaders. How was your Tango journey?
- Thread starter Pharaoh
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This is just my personal experience, and crowds are different in different places, but it works better with younger people - older people want to look like ballroom dancers, younger people are much more open to connection and geometry exercises. Young followers get into the whole mind reading and meditating thing. Young leaders _love_ tango as a lego. And in my experience it works better at crowded milongas than starting with vocabulary. If one of the first pieces of vocabulary they see is "lets play with the rhythm in weight shifts and which foot we take the first step with" they can entertain themselves in minimal space. People spend whole evenings at proms and weddings with only only doing weight shifts and feel that they are "dancing", and if beginners don't feel more comfortable and have more fun than when they were slowdancing at their prom then we have failed.
(It might actually be interesting to advertise a class as "slowdancing 201" and not tell people that it is tango)
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Here is my local experience with leaders:
The younger the leader, the more obsessed with prefabricated "moves" they are. They strongly favor an almost ballroom approach where they learn specific steps and patterns with specific names off a long list – ideally a list ranked by difficulty so that they can either work their way down the list systematically and proudly proclaim exactly how "advanced" they are (effectively stating, "I'm a Silver!" or whatever, though AT doesn't have that), or smugly skip steps to show off. Classes for newcomers, who are mostly young, are therefore aimed at leaders leading steps, with few showing the slightest care for body dynamics, embrace, floorcraft, musicality, etc.
The approach of learning basic technique and musicality, and being shown components to glue together to create steps as pure improvisation, seems to be something that local teachers feel requires maturity or long experience. There are classes in such things, but they tend to be classes by teachers and masters for teachers and masters – they aren't aimed at ordinary social dancers. We mere mortals must, if we want such wisdom, pay coaches for private sessions. The demographic truth around here is that social dancers with the means to afford regular coaching have savings, jobs, and paid vacation time, meaning they're typically older and more established.
I am not a follower, but here are my local observations on followers, from conversations with my (female, mainly follower) coach and my closest dance partners, and of course from actually dancing:
The younger the follower, the more obsessed with pure technique in a vacuum they are. They often take a quasi-ballet approach to AT, fighting to look feminine and elegant even if it punishes them physically by introducing high heels too soon, contorting their body, or pushing them into the abrazo before they are ready for it. Almost no classes for newcomers with both leaders and followers are aimed at this, and few teachers offer this privately. Instead, younger followers attend endless "follower technique" workshops where they learn to dance without a leader in front of them, often with a focus on ornaments and getting the leg up as high as possible; think "tango barre" classes.
Older followers seek out feeling and connection. It's very consistently the case that the older the person I dance with, the more they are dancing with me. Few of them bother to continue classes, though. Due to an outrageous role imbalance (3 followers for every 2 leaders at best, rising to 3:1 or 4:1 at some events), there's a lot of sitting, which embitters longtime followers against lessons. Younger ones dance regardless of technique, because they are sweet young things; older ones don't dance a lot more if they have good technique, because they are in competition with those SYTs. So, classes don't deliver what matters, which is tandas; therefore, the focus is on making the most of the tandas one gets, which means being mindful and present.
So:
If I walked into a "laundry list of tango steps" class, I'd expect to see mostly guys half my age, showing off, competing, and bugging the teacher to show them more advanced stuff.
If I walked into a "tango geometry and improvisation" class, I'd expect to see mostly men with gray hair, the majority being senior people in STEM disciplines.
If I walked into a "tango technique" or "tango stretching" class, I'd expect to see mostly women half my age, flicking their legs around dangerously.
If I walked into a "tango feeling" or "tango meditation" class, I'd expect to see one women my mother's age waiting for the others to show up.
The younger the leader, the more obsessed with prefabricated "moves" they are. They strongly favor an almost ballroom approach where they learn specific steps and patterns with specific names off a long list – ideally a list ranked by difficulty so that they can either work their way down the list systematically and proudly proclaim exactly how "advanced" they are (effectively stating, "I'm a Silver!" or whatever, though AT doesn't have that), or smugly skip steps to show off. Classes for newcomers, who are mostly young, are therefore aimed at leaders leading steps, with few showing the slightest care for body dynamics, embrace, floorcraft, musicality, etc.
The approach of learning basic technique and musicality, and being shown components to glue together to create steps as pure improvisation, seems to be something that local teachers feel requires maturity or long experience. There are classes in such things, but they tend to be classes by teachers and masters for teachers and masters – they aren't aimed at ordinary social dancers. We mere mortals must, if we want such wisdom, pay coaches for private sessions. The demographic truth around here is that social dancers with the means to afford regular coaching have savings, jobs, and paid vacation time, meaning they're typically older and more established.
I am not a follower, but here are my local observations on followers, from conversations with my (female, mainly follower) coach and my closest dance partners, and of course from actually dancing:
The younger the follower, the more obsessed with pure technique in a vacuum they are. They often take a quasi-ballet approach to AT, fighting to look feminine and elegant even if it punishes them physically by introducing high heels too soon, contorting their body, or pushing them into the abrazo before they are ready for it. Almost no classes for newcomers with both leaders and followers are aimed at this, and few teachers offer this privately. Instead, younger followers attend endless "follower technique" workshops where they learn to dance without a leader in front of them, often with a focus on ornaments and getting the leg up as high as possible; think "tango barre" classes.
Older followers seek out feeling and connection. It's very consistently the case that the older the person I dance with, the more they are dancing with me. Few of them bother to continue classes, though. Due to an outrageous role imbalance (3 followers for every 2 leaders at best, rising to 3:1 or 4:1 at some events), there's a lot of sitting, which embitters longtime followers against lessons. Younger ones dance regardless of technique, because they are sweet young things; older ones don't dance a lot more if they have good technique, because they are in competition with those SYTs. So, classes don't deliver what matters, which is tandas; therefore, the focus is on making the most of the tandas one gets, which means being mindful and present.
So:
If I walked into a "laundry list of tango steps" class, I'd expect to see mostly guys half my age, showing off, competing, and bugging the teacher to show them more advanced stuff.
If I walked into a "tango geometry and improvisation" class, I'd expect to see mostly men with gray hair, the majority being senior people in STEM disciplines.
If I walked into a "tango technique" or "tango stretching" class, I'd expect to see mostly women half my age, flicking their legs around dangerously.
If I walked into a "tango feeling" or "tango meditation" class, I'd expect to see one women my mother's age waiting for the others to show up.
of course, there you have technicians trying to teach other technicians to be artists... that's never going to work.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
I'd say making the most of the tandas one gets by being mindful and present is always the most important thing for either party.
opendoor
Forum Master
I can't quite agree with that, JournalInTime. Perhaps we need to differentiate further in this section: In my town there is a weekly "Yoga for Tango Dancers" event, then weekly "Contact Tango Dancing" and a quarterly "Tango and Alexander Technique" workshop.
"Contact Tango" is the closest thing to the label "Tango Meditation". This is where all alternative and double-role dancers meet who want to overcome the rigid rules of tango. The event is well attended. There you dance mindfully in a way that is forgetful of the world. There are many similarities with 5rhythms or Authentic Movement, which are dance meditations that I do a lot too. At "Yoga for Tango Dancers", which is also meditative, there are mainly young tango gazelles, but also at least 10 to 15% old men like me. Only at "Tango and Alexander Technique" which has meditative elements, you do exclusively meet your "mother's age" with orthopedic joint problems.
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I would say this works with young people if it was a complete vacuum of them. But as soon as they see intermediate/advanced dancers doing cool looking steps, their little weight shifts don’t feel like dancing at all.
Yup, this is my experience as well. Especially since I tried 1-2 tango classes a decade ago in my mid 20s and ultimately decided to do other dances since it actually felt like dancing and not just walking around (didn’t help the class was lead heavy with more senior folks).
opendoor
Forum Master
Your current tango could perhaps benefit from this. Tango is already quite one-sided and two thirds of the music often played at milongas is boring. In any case, I wouldn't want to miss out on my skills in salsa, lindy or folk.
I, personally, have an issue with teachers who try to atract begginers by some spiritual way to master Tango. If they talks about feelings, body and soul connections, meditation thru dance etc. Students then are walking randomly thru dancefloor, hug each other, diconnect, walk, connect, like Brownian motion. They ignore to explain and work on body mechanic principles, etc. Long time ago we were invited to tango workshop and part of this was about exploring conection between bodies in pool. Why? I do not know, maybe because teacher was gay can explain it, but no ofense to LGBT. I still compare dancing to driving a car. First you need to learn how to drive, second, you need to drive first 1000 miles and then you can enjoy driving, or race, if this is your dream. And meditation dance, show dance, expression of music by dance, is all step no 3.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Yes – and that is tango reality here and now!
We can blather about the tradition of new leaders learning from the milongueros and not being allowed onto the floor or even through the door of the milonga before three years of practice, but that's another time and place, and out of sight is out of mind for most people – or at best, it's a quaint history lesson that's forgotten the instant the here and now of tango is on display. We can label classes and events as "all levels," "beginner," "intermediate," "advanced," "master," blah, blah, blah, but those labels have no formal, widely accepted definition, so the reality is that if you can afford the price, you can be there. And even if you set things up so that there's more history and structure at your school . . . well, you can't do much about YouTube, a competing school, or a random guy who teaches on the dancefloor.
So, people who have danced for less time or taken fewer lessons will see what's possible. And when they do, for the vast majority, those possibilities become one of their top motivations, their top motivation, or even their only motivation. That's human nature, and human nature is far stronger than tango traditions.
Tango teachers know all of this. They also know that someone can earn money promising to teach people who have danced for less time or taken fewer lessons all the many possibilities they see on the floor or YouTube – and that if it isn't them, it'll be some other teacher across town. So, classes are about "moves" because that's what pays the bills.
As for teaching micro-elements so that you can express yourself through improvisation, I disagree with this . . .
. . . because of course you can teach someone color theory, brush strokes, blending, and other micro-skills relevant to painting and they might eventually become an original painter, and of course you can teach someone the practical physical movements of playing an instrument, and musical theory and notation, and they might eventually become an original musician. Learning the micro so that they can compose the macro is how most artists become artists.
The micro-elements approach in tango is no different. Teaching prefabricated steps and patterns is less likely to create an original dancer for the same reasons that trying to copy Chagall or play Mozart is less likely to create an original painter or musician. Yet most beginners try to paint or play or dance the greats. Why?
Micro weigh shifts, displacements, pivots, and changes of axis, distance, level, and relative position aren't individually impressive to look at, and might not be visible at all! Those who dance by stringing together these things as the music and their partner inspire them often execute one-off movements that they can't explain as steps qua steps, or even do a second time. You can't sell that to people who want to do "advanced" steps and "that thing I saw on YouTube"!
Leaving age out of it, I can totally see that.
I came up through a very traditional salon tango school where the teachers were strict about building up the complexity of steps, learning technique before steps that needed it, not letting us dance steps off the music, not letting us dance steps that didn't respect the line of dance, and so on. There were history and music lessons, there were drills, drills, drills, and there was pressure to dance at the práctica every week, ideally for a few years before going to the milonga. That is how I learned tango.
However, that school failed. It didn't get people dancing quickly enough. Over the years I was there, the classes had fewer and fewer people signing up – and at least two leaders mouthed off in front of us all about how slow progress was, meaning that far more said it in private, and even more thought it.
The micro-elements thing came later for me, in private instruction. Now I'm a moderately senior dancer getting asked about my movements on the floor, and I realize that approach is marketable only to other moderately senior dancers who are past group lessons and into private instruction. When newer dancers ask about my "moves," I try and fail to explain them, because "They were organic, in-the-moment things made up of practiced micro-elements, not steps or patterns that I practiced in the form you saw" isn't the answer they want. As soon as I say that, I can see all interest draining from their eyes . . .
JournalInTime
Forum Master
I have an issue with that, too.
We have one school here where I have to take a break whenever one of the teachers stops the práctica to talk about this stuff, I go hang around outside if I show up before the end of a class where they're talking about this stuff, and I force myself to shut my mouth and say nothing when one of their excited students starts talking about this stuff. There isn't one word about biomechanics, geometry, dynamics, navigation, musical structure, or the historical context behind why things are done a certain way.
Whereas the school where I learned taught only biomechanics, geometry, dynamics, navigation, musical structure, and the historical context behind why things are done a certain way; it didn't pretend to be able to teach you feelings or expression. These days, my coach talks only about those things, because her view is that feeling, connection, art, etc. come from inside, and her sole job is to help me unlock those things by removing technical obstacles in my path – she cannot give me those things ready-made, as that would be putting the cart before the horse.
Yes, it comes much, much later, and usually as a surprise. It will only ever come if you've removed enough obstacles to getting there, which is what teaching and coaching are for. You can't teach someone to feel tango or to dance a piece musically; you can only show them how their body, the abrazo, and the ronda work, and how to hear structures in the music. Teaching touchy-feely stuff first is like teaching a class full of future detectives how to have hunches and instincts.
All of which said, the school where they teach that way existed before and continues to exist after the one where I learned biomechanics, geometry, dynamics, navigation, musical structure, and historical context, which went out of business. I think that for some odd cultural reason, people have decided that learning to dance is about training your emotions and feelings, even if the reality is that it's about mastering a lot of physical skills with hard academic theory behind them.
Frankly these must be in a very small minority. I haven't seen any instructors attract beginners using what you described. There is one particular instructor who has been advertising somatic tango or something for more than 15 years. In all that time I haven't met a single dancer that has mentioned going to her class. So I don't know who attends it.
To me mixing spirituality and mindfulness with teaching of tango dancing is utter nonsense. Either they are evangelizing or trying to get a leg up on other instructors. In my observation the people to whom it appeals tend to have a hippy mindset. For those that want to be spiritual and mindful or anything on that lines, do not force it into other disciplines.
It takes a lot of experience to actually dance with little weight shifts. It is not for the beginners. Doing simple steps and express then in dancing is a skill that usually comes after having danced a lot. Some never attain it.
A lot of people will move at socials but they are not dancing. We call it dancing but to me many people in the ronda are moving whole the music plays. Only a few dance to the the music and fewer still dance in the music. That's the reality.
But that is what walking is - it the basic driving skills. I have not figured out how to get people able to function at a milonga faster - i see people with years of tango classes being afraid of the line of dance, and i see beginners who have 3 classes and no vocabulary being able to navigate it - you have to push them to try, but in the end walking in circles is the same if there are other couples on the dancefloor or if somebody keeps saying "don't stop, move in the line of dance" ( i wish that there were enough beginners so there was a "natural" pressure to keep walking, but there isn't). Being able to make your own fun when the line of dance stalls, and keeping up with it when the line of dance moves is step no 1, and in my experience trying to use vocabulary for that does not work - it does not get people on the dancefloor.
You need to give people a toolkit that works at a milonga as soon as possible, and you need to get them to the milonga as soon as possible. Tango as a dance only makes sense for a crowded dancefloor, and to some extent the empty dancefloors of today make it an affectation - look at how foxtrot used to be basically the same dance as tango and foxtrot decided to use the available space, while tango didn't. And the general consensus of the other social dances is that if we don't have space then stationary /slotted dancing is a better solution than compact traveling dancing. If people don't like the challenge of walking the line of dance then having a lot of tools for entertaining themselves when stuck or for embellishing their walk along the line of dance will not help.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Yes – though in a quantized space. Here, just on the island of Montréal, I can name eight or nine tango schools off hand. Among those, one takes the weird touchy-feely approach. It's the smallest mathematical minority possible . . . yet it would still account for >10% of the students by naïve division, and the truth is closer to >20% due to pricing, location, and other practical matters unrelated to teaching methods.
I agree.
I agree.
However, there are cultural reasons for why others might not agree.
It's a common subject of discussion that science is trusted less these days because "democratized" media – including but not limited to social media – have made it trivial to drown out science with pseudoscience, opinion, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. You don't need to be right to be believed right; you just have to win the popularity contest by shouting louder and being easier for the ignorant to understand. We've gone so far in the sciences now that one almost needs a higher education to grasp that volume of past work and even the basics of current research. Profferers of pseudoscience, opinion, propaganda, and conspiracy theories use that as an avenue to attack science on the grounds that it's obscure for shady, made-up reasons ("Woo, big pharma wants to kill you with vaccines because money!").
There's a parallel phenomenon in the arts. The same "democratized" media let anybody publish drivel writing, videos with no production values, and so on. The same opinion and propaganda machine has won a popularity contest to sell the view that art doesn't take skill and effort, only ideas and feelings. That's a lot easier for the ignorant to swallow than the reality that art takes hard work, and that the bar is set very high after several millennia. Profferers of touchy-feeling approaches to dance, music, painting, etc. can thus attack art on the grounds that it's highfalutin and snobbish.
Honestly, I regard tango schools that teach tango as feeling and meditation without mirrors, drills, barre work, shouting, and the odor of sweat and shoes to be the pseudoscientists and conspiracy theorists of tango. They attract students by replacing the reality of complicated dance theory, years of accumulated progress, and hard, often physical work with the pipe dream of just, like, movin' like you feel, man.