Macho Culture in Dance

[ArbeeNYC]

That you and other guys are (or pretend to be) unaware of this issue, is proof in point. And this IS part of the dehumanizing objectification, although subtle. Apparently so subtle that you don’t get it. If we don’t pretend we there solely to please the guys, why be there, right? It can’t possibly be for the dance itself… If she dances well, that’s just a bonus, right?

What makes you think I'm unaware of it? You are making an awful lot of assumptions in that paragraph about behavior and you apply them universally. What do you mean when you say "for the dance itself?" There is no "dance itself." The dance exists as such because men and women are there to make it a reality. That's a strange way to express interest in tango. I'm really mystified.

 

[pianistamediano]

Yuck.

I shave with cedar-menthol-smelling soap, and wash and condition my hair with chamomile and rose water products . . . but these get rinsed off completely. I brush my teeth and rinse my mouth with other menthol-scented products . . . which I spit out. And I wear an antiperspirant with woody-citrus notes that are explicitly marketed as "subtle." Once I'm done, I smell vaguely herbal and minty, but it really is vague. Mostly, I don't smell dirty. Why I'd then want to blast myself with Eau de Gas Attack, I have no idea.

I have no idea if that makes me more or less macho.

My go-to EDT is a light, citrusy feel with undernotes of bergamot and lemon, but the top note of bittersweet yuzu is what most followers love. It's not a commonly known scent in this region, so it nearly drives them crazy trying to figure out what it is. One perfume-savvy follower figured it out in a second and had a big smile on her face, and another has called me delicious (with no ulterior motive! She was about slightly less than twice my age).

Season-wise, I'd use it exclusively in spring and summer, maybe the first weeks of autumn, but considering how warm it can get at a milonga even in winter, it is surprisingly refreshing. Very much unlike the cheap heavy, boozy smell many men's colognes have, so it makes me stand out.

I have yet to find a good hair product with reasonable hold and minimal smell - my hair is very strong, thick and coarse, and looks horrible when not styled, so I use a mildly orange-y clay or a woody/"boreal forest" pomade/wax, depending on my requirements. Thankfully, they don't clash with my EDT/P rotation.

 

[Reuven Thetanguero]

Unrelated question, Cerinthe, are you a man or a woman?

 

[David_In_CA]

I dance mostly with friends. .. 100+ people.

I think that if you consider a significant proportion of the local follows your friends, "I dance mostly with friends" is akin to a fish saying, "I rarely get rained on".

 

[itwillhappen]

I think that if you consider a significant proportion of the local follows your friends, "I dance mostly with friends" is akin to a fish saying, "I rarely get rained on".

(Dear moderators, who I'm sure you're reading along with a lot and discussing in the background, thank you for your patience. What a bizarre discussion across continents and cultures. Apparently, an intellectual guard from the early days of the internet bulletin boards is arguing here, who have long reflected on the situation and would not shy away from a senior study of the reproductive behavior of anthropoids in order to write one well-founded line. And you quickly threw the only misogynist macho who was here, along with his guitar, out of the forum long ago.)

 

[itwillhappen]

I have no idea if that makes me more or less macho.

I don't event think I'm the type to be a macho. And I don't usually see any leeway with my dance partners - there is a balance of power. I probably don't dance with dance partners with whom I could play the macho. So I'm a macho after all. But then my dance partners don't take me seriously as such, I have to bang on the table. But I don't see the point and I don't dare myself either. This gender dialectic is really confusing...

 

[opendoor]

Unrelated question, Cerinthe, are you a man or a woman?

Now there are many more categories, Reuven.

 

[opendoor]

..If we don’t pretend we there solely to please the guys, why be there, right? It can’t possibly be for the dance itself…

We post in a tango forum and interestingly almost everyone here sees tango as a dance. I see signs of ballroomization in that.

 

[LadyLeader]

At a dance event, dance skill and/or dance compatibility are always appropriate. If you set those aside because your real reason for being there is to meet, hug, and perhaps date attractive people, you're introducing attitudes that could cause the sorts of problems that lead to labels like "macho."

I want to bring forward another possibility!

When a well-educated woman with a demanding job comes to a milonga she is relaxing in the follower role.

When a well-educated man with a demanding job comes to a milonga following is not often an option for him. His option to relax is to invite a less demanding partner and after a really bad day maybe a beginner is best!

Social situations are complicated and the only way to understand each other is to listen to each other and try to understand. Both groups must own a true right to tell how they feel and then together discuss how to solve the situation.

When I hear follower reasoning about leader motives for low-level dancing I get a feeling of social control strategy where the community tries to keep well-dancing male leaders active in relaxing-services for educated, well-trained followers.

 

[Brummbaer]

I think that if you consider a significant proportion of the local follows your friends, "I dance mostly with friends" is akin to a fish saying, "I rarely get rained on".

Depends where you swim, how long you've been there, and a definition of 'friend'. AT, like the Sunday afternoon social tea-dance, has several social aspects. If it's your regular milonga, and it's small, you dance with 'friends'; if you travel infrequently to a larger event, you're chosen, or choose, to dance with someone who's most likely a stranger, or potentially a future 'friend'.

 

[itwillhappen]

When a well-educated man with a demanding job comes to a milonga following is not often an option for him. His option to relax is to invite a less demanding partner and after a really bad day maybe a beginner is best!

It was my declared goal to at least be able to dance well enough so that in normal situations I don't experience it as stress. But the way to get there is admittedly long, and realizing that you've reached your goal is surprisingly difficult.

When I hear follower reasoning about leader motives for low-level dancing I get a feeling of social control strategy where the community tries to keep well-dancing male leaders active in relaxing-services for educated, well-trained followers.

Well, that's what I call a really provocative thesis. If true, I believe it is due to the general circumstances and not to the characters involved. And in the event that there are topics involved such as aging, the last pleasant embrace of the opposite sex, a confrontation with one's own life decisions and transience, one cannot discuss them objectively and purposefully in a group.

The forum here is one thing, in real life I perceive some kind of one-by-one non-aggression pact. My dance partners seem to be socially quite competent, maybe a survival of the fittest. It would be absolutely counterproductive if they tried to vent relevant frustration on me or vice versa.

 

[JournalInTime]

His option to relax is to invite a less demanding partner and after a really bad day maybe a beginner is best!

It depends on the dancer!

For a variety of reasons, 2022 was a bad year, the entire period from 2016 to present hasn't been great, and I felt everything weighing on me yesterday. Consequently, I was tired on every level at the milonga last night. The place was unusually crowded, too. I danced with 10-11 partners of varying skill.

The beginner and near-beginner partners weren't relaxing to dance with. I had to devote my mental and physical resources to protecting them (and people near them . . .) on a packed floor, to compensating for their posture, to generating more than 50% of our couple's energy, and to not dancing my full range of movements or the music's full texture (constantly checking myself to avoid anything demanding from them is demanding for me). I was extra-tired after those tandas.

My most advanced partner normally accepts invitations only from teachers and visiting performers, but she asked me to dance. Our tanda was zero work. Everywhere I turned, she was squarely in front of me. She projected into every step and transferred with a clear, "I have landed." When air was open in corners, boleos went precisely where I pointed them. All of her movements were informed by the music, and it felt like I had hours between notes for my ornaments. I could dance without thinking and was relaxed, and at the end she said, "Wow, you're fun!".

My experience is that the lower a dancer's level, the more demanding they are, because I'm compensating for their limited technique, floor awareness, and musicality. The higher their level, the more evenly we can share all parts of the dance 50/50, which is where I dance most effortlessly and with the greatest pleasure.

To be clear, if someone is super-advanced and compensating for me, it isn't relaxing either. I know when it's happening and I feel intimidated by such an advanced partner, disappointed that I can't give them a better tanda, and guilty that I'm making them work . . . because were the roles reversed, I know I'd be working.

So, I question non-beginner leaders who invite beginner followers with the claim, "It's easier!", or, "It's less demanding!" Ease and effortlessness are at their highest levels when the partners' levels are equal or very close. My impression is that non-beginner leaders invite beginner followers for social reasons: Maybe to welcome and encourage them, which is inclusive and a good thing – but in my experience, all too often to try to impress them, which strikes me as very macho.

 

[JournalInTime]

I think that if you consider a significant proportion of the local follows your friends, "I dance mostly with friends" is akin to a fish saying, "I rarely get rained on".

Thanks for the laugh! Yes, that's a valid point. Which said (math alert!) . . .

One of my teachers worked out an estimate that ~10,000 people in in our greater metro area have taken at least one tango class, about half of them (~5,000) went further, and half of them (~2,500) became tangueras or tangueros. The global average is "about 0.05% of people dance tango" (I can no longer find my source, but this one agrees), so the expectation in our metro area (~4,300,000) would be 2,100-2,200 regulars, but we have more tango than usual here. Followers here outnumber leaders about 3:2, so 60% of those people are followers, or somewhere north of 1,200 people, possibly as high as 1,500. Being friends with 7-8% of them in a hobby that concentrates everybody at small number of studios and events doesn't seem all that excessive, but almost exclusive.

Depends where you swim, how long you've been there, and a definition of 'friend'. AT, like the Sunday afternoon social tea-dance, has several social aspects. If it's your regular milonga, and it's small, you dance with 'friends'; if you travel infrequently to a larger event, you're chosen, or choose, to dance with someone who's most likely a stranger, or potentially a future 'friend'.

I've been dancing tango for 10 years almost on the nose. Since I have limited funds, I've danced most of that here – not abroad. I was an accompanier for almost four years and thus spent one or two nights a week for 10-15 weeks at a stretch as the partner of each of dozens of followers who were learning tango. I also go out 3-5 times a week to dance, and dance with 10-15 people each time; there's some overlap, but maybe around 30 distinct partners per week, most weeks, for most of a decade. In that context, 100 people doesn't seem odd, either.

As for the definition of "friend": Someone I would interact with outside of the milonga, too, whether to chat online, have a coffee or a drink, or even visit at home or have to my home (I make cocktails and like to invite people over for that). But maybe I'm a weirdo.

 

[Brummbaer]

But maybe I'm a weirdo.

I'm a weirdo too; just a different variety

 

[Brummbaer]

When a well-educated man with a demanding job comes to a milonga following is not often an option for him. His option to relax is to invite a less demanding partner and after a really bad day maybe a beginner is best!

There is another option: Keep It Simple.

Now that might just require a better follower (Following IS difficult). I've had that experience with other dances. You're too tired to think, so you just do it as it comes. Nevertheless, if I'm choosing, I'd want some music to inspire.