It takes longer for walking to be learned to a good enough level to be satisfying and then you also need a good partner.
POLL: are solo followers encouraged / allowed / discouraged/ not allowed to take classes / workshops without a partner?
- Thread starter Miradamiranda
- Start date
It takes longer for walking to be learned to a good enough level to be satisfying and then you also need a good partner.
opendoor
Forum Master
I find your argument for colgadas, boleros, and the other stuff mentioned quite understandable. If the walk takes so long to perform well, why should the student not bridge the waiting time with things that allow dancing on the spot.
opendoor
Forum Master
Exactly, but it means that she HAS understood the lead.
I actually asked my teachers to teach me those movements within my first year. Mainly because I just wanted to understand the mechanics, not necessarily that I wanted to do them at a dance, especially since I don’t like doing random moves if it doesn’t fit the music.
It’s like getting into an instrument and immediately trying to play your favorite song, it’s to just satiate your initial curiosity/enthusiasm.
Because no one signed up to spend years learning to walk, which they thought they had been doing since being a toddler. They thought they had signed up to do stuff like DWTS/Strictly - like sacadas, ganchos, boleos - the sensual stuff. It's no longer a cultural rite of passage. Nobody signed up to adopt BsAs milonga codigos.
You saw this with the comparable UK programme Dancing on Ice. Of course everyone could just turn up at an ice rink and immediately do 3-turns, mohawks, choctaws, and, of course, spins are easy whilst death spirals are trivia (you can even give them new, catchy, names to highlight the risk and danger). But, of course, many didn't even make one lap without falling and breaking a leg or arm, or worse. Those who became interested did learn to skate forwards, and backwards. Maybe they progressed to a basic 3-turn, or mohawk. Maybe some even progressed to a turn a counter to do a set-pattern Argentine Tango on ice.
But old style teaching for off-ice AT was similar to that on ice. They learnt elements, and it took months/years of practice until they could convince their teacher they were good enough to attend a milonga (to catch the eye of that girl) without embarrassing their teachers at the practica. Now they just want to dance. I don't blame them. Many of us went to milongas to dance before we were truly ready or even aware of some of those elements.
So, we wanted to do those things we saw some maestros do, or some stage performance, or DWTS/Strictly - like volcadas, colgadas, sacadas, ganchos, patadas, etc.
Back to what is tango doing wrong: recruiting and retaining! It's not attracting people through shows, performance, demonstrations, al fresco milongas, etc. (basic advertising!). It's not good at providing 'levels' of milonga, as somewhere to dance suitable for novices, and looks down on beginners/novices turning up at some restrictive milonga with 'advanced' dancers (e.g. encuentro, marathon, or some snooty metropolitan milonga). And it sometimes demands a foreign culture - with some weird justifications in our non-BsAs society.
Brummbaer, this is thread about Solo followers.
Which was an offshoot of the thread I referenced, disappeared into volcadas, etc... As is usual here
. So, you've got to attract and retain solos.And then went into why [solos] desire to do off-axis turns - which whilst they can be, to some extent, practiced solo, are really a part of partner dance.
Miradamiranda
Well-Known Member
My point exactly when bringing up the topic of solos being ‘allowed’ to take classes and workshops.
According to some of the Germans here (@itwllhappen), many couples start tango together. They stop. They split up and remember the fun of tango so they go to it back after a break. That seems like such a detour.
If too many women sign up for classes, they should simply be encouraged to swap rolls. This way more solo women become better dancers because they’ll have more experience and more instruction, more solo women will be available to those solo men who might initially start out from a want to be connected with women (or other motives). Instead of guys being reluctantly dragged out to dance classes by their female partners. I really don’t see the social impact being negative from having more dual role, like some fear.
After I started this thread I brought up the topic to one of the admin in our local tango organization (Verein) because a great guest instructor couple was in town for the weekend and I was unsuccessful in finding a partner for it. He said they had tried that in the past but the uproar from the women who had their own partners was substantial. They didn’t want to share their men in class and didn’t want to encourage more solo women to get into tango.
More female leaders means more opportunities for more female followers to develop skills and more opportunities for men who wish to follow because the might prefer to dance with a woman instead of another man. It also means more money for organizers, and when women age out because of shallower values about looks, they can still have fun and bring in money for the organizers. I only see it as a win for everyone. Including the women who brought their own partners. They also become better dancers from having a larger pool of partners.
Male leaders are still the preferred partners of the vast majority of female leaders, so their status would not diminish one bit.
Turn that around. I don't want to swap my preferred 'leader' role in a workshop, nor does my wife wish to 'lead' in a workshop. Everyone has preferences. And I'm not objecting to a male follower (I occasionally used to lead/follow with a large, hairy, guy in some classes with surplus males), but, like me, I don't find them as good or useful at my level.
Not a problem. A few of my favourite followers also lead. But there are consequences, not always positive.
Yes. At some level you want to go with a partner. Not that you don't wish to rotate. I want my partner because she tells me what I'm doing incorrectly for her (and vice versa). It needn't be a life-partner; I just got lucky. Equally, as a follower, she doesn't wish to be left out of some specific workshop if there's a glut of followers - or change role.
Been to some workshops where there's a glut of followers. My partner ends up sat out awaiting a turn whilst I get to try the element with everyone (which doesn't always help - I don't do sequences well initially). Why pay to sit out if you're prepared to go as a couple? But, as I mentioned, I'm being auctioned off as as lead for solos without a partner at a forthcoming workshop she can't attend but I'm around. The organiser found a 'partner', but we'll rotate. It's not about 'sharing', but role matching.
Yes, retain solos - but it is a partner dance.
There ase some unfavourable consequences, if lady decides to play leader role. If she is good leader, lectors tend to invite her as leader top classes and workshops and she has to dance only as leader. After while of improving her leading skills she is mentally re-programmed. When she is dancing on latino party or milonga, she often takes the lead as follower. She is doing it either she wants to help to leader and she knows it better how to do it then leader. Both very unwanted. And sometimes I have problem with such followers, because they have their own style of leading and they expect to be lead only in such way.
Yes there are, but it's not the end of the world. And it doesn't go down too well in some cultures.
You couldn’t ask the organizer of the guest instructors workshops to find you a partner? That’s common in nyc for the hosts to match people for couples only workshops (since it brings in more money). Or even ask some advanced dancers to come in for free to just help out if they think there’ll be a big imbalance.
What!!! That’s bonkers. It is one thing to prefer to keep a male partner to yourself in a class. But to not want solo women to get into tango?
My impression always has been that in most tango scenes there are more solo dancers than couples. By solo I also include those who come alone though they might have a real life partner (who either doesn’t dance or doesn’t come out that often). By couples I also mean those who are dance only partners.
At milongas I find far less men interested in following. More women are interested in leading. This in a leader heavy scene.
Like me there are other men, who might follow in classes or practical but not in milongas. Most women leaders I have followed aren’t any better than average men leaders. Average men leaders have less than average skills.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
The solution here in Germany, at least for beginners, is now quite simple: you combine two solos as a couple, with fixed or alternating roles. So existing couples are not affected by switches. And for advanced dancers, the women's network should already be sufficiently developed to find qualified female leaders?
Women are also looking for the best dance experience for themselves, and for this it can be useful to subtly take an existing male partner from the open market.
If the resulting construct is attractive to male beginners, meaning that a sufficient number of them reach "milonga maturity" relative to the females, then everything is fine.
In the mainstream, people with a progressive understanding of roles are no more tolerant than those with a conservative understanding. So the pressure to conform for women remains the same, it just changes direction. To put it bluntly, the pressure toward high heels shifts to pressure against high heels, and the skill to lead is additionally expected.
Experienced male leaders have a promising future ahead of them, I am sure of that.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
In a class, it's obvious that unaccompanied women can mainly dance together. In a milonga, this is at least an open question.