Reasons to give up Tango

[opendoor]

This thread hasn't been at the top for a while, so feel free to add any changes if you'd like. And perhaps there are also members who haven't participated yet.

 

[Bailango]

Would anyone that has given up tango still be posting here?

 

[ArbeeNYC]

This thread hasn't been at the top for a while, so feel free to add any changes if you'd like. And perhaps there are also members who haven't participated yet.

I wonder who is feeling all that "hostility" given that it's the largest contributor to people leaving according to this poll?

 

[Warren J. Dew]

I wonder who is feeling all that "hostility" given that it's the largest contributor to people leaving according to this poll?

It might just be the broadest category.

 

[brujo]

I wonder who is feeling all that "hostility" given that it's the largest contributor to people leaving according to this poll?

There was an interesting post called 'Is Tango Dying?" Daniele Donzello . A part of it was around this:

In my own experience, and in the experience of many organizers and teachers who actually track this instead of relying only on impressions, the percentage of beginners who survive the first year of tango is brutally low. Around ten to fifteen percent is not an absurd estimate; in many places it may even be optimistic. This means that for every group of excited newcomers entering the room, the large majority will disappear long before they become stable members of the social dance floor.

I have a lot of friends in other dance scenes that tried tango and then gave it up. The main reason was that they just didn't feel welcome in the dance compared to others. Feelings of exclusion and alienation when attending a milonga vs one where people welcomed you, introduced you to people, asked you to dance, didn't leave you sitting out all night by yourself. I went to my first west coast swing event in a while and got asked to dance by ten different people - 3 men and 7 women. In tango I remember sitting by myself in my first three milongas after the class, nobody even said hi.

 

[itwillhappen]

There was an interesting post called 'Is Tango Dying?" Daniele Donzello .

If I follow these quite interesting ideas, then with regard to acquiring young beginners, strategic alignment, fragmentation, and competition, it seems reasonable to me that people who have been organizing for a long time should hand over their responsibilities to younger people. People who didn't contribute to the diagnosed crisis and who operate based on a (presumably AI-generated) marketing concept. But do I personally think this makes sense? No. Is there any risk that this will happen? No.

So, such elaborate thought experiments - based on personal experience and free from hard facts or not - are all well and good for considering what one personally wants to do and not do. But they practically never lead anyone else to fundamentally change their behavior from what they already do and believe is right.

 

[opendoor]

There was an interesting post called 'Is Tango Dying?" Daniele Donzello ...

Too long to read. Could you please summarize it ?

 

[brujo]

Too long to read. Could you please summarize it ?

Tango popularity made a lot of teachers. But they didn’t seek out new beginner students out in the world. So now that tango is not as popular they all fight for the same ones and destroy shared community. Before some events had a higher bar of levels, but organizers lower them, which then makes high level travelers run away. Tango is getting its knat kicked because the business models and social models that worked when it was super popular don’t work now in times of famine.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

There was an interesting post called 'Is Tango Dying?" Daniele Donzello . A part of it was around this:

I have a lot of friends in other dance scenes that tried tango and then gave it up. The main reason was that they just didn't feel welcome in the dance compared to others. Feelings of exclusion and alienation when attending a milonga vs one where people welcomed you, introduced you to people, asked you to dance, didn't leave you sitting out all night by yourself. I went to my first west coast swing event in a while and got asked to dance by ten different people - 3 men and 7 women. In tango I remember sitting by myself in my first three milongas after the class, nobody even said hi.

I find some of the expectations unreasonable. I don't think it's reasonable for a beginner to expect the world to open up to them after a few lessons, even several months of lessons. Tango is a culture as much as a dance. There are (or were) traditions for learning and expectations associated with those traditions. Prácticas are designed, or intended, for people to practice and learn outside of classes. Until quite recently, those who went to milongas were expected to know tango rather than to be in the process of learning it. This is an integral part of tango history and culture, yet it is never shared with students. Would those students feel the same way if they were welcomed and introduced but not asked to dance? Could they treat is a social event? A way of learning the ropes?

You can't really make comparisons with swing or any other dance. Tango is not a dance, it's a culture. Though we often forget that.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Tango popularity made a lot of teachers. But they didn’t seek out new beginner students out in the world. So now that tango is not as popular they all fight for the same ones and destroy shared community. Before some events had a higher bar of levels, but organizers lower them, which then makes high level travelers run away. Tango is getting its knat kicked because the business models and social models that worked when it was super popular don’t work now in times of famine.

Is this a time of tango famine? The local community, even in large cities (outside of BA) has always been extremely small compared to the population at large. I wish that would change but the numbers don't seem to change much.

 

[opendoor]

Thank you for summarizing!!

Tango popularity made a lot of teachers. But they didn’t seek out new beginner students out in the world...

That's true, but our scene didn't grow because of tango teachers, studios and lessons. The general presence of tango in the public — on stage, in film, television series, and on billboards— took care of recruitment. Only now tango teachers are realizing that they neglected public relations.

So now that tango is not as popular they all fight for the same ones and destroy shared community...

I disagree. From the very beginning, it was about self-promotion, poaching, and competition. But only now, when bread is scarce, this cannibalization is being denounced. But it's always existed, though. At least in those 27 years that I can look back on.

Before some events had a higher bar of levels, but organizers lower them, which then makes high level travelers run away.

They've always tried to lower them. Only in the past, there were the long-serving dancers and aficionados as a counterweight. Today, tango students dominate the milonga. Therefore, many milongas have degenerated into prácticas.

Tango is getting its knat kicked because the business models and social models that worked when it was super popular don’t work now in times of famine.

I've noticed that many tango teachers now have a second source of income as couples therapists, coaches, or facilitators. And these services aren't specifically aimed at the tango community.

 

[opendoor]

..You can't really make comparisons with swing or any other dance. Tango is not a dance, it's a culture..

You don't know what you're talking about:

Swing currently has more of a culture than tango. We swap shellac records, wear flat caps and knickerbockers. The scene meets in vintage bars and at classic car parades.

And salsa also has its own cultural sphere. It only superficially conveys a vacation vibe. Keep in mind that the salsa scene can support many percussion teachers.

 

[brujo]

Is this a time of tango famine? The local community, even in large cities (outside of BA) has always been extremely small compared to the population at large. I wish that would change but the numbers don't seem to change much.

In the post she suggests that there were still a lot of people doing tango based on momentum from the mid-2000s to around 2014.

 

[brujo]

You can't really make comparisons with swing or any other dance. Tango is not a dance, it's a culture. Though we often forget that.

My swing dancer housemate would tell me that if she had a Time Machine she wouldn’t even be able to go back to the places where swing was first danced because she isn’t black. The idea that swing is not a culture is super strange.

I think there are super neat modern workarounds to the class to practica to Milonga path. I took my friend that never danced tango to an alt tango house party where people just socialized and danced without the tanda and cabeceo codigos. She asked “wow, are tango scenes always so friendly?”. Which I personally have never heard a tango scene described as such. The dance itself is beautiful and attractive to people, but perhaps a lot of the barriers that are great in Argentina in the 40s no longer apply to today’s society.

 

[Brummbaer]

I think there are super neat modern workarounds to the class to practica to Milonga path. I took my friend that never danced tango to an alt tango house party where people just socialized and danced without the tanda and cabeceo codigos. She asked “wow, are tango scenes always so friendly?”. Which I personally have never heard a tango scene described as such. The dance itself is beautiful and attractive to people, but perhaps a lot of the barriers that are great in Argentina in the 40s no longer apply to today’s society.

That's the oft reported discussion. People became interested because of the dance, started to learn, then found a whole load of strange, foreign, conventions and rules beyond their cultural understanding of 'social'. Some buy into that because it's 'cute', or gives them some meaning which they lacked (amongst other reasons to long and detailed, but appear in other threads), and become hard advocates of their take on that era. Everyone has to conform and there's one true way : theirs. Others just want to dance but value social contact.

It happens in other areas. Not just dance (which gets discussed here), but the book club, the church, the political group, the wine society, the golf club, etc.

I guess, back in the day, it was some diversion from a hard life and surrounding events - and with an objective as a meeting venue for those younger. As were other dance venues in other, different, cultures. Now we have rolling news, social media, and doomscrolling, which drags us in, and begs a response. We also have more demands for 'work' to pay our way, or buy our way out.

So yes, some high end milongas are uninviting, or positively repelling to newcomers. Older AT music is an acquired taste for dancing (been there), so there are more relaxed alternatives with speedtandas and a better social scene. There still seem to be plenty of 'swing' scenes with a tango room where they're interested in dance steps (perhaps less of that cultural background). I wouldn't say tango overall is dying, just evolving or diversifying (like performance and social). AT, as we know it, may be dying, or attracting a different or older demographic (which, of course, is naturally decreasing).