opendoor
Forum Master
You weren't dancing at the turn of the century. Did you even know what tango was back then?
Tango Diaries
- Thread starter Bailango
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JournalInTime
Forum Master
Where I live, people come to AT because of several factors. If I had to make an educated guess as to the most to least important factors, I'd rank them:
As for ballroom . . . As I said, it's a rarer origin that's a subset of one of many origins. We don't really get many people from that domain. However, the ones we do get understand line of dance and floorcraft – usually better than career AT dancers do. Ballroom here is taught on and strictly respects line of dance. I have insufficient knowledge of ballroom to know what substyles or teaching methods that implies, but I suppose those are the dominant ones in my region.
The worst offenders for extravagant movements that fail to respect line of dance are NOT the people who I said expect stage tango or stage-tango elements. They are blues (especially blues!), Latin, and swing dancers, who jitter around in a slot instead of advancing, and who don't seem to grasp the idea of not dancing at arm's length and not engaging in sudden, brusque dips, lifts, etc. Weirdly, even the people inspired by TV, stage, and street performers who danced stage tango seem to be aware that tango is a traveling hug, and want that in their dance.
All of that said, most dancers here are "None of the above." They already knew tango when they entered the scene, and learned it in some other scene. If you ask, "Where did you learn tango?", odds are better than even that they'll mention some other city. That's just a microcosm of our broader city life. A running joke here is that "Nobody in Montréal is from Montréal." That isn't actually true, but it is true among the subset of people who take up social hobbies to meet people; you meet relatively few "born here, raised here, live here, will die here" folks in tango, and relatively many expats and jetsetters.
- Saw AT on TV, most often either a big American "talent show" or our homegrown one. Expect stage tango.
- Saw a demo of AT during a non-AT dance event at a venue that also hosts AT events. Most come from blues or Latin; a few come from ballroom, but not very many at all. Expect whatever style they witnessed. The rare ballroom people expect what they call "tango."
- Heard about tango or saw AT or ads for AT at a studio that teaches it among many other dances. Expect whatever style they witnessed unless they just saw an ad, in which case they have no idea what to expect. However, the rare ballroom people expect what they call "tango."
- Heard about AT from friends who already dance AT socially. Expect social tango, usually meaning a mixture of salon and milonguero tango.
- Saw AT in some traveling stage show. We have 2-3 pass through each year. They are unrelated to our AT scene, and brought in by event-hall organizers who bring in a wide range of dance and musical spectacles to fill schedule slots. Expect stage tango.
- Came in cold off the street because they saw signage or heard music, and were curious. Have no idea what to expect.
- Saw AT on a visit to Argentina. Expect whatever style the street dancers or demo performers they saw were dancing, usually meaning salon tango with stage elements.
- Are Argentine expats who want to get in touch with their own culture. Expect milonguero tango.
As for ballroom . . . As I said, it's a rarer origin that's a subset of one of many origins. We don't really get many people from that domain. However, the ones we do get understand line of dance and floorcraft – usually better than career AT dancers do. Ballroom here is taught on and strictly respects line of dance. I have insufficient knowledge of ballroom to know what substyles or teaching methods that implies, but I suppose those are the dominant ones in my region.
The worst offenders for extravagant movements that fail to respect line of dance are NOT the people who I said expect stage tango or stage-tango elements. They are blues (especially blues!), Latin, and swing dancers, who jitter around in a slot instead of advancing, and who don't seem to grasp the idea of not dancing at arm's length and not engaging in sudden, brusque dips, lifts, etc. Weirdly, even the people inspired by TV, stage, and street performers who danced stage tango seem to be aware that tango is a traveling hug, and want that in their dance.
All of that said, most dancers here are "None of the above." They already knew tango when they entered the scene, and learned it in some other scene. If you ask, "Where did you learn tango?", odds are better than even that they'll mention some other city. That's just a microcosm of our broader city life. A running joke here is that "Nobody in Montréal is from Montréal." That isn't actually true, but it is true among the subset of people who take up social hobbies to meet people; you meet relatively few "born here, raised here, live here, will die here" folks in tango, and relatively many expats and jetsetters.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
For instance, I spent my time yesterday practicing with partners who were Algerian, French, Chinese, Haitian, Moroccan, and Polish in origin. Plus one genuine local.
On Friday evening, I danced with more women who were originally from Japan or Russia than from here . . . in 4 hours, two of the tangueras with whom I danced were born-and-raised locals, and one learned tango while traveling overseas, not here. The hostess was from Bulgaria and learned to dance long before arriving here.
None of this is strange for Montréal. There is one studio where everybody seems to be either a born-and-raised local or an expat Argentine, but to be completely honest, the level of dance is low and I don't spend much time there. I'm moderately convinced that non-Argentines who arrive here knowing nobody are the ones who work hardest to improve. True locals have other social outlets, while most of the Argentines seem to lack the curiosity that a dance outside one's culture inspires.
On Friday evening, I danced with more women who were originally from Japan or Russia than from here . . . in 4 hours, two of the tangueras with whom I danced were born-and-raised locals, and one learned tango while traveling overseas, not here. The hostess was from Bulgaria and learned to dance long before arriving here.
None of this is strange for Montréal. There is one studio where everybody seems to be either a born-and-raised local or an expat Argentine, but to be completely honest, the level of dance is low and I don't spend much time there. I'm moderately convinced that non-Argentines who arrive here knowing nobody are the ones who work hardest to improve. True locals have other social outlets, while most of the Argentines seem to lack the curiosity that a dance outside one's culture inspires.
opendoor
Forum Master
In my comments above, I didn't mean to diminish the variety of influences, factors, and coincidences that lead one to (social) tango. I just found it strange that so many here consider themselves immune to the iconography of the stage, even though it is so omnipresent in everyday life. However, I became aware of the attraction of tango images long before I took my first tango step.
And yet, the final trigger for me also was mostly #6. I came from a salsa class feeling frustrated. I was walking aimlessly down a street in the cold rain. Then I heard the sound of violins (di Sarli?) creeping out of a basement window like sweet smoke. I looked for the entrance and found myself at a milonga of expats and immigrants. A woman stood up, embraced me, and said after my first tango: "You'll soon be a good dancer." After the despair of the salsa lesson, this was the right medicine for me.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
I can't speak for others here. I don't think I was or am immune to that imagery, but I wasn't exposed to it before taking up tango.
I went from "kid who didn't care about formal dance styles, who watched cartoons and The Six Million Dollar Man," to "punk rocker who didn't care, period, unless it was loud music or radical politics or drinking," to "nerdy physics student who lived in labs and computer rooms and had no time or money for outside interests," to "nerdy editor and writer who worked from home on a computer, and whose hobby was semi-professional cyberathletics." Tango didn't even exist my city of origin during my childhood and youth, and we had a TV with three channels that didn't run dance shows. Then I moved here, where tango existed but all the lessons and shows were in French, which I hadn't learned well yet, so they never showed up on my radar . . . English-speakers all gravitated to salsa and swing. And throughout, my interest in cinema leaned toward fantasy, horror, science fiction, etc., so I never saw tango scenes in mainstream Hollywood films.
I can truthfully say that to me, "tango" was just an obscure ethnic synonym for "dance." It didn't come with any specific dress code, movements, music, or symbols. In fact, I had an embarrassing period where I was under the impression it was the same as flamenco.
opendoor
Forum Master
I think I had a good overview:
- There were only few couples 40-50+ with no dance experience (disappeared soon).
- Most couples (mostly 40-50+) who started together and stayed had a background in BR. They were annoyed by the superficiality and competitiveness of BR. They were particularly interested in social tango.
- A quarter of the cohort consisted of single leaders 50+ who were starting to learn tango after a long family-related break from BR or salsa. (me f.i.)
- A corresponding quarter were single followers 40+, all of whom stated that they could no longer meet the expectations of the salsa scene.
- Only a truly insignificant portion were de-novo dancers aged 20+. They learned in the university's recreational sports program.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Ballroom's importance in your tango community will mirror ballroom's importance in your wider community. Here, for complex cultural reasons, ballroom never really caught on the way country and line dance, rock 'n' roll and swing dance, or Latin dance did. Hip-hop and African-inspired dance have become big recently, too. It probably has something to do with the world's biggest ballroom federations not being francophone, and a couple of them being UK- or U.S.-centric . . . none of which flies here. If it isn't a folkloric, "everyman," or "street" dance, nor is it popular in urban France, it won't be a big deal here.
Not that we have no ballroom presence! Of course we do. Our televised dance competitions are full of ballroom dancers. It's just that it isn't something people do as a social dance. Most of the people I know who do it tour around competing, and when not doing that, are in studios practicing, not out dancing.
Not that we have no ballroom presence! Of course we do. Our televised dance competitions are full of ballroom dancers. It's just that it isn't something people do as a social dance. Most of the people I know who do it tour around competing, and when not doing that, are in studios practicing, not out dancing.
TTanguero
Forum Master
I mean, maybe it is, but I can't recall ever having seen any of it before I came to tango. (Then again, I haven't owned a TV for 25 years, so perhaps that explains it.)
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Yes, those of us who avoid television seem to be in a weird category of our own in today's world.
opendoor
Forum Master
I don't accept that as an excuse. Back then, the images also haunted me from advertising columns, CD covers, and movie posters.
The ranking here would be: 4, 6, (together more than 50%), 8, 2, 3 (I think 2 and 3 are equally tied, 5, 7. In all these years I have not met single person in our tango scene or classes who came because of 1. Most people I have heard talk about 1, are my non-dancing friends and on rare occasions social dancers. I can say that 95% of the social dancers I know don’t watch the talent or big dance shows. If anything they are critical of what these shows put on.
We do not have any dedicated tango studio. Only once it happened was for two years when Ney Melo opened one.
We had ballroom studios, most of them shut down or have downsized. Last 15 years have been brutal for ballroom studios. The lease must have gone up 10x. Some tango instructors rented space from at ballroom studios for regular lessons.
Rather than studio driven, the influx of dancers here is instructor driven and to small extent university driven. University driven includes more people who are not affiliated with the university but living in surrounding areas.
I wonder if your sample is biased since you were working at a studio and asking that question. What about those that didn’t enter tango through studios? But I don’t know Montreal and your scene.
Oh! That changes everything. So your ranking is of a much smaller subset! Far more people learnt it somewhere than locally.
Not a joke but the fact that here in everyday life, whether work or grocery store or employment numbers, you are likely to meet less than 15% who were born and raised here. In tango scene may be less than dozen or half a dozen. Of those small numbers who did grow up here it is equally split between those who stayed and those who went away, spent substantial time else where and returned.
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TTanguero
Forum Master
I believe you, but that wasn't the case for me.
It is amazing how different the scenes can be. I wonder if that has any influence on how people dance once they have been in tango for 5-10 years. Meeting people and from what I see, once you have been a regular for years it doesn’t really matter. The issues tend to become the same - floorcraft, DJ qualities, stage vs social in the ronda, socializing, etc. we all end up at the same place
Paris is Kizomba capital of the world. Most Kizomba influences spread out of France for the last 10 years. More than Portugal where it all started. Though it is described as an Angolan dance, Kizomba from early on (late 2000s) was an European creation (out of Portugal and Angolans living in Europe) as much as Bachata Sensual is also a European creation out of Spain (has little in common with Bachata as born and popular in Dominican Republic and PR).
I don’t think Montreal has followed
Mirrors what I read in the ballroom forum in here. Personally I don’t know any ballroomers though for a brief time I did take lessons in a premier ballroom studio. That was very long time back.