The long-term solution is dual-role dancing?

[brujo]

I am a man three years learning tango and can’t say that Christo’s experience resonates with mine.

Perhaps he’s coming from an era or generation where men following is not common. But I have found that learning to follow and actively doing this in milongas and practicas has been super super helpful for me, even as I am still working on learning to improve my leading.

For one, in a lot of my classes it tends to be lead heavy since there are a few more advanced followers that are learning to lead. I found that a lot of them that would be super intimidating otherwise actually interact with you and you exchange useful tips in both roles. When I get to dance with them at milongas, we very often switch roles. So maybe they will lead me for a song and I will lead them for the next one. This has been an incredible way for me to dance with people I would have been way way too scared to ask to dance.

It also works with the dudes. I have a few friends that don’t feel they are ready to dance with women, by offering to follow them I have been able to build really good supportive friendships.

In my mind that is the missing dimension. Women can lead but men should also follow.

 

[Brummbaer]

Competition is an essential - and at least at milongas - desired behavior.

That was an earlier justification, amongst young men, and compradritos. I suppose BR has it's competition, but AT competition doesn't have the appeal. AT has become a leisure activity.

In my view, without competition, the "tango business model" would collapse immediately, followed shortly thereafter by the loss of the milongas' appeal

Aren't we seeing a decline in getting male participants to the milonga? So we're back to whether or not dual-role is an answer to this, it anything else (and I agree that the secondary opposite role assists aspects of the primary role).

I usually attend milongas with my SO, so I don’t need to compete

Another demographic, of which I am also a long-standing member. I don't want to compete! I don't need to. There was a separate space for couples at the 'traditional' milonga with different rules. At some milongas here that demographic is the majority. New solos are back to 'competing' - at other Latin dances where there's a potential prize. AT offers another challenge, so some move on (e.g. tango rooms at other dance venues). Maybe the opposite role is the new 'competition' for the AT dancer? Or maybe it was just to get that unforgettable tanda with with that selected partner?

 

[itwillhappen]

In my mind that is the missing dimension. Women can lead but men should also follow.

The crucial question regarding a voluntary leisure activity isn't whether people *should* do it, but whether they actually *do* it - whether they find it appealing.
If men in your community are flocking to "double-role-from-the-start" classes, then everything is great.
I’ve only heard a gender ratio mentioned once in this context (by Melina Sedó), and it was 80:20 - meaning, effectively, that it was unattractive to men. Much like dedicated double-role events.

 

[MediocresAires]

I know of a milonga requiring advance registration where you have to decide whether you want to dance primarily as a leader or a follower - though, of course, occasionally switching roles is possible. This discourages cherry-picking; if you claim to be able to dance a role, you have to demonstrate it. The milonga is always very well attended.

Interesting. Not sure if that would work for me because I prefer to very flexible with my switching. When there are more followers that I vibe with, I primarily lead. When there are more leaders I vibe with, I primarily follow. Some orchestras I prefer to lead, others to follow. I like to decide every tanda anew.

So to decide on a role beforehand, I would need to know who else is attending. If I don't know beforehand that followers I know are coming, I would probably stick to following because (as I described above) it's difficult for me to get dances with unknown followers.

But I learned from this discussion that leading (even if it's only 1 tanda) could be a signal to male leaders that I'm not open to following, so I'll probably need to be more careful about switching roles in the future.

 

[MediocresAires]

For one, in a lot of my classes it tends to be lead heavy since there are a few more advanced followers that are learning to lead. I found that a lot of them that would be super intimidating otherwise actually interact with you and you exchange useful tips in both roles. When I get to dance with them at milongas, we very often switch roles. So maybe they will lead me for a song and I will lead them for the next one. This has been an incredible way for me to dance with people I would have been way way too scared to ask to dance.

I'm curious: What makes you scared of and intimidated by these followers (as opposed to others)?

 

[Brummbaer]

I'm curious: What makes you scared of and intimidated by these followers (as opposed to others)?

That's an extremely good question!

There's a lot around (in the UK at least) about boys, as they grow up, and their place and role in society.

I await some answers, but I'll give my perspective from the time I was a beginner (and dancing with my wife - still am). It was scary. You don't know much. You have no confidence. You've probably (in retrospect) gone to a milonga too early (but that's another complex discussion which has featured in other threads). It's another culture. Perhaps, most of all, you watch some 'advanced' follower, and you're thinking that's like taking an expensive, high-performance, sports car out into traffic in central Paris, or Italy. Or a thoroughbred race horse for a little outing. Ignoring any 'sexual' aspects! And that's from a perspective of having danced, in another discipline, for 40 years.

I am grateful to older, experienced, dancers who invited me into the ronda. It gets better! But the difference is the social aspect. I don't need to go out and choose a partner. I don't need to have the 'best' tanda. I already dance with her. I have friends and acquaintances with whom I dance. And I can choose to dance with a beginner, or that newbie, or anyone else - even some maestra. Nor is it an issue if we're in some other country at a milonga.

 

[Eleven!]

But I learned from this discussion that leading (even if it's only 1 tanda) could be a signal to male leaders that I'm not open to following, so I'll probably need to be more careful about switching roles in the future.

I went to an Encuentro last year that had segregated seating. I was worried that it would be too stressful and awkward. It was wonderful. You knew exactly who you could cabaceo. If you wanted to change role you just walked over to the other side and sat with the rest of the people dancing that role. Friendliest environment I have ever danced in - which I was not expecting before going.

I chatted to a woman the morning after the first days dancing (most of us stayed in the event hotel and had shared meals - although it wasn't compulsory) and she was also at her first segregated seating event and said that cabaceo as a female leader was massively easier and then going back to following it was really clear what her role was.

 

[itwillhappen]

Interesting. Not sure if that would work for me because I prefer to very flexible with my switching. When there are more followers that I vibe with, I primarily lead. When there are more leaders I vibe with, I primarily follow. Some orchestras I prefer to lead, others to follow. I like to decide every tanda anew.

So to decide on a role beforehand, I would need to know who else is attending. If I don't know beforehand that followers I know are coming, I would probably stick to following because (as I described above) it's difficult for me to get dances with unknown followers.

Every approach has its downsides, without a doubt.
You have to be careful not to let your imagination run away with you: the female organizer is very nice, attentive, and even offers workshops for women who lead. And the Netherlands is generally a few years ahead of Germany when it comes to women who lead. If the milonga is usually fully booked month by month, it is because good dancers gather there under these specific conditions.

But I learned from this discussion that leading (even if it's only 1 tanda) could be a signal to male leaders that I'm not open to following, so I'll probably need to be more careful about switching roles in the future.

You don't know what’s going on in other people's minds. You might think you’re being ignored because you led a tanda, while the other person might be thinking "good - keep going".
So, just do what feels intuitively right to you.

 

[itwillhappen]

Aren't we seeing a decline in getting male participants to the milonga? So we're back to whether or not dual-role is an answer to this, it anything else (and I agree that the secondary opposite role assists aspects of the primary role).

I agree with the opinion expressed by Veronica Toumanova in a Facebook comment:

Nobody is saying that this is THE solution to everybody's problem. And we also are not saying that it is the solution to the problem of not having enough men in tango. It is a solution for women who would otherwise leave tango. Men have different issues and those issues are being addressed by people who try to get men to take classes and to come to the events.

 

[Eleven!]

AFAIK, there isn't an equivalent for males. Or is there? I suspect it would not be considered well if some 'brother network' was swapping details even of some female follower with whom they really ought to dance.

When I first started to travel I didnt have a network. As I danced more and met the same people again and again I found that women who liked dancing with me would deliberately introduce me to other followers but in terms of the sisterhood getting each other introductions and dances, but I also realised that as time passed I was also now part of their extended network. I'd gained part membership into the sisterhood. As I danced more and met the SO of some of the followers the other male leads then became my very extended network. Sort of like the sisterhood had a more nebulous outer layer of the brotherhood. This was in each area. As I travelled more some people I knew would turn up "out of area" and I would introduce the leaders I know to my extended network in the area they were visiting. Introducing leaders to followers that I thought they would dance well together.

So at least for me there are the equivalent networks for men but they seem (at least in my experience, and at least for me) to form around existing female networks and then grow (but never fully become completely separate) from there.

 

[Eleven!]

I do think that these networks are much more common among women that men. I'm not even going to hazard a guess why as there are probably a large number of reasons and they will vary from area/city/venue/country/culture to others

 

[Brummbaer]

But I learned from this discussion that leading (even if it's only 1 tanda) could be a signal to male leaders that I'm not open to following, so I'll probably need to be more careful about switching roles in the future.

Social cues! And there's a whole issue of male responses to social cues in society far beyond tango, but also related to attitudes in its earlier days.

So...

I'm curious: What makes you scared of and intimidated by these followers (as opposed to others)?

 

[Brummbaer]

I agree with the opinion expressed by Veronica Toumanova in a Facebook comment:

It's partially a 'solution for women', but possibly with the impact of discouraging men (so maybe not an overall solution, or even what was desired, an unintended consequence), and of changing the state of the milonga (again). Hence the incident in BsAs reported elsewhere, but some comments here.

 

[Rabbit]

Interesting. Not sure if that would work for me because I prefer to very flexible with my switching. When there are more followers that I vibe with, I primarily lead. When there are more leaders I vibe with, I primarily follow. Some orchestras I prefer to lead, others to follow. I like to decide every tanda anew.

Even without role switching cabeceo is a generally unsatisfactory protocol for these reasons.

I want to dance one type of music with certain partners, another type of music with other partners, and some music I don't want to dance at all.

With cabeceo, unless you know the person well you don't know why they currently don't want to dance and if there's some chance they don't want to dance with you in general, they are incentivized to try and cabeceo someone else instead of wasting time trying to catch the eye of someone who might just not be interested

 

[brujo]

I'm curious: What makes you scared of and intimidated by these followers (as opposed to others)?

I don’t know about other scenes but the lack of beginner men makes learning pretty brutal when I started. All the women you know in the classes get to dance with men that are ten or twenty years into tango at milongas and practicas and will rip your dance apart. Not maliciously I’m sure, but I definitively had people I was learning with angrily criticize things from technique to bringing in elements from other dance, and even from asking verbally to dance. There is only one other guy that stuck around from my very first beginner’s class and that’s because his wife loves it. In the new beginner class I’m taking as a follow - it’s a yearly cycle, we started the year with maybe 50 people and I’d say there are three guys remaining with about 10-12 new women with the rest of the class being advanced follows leading. All the guys that remain have previous dance experience in other dances, all of us follow at least in class.

When the feedback you get frequently from beginner dancers is about your lack of vocabulary, musicality and connection, it is hard not to put the more advanced dancers into this weird little mental pedestal. Specially when during practices and whatnot they will point out things you weren’t even aware were actual issues in dance. Like wtf what do you mean my left leg feels heavier than my right when I weight transfer?!

They’re super polite about it, but it’s super obvious when the advanced dancers ignore your cabeceo or all the sudden have to change shoes after one song with you. I think because the dance just sheds beginners people don’t bother interacting with them or trying to make it easier. That changes a little when you’re able to provide them a dumb large beginner body to practice leading with.

I think as a guy that wants to stick it out in tango you can’t get away with not following unless you’re bringing a partner to class. There are just too many leads.