What Is Tango Doing Right/Wrong: Recruiting and Retaining

[tangoing]

This is not standard social dance suitable for milonga. Is clearly visible that they need 4 times more square feets then other couples and their performance is recorded. It is social dance like SHOW. Especially high boleos and ganchos performed there are banned on most of milongas.
Two previous videos were for me example of quite EMPTY dancefloor, so enough space for more intensive dance. I agree that they dance looked like buch of pensioners. On other hand, such dance style is very usefull for crowded milongas and even it looks small, it is almost impossible for begginers to dance in such compact form.

I disagree, this is possible in a milonga if it’s not too crowded. It would not be appropriate in the environment of the first video pianista posted, but the second video I think it would be fine.

It looks like it was an impromptu recording when someone noticed they were dancing and just decided to record, hence it only captured a bit less than half the song, they may not have even known they were being recorded.

High boleos and ganchos are fine in the nyc milongas as long as they’re safe, i.e there’s space and you’re mindful of other couples, I don’t see why not. It’s only when people begin performing stage moves in a milonga here, would that be heavily frowned upon.

 

[Paja]

I disagree, it is clear they are dancing for cameraman. They stay dancing in corner, close to camera and most of figures are directed toward to camera for best efect. Let's look again and you will see.
I believe when they move out of camera sight, they will slow down a lot. This is my expereince when I see even the best lectors on milongas, they dance is very modest if they do not show up.

 

[TTanguero]

when TTanguero claimed it's hard to see bad technique

To be clear, I made no such claim! Bad technique is very often visible. The point I was making is that poor technique isn't always visible. Groundedness is a good example of something which may be absent without being visibly so.

 

[opendoor]

..when TTanguero claimed it's hard to see bad technique

I completely agree with TT. It happens so often that followers whisper to me: "It felt terrible." Even though it looked wonderful from the outside.

 

[TTanguero]

I disagree, it is clear they are dancing for cameraman

100%: this is an impromptu performance.

I have zero interest in most performances, but I very often enjoy watching professional dancers when they are dancing socially in a milonga. Most (including many world-renowned dancers I've seen dance socially in Buenos Aires) do absolutely nothing like this.

 

[fiesta0618]

This is not standard social dance suitable for milonga. Is clearly visible that they need 4 times more square feets then other couples and their performance is recorded. It is social dance like SHOW.

I don't understand comments like this.

--The patterns they are dancing are improvised, not choreographed, with visible lead-follow communication. Exactly how social dance works.

--Their dancing does not disrupt anyone else. There is exactly one close call, from which the leader immediately retreats and cedes space. Ideal, courteous behavior for the social floor.

--They fill the floorspace available to them, and no more. If they had less space they would use less; they are clearly good enough to detect the boundaries of what they can use and stay within them.

Why on earth would this be disqualified from the label of social dance??? If every social dance couple had this degree of control, awareness, and courtesy, there would be nothing to complain about in the ronda!

 

[JournalInTime]

Anyone full-striding purposefully is also going to not look elderly, even if their posture is atrocious, and that's waaaaaay easier to achieve!

Exactly. A Tale of Two Milongueros: We have two South American gentlemen here of about the same age and era. The age isn't young; the era isn't recent. Both have been dancing "forever" (for decades) and both could be described as "milongueros" on the basis of their lifestyle and attitude. One stays parked and just shuffles in place. The other, who I don't think is in better shape, always takes big, long, confident steps. As a result, I thought for years that the latter was much younger than the former . . . until I was advised that they were of an age (and that the topic wasn't polite, but that's another conversation).

This affects who will accept their invitations. And I'll put it on the nose: Better tangueras dance with the man who walks. Not "subjectively better," but objectively the case by any standard that matters. If you want to dance the dance of the walking hug, you have to hug and you have to walk.

This couple has an uninterrupted flow of "energy"

Not just uninterrupted in the body, as you wrote, but also uninterrupted in the movement and in the exchange of energy between partners. The worst dancing I see here has interruptions in all three places: body, movement, exchange. People let the energy stop in their bodies, or pause cold rather than pause dynamically, or take momentum and don't give it back. The result is a halting dance that constantly has to be restarted like a car on a cold winter day.

They let the embrace "breathe."

This one gets controversial. There are styles of social tango where you keep a fixed distance on purpose. I used to do that. Then I learned that even if the movement doesn't absolutely require elasticity to execute, some "breathing" expresses the music better and looks more natural.

One of the most gifted dancers I know personally (and one of the wealthiest, able to afford lessons that make me green with envy) killed his progress and eventually his love of tango by insisting on keeping the embrace closed at all times. No breathing = no "creative air" = death of pleasure. You can let the embrace breathe without become a dreaded "nuevo dancer" (whatever that means this week).

 

[JournalInTime]

This is not standard social dance suitable for milonga [...] Two previous videos were for me example of quite EMPTY dancefloor, so enough space for more intensive dance.

Honestly, while I agree that the dance in the latest video is a bit too wild and big for a typical milonga where I live . . . a typical milonga where I live would give me 1/10 that much space. In fact, all of the videos we've seen are of what I'd call nearly empty milongas, with space for several couples between couples. This is why some of the dancing looks so decrepit: Ample space is present, and nobody is using it.

Part of dancing well is keeping things small and polite in a crowd. Another, often abandoned part of dancing well is using ample space to its fullest when ample space is present. Dancing tiny in a huge space is aesthetically unpleasing and shows just as much lack of spatial awareness as dancing huge in a tiny space.

 

[lucia_l]

Dancing tiny in a huge space is aesthetically unpleasing and shows just as much lack of spatial awareness as dancing huge in a tiny space.

My Smooth pro said something similar when we got to practice in the new ginormous practice space. When you are in a space that big, you must move to look like you are moving! (But also, in competition, I must move to look like "more" than the other couples. I do feel I can move more on this ginormous floor btw.)

 

[Paja]

Why on earth would this be disqualified from the label of social dance??? If every social dance couple had this degree of control, awareness, and courtesy, there would be nothing to complain about in the ronda!

Maybe not disqualified from social dance, but definitelly from some Encuentros. First video is from Encuentro and one of Encuentro rules is not to use high kick ups in figures like boleos, sacadas and ganchos. And pairs there are definitelly not doing this, seems like they play game SAFETY FIRST

 

[opendoor]

..Dancing tiny in a huge space is aesthetically unpleasing and shows.. lack of spatial awareness...

I share your analysis. It's also strange that there's only one outer lane. The three couples in the large central area also dance quite small, without having to do so. The whole thing looks so bizarre, punctuated, and inhibited. But as pianista initially wrote they all were "preselected" dancers.

 

[fiesta0618]

Maybe not disqualified from social dance, but definitelly from some Encuentros. First video is from Encuentro and one of Encuentro rules is not to use high kick ups in figures like boleos, sacadas and ganchos. And pairs there are definitelly not doing this, seems like they play game SAFETY FIRST

Oh, okay, this makes sense. Of course an encuentro is allowed to set their own rules, and rules about flying feet are highly sensible.

On the other hand. If you'll forgive me for pressing a little bit, I would say that rules like that are in place because most amateurs cannot be trusted to know their limits, and not because there is an inherent problem with that kind of movement.

I can borrow an example from Ballroom. High feet are discouraged in all social dances. They are also explicitly forbidden in low and mid-level competition. But those rules go out the window for high-level competitors, even at the amateur level...and yet the rate of collision injury doesn't go up at all.

Basically, what I'm saying is, as much as I love equality, there are some limited areas where I'm perfectly okay with having different rules for different people based on their level of skill. With this couple, I would feel quite safe being their neighbor in any situation where their judgment led them to believe that a high-kick would be ok. So instead of my reaction being "That's against the conventions of social dance, they shouldn't do that," my reaction is, "They are good enough to be allowed to do that, because we can trust them to do so safely."

...Which is, of course, a principle that you absolutely cannot apply to large groups of people without out justified revolt and/or inevitable corruption. So in the end, you can quite fairly accuse me of pointless philosophical meandering here.

 

[opendoor]

..Why on earth would this be disqualified from the label of social dance??? If every social dance couple had this degree of control, awareness, and courtesy, there would be nothing to complain about in the ronda..

This, once again, has to do with the interpretation of social. The filmed dance couple are not equal among equals. They dance exclusively in a corner instead of joining the ronda (LOD). They also dance figures for which others would move to the middle of the dance floor. Finally, in Argentine tango, there is always a critical distance, if not outright mistrust, towards professionals. The old milongueros are revered as role models, and they were amateurs. All of this leads to double standards. I invested a lot of money in privates for many years. I noticed that those dancers, who always had their appointments before or after me, were totally embarrassed that I knew about their lessons.

 

[fiesta0618]

This, once again, has to do with the interpretation of social. The filmed dance couple are not equal among equals. They dance exclusively in a corner instead of joining the ronda (LOD). They also dance figures for which others would move to the middle of the dance floor.

If I'm being very blunt about it...doesn't it make sense that they are not behaving like equals among equals? Because they're not. They can do things with one another that they could not match with any other partner in the room. And so they find an isolated area where they can do that, instead of limiting themselves to only the sorts of things that their average neighbors are capable of. It would be ruder by far if they tried to insert this kind of dance into a crowded space, and a real shame to have such a golden opportunity to move that way and not take it. By my lights, they have reasonably chosen the best option available, in acting as they have.

And as long as they are partnering up with different people over the course of the event, with whom they will necessarily do smaller things, what's the problem with them living it up and pulling out the stops for this one song? Why should we frown at that, or declare that it somehow no longer counts?

*******

To be frank, in light of this example and some of the commentary around it, some of the objections to "showy" dancing that I have heard in this forum are increasingly sounding to me like "if not everyone is capable of x, then x has no place in social dancing." Which, for one thing, sounds incredibly stifling. And for another, would seem to lend credit to the haughty, self-righteous competitors who claim that social dancers are limited how good they can get in a way that competitors are not. Because if the attitude I have described really is how how things work, whether by intention or not, then there *is* a ceiling that social dancers can reach, after which their fellows will reject their identity as "social" and label them as something else.

I hope I'm wrong about that, and I hope folks will tell me if I am.

 

[TTanguero]

Their dancing does not disrupt anyone else. There is exactly one close call, from which the leader immediately retreats and cedes space. Ideal, courteous behavior for the social floor.

You can't look at such incidents and say that no harm was done unless they actually collided with somebody. That one close call probably had a big impact on the couple they almost hit. Additionally, they are blocking the progression of the ronda by spending an inordinate amount of time in one place just to show off for the camera. There are many milongas where the organizer would have words with the leader after this, and quite rightly in my view.