What Is Tango Doing Right/Wrong: Recruiting and Retaining

[pianistamediano]

We even talked about how snobby the tango community is… but she’s not doing herself any favors by just treating it as any other dance and not putting any effort into it to improve (she stopped taking classes a long time ago).

She doesn't understand that choices have consequences?

 

[JournalInTime]

She doesn't understand that choices have consequences?

Without getting into politics (and, by saying that, getting into politics): Most people do not understand that choices have consequences. For many, choices exist in the now and evaporate shortly after being made – they are no better than cats.

 

[Tango Distance]

if you are trying to suggest solutions for problems, a bullet list of solutions is necessary.

I have found I'm more likely to win a proposal if I use bulleted lists.

If you forgot someone's name, admit it and ask. I do this all the time at group lessons. No one minds. No one.

My experience, that is true for the majority of people, and I don't mind if someone forgets my name. In contrast, I have found a significant minority who get visibly, and sometimes even verbally, annoyed if I don't remember or get the name wrong. It's bulleted list time! Here's what I do:

• If I haven't met the person before, ask their name and apologize in advance for being bad at remembering names.
• After the event, add them to a list with a brief description. For this post names are changed to protect the innocent (and guilty!). Shirleen reliably wears a particular item. Margarene has 100% white hair.
• With Valvolina, I called her "Valvoline" rather than Valvolina one night, she wasn't happy and firmly corrected me.
• Finally, I try to avoid asking someone their name a 2nd event. There seems to always be someone who knows everyone's name. I ask that person "What is the name for that lady with the red skirt? Who is the lady to her left?"
• In my old little area, Swing dancers often had buttons or jewelry with their name. There was also one Tango dancer who wore her name on a necklace -- it was great. She was very pleased I would greet her with her name.

There is an "international AT scene" that exists at encuentros, festivals, and marathons for the jet set, but it is characterized largely by its absence of anything that would offend anyone, and it isn't a community. It's a least common denominator of polite dancing as oppose to a spicy mélange that the locals adore but that visitors find tricky. Involving people locally means doubling down on the spicy mélange even when it isn't what you'd find at a festival somewhere, because your goal is to engage and keep locals, and build a local community where people know names – not to onboard locals into an international scene in which few of them can afford to participate anyway.

I'm not sure that I'm disagreeing here, but here is a statistics-of-small-numbers view: I have a friend totally into encuentros (she even helps run one). She said there is a core group you recognize and see over and over. I have had a brush with encuentros (pre-encuentro night open to the community, but it was 90% encuentroers). I saw several people I knew, who had moved away (including a foreign country). It was fun to reconnect. Also, it seemed super friendly, like lots of old friends getting together, but everyone was super nice and friendly to me, too.
Tango at a studio that does other dances seems to be more inclusive to me (and generally more successful). My thought is holding your Tango event at a larger dance studio would help.

 

[JournalInTime]

She said there is a core group you recognize and see over and over [...] Also, it seemed super friendly, like lots of old friends getting together, but everyone was super nice and friendly to me, too.

I don't think that's disagreement. On the contrary, I think it's validation! You have this core group of old friends . . . which is no different from the core clique at a local milonga, really.

You had a contact, which means your experience was positive and friendly, but the same could be said for a local milonga, too. A contact makes it easy to join any community. But consider:

I'm in a big city. I have lots of milongas to go to. I go to them all the time. I have an army of tango friends. I have no shortage of local dance partners. I have been a regular, visible part of this community for 12+ years, and at times a volunteer or employee on the organizational side of it.

And yet . . .

The traveling encuentro-festival-marathon crowd doesn't acknowledge my presence. The leaders do not make eye contact to let me onto the floor. The followers never look my way to be invited. When it's time to issue invitations to invitation-only events, I don't get invited. To them, I am a nonentity who only "dances local." Whereas a few newcomers who are – and I'll blunt – wealthier than me have won acceptance almost at once.

Since I am integrated into the local community, I don't give a rat's patootie about this (I mean, I do, but for the sake of others, not for my own sake). Were I not so integrated, there's no question that it would leave me cold.

Most local communities have a fairly big group of people of average looks and social status who do not want to travel to events but who do want to dance well and fit in. My assertion is that they are the future pillars of local communities, even if they're not candidates for the international scene. They are therefore the ones you want to bring in, learn the names of, etc.

And to be clear, I do mean "international" and "jet set" quite literally. The people I'm talking about when I use those descriptors dance on four continents per year and are on the road 10-15 weeks annually. All are independently wealthy (market windfalls, inheritances, etc.), semi- or fully retired, or the spouses of people who are willing and able to fund their travels. I'm not talking about an American who visits a few other states, a European who drives from France to Belgium, Germany, and Italy, or whatever. I'm talking about people like my friend who was at 20+ festivals in 12+ countries last year, and who has never once talked about having a job.

 

[Bailango]

I think ice breaker games rarely work for anything. They are often tedious. We did this at a work Christmas party that had a lunch. We also sat in tables of about 8. Our table of 8 did unite in agreeing the "ice breaker" games were totally annoying. Sitting people at group tables to eat works better than the ice breaker game.


They complain about not knowing names. There are simple solutions that work for all social dances and group lessons. Now, I'm going to resort the the much loathed writing construction: the list. Lists are boring reads. But if you are trying to suggest solutions for problems, a bullet list of solutions is necessary. Here's a start.

1. If you are the studio or organizer, suggest name tags. (Heck, if you want to encourage people knowing your name and talking to you, bring your own name tag. Heck, you can add some extra stupid tid bit if you like. "I own cats!" Change it every dance. "If you lead a dip, I will kill you!", "I love dips!" Or if you brought your individual name tag, add, "What's your name?" Whatever you like! )
2. If you forgot someone's name, admit it and ask. I do this all the time at group lessons. No one minds. No one. When I do remember, they are pleasantly surprised. But they don't mind I forgot because they all forgot everyone else's name and usually forgot mine. If they haven't forgotten it, they remember it slightly incorrectly. (Lucille? Louise? I just tell them that's pretty close and say the right name. I also tell them I intentionally try to remember and still have a hard time! )
3. If you don't remember having ever seen them, introduce yourself. They'll usually tell you their name. (We will both usually forget. If you do, see 2 above.)
4. Have some cheap free snacks, preferably in a quieter part of the room or gathering, but not too far from the dancing. (A neat trick... I know). One studio with good mixing happens to not have a drinking fountain and has water bottles by the snacks. Lots of people meet near the snack tables.
5. Do pay attention to volume of music. It needs to be just loud enough to dance but no louder. This encourages conversation among those not dancing.
6. If there is a possibility, encourage people to NOT dance with the same partner for more than two dances in a row. That may require leaving a little time for people to leave the floor and find new partners after each of the songs. Yes... I know. This is so not Tango where a three dance Tanda is the norm. Maybe you can do it if you announce "please, try to mix up your partners. We will not play in Tanda order" for a half hour or show. Or maybe this would drive away Tango dancers. But... well... the three dance Tanda tradition is a feature of tango that almost certainly results in less social mixing.

Lots of these are cheap and easy. Studios can supply name tags and make an announcement encouraging 2 and 3. If you can't do them, then skip that suggestion.

On the video:
Ok... now I'm listening a little while typing a comment. Minute 6 they are still discussing ice breaker tangas. (Honestly, it's not clear they know what problem they are trying to solve.) Ok... then they discuss a pot luck. Now back to ice breaker tanga.

Ok.... then "Chacarera". One points out when he started he didn't like that because he didn't know how to dance it. Yeah... great, add something no one knows how to dance. That will get people meeting each other. Just like line dancing. /sarc. Note: my husband loves line dancing. I have nothing against them. Only people not line dancing meet other people during a line dance!

I don't think their solutions are going to be universally helpful. Few are.

Agree with all.

 

[Bailango]

Someone who's at, say, 1 out of 10 and aiming for 10 out of 10 untold years down the road is a more pleasant person to dance with than someone who has been parked at 4 for years and has no goals higher than 4, whose dance I will soon fully explore and find about as exciting as oatmeal porridge.

I will make an exception here. If someone is consistently at say 7 or 8, I find it satisfying and pleasant to dance with them. There are some beginners that I do like dancing with. Invariably they show improvement in 6 months time.

As I said somewhere before, the more we improve, the less dance high and less satisfying going out dancing gets. Because the pool of partners with whom we can get satisfying dance keeps decreasing the more we improve.

I'm also wary of dancers who do want to improve but who believe that they can do so exclusively at the milonga by finagling free "lessons" out of partners.

I don’t know if I come across this category.

 

[JournalInTime]

I will make an exception here. If someone is consistently at say 7 or 8, I find it satisfying and pleasant to dance with them. There are some beginners that I do like dancing with. Invariably they show improvement in 6 months time.

You are correct, but there is a nuance:

Nobody reaches better than 5 or 6 on this totally made-up scale without being ready to go for 10! Those who have done the work to break into the top half and especially the top third of all dancers everywhere rarely stop, even if they stop being as obsessed as before. All the best dancers I know – ones much better than me, on their way to great things – never stop trying to improve. They might have a hard physical or artistic limit at some high level that slows progress, though; what you perceive as a consistent 7 may in reality be someone making the effort to go from 7 to 7.0000001 or whatever.

I don’t know if I come across this category.

It's easy to determine: Do you ever ask someone at the milonga, "Can you teach me this thing?" Or, shoe on other foot, do you respond to that question by stopping in the line of dance and using words to explain something? If you do neither of those things, you aren't in this category.

Trying to learn from or teach a partner entirely somatically during the course of a normal social dance that progresses down the line of dance isn't an issue. We all (hopefully!) do a bit of that. We all have something to learn from people who are better than us or who simply dance differently from us, and we all have something to teach people who are less experienced than us or who simply have a different style from us. That's fine as long as it's silent and respects traffic at the milonga!

 

[Bailango]

It's easy to determine: Do you ever ask someone at the milonga, "Can you teach me this thing?"

Why would I do that ? . It has never even occurred to me to ask someone that.

Or, shoe on other foot, do you respond to that question by stopping in the line of dance and using words to explain something?

No one has asked me. One time someone did ask between the tanda or at the end about a particular aspect, I simply went off the dance floor, behind the seating area. Demonstrated and then told them to seek teacher with whom they can work on it.

If you do neither of those things, you aren't in this category.

I meant I hardly witness this category at our milongas.

 

[JournalInTime]

I meant I hardly witness this category at our milongas.

Then you are lucky. In the past 7 days, I've been out to dance 5 times, and each time there were at least a few chatterboxes stopping to point at legs and feet, and say things like, "No, this, not that!" It drove me nuts.

(I also went out a couple of nights ago and danced with two beginners who clearly didn't get things I led with a light lead – my preference – and I just led those things more emphatically without saying a word, so that they could understand. And the same evening, I danced with a more advanced dancer who dances quite differently from me, and we had a major "cultural exchange" without a word uttered. In all cases, this stayed on the line of dance.)

 

[tangoing]

She doesn't understand that choices have consequences?

Personally I don’t think she understands or has experienced the tango connection (hence why she tries to talk while dancing). She’s dabbled in other dances and most other dances have basic sequences where it’s just if lead does x step then follower does y step, so she doesn’t understand the scale of the quality of movement or the true lead/follow aspects of the dance.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

They are utterly tedious! We have an organizer here who also does coaching in workplaces. His "Let's stop the milonga to play a game!" moments shatter the evening's flow and mystique.

That would drive me nuts and I'd probably complain. Fortunately, no one does that here.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Not many AT dancers care all that much about Argentine culture. For them, tango is a dance and a musical style. They're not going to go all-in for other Argentine dances, start drinking Malbec, learn to say -ll as -j, etc. simply because they dance tango

Clearly you are in the wrong city because none of those apply here. Not only do they drink Malbec, they like, yes like, Fernet and Coke. I mean, they grew up there, have family there, live there many months out of the year, how could Argentine culture not matter to them?

 

[Tango Distance]

don't think that's disagreement. On the contrary, I think it's validation! You have this core group of old friends . . . which is no different from the core clique at a local milonga, really.

You had a contact, which means your experience was positive and friendly, but the same could be said for a local milonga, too. A contact makes it easy to join any community.

That's a good point that the encuentro regulars saw I knew some people. Another factor is the encuentroers dance more simply, so I probably looked/felt better than my usual. FWIW the follows were shocked I wouldn't be at the other days of the event.

I'm in a big city. I have lots of milongas to go to. I go to them all the time. I have an army of tango friends. I have no shortage of local dance partners. I have been a regular, visible part of this community for 12+ years, and at times a volunteer or employee on the organizational side of it.

And yet . . .

The traveling encuentro-festival-marathon crowd doesn't acknowledge my presence. The leaders do not make eye contact to let me onto the floor. The followers never look my way to be invited. When it's time to issue invitations to invitation-only events, I don't get invited. To them, I am a nonentity who only "dances local." Whereas a few newcomers who are – and I'll blunt – wealthier than me have won acceptance almost at once.
...
And to be clear, I do mean "international" and "jet set" quite literally. The people I'm talking about when I use those descriptors dance on four continents per year and are on the road 10-15 weeks annually. All are independently wealthy (market windfalls, inheritances, etc.), semi- or fully retired, or the spouses of people who are willing and able to fund their travels. I'm not talking about an American who visits a few other states, a European who drives from France to Belgium, Germany, and Italy, or whatever. I'm talking about people like my friend who was at 20+ festivals in 12+ countries last year, and who has never once talked about having a job.

I have done the little to big city transition. I'll have to write up the differences in the future.

• Why do you think you aren't getting common courtesy from the encuentroers? Here's a random thought: I try to dance with many different people. Dancing with the same follow twice in the same night is an exception, not the rule (my dear wife (DW) excepted!). One night I only made it through 1/3 of the room! Welcome to the big city! I then had better appreciation for selecting a subset to socialize/dance with -- I'm not sure it is a good idea to dance with people every 3rd milonga. I think that's pretty human, if you have a huge group, you can't be friends with 200 people, you downselect. Maybe that's all it is? Maybe they know you lack funds and are being polite that way?
• Agreed on the jet set thing -- it takes monetary means to fly around to encuentros and festivals.
• At the event I brushed against, it was very European descent centric, and everyone but one person was from (and I believe born in) USA towns. Even in my little town, and especially true now in the big city, I meet people from Korea, Philippines, Cuba, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Ukraine, and Argentina... some nights that whole list is in just one night!

 

[ralf]

I think that's pretty human, if you have a huge group, you can't be friends with 200 people, you downselect. Maybe that's all it is?

Dunbar's number

 

[Bailango]

Then you are lucky. In the past 7 days, I've been out to dance 5 times, and each time there were at least a few chatterboxes stopping to point at legs and feet, and say things like, "No, this, not that!" It drove me nuts.

That’s really crazy. Thank god this is not prevalent where I go dancing.

At practicas/practicalongas too I see the same guys trying to “teach” random followers. And these guys are among least qualified on the floor to teach anything

(I also went out a couple of nights ago and danced with two beginners who clearly didn't get things I led with a light lead – my preference – and I just led those things more emphatically without saying a word, so that they could understand. And the same evening, I danced with a more advanced dancer who dances quite differently from me, and we had a major "cultural exchange" without a word uttered. In all cases, this stayed on the line of dance.)

Last year I invited a friend who had never danced tango to a milonga. Only thing I told her was just follow what you feel. The ronda was packed. We danced a few tandas.

While she had never danced tango, she is a good salsa dancer. Disassociations, pivots, and a few things came naturally to her. So she looked good to those watching.

Years ago another friend of mine from salsa insisted I take her to tango. She has quick a reaction time to anything lead and had a good walk/posture without taking a class. In a month or two she started getting asked often by the leaders.

There are other beginner followers who could quickly follow simple steps. That makes them decent follower right from first or second time.

One common thing among all these followers was similar age range. Early thirties.