itwillhappen
Forum Master
An interesting find. We had indeed left out the possibility that women could also pay for their dance partners ("professional-amateur").
Why some women are not asked to dance
- Thread starter Ampster
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opendoor
Forum Master
I find that this tends to happen rather in secret. After an obligatory break due to illness, I'm taking private lessons with Andres Sautel, who is based in my town. But it's very difficult to get an appointment with him. An army of women cavort in the orbit of this known dancer. They don't learn tango, they already are perfect dancers. And they simply allow themselves this dancing without words. You no longer see good followers at milongas, they book a star or visit exclusive encuentros. The milonga with its lottery game has become a playground for beginners and have-nots.
This is very interesting. I can see the point of it. Pay €20 for a lacklustre milonga or pay for an hour of sublime dancing with an amazing leader.
I know a few followers, who are not of the calibre you describe, but also prefer to spend their dance budget on private lessons (and a few pairs of shoes). They don’t attend group classes, practicas or milongas. One, I spoke to recently, is deciding between two teachers for her private classes.
I hate seeing this decline in milongas. They should be THE place to dance but something is going very wrong in the execution
LadyLeader
Forum Master
How is it for leaders?
Do they withdraw at same level, time or other criteria as followers do?
Do they withdraw at same level, time or other criteria as followers do?
I try to observe for musicality in their social dancing. In the performances I only find about 20% interesting from musicality expression perspective. The rest I find bland or too athletic but uninteresting. I am not really sure what instructions think about their own musicality. It also gets harder to judge because most instructors end up social dancing with their counterpart. There are some whose musicality I admired. I first saw them social dance at milonga and later discovered they were instructor visiting. Whenever I see someone in the ronda whose musicality I find appealing, I will observe them more. Also nudge the followers I know to get a tanda with that leader. Sometimes they turn out to be a visiting instructor or a visiting dancer. When you can see someone dance with a variety of different partners and still exhibit interesting musicality, you can say that’s a good dancer. I will always try to go and compliment about what I liked in their dancing.
Okay got it. There are hardly any rank beginners at milongas I go to. So the beginners who do show up are serviceable enough. I don’t mind dancing a tanda or two with them.
Yes. This has also (sort of) been addressed here and I think elsewhere on this forum. It's a cost/benefit trade off. I'd prefer to spend more on some good teachers, learn something, and go away with lots of practice material than have a regular drip of the mediocre with the rare gem. Equally it's not possible to keep up with great new material weekly.
Having said that, certainly not averse to attending the local group(s). We don't feel exclusive or 'better'.
Again cost is becoming an increasing factor. If costs have an impact, then you choose carefully. General climate (weather) and available spaces (allowed? private 'public' space? floor? music? interest from others?) generally limit possibilities (I found an old but renovated bandstand in a park, but it was chained off due to vandalism). And sometimes the music
; old, scratchy and unpopular doesn't make it 'good'. Although personal circumstances may sometimes preclude going (haven't been back to one milonga since it restarted post-lockdown - simply been elsewhere every month when it takes place), it is about choosing somewhere with good music, a good floor, and some 'atmosphere' (which might just be old friends), or simply where there's a milonga nearby.I can see the point, so maybe leaders need to up their game to be less 'lacklustre' (despite their self-belief)
Isn’t it common for both followers and leaders to book an instructor to dance with them at a milonga. I don’t see why that can’t be extended to festivals to. I became aware of the practice of hiring instructors to dance either exclusively or for x number of tandas at milongas 8 or 9 years back.
Locally a follower who looks to be in her 50s started showing up for the milongas regularly with a young dancer who is most likely in 20s for the past six months. He dances exclusively with her almost ninety percent of the time. I had never seen him before but he is fairly good. It’s clear that he has a ballroom background. I had danced with lady late last year. She had been sitting at milongas and wasn’t getting asked much. Best way to describe her skills is advance beginner. It is know that she pays him to accompany her and dance with Herat the milongas. He is not an instructor. I guess it has worked for her since she can dances as many tandas as she wants. May be also improved her skills as almost all of her tandas are dancing with him.
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Everybody is learning all the time though. No such thing as a perfect dancer.
I like going to my regular milongas. It is about the people. Festivals however... Im on a festival right now, and there is a serious lack of good intermediate dancers. The average skill level is way lower than on the milongas at home, not worth the time.
Beginners: where I live, a small city with a university, beginners go to their first milonga within a month of starting lessons. September/October brings in lots of 20 year olds who attend classes and milongas until the exams in December/January. Then they quit because of studies. It seems that other communities have a different definition of a beginner (less than three months of class). My beginners are enthusiastic and often learn quickly but they’re not yet enjoyable to dance with.
Paid partners are not a thing where I live. Teachers sometimes dance with their private students at milongas but it’s not more than their group class students.
Paid partners are not a thing where I live. Teachers sometimes dance with their private students at milongas but it’s not more than their group class students.
I think that’s an effect of covid. When classes resumed they were focused on beginners and there was nothing for intermediate dancers. Most intermediate dancers would like a refresher course after their two year hiatus and aren’t quite ready for festivals. I’m considering a festival later in the year but my main barrier is not having a partner to sign-up with.
I dont think that is the case in this case. The intermediate dancers that i know and who attended the festivals ive been to in the past month all improved since 2019. Significantly. I think it is more that bigger festivals attract beginners.
If you are a beginner, most people are better than you, so you have a high chance of having many enjoyable partners. The longer you dance, the better the chance that the pushing, pulling, dragging, groping behavious of a randomly selected leader in a giant ronda will annoy the hell out of you.
If you are a beginner, most people are better than you, so you have a high chance of having many enjoyable partners. The longer you dance, the better the chance that the pushing, pulling, dragging, groping behavious of a randomly selected leader in a giant ronda will annoy the hell out of you.
opendoor
Forum Master
Clear, nevertheless your demands are different after the years.
Of course, but I wrote of Encuentros. Apparently you haven't been invited yet, Cabbit. The participants are handpicked, and belong to the best social dancers. You need a recommendation or many years of waiting to get in.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
To be clear: I'm only in my 10th year of tango. While I've never stopped at least weekly coaching sessions, and while I used to work part-time at a studio where I got a lot of "free stuff" and pinch-hit as teaching staff, I am not an expert. My understanding is very limited. I apologize if I write as if I think I know more. I'm just another guy!
That said, I can answer your question as "just another guy":
What we do is look at how to match posture (especially level and knee flexion), embrace (notably axis-sharing, and roundness vs. spikiness), and choice and execution (size, speed, etc.) of vocabulary to the music. We often do so in conjunction with an analysis of professional couples, some favorite match-ups being Espinoza & Hurtado, Galdi & Tarantino, Moreno & Codega, and Nadtochi & Kalganova . . . but really, almost anyone at a level where you don't see many mistakes. We look at how they stand, hug, and move to different pieces, and separate "yeah, that feels right" from "that isn't the choice I'd make." Then we try to make better choices.
Our current project is bringing a round embrace and circular vocabulary to Biagi, whose choppiness tends to bring out spikiness (Erdemsel's "Kiki") in most dancers, including pros. This rarely gets technical unless our technique needs revision to make the interpretation work better, which it hasn't lately. (Okay, I did get a mini-workshop on right arm activation to accelerate turns.)
I don't think our coach is there for validation at all; she won't take money to heap praise on people, which falls outside her personal values. To an extent she's there for evaluation, but less "you could do better, and here's where you messed up," and more as an outside eye to judge whether the interpretation fits the music well, somewhat, or not at all. She's also there to do the analysis: "Okay, I watched 60 videos of Noelia and Carlitos for you two, and here's what I took away." Unlike me, she has 30+ years of teaching tango, so her analysis is more incisive than mine ever could be.
I've done a few, too. The aforementioned Erdemsel comes to mind. But no, I'm not talking about that at all. That's all near-mathematical analysis of notes and measures and such, and "now the violins come in." Not useful to me . . . I already do that naturally.
To be clear again: I don't distinguish "musicality" from "expressing the music." They're synonyms from where I'm standing.
As do I, and I do thank my coach for the work we've done on that. Last week, a follower started crying and I said, "Oh, no! Have I hurt you?" She replied, "No, it's just that you led the emotion of that Biagi piece I always hated, and now I love it and realize I never actually danced it." This week, a follower said after a Pugliese tanda, "That was the most emotional tanda I've danced yet." She has been dancing for longer than I have been.
So, the work pays off.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Whereas I find musicians roundly terrible for expressing music in movement. Most aren't dancers . . . I was the general factotum for so many live tango events back when I worked for the studio, and I was stunned at how few tango musicians are tango dancers. They can give you pointers on music, but musicality is how to set the physicality of two bodies moving across a floor to the mood of a piece, and a person who cannot dance can't help you there.
Also, I dance with a few musicians. They seem to be prisoners of the math of the piece. They don't like to play around and between notes. They're too busy trying to mark the notes themselves all the time.