Ampster,
I don't have a shortage of teachers. I have a shortage of pupils intersted in them. At least in the Berlin area traditional Tano sells badly at the moment. Many teachers have tried and moved on. This has many reasons. One of those is, in my opinion, that the majority of active dancers prefer the Nuevo style. This group is well connected and dominates the large parts of the tango scene and it is inventing it's own kind of tango. Their system of public relation in regard of their target group is superb. They are young, hip and avantgarde, at least they are pretty good at communicating that. The hippest place at the moment is named
Tango tanzen macht schön –
Dancing Tango makes you beautiful. Please, don't get me wrong, I don’t think that they are doing anything wrong or that they are to blame for the situation for the more traditional orientated dancers.
In fact the are doing many things right and traditional dancers, have now to wake up and learn a little about marketing and targeting a customer group. We need to find and promote our values, in a positive way and we shouldn't be shy about it. It’s time to stop worrying about other styles and to start to enjoy dancing again. Providing good reliable service on a
continuous basis sees to be the key to respark the interest in traditional tango.
And it is working, but slowly. It took for me about a year to have my Milonga accepted. Should I ever gain any direct profit of it, I may hire a DJ. Last Saturday I’ve been invited to the birtday Milonga of Augutso, who provides another wonderful Milonga. That night was also the 1. anniversary of the Milonga. It’s held at the Gutsmuths sport club and has the typical charm of an Argentine improvised neighborhood milonga. (He plays mixed music, in a rather traditional style setting. If you are around Berlin, go and visit it!
Gutsmuths Milonga) It took him quite some time to gather some followers as well and it is more a work of love and dedication than of profit.
With more than 90 residential teachers and half a dozen foreign ones visiting each month, one week of workshops has little impact on the community. Nothing against Detlef and Melinda, but neither El Flaco Dany (a true Milonguero) nor el Pulpo (one of the not so known initiators of Nuevo) raised much interested. Even Naveira was looked at but not listen to. Just hitting the town, show your stuff and move on, doesn't work anymore. The people want to experience Tango, the want to be seduced to the old values, carfully. Maybe some are even afraid to admit that the like the old recordings, that they like to wear a suit or an evening gown and that their body is rather in shape for Milonguero than for a high linear boleo. They are afraid to be outdated.
If however the atmosphere is right some will try that outdated stuff and some will discover that they like it. The stuff is not outdated it’s classic. Now, some dancers, who dance ten years or more discover that they know very little about dancing in close space or to the music. The need to rethink their cross, their ochos their whole technical repertoire. I would need persons who constantly lure the onlookers into traditional tango and encourage them on their way, not for a week but for years – and for very little money in the beginning.
Maybe we don’t need more teachers but more authors, movie makers, stage directors in favor for traditional tango.
