120 beginners at milongas
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 00:57:39 EDT
From: Shirley Kwan <SKisaichi@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: beginners at milongas
Sarah la Rocca wrote:
>I maintain that beginners aren't idiots. You may be a beginner at tango,
>but
>you are not a beginner at life. If someone or something makes you feel
>bad,
>uncomfortable or compromised than it IS wrong and you need to take the
>responsibility for yourself and get out of there.
Amen!
A couple of weeks ago, a stranger appeared out of the blue, said he just had
his first tango lessons, and would I care to dance. I did, we did, and boy
oh boy! I accused him of being a dance professional and he didn't
disagree--just smiled and said, I dance a lot of salsa! I don't salsa. I
swear, it didn't matter and I didn't care. I'm STILL reeling. Never saw him
again. Yes, I'd say life translated very well in his case!
shirley kwan
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 17:37:06 +0900
From: astrid <astrid@RUBY.PLALA.OR.JP>
Subject: Re: beginners at milongas
he just had
> his first tango lessons, and would I care to dance. I did, we did, and
boy
> oh boy! ..he said, I dance a lot of salsa Yes, I'd say life translated
very well in his case!
>
Shirley, the secret of this magic is: an experienced dancer already has
posture and balance.
The same basically goes for someone who does martial arts like karate,
kung-fu etc. I once, for lack of anyone else, asked a karate blue belt to
practise the walk with me. He had never danced tango, nor any other dance.
Still he felt better than most other beginners, who are not aware of their
axis yet.
Astrid
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 12:15:51 -0500
From: "Berger, Sherwin" <Sberger@RTICO.COM>
Subject: FW: beginners at milongas
My 2 cents worth! There are beginners at Tango, and then there are beginners
at dancing. If your partner is already a Salsa or Swing dancer who is
beginning to learn Tango, she will obviously be much more responsive to your
lead than someone who has never danced close with a partner before.
As an intermediate dancer and enjoying Tango whenever I can, I can have fun
dancing with most everyone (unless of course they have an attitude). By the
completion of one basic salida, it becomes obvious to me whether to or not
to dare lead anything fancy with my present partner. If I think I can't, I
keep it simple. What I'm saying is that the follower sets the limits.
Sherwin Berger
Chicago Argentine Tango Club
-----Original Message-----
From: Shirley Kwan [mailto:SKisaichi@AOL.COM]
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 4:58 AM
To: TANGO-L@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: beginners at milongas
Sarah la Rocca wrote:
>I maintain that beginners aren't idiots. You may be a beginner at tango,
>but
>you are not a beginner at life. If someone or something makes you feel
>bad,
>uncomfortable or compromised than it IS wrong and you need to take the
>responsibility for yourself and get out of there.
Amen!
A couple of weeks ago, a stranger appeared out of the blue, said he just had
his first tango lessons, and would I care to dance. I did, we did, and boy
oh boy! I accused him of being a dance professional and he didn't
disagree--just smiled and said, I dance a lot of salsa! I don't salsa. I
swear, it didn't matter and I didn't care. I'm STILL reeling. Never saw
him
again. Yes, I'd say life translated very well in his case!
shirley kwan
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 11:56:06 -0700
From: JC Dill <tango@VO.CNCHOST.COM>
Subject: Re: beginners at milongas
On 01:37 AM 7/27/01, astrid wrote:
>he just had
>> his first tango lessons, and would I care to dance. I did, we did, and
>boy
>> oh boy! ..he said, I dance a lot of salsa Yes, I'd say life translated
>very well in his case!
>>
>Shirley, the secret of this magic is: an experienced dancer already has
>posture and balance.
And knows what a "lead" is and how to give one (although he needs to learn
different *types* of leads, he doesn't need to learn "to lead"), and how to
move with the music and to lead the partner *before* the beat of the music
so that they arrive on the beat, on time and together.
When a leader already knows those things from another dance style, as long
as he's open to learning a new frame and new lead style (rather than wedded
to his former frame and lead style) he can become a very good AT leader in
next to no time at all. I had the pleasure of being the partner for a
friend who is a good leader in WCS who took an 8 week AT class and at the
end of the class session he was as good as most "intermediate" AT dancers
in our area (although he didn't know as many moves as those who have been
dancing far longer, obviously).
jc
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:42:52 EDT
From: Crrtango@aol.com
Subject: [Tango-L] Milongas
To: tango-l@mit.edu
Greetings,
It is possible to make money from milongas but as Gulden says you probably
need 40 - 50 people. He is mistaken however about not even big cities having
that many people, at least in New York, because many milongas here have that
many. Some here have up to 100 or more people and have even gone to 200 or more on
special occasions. It depends on the critical mass of dancers in your
community. We had too many milongas for that mass for several years but now the
community is quite large. In other words, don't create too many too soon or get too
competitive. That will only dilute all of them. I ran Danel and Maria's
milonga often when I was working with them. It was not unusual to see 80 people on
a bad night and 100 or more on a good one. It is still about basic business
principles. Cost versus profit. But it is not just about business.
One big problem is the level of dancing. Too many people start milongas who
are mediocre dancers and so the classes they teach just reflect that and they
tend to attract other mediocre dancers and the good ones shy away.
Another problem is the music. Too many people get too creative with the music
choices and don't follow the structure of tandas or play too many
"alternative" tangos. I don't return to milongas if I hear ten tangos in a row without
waltzes or milongas or too much non-tango music. It really kills the mood if the
tangos just go and on without a break to waltz or do milongas.
Yes, it is a labor of love often but it can be profitable. But one should not
do it just thinking about the money but also about the dancing. If there are
good dancers, that will attract others. Many milongas here start with some
gimmick or some cool new restaurant, which usually is not doing much business on
one night so they offer their space for dancing. With exceptions, they often
don't make it.
A lilttle decoration doesn't hurt, and a little food and beverage provided
with the cover but don't get carried away with the expensive natural or organic
goodies. Get simple cheap stuff. People are there to dance, not feast. You
don't need musicians but you do need a good DJ or at least a CD structured into
tandas.
Don't get too casual about dress. Why go out to dance if you are wearing the
same jeans you had on during the day and for god's sake men (because you are
the main culprits), take a little pride in your personal hygiene. Leave the
sweaty t-shirts home, put on a coat once in a while. People think tango is a
very cool thing to know but dress like they are raking the yard.
In other words don't do it as an entrepreneur, but as an aficionado of the
dance.
cheers,
Charles
See what's free at
http://www.aol.com.
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:26:12 EDT
From: Crrtango@aol.com
Subject: [Tango-L] milongas
First,
my apologies to Gulden. Since I am not on the list regularly, I failed to
take note of her gender.
But as to the other arguments, no, I was not talking about monthly milongas,
but our regular weekly ones, and numbers are from the local attendees, not the
out-of-town visitors. Since I have personally danced tango, taught here and
ran milongas myself here for more than ten years, at least, I think I am
familiar with the scene. I was just clarifying that your numbers are not typical of
New York numbers, but maybe of other large cities. But having said that, we
have small club milongas and we have large dance-school milongas and we have
large dance-hall milongas but the attendance numbers are typical. There were a
few milongas with more than 100 people attending long before the All-Night
Milonga. Danel's and Maria's weekly milonga at Pierre Dulaine Studios often had
80-100 people and that stopped two or three years ago. Attendance numbers are
subject to the size of the space of course, but we have good turnouts because we
have a large number of dancers. We also go later into the night than most
places. It was not unusual to see dancers ending the night to Pugliese at Danel
and Maria's at 3:00 AM.
Again, New York is not typical, but my point was that it was not unusual to
reach those numbers if the conditions are right. You also have to be patient
and let it grow. But be careful about having too many competing dances if you
don't have enough dancers to sustain them. We have a lot of tango
aficionados here, lots of practicas, lots of milongas, and as many native Argentine
dancers and teachers alone, as there are total dancers in some other smaller
communities. My numbers are not from isolated exceptions. Come for a couple of
weeks and see for yourself. That's why we like it here.
We have also had many milongas come and go often for the reasons I outlined -
bad music, bad venue, expensive food or drink prices, weird neighborhood to
get to, maybe the place went out of business, etc.
But my larger point was about setting up a good venue and having good music
and paying attention to other issues and not just the economics. Scale down if
you don't have the numbers but provide a good dance.
cheers,
Charles
See what's free at
http://www.aol.com.
