1235 Community Size and Growth
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 11:30:23 -0500
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Community Size and Growth
This discussion started in the Tango Talk section of Tango Noticias
<https://www.tangonoticias.com/>, an online tango magazine based in
Chicago, but it maybe of wider interest.
Many people express concern about the size and growth of their tango
community. At some point, any tango community is going to stop growing.
There is a natural attrition rate from a given community. When the
teachers are producing new dancers at the same rate at which people
naturally drop out, a tango community stops growing. A number of factors,
both internal and external determine how large the community will be when
it stops growing.
The ability of the instructors to put tango dancers in milongas and the
friendliness of the community to newcomers might be considered internal
factors that affect the size of a community. What might be overlooked in
thinking about the frienliness of the community is that newcomers will
partially base their decision about dancing tango on how compatible they
might be with the people who are already in the community. The core group
of people determine what kind of people are subsequently attracted to the
community.
Another factor is the vigor of the tango seed that was planted in the
community. Daniel Trenner, Michael and Luren, Orlando Paiva, Danel and
Maria, Nora Dinzelbacher and local organizers such as Barbara Garvey,
contributed greatly to the initial development of tango in various cities.
Daniel Trenner was particularly successful in Denver and several other
cities. Michael and Luren were particularly successful in Santa Fe.
In thinking about the internal factors, it is easy to forget about the
external/environmental factors that affect low large of a tango community
might be expected in a city. These may actually be more important.
Demographics and lifestyle have a lot to do with how successful tango will
be. I think one can predict how large a tango community will grow in a
city on the basis of three major factors: interest in physical pursuits
and fitness, tradition in participatory arts, and adults aged 30+ who do
not have children at home.
Portland, Oregon and the San Francicso Bay Area are strong on all three.
Santa Fe, NM is also strong in all three, but it is a very small city.
When you consider the number of tango dancers relative to the population,
Santa Fe looks very strong in Argentine tango.
The San Francisco Bay Area raises an interesting questions about
geographically dispersed areas. When tango first began in the San
Francisco Bay Area, the original core group of tango dancers would travel
all over the SF Bay Area to dance. As tango grew, most of the newcomers
began staying closer to home to dance. Consequently, the Bay Area has
broken into at least seven different tango communities--probably more if
you count personal factions. I would guess that the same phenomenon is at
work in Los Angeles and other cities with geographically dispersed
populations.
Another issue in community development is the number of
milongas/practicas. When many people want to help expand their community,
but are not teaching tango, they begin to think about adding milongas and
practicas. The result is that many communities have too many milongas or
practicas--which actually discourages attendance. When there are too many
milongas and practicas, attendance falls below critical mass at many
events, and people begin wondering which events they should attend, and
then do something else.
As an example, Susan and I hosted a practica on Thursday for many years.
Someone else added a Wednesday practica, and attendance at our practica
fell to less than half, but the new practica had limited attendance.
People stopped going to practicas, and several told me they did not know
which practica to attend. When the Wednesday night practica was dropped
for lack of attendance, attendance at our Thursday practica more than
doubled immediately.
With best regards,
Steve
Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
https://www.tejastango.com/
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 11:41:10 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <Stermitz@RAGTIME.ORG>
Subject: Re: Community Size and Growth
I agree that a newcomer looking in on a tango scene is more likely to
stay if they see "people like themselves having a good time". So
community issues are probably dominant in the long run.
Demographics.
I think most big cities have the "kind of people who might like
tango". Probably liberal college towns have a higher density of these
people, but in absolute terms big cities surely have a large number
of potential addicts.
Boston & Washington DC are good examples of intellectual,
cosmopolitan cities with a lot of tango.
There are four phases or transitions in joining a community:
1 Marketing/outreach to 1st class
2 1st class to 1st monthly series
3 1st month to 1st year of dedication
4 1st year to ongoing, active community member.
External demographics only helps with item number one.
The welcome and "fun factor" of the community is important
everywhere, but it starts to be the dominant factor by stage 4, and
is certainly the issue in terms of people not quitting.
In between, it is highly dependent on the local teachers
800 people per year!?
The annoying thing is to realize how many people start tango, but
quit. (I keep track of these things...okay, so I'm an engineer...)
A retention rate of 5% through these transitions is not atypical To
grow 40 per year, means you filter through 800 people. If you have 10
teachers, that is 4 new community members per teacher...probably in
the real world some teachers produce 1 per year and others produce 10
or 20.
In this light, Daniel Trenner's retention ability and his students'
eventual graduation to the community is truly extraordinary. I've
seen it in Denver on the order of 25%. 80 people in beginner classes,
20 of them stuck for the long-term...they're still in tango 8 years
later.
If all the teachers could double their success rate, then I guess our
communities would be twice as big.
Walk 'em for an hour or until they quit!
Some teachers are highly entertaining and inspirational, others are
highly analytical and technical. Some prepare the students to succeed
on the social dance floor, others teach patterns that simply don't
work when they go out to dance.
Much of a teacher's success is personality dependent, but there are
large differences in teaching methodologies. It isn't about "showing
them how to do tango", anyone can do that. A good teacher has a
strategy to enable the student to succeed.
--
Tom Stermitz
https://www.tango.org/
stermitz@tango.org
303-388-2560
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 13:20:44 -0500
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Re: Community Size and Growth
Tom raises some interesting points:
>Demographics.
>I think most big cities have the "kind of people who might like
>tango". Probably liberal college towns have a higher density of
>these people, but in absolute terms big cities surely have a
>large number of potential addicts.
I agree with Tom that big cities have a lot of potential tango dancers,
but I do not think all cities are created equal in this respect. Denver
and Boulder have roughly the same tango history and many of the same
teachers, but tango has drawn a much higher percentage of the population
in Boulder.
>[C]ommunity issues are probably dominant in the long run.
Community issues are important
"people like themselves having a good time"
How much like the potential dancers like the core group of dancers in the
community?
New dancers are difficult to cultivate among the people who cannot
identify with people in the core group.
>1 Marketing/outreach to 1st class
>2 1st class to 1st monthly series
>3 1st month to 1st year of dedication
>4 1st year to ongoing, active community member.
>External demographics only helps with item number one.
Demographics and other external factors not only determine the potential
size of the market, but it can affect retention. Teachers preparing their
students for milongas and the openess of the community to neophytes also
have a great impact on retention.
>A retention rate of 5% through these transitions is not atypical.
>In this light, Daniel Trenner's retention ability and his students'
>eventual graduation to the community is truly extraordinary. I've
>seen it in Denver on the order of 25%.
As tango communities develop they become less inviting to neophytes. When
tango begins in a community, all that is required to attend a milonga is
an interest in tango. Gradually, as people learn to dance tango and then
have been dancing for years, the difference in dance skills between a
neophyte dancer and established members of the community grows
significantly. In most U.S. cities, today's neophyte has a much steeper
hill to climb to acceptability than someone who started in tango 5, 10 or
15 years ago. The steepness of this climb will reduce the retention rate.
With best regards,
Steve
Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
https://www.tejastango.com/
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 10:54:17 -0800
From: Dan Boccia <redfox@ALASKA.NET>
Subject: Re: Community Size and Growth
There's a lot more to this than the teachers...
I think THE biggest hurdle that many communities have is the lack of a consistently good milonga every week, in a socially & aesthetically attractive venue, with good acoustics, a management staff that understands how to run a club/dance hall, GREAT music, and generally a place that people love to return to time and time again. You can teach all you want, if there's nowhere to dance, people will lose interest. Create a socially enjoyable place to go, meet your friends, enjoy some dancing, maybe have a drink or a bite to eat.....
Basically I prefer to attract people than push them. A never-ending avalanche of lessons, work, practice, etc. is not very attractive to me as a dancer. I need good, compelling music, a nice energetic, enjoyable place to dance, and if that exists, I'll seek out lessons so I can improve my enjoyment of the dance. I never start by taking lessons.
This is how I started dancing in the first place, in the blues/rhythm & blues/rock-n-roll bars, grooving to those fat-fingered guitarists, got into cajun dancing (still a favorite), etc. The music does it every time - and there was always a nice place to dance with good energy. Same thing with tango, my first weekend of tango ever was marked by great energy, great music, cool places to dance, amazing milongas - it was also an instructional weekend, but I remember the dancing much more than the instruction. And I came home with a firm idea of where I was going with the dance, that has remained unchanged to this day.
Let's put more emphasis on enjoying the dance - put more energy into finding great places to dance, encouraging the DJs, encouraging the musicians, etc. Put some good, positive energy out there, and do it because you love it.
Dan Boccia
Anchorage, AK
----- Original Message -----
Date: Monday, May 5, 2003 9:41 am
Subject: Re: [TANGO-L] Community Size and Growth
> I agree that a newcomer looking in on a tango scene is more likely to
> stay if they see "people like themselves having a good time". So
> community issues are probably dominant in the long run.
>
>
> Demographics.
>
> I think most big cities have the "kind of people who might like
> tango". Probably liberal college towns have a higher density of these
> people, but in absolute terms big cities surely have a large number
> of potential addicts.
>
> Boston & Washington DC are good examples of intellectual,
> cosmopolitan cities with a lot of tango.
>
>
> There are four phases or transitions in joining a community:
>
> 1 Marketing/outreach to 1st class
> 2 1st class to 1st monthly series
> 3 1st month to 1st year of dedication
> 4 1st year to ongoing, active community member.
>
> External demographics only helps with item number one.
>
> The welcome and "fun factor" of the community is important
> everywhere, but it starts to be the dominant factor by stage 4, and
> is certainly the issue in terms of people not quitting.
>
> In between, it is highly dependent on the local teachers
>
>
> 800 people per year!?
>
> The annoying thing is to realize how many people start tango, but
> quit. (I keep track of these things...okay, so I'm an engineer...)
>
> A retention rate of 5% through these transitions is not atypical To
> grow 40 per year, means you filter through 800 people. If you have 10
> teachers, that is 4 new community members per teacher...probably in
> the real world some teachers produce 1 per year and others produce 10
> or 20.
>
> In this light, Daniel Trenner's retention ability and his students'
> eventual graduation to the community is truly extraordinary. I've
> seen it in Denver on the order of 25%. 80 people in beginner classes,
> 20 of them stuck for the long-term...they're still in tango 8 years
> later.
>
> If all the teachers could double their success rate, then I guess our
> communities would be twice as big.
>
>
> Walk 'em for an hour or until they quit!
>
> Some teachers are highly entertaining and inspirational, others are
> highly analytical and technical. Some prepare the students to succeed
> on the social dance floor, others teach patterns that simply don't
> work when they go out to dance.
>
> Much of a teacher's success is personality dependent, but there are
> large differences in teaching methodologies. It isn't about "showing
> them how to do tango", anyone can do that. A good teacher has a
> strategy to enable the student to succeed.
>
>
> --
>
> Tom Stermitz
> https://www.tango.org/
> stermitz@tango.org
> 303-388-2560
>
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 16:01:54 -0700
From: Rick FromPortland <pruneshrub04@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Community Size and Growth
I can't say I know the answers to the following. I usually say something vague in these cases, like: "sometimes questions are more important than answers". I'm wondering if Tango is immune from fads that I've seen other dancing go through? Lindy Hop Swing got a big boost from a GAP commerical I think in the 90s, attracted a bunch of new dancers & then settled down to a lower # of regular dancers. Country-Western went through something similar, as perhaps Salsa did as well.
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 17:09:56 -0600
From: Russell E Bauer <russell_bauer@LYCOS.COM>
Subject: Re: Community Size and Growth
I'm just like Dan. It's the music that gets me and pulls me in. I've been dancing my whole life. I love music and I love dancing to music that I love. I love tango music along with salsa, rock n roll, blues, and much more. If music is playing that I don't like much, I find it very hard to dance.
But, I think there are lots of people in tango that don't particularly like tango music. I don't understand how they can get themselves to dance. And I don't really understand what attracted them to the tango dance, then. I guess some people are interested in the figures, the connection or close embrace with their partner, etc. For me it's the music.
I think there are a large number of people who don't care much for the music in the Denver tango community.
The teachers, the DJ and the venue for the milonga all have an effect on the size of the community, but more than that they act like filters to filter out some kinds of people while being attractive to others.
And in Denver, darn it, I think we filtered out many people like Dan Boccia. People who simply love music and love tango music and love to dance.
Raul
Denver, CO
--
On Mon, 5 May 2003 10:54:17
Dan Boccia wrote:
>There's a lot more to this than the teachers...
>
>I think THE biggest hurdle that many communities have is the lack of a consistently good milonga every week, in a socially & aesthetically attractive venue, with good acoustics, a management staff that understands how to run a club/dance hall, GREAT music, and generally a place that people love to return to time and time again. You can teach all you want, if there's nowhere to dance, people will lose interest. Create a socially enjoyable place to go, meet your friends, enjoy some dancing, maybe have a drink or a bite to eat.....
>
>Basically I prefer to attract people than push them. A never-ending avalanche of lessons, work, practice, etc. is not very attractive to me as a dancer. I need good, compelling music, a nice energetic, enjoyable place to dance, and if that exists, I'll seek out lessons so I can improve my enjoyment of the dance. I never start by taking lessons.
>
>This is how I started dancing in the first place, in the blues/rhythm & blues/rock-n-roll bars, grooving to those fat-fingered guitarists, got into cajun dancing (still a favorite), etc. The music does it every time - and there was always a nice place to dance with good energy. Same thing with tango, my first weekend of tango ever was marked by great energy, great music, cool places to dance, amazing milongas - it was also an instructional weekend, but I remember the dancing much more than the instruction. And I came home with a firm idea of where I was going with the dance, that has remained unchanged to this day.
>
>Let's put more emphasis on enjoying the dance - put more energy into finding great places to dance, encouraging the DJs, encouraging the musicians, etc. Put some good, positive energy out there, and do it because you love it.
>
>Dan Boccia
>Anchorage, AK
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Tom Stermitz <Stermitz@RAGTIME.ORG>
>Date: Monday, May 5, 2003 9:41 am
>Subject: Re: [TANGO-L] Community Size and Growth
>
>> I agree that a newcomer looking in on a tango scene is more likely to
>> stay if they see "people like themselves having a good time". So
>> community issues are probably dominant in the long run.
>>
>>
>> Demographics.
>>
>> I think most big cities have the "kind of people who might like
>> tango". Probably liberal college towns have a higher density of these
>> people, but in absolute terms big cities surely have a large number
>> of potential addicts.
>>
>> Boston & Washington DC are good examples of intellectual,
>> cosmopolitan cities with a lot of tango.
>>
>>
>> There are four phases or transitions in joining a community:
>>
>> 1 Marketing/outreach to 1st class
>> 2 1st class to 1st monthly series
>> 3 1st month to 1st year of dedication
>> 4 1st year to ongoing, active community member.
>>
>> External demographics only helps with item number one.
>>
>> The welcome and "fun factor" of the community is important
>> everywhere, but it starts to be the dominant factor by stage 4, and
>> is certainly the issue in terms of people not quitting.
>>
>> In between, it is highly dependent on the local teachers
>>
>>
>> 800 people per year!?
>>
>> The annoying thing is to realize how many people start tango, but
>> quit. (I keep track of these things...okay, so I'm an engineer...)
>>
>> A retention rate of 5% through these transitions is not atypical To
>> grow 40 per year, means you filter through 800 people. If you have 10
>> teachers, that is 4 new community members per teacher...probably in
>> the real world some teachers produce 1 per year and others produce 10
>> or 20.
>>
>> In this light, Daniel Trenner's retention ability and his students'
>> eventual graduation to the community is truly extraordinary. I've
>> seen it in Denver on the order of 25%. 80 people in beginner classes,
>> 20 of them stuck for the long-term...they're still in tango 8 years
>> later.
>>
>> If all the teachers could double their success rate, then I guess our
>> communities would be twice as big.
>>
>>
>> Walk 'em for an hour or until they quit!
>>
>> Some teachers are highly entertaining and inspirational, others are
>> highly analytical and technical. Some prepare the students to succeed
>> on the social dance floor, others teach patterns that simply don't
>> work when they go out to dance.
>>
>> Much of a teacher's success is personality dependent, but there are
>> large differences in teaching methodologies. It isn't about "showing
>> them how to do tango", anyone can do that. A good teacher has a
>> strategy to enable the student to succeed.
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Tom Stermitz
>> https://www.tango.org/
>> stermitz@tango.org
>> 303-388-2560
>>
>
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