4585  Social vs. Stage Classes

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:07:19 -0400
From: "tangosmith@cox.net" <tangosmith@cox.net>
Subject: [Tango-L] Social vs. Stage Classes
To: tango-l@mit.edu


Several instructors here have expressed understandable frustration with
students whose expectations are to be taught more flamboyant steps.

Has anyone considered restructuring the format of the classes they offer?
Instead of the usual beginner, intermediate, and advanced, perhaps a more
useful and appropriate divide would be between social and
stage/performance. The performance class could be told that the steps they
would learn were not danced in social settings and that they would not see
them nor would they be appropriate in milongas. If that was what the
student was interested in, then so be it. Instructors could teach them
steps until their money ran out.

Social classes could be directly focused on producing dancers for milongas,
with topics such as walking, connection, floorcraft, and musicality.
Turnover might be higher (hopefully) among these students but if the
instructor was being successful at producing good milonga dancers, word of
mouth would insure a ready supply of new students.

Has anyone tried this type of approach? (With perhaps a very basic 101
class directed at all students new to dancing could also be offered prior
to taking either track.) I also suspect some students might end up taking
both tracks.

There is some precedence for this approach. In my experience, in Lindy
swing, aerial classes (jumps, drops, twirls, etc.) are always taught
completely separate from social dancing. In every aerial class I have
attended, the instructors have emphasized that the steps are not for social
dances, only for jams or performances. Most have a requirement for a
certain level of proficiency at social dancing before attending.

WBSmith


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Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:32:37 -0500
From: "Ron Weigel" <tango.society@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Social vs. Stage Classes
To: tangosmith@cox.net
Cc: tango-l@mit.edu
<cff24c340608230632j8c52c95x78b8d3ebdec7529a@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/23/06, tangosmith@cox.net <tangosmith@cox.net> wrote:

>
> Has anyone considered restructuring the format of the classes they offer?
> Instead of the usual beginner, intermediate, and advanced, perhaps a more
> useful and appropriate divide would be between social and
> stage/performance. The performance class could be told that the steps they
> would learn were not danced in social settings and that they would not see
> them nor would they be appropriate in milongas. If that was what the
> student was interested in, then so be it. Instructors could teach them
> steps until their money ran out.
>
> Social classes could be directly focused on producing dancers for milongas,
> with topics such as walking, connection, floorcraft, and musicality.
> Turnover might be higher (hopefully) among these students but if the
> instructor was being successful at producing good milonga dancers, word of
> mouth would insure a ready supply of new students.

One problem here is defining what is and what is not appropriate for
milongas. In some communities lifting a woman off the floor and
twirling her around in the air occurs at milongas and is accepted by a
significant proportion of the community as as premissable if not
downright appropriate. ('Expressive' is often the euphemism used to
describe this type of dancing.)

In Buenos Aires ganchos are almost never seen. I don't even remember
seeing arrastres, unless they were very subtle. Same for calesitas.
For some reason high boleos abound everywhere, sometimes even at
crowded milongas in Buenos Aires.

So drawing the line between stage and social tango will vary from
community to community.

Even if you teach some version of tango that is presumably 'just for
the stage', what is to stop people from dancing this way at the
milongas?

And as long as stage performers from Argentina are repeatedly invited
to your community to give their popular workshops teaching their stage
moves, what is to stop people from imitating them on the milonga dance
floor?

If you are going to teach tango for the stage - really - shouldn't it
be done demanding all of the quality of dancing needed for a good
performance? It should be taught as ballet is taught, with all of the
necessary technique.

I think the problem stated previously is that instructors are
approached by beginning students wanting to learn steps, not
recognizing the need for partner connection, musicality, and
navigational skills first and that tango is centered around
improvisation not memorized sequences. It is not unusual for Susana
and me to have our beginners asking when they are going to learn
'gauchos' (sic) and 'kicks'. It is their concept of tango, from
exposure to the media at the very least. As an instructor you can
decide that students are consumers and give them what they demand, or
you can decide to teach the way you want students to dance.

The problem of generating good social dancers in a community is an
ever present one. It's a lot easier to have students memorize some
patterns that look flashy and talented to the uninitiated than to
follow the much more difficult path of training students to have good
technique and musicality. There will be a lot of people who teach
steps, many of whom do not hold formal classes, but do teach on the
milonga dance floor, offering their knowledge for free. If one
instructor does not meet demand, another will.

The only way to keep anti-social dancers off the dance floor is to
have private milongas, by invitation only. This is itself would be
considered anti-social at the community level.

This is not meant to be pessimistic. It's just the playing field we
are dealing with. I don't think we will find a solution as long as
there are suppliers of the demand, or the demand changes. Changing
demand won't be possible as long as television, movies, stage
performances and the like are the main entry point for interest in
tango.

Ron

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:29:09 -0400
From: Jeff Gaynor <jjg@jqhome.net>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Social vs. Stage Classes
To: tango-l@mit.edu

Ron Weigel wrote:
<snip/>

>The problem of generating good social dancers in a community is an
>ever present one. It's a lot easier to have students memorize some
>patterns that look flashy and talented to the uninitiated than to
>follow the much more difficult path of training students to have good
>technique and musicality.
>

You say it like its a bad thing. ;-) What perpetuates bad dancing, I
think, is that bad dancers have a different agenda completely than you
do. They do it to look cool and impress their friends plus they want to
have fun. The hard work it takes to learn a system of movement with the
appropriate stylistic constraints is the antithesis of fun. In short,
they are getting out of it what they want and will view your insistence
they should do something else as odd at best, partisan at worst. Add in
a healthy does of cultural confusion (how likely is it that they've seen
good tango in the first place?) plus mediocre teachers and you have your
mess.

I really think that a lot of discussions on this list miss the point
that the bad dancers have a different definition of success and feel
that by and large they have met it. This should be taken into account...
As long as they are succeeding, pleading with them to change will always
fall on deaf ears.

On option I would suggest (which works from another, non-tango
situation) is to have a performance class and treat it as a performing
art. This will let you lecture people on good vs. bad tango, plus give
them a way to pull off a real show-stopping demo if they want to wow
their friends (and yes they do). This gives you a context in which to
tell them that figure X is really completely tacky without embarrassing
them. It also lets them mull over issues like choreography, costuming,
lighting and makes them understand *why* stage tango looks the way it
does and would go a long way to dispelling the notion that people dance
like that.

Cheers,

Jeff