Here in the UK, you often hear the accusation of snobbery, or elitism or unfriendliness levelled at some tango dancers, or certain milongas. You may be able to testify to this if you have danced away from your local scene, alone, in a place where you are unknown. At one dance away several women whispered warnings to me, “this is a notoriously unfriendly milonga” and “It can take years here!”. I don't think the organiser intends at all for it to be an élitist place. One man described it simply as a "candy store for the guys" which implies at least a lot of choice for the guys and competition among the women. It is all perspective.
Talk to social dancers generally and you soon hear that tango dancers have a reputation for elitism and unfriendliness in the wider dance world. It was recently put to me by a tango dancer that dancing tango is essentially an egotistical activity, full of people seeking that high, and sometimes being quite ruthless about it. Is that true? Ambitious dancers are not unknown, people keen to be seen or people anxious not to spoil their reputation by dancing with those who might show them to poor advantage. People dance with each other for all sorts of reasons, some obvious, some unguessable but it is often heard that some dancers will not dance with people who want to dance with them, or simply that they have a reputation for being very choosy. Tango dancing, like love, can be an unrequited affair.
This can be reflected in the way people sit - the experienced group, the beginners, the somewhere-in-the-middle and the consciously unaffiliated. Or you see it in milongas: that’s the milonga for the experienced dancers, that’s the one where they don’t take it as seriously, the level at that one is very accessible. I’ve even heard of towns in the UK where the milongas for beginners and experienced dancers are segregated. Why is tango dancing more stratified, socially?
If people naturally grouped themselves socially, by experience or ability, you would expect to see it in all social dances, in ceilidhs, Scottish Country Dances, swing, old time - all dances with a long social tradition and yet go along and I will surprised if you don’t often find people welcoming and helpful. Stratification is a function of classes and of ambition, status and things of that sort , but by no means is it a necessary consequence of experience. Socially, people usually sit and talk to people, they, well, like to sit and talk to. Which people choose depends to some extent on where their emphasis lies.
One thing that makes dancing tango different from other dances in which you find a class/pedagogic and a social element is that it begins with an embrace and is about moving together. Neither of these things are completely true of all other social, partner dances. Dancing tango is a close encounter. Not everyone wants to embrace everyone else or move as one with them.
Among tango dancers I was surprised to find, not a majority, but still, a sizeable number of experienced dancers who believe that everyone has to make their own way through “the levels”, the way they did. This is the “it will be as hard for you as it was for me” school of thought. People who believe this will hang on to this view with surprising tenacity, even if they acknowledge that today's new dancers will become tomorrows experienced dancers and may not thank them for their early lack of support. The notion is that everyone will either drop out and if they do it’s no loss, or they will join the experienced club, and adopt the same tough line. It is an idea compatible with the related thought that learning is what you do in class and practica, and that dancing is what you do in the milonga. In this mindset, that there is as much or more to learn through dancing and watching and chatting in the milonga is a foreign notion.
I met a couple from abroad visiting the UK who mentioned the poor quality of dancing in their town yet refused to dance with new dancers there, presumably preferring to dance away instead. This attitude isn’t the case for everybody, of course, but where it is true, it isn’t therefore surprising that you do find groups of experienced people, sharing the same view, who won’t dance with new people, who sit together which then taints the milongas with a reputation for unfriendliness. This is a behavioural attitude and one that is against social learning. It isn’t a fact about tango dancing.
For many others, dancing the dances you want to dance and at the same time including in that new people and visitors, where there is a mutual desire to dance, are not incompatible ideas. It is not at all the same as saying dance out of duty, dance a dance you'd actually rather not through ideas of kindness, helpfulness, being welcoming (or god forbid, “generosity”). That seems contradictory and misplaced because if you forced yourself to dance merely from these ideas, a partner might pick up on this and the whole situation could become rather strained as the truth dawned on them that the dance stemmed from charity rather than a desire to dance with them.
Dance because you want to. Good dancing is about enjoyment, shared pleasure. What it comes down to is where and how you find pleasure.
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