Tango, trouble and "disrespect"

At the end of February, The Courier newspaper which circulates to about 50,000 in the central region of Scotland, published an article about the tango social dance I run in Perth.  Although it was a "Lifestyle" person-centered piece and I dislike that kind of attention, I did it because I wanted to publicise the new (not-for-profit) milonga I had started here.  also also wanted to say why I thought learning to dance socially was entirely possible, indeed preferable, to learning through classes.

When the article appeared it included an embarrassingly large photograph but a photo had been mandatory for the piece. Worse, the title referred to me as an "expert" tango dancer.  I had tried to get this removed but the paper stuck on that point. As a friend later pointed out to me, in "much of that kind of popular reporting of tango dance. ...newspapers' often say 'expert' and its means only 'someone who can can do it'." I considered it a small, if embarrassing, price to pay to spread the word about social tango dancing in my local area.  I had no reason to publicise the piece on social media or here, for the sake of it, not only for those reasons but also because some new people had heard about the group through the article so it had already achieved its purpose.

I am sceptical about "expertism" in some fields especially in the social sphere. I believe social learning and independent experimentation can take many people far. In the piece Berlin milongas: People and dancing I claim at most a "middling" dance ability. I am no expert tango dancer, would not want to be, would never make that claim personally and would immediately wonder why somebody wanted to make that claim.  Fortunately, few believe everything said in the papers. 

However, recently I was challenged about this article by someone who (rightly) mocked the "expert" line.  The challenge was that in the article I had been disrespectful towards everyone who teaches tango.  They said they did not understand why I was attending a practica when the piece said I was against practicas.  There is nothing against or about practicas in the piece. I think practicas as a form of social dancing are fine. 

I wasn't disrespectful and I am no threat.  I am not even competing for the money in instructors' pockets.  I am merely one of a small minority who believes in learning to dance socially by, well, dancing socially.  Disrespectful is trying to promote a tango class and workshop business model in a social dance group that specifically says and is well known for the philosophy "Learn to dance by dancing" not "learn to dance in classes by partnering with other people who can't dance".  Disrespectful is making personal remarks about an individual or implying unkind things about their dance or dismissing their views as inexperience. These are all personal, ad hominem and therefore disrespectful attacks. To dispute an idea is not disrespectful. If that were the case, as religious zealots would still have it, we could ring-fence any idea we didn't want contested and say arguing against it was disrespectful. And when people in power ring-fence ideas and say you can't argue with them we call that repressive, we call it an abuse of power. Eventually, we call it a dictatorship.

Fortunately people can hold and air their differing views in our society, without official penalty and sometimes without social penalty too. I was delighted at the weekend, in London, to enjoy lunch and conversation about ideas with an atheist libertarian at one end of the table and a conservative Reverend at the other.

I don't think those of us who hold contrary views should feel stifled from expressing them.  If anything, given we are a minority, and an understandably silent one, I think it is all the more important those views should be heard.

Who are we?  Well, it feels a bit like it felt being a "No" voter in the Scottish referendum except at that time we knew we might be about half the population.  Friends said to me then, on the quiet, we support "No" too, but we just don't want to, you know, say [in part because of the intimidation of and violence towards people and property that "No" voters experienced].  Many, in the social dance world, especially those who blog anonymously do not want the flak of going against the grain.  My ideas about how best to learn the kind of Argentine tango I like to dance are different from teachers, that's all.  Not disrespectful, just different.  Different from the majority, different from those with power and status. And airing those views isn't disrespectful either.  It's just unusual because not many people do it and more are afraid of causing waves in their class-based "communities". 

Actually, I don't even think that the dance I like to dance and the things taught in classes are the same dance. It sure doesn't feel like it. So if we renamed these dances say Argentine tango and British tango all these differences, disputes, ideas about disrespect could disappear because we would be talking about two different things.  But no-one goes to class to learn British tango.  They want to learn Argentine tango.

It is true that I do not believe that classes teach people how to dance the kind of tango that I like to dance.  Many, perhaps most people in Britain don't want that though - they want a kind of dance movement they are happy to call Argentine tango, despite that they pretty much ignore or don't care much, if at all, about the music, and they go to classes meet that need.  That kind of dance for me, feels like a series of islands which are sequences of steps with perhaps dead sea (walking) inbetween.  I confided to one guy who's been dancing for a year or so: "I like it more when you don't do the stuff you've learnt in class, when I can feel you're just yourself". He replied with the saddest thing I've heard in my tango dance life:  "But without moves, what have I got?" He travels miles for classes in place of local social dance events.

Classes also teach people to be aware of how they look and to dance, say, a dance with long, extended legs and decorations for the girl.  Plenty of people want to look elegant, the idea being that might make some people want to dance with you.  I used to think that.  But making yourself look good takes your attention away from the dance you are having now with your partner and that for me is what counts. So when I see decorations I immediately think, she cares more about how she looks than how she feels for her partner.  For the guy it's the show moves of planeos & aggressive sacadas, learning how to inflict voleos, colgadas and volcadas on girls who have little or no choice about whether to do these moves.

If you want to be a tango performer with the sequences that are used in tango performance to create a stylised look  then a class is the place to go. Besides that, I think there are many other excellent and valid reasons why people do tango dance classes.  I know a number of teachers who are warm, welcoming, fun, popular, great with people, they run social dances, play good music and have many other good qualities.  A few even extol the milonga: a new dancer was sitting between me and a very honest teacher.  I heard her tell them that the place they would really learn to dance was in the milonga. But what I believe about classes is separate from all of that.

I think, in fact I know, because I feel it, that classes ruin many people who would otherwise have been great dancers.  This is why I hold the views I do. To pretend I don't feel that would be lying.  I can't help but feel this and it is endlessly frustrating to me to find many new dancers whose natural sense of music and movement is so regularly and predictably ruined once they start doing classes at which point I often stop wanting to dance with them. The problem is worse with men than with women but it affects both.  I danced with a new guy who had a gentle embrace, a nice connection, was not over-ambitious and - praises! - was tall. When I next danced with him a few months later  it wasn't the same at all.  I felt all his new and contrived moves from class as I was more or less gently shoved about, and I felt an all too familiar sorrow for the loss of the fledgling dancer. You've been doing classes?" "Oh, yes!" he said. 

The reason I want to share these views is because in Britain today classes have a large monopoly over new dancers. More people start to learn to dance in class than walk in to a milonga on spec or come along (and come back again) with friends.  Perhaps when the balance tips in Britain from a class culture to a milonga culture that will no longer be the case. But this present monopoly is destructive because, proportionally, very few new dancers make the transition from class to milonga. Perhaps that's because the milonga is too intimidating and when they do eventually get to the milonga their dance has usually got so messed up they're not fun to dance with. Or maybe in class it was just too weird to be that up-close-and personal with a stranger so they gave up. Or the people just don't have a good enough time in class to want to take it elsewhere. Or the time they have in class is good enough for them not to want to dance socially...

I have found that most people in Britain today believe that the route to social tango dancing is through class instruction.  Among those who do classes almost no-one will change their views because they have generally invested in them too much time, energy and money and have subscribed to the false idea that dancing tango is "hard".  It is a feature of today's society that class instruction is the way to learn just about anything.  The class market is a captive and eager market.

For some reason, people think it is easier to reach for their wallet and a class than it is to walk in to a (cheaper) milonga, get a drink, sit, watch and listen to the music.  I think that is a far better way to start learning than to self-consciously walk zombie-like about a room with someone you may not want to be that close to.  I think so because to dance well, I believe you need to know the music you dance to.  The feeling that makes people dance well comes from the music. By watching people who can dance you get an idea of what the dance is like.  Without knowing the music, without an idea of what the dance is, how can you hope to dance it? By finding people with whom there is a mutual desire, as opposed to a forced, class imperative, to dance together there is more likely to be a genuine dance. I remember the same person who said I had been disrespectful also said, a long time ago, that you can tell who will dance best on a floor by the way they first embrace.  There is much truth in this.

I dance with a lot of new dancers, in the dance I have been running locally and in milongas, practicas and the odd lesson I have gone to more recently, out of curiosity.  At one of these I danced with two brand new women dancers.  They were both able to dance nicely and naturally in our first dances.   They could easily and quickly have become lovely dancers as most new dancers do, given the right opportunity. But one was harangued by an instructor into sidestepping (because turning naturally is apparently too hard for beginners), so that by the end of the lesson when I next danced with her she was totally unable to turn naturally as she had before.  The other dancer had had a bubbly, happy confidence and a great connection. When I next saw her at a milonga two days later she had been lectured and thrown about the floor all night by the instructor.  I tried to dance with her.  Her head was down, she was looking at her feet and could hardly move.  I didn't recognise her by her demeanour or her movements and felt stricken. "Close your eyes, it's easier" I attempted. In many self-conscious brand new dancers I have found this simple act magically removes or reduces that natural self-consciousness that many feel.  The quality of their dance leaps in feel and they report a better experience. But it requires much trust on their part and much care of that trust from their partner.  "No, no, I can't." she replied.  "Why not?" I asked, startled at the unusual response.  "Because I won't be able to concentrate." "On what?" "On all the things I'm supposed to remember to do".  I remember that awful feeling from when I did classes as the "follower" - a term I dislike.  This once natural dancer had lost all that initial relaxed confidence.  I saw another dancer also being jerked about by the same person in one of the ugliest parodies of dance I can remember.  I notice now I have unconsciously avoided dancing with these women which is a great shame because they seem to be lovely people and I like dancing with people I like.

It isn't just this instructor, it's what happens when people focus on movement, when they concentrate on their bodies more than on the music and the other person and when they aren't treated well by partners.  I see it every time I go out, or go to a class or practica.  When I go to good milongas I usually see a few couples really listening to the music and dancing with each other fluidly, as one, that rare creature with one body and four legs. These are the people who are hypnotically watchable.  It's not something you reach through classes, it is a totally different way of dancing, one that has nothing to do with classes.  

How is it that some people who did do classes become good dancers?  I think years of experience in social dancing in the milongas eventually rubs off the effect of classes for the few that survive the transition from class to milonga.

If I were to be more open, and yet still not be disrespectful or guilty of ad hominem argument.  I might venture the rarely mentioned fact that tango classes are in fact usually about business, about making people feel they are making progress in learning to dance Argentine tango so that they come back for more.  Just about everyone then becomes locked into a psychology based on the paradigm of their dance looking good instead of the feeling of the music and the dance.  It's a concept that is about improvement, attainment and success over enjoyment. That approach relies on people believing that dancing tango is hard but fun  The idea is if it's hard it's worthwhile and brings status from improving and "earning" the ludicrous "reward" of dancing with good dancers. And if it's fun you keep doing it so that you progress from beginner through the levels spending a great deal of money in the process.  The idea that dancing tango socially is about about relaxed and entirely improvised movement that springs directly from the music without need of any intermediary other than a partner that can already dance never really gets a look-in.  The reason for that is because there isn't much business to be had by beginners just dancing socially with people who can dance.

As it stands though, some dancers say they prefer to travel sometimes far to a class (where they will dance badly and deafly yet have a strong and persistent illusion of "progress"), than stay and dance locally and socially.  Simply, they actually prefer classes to dances.  I find that killing, terribly sad. At a guided practica recently with perhaps twenty five people, few of them new, everyone had to pair up and every single person did so before listening to hear what the music was.  Because in class music doesn't really matter at all. A friend told me the other day that they attended a class where music did not feature at all.

If I were to be not disrespectful but just irked and honest, I would talk about the damage that classes do and that I see new dancer after new dancer ruined  by self-consciousness, made deaf to the music in class, turned into sub-beginners; new dancers that I might otherwise have been able to dance with, new dancers that ought to be the strong future of a local group of social tango dancers.

Generally though, I just try to promote the virtues of social dancing, which I do mostly by dancing socially and hope that some new dancers slip through the class net and learn to dance with the rest of us who welcome new social dancers.