Reviews

Someone (not the person below) said recently: "It would be a very interesting thing to hear frank anonymous feedback of the frustrations at events".

A:  I think the topic of how and whether to review (anything), and how to take a review is useful and interesting yet it doesn't come up much, anywhere.  Things are reviewed all the time, for no doubt all kinds of motives and they do have effects, good and bad - materially and emotionally so I think for all sorts of reasons the subject is worthwhile.  Besides, I want it clear that I'm not just out to cause trouble, that that isn't the point. Do you think it's a good topic?

B:  Yes

A:  The Berlin pieces are read consistently, so are useful I guess. I thought I'd do a shorter version for the places I went to last year in London.

[Later] How did you find the piece?

B:  If that's what you want to say, it looks OK to me. But it seems highly sanitised in places.

A:  You mean it "focuses on the positives"?

B:   No. I mean it omits material negatives.

A: The careful reader will note where there is *no* mention of good music or good dancing - and where there is.

B: Then I guess I was not careful enough, because I saw mention of good dancing. Carablanca's most widely acknowledged feature is utterly dire dancing.

A:   My visitor's experience of Carablanca was not that and it is a piece by a visitor. But leaving disagreement about what Carablanca is like aside, Britain is my doorstep. You are very careful not to say anything specific. Why don't you think I should be? I think it is perfectly possible to say things by omission.  I've had a rocky time with controversy this year and if the way things have gone have made me more aware - and I wouldn't have it otherwise - it also ended up making me materially less happy in comparison to when I didn't know things and just accepted how things were.  So if you don't mind I'll be careful where I think it needs it and write for the equally careful reader.

B:  Sounds like you're risking a careful reader spotting where you think there's no good dancing.

A:   What's wrong with & where's the risk in that?

B:  The same risk as making your message clear, I'd say. Being that a reader sees you're suggesting a milonga has no good dancing, leading to someone giving you a hard time.

A:  No one can really give you a hard time about saying good stuff. What people choose to see between the lines is up to them.  What would you have me do? Upset organisers and make others worried about having me at their milonga? You don't publish or say critical things about specific milongas.

B:  I sure don't. I'd not feel comfortable in publishing reviews with material negatives omitted. I'd be encouraging some people to visit and be disappointed - with the milonga and with me

A:  It is an excellent point but still I think the way to go is discreet & careful & suggest the bad by omitting it from what was good.

B:  You can't have it both ways. Either some people are going to hear the message about the bad or they are not. And in my experience those most likely to hear it are the organisers themselves.

A:  Writing openly and honestly about an experience would mean really not caring about upsetting organisers. Don't you care?

B:  I do, and though not much, enough to mean I'd rather write no review.

[Later, the review rewritten]

B:  It now looks more balanced and hence more useful to me.

A:   I do care about upsetting people and if I do this I worry about having nowhere to go through realising by writing just how things are or by not wanting to risk long travel by being turned away at the door for saying how things were in the past or because an organiser has solidarity with another place that may not have come out well in a review.

Ultimately I want better music and better conditions more widespread. I'm trying to figure out a way of helping people hear about, consider even the conditions in a milonga & make choices based on that & if my view on places I've been is a way to do that then maybe that is the way to go.  What happens to me personally is subservient to getting better conditions generally in milongas. But if I can't go, I can't contribute.   I want to know why you don't want to upset hosts who don't have good conditions.

B:  I don't want to upset anyone unless I think it is has a good chance of leading to improvement and there's no better way to make improvement.

A:  But you think it's OK for me to?

B:  Not in general. I think that it is good to have milonga reviews that tell dancers about the good and bad of various milongas so they can choose. That helps good conditions more through the effect of dancer choice than organisers reading direct much more.

A:  Agreed. That's the idea.  I don't want to be a me-jay about good conditions and good music but it seems to me that the people I saw doing all the talking about DJing (on e.g. online DJ forums) and to a lesser extent hosting are the ones at the bottom end. And yet dancers flock to hear them and not to, say, Brighton where the music and conditions are great. I understand that organisers get upset when people say things they didn't enjoy about their milonga. It's hard, after the effort people go to. It would be easy to think - why doesn't the reviewer set up something of their own instead of criticising other people. But that isn't possible here right now...

** Hesitation**

A:  You know, people who review books, especially writers say this: “It's sometimes better to say nothing than something hard, even if it's true.”  I have great respect for Anthony Grayling and I'm pretty sure this is largely his view. The novelist I stayed with in Brighton - it was her view too after someone trashed an early novel of hers.

B:   Better for some, no doubt.

A:  I gain at best, no personal advantage that I can see from this sort of thing. I worry about going too far.

B:  Too far for what?? :)

A:  Just a sense of maybe overstepping some line.

B:  A line drawn by people you don't care about, perhaps..

A:   Maybe. Not sure. "Causing trouble". "Being a troublemaker". It's not as though I can't defend things though, as though there aren't reasons, genuine concerns. I suppose because most people seem happy with the status quo some would think "Why would she try and stir things up if most people are happy?" But I think also some people, maybe even many are not happy but not dissatisfied enough or difficult enough to make a fuss. I saw in one of the Facebook groups how strongly some people feel when others block their line of sight for invitation during the cortina.   

Do you think there might be some kind of consequences of open, honest reviews?

B:   I'd guess some people will like you less and some people will like you more.

A:   Clarity then :) Even that consequence would be a pretty good result :)

**Hesitation**

During a conversation in the queer tango community it was reported that there are milongas - or at least a milonga - where same sex couples have been thrown out. I asked which milongas.  I thought sharing them was of public interest especially where people might go to a lot of trouble and expense to attend a milonga only to find themselves barred.  The person reporting wouldn't say though.  It was this, ultimately, that persuaded me that an open and honest review of a milonga was preferable to saying nothing.

**Hesitation**

I asked a couple more friends and both said they would find an open and honest review more useful than one that omitted anything that might be less than wholly complimentary.

**Hesitation**

A:  I re-read the conversation about milonga reviews. I know you said for you, there are better ways to improve things. Do you think I can do anything better than say how I found things such that that information might assist in dancers making decisions that might ultimately lead to better conditions in existing or new milongas?

B:   I don't know what other options you have.

A:  I think the main thing is there are so few places with, for me, good conditions, music, atmosphere, dancing that I'm not really going out to dance out anyway, so there doesn't seem to be much to lose.