A friend wrote recently about 'levels' in dance. I have written a bit about it in other posts, especially in Notoriously Unfriendly and in "Why we are often confused about what it means to be “social”" - a different view but perhaps not explicitly.
My friend was referring to
"the pernicious stratification and segregation by 'level' inflicted by class teachers. 'Level' being of course which level of class level you are in, as a decision of the teacher, not anything to do with your level of accomplishment in dancing. This isn't just to put the advanced material on the other side of a paywall, Scientology stye, but also do the same to past joiners. It monetises past teaching 'successes' by turning intermediate and advanced classgoers into product for which newcomers must pay.
I once heard a teacher refer to her 'class ladder'. Unintentionally apt, I think, given a key characteristic of a ladder is that once you're on it, the only way off is at the top ... or bottom."
See also: Learning naturally: most people won't. So the idea is that thinking of dancing tango, for instance, as something where people are assigned to levels: beginners, improvers, advanced - is not helpful, is pernicious even. It doesn't just apply to learning to dance tango, it's anything.
Putting you in a level is usually a teacher's decision. We can't assume that the teacher has your best interests at heart, especially not where money is involved. Just look at Trust me: You need me: it is a transparent business strategy.
It is fine if you know and trust your teacher. It is the same again, with doctors. But I don't know anything about my doctors at all. Why should I trust someone I don't know? Just because of their qualifications? Yes, I trust a doctor over Joe in the street but what does that say? Not much. And in fact, I don't trust my doctors much and some I trust far less than others because I've known them on my account and my children's for well over ten years and have often found reason not to trust them. So it's not as though I started off not trusting them. I am not particularly inclined to be distrustful but I should mention that ours is a practice with the worst reviews in town.
So if we can't even trust a doctor that much on what basis should we trust a dance class teacher who can set up with no qualifications whatsoever? Doctors are at least regulated.
But let's say our teacher seems nice. They smile. They nod. They say all the things you want to hear. They are reassuring. They have years of experience. Builders who rip you off almost routinely in the UK, not to mention second car salesmen, are the same, but leaving all that aside for convenience let's say all seems good.
Recall, the idea of dance levels is a commercial construction. It suits the teacher to have a concept of levels because it makes money. The punter want to get to 'advanced' so you stay and stay in class, 'advancing' when the teacher says you can, until they decide they probably aren't going to make much more money out of you or eventually you twig that there are better ways to learn. The idea of other more experienced dancers as 'product' (and free advertising) is insightful.
But are you "advancing"? How do you know? It depends on what the goal is. What are you buying? And if you go in buying one thing, is that thing you end up staying for?
Unless you are going to the class for these things, they are beside the point. The punter probably thought though that they were going to learn to dance Argentine tango. Once they realised there was social dancing and there was Strictly style dancing they probably wanted to dance socially but they do not make the connection that they are being taught watered down Strictly type moves, or at least moves more suited to performance than social dancing. Performance dancing is suited to 'levels' in a way that social dancing is not.
But perhaps you don't want any of that. Maybe you just do want to work your way through the levels of dance class because that's what you want to do on a Tuesday night - and why not? Or perhaps you started class because you wanted to learn to dance tango (whatever that meant) and ended up wanting to just stick with your group because for whatever reason you enjoy it and again, who is to censure where and how you find your pleasure? Some people like Bovril. You can love tango class on a Tuesday and no one can say anything against that. Or perhaps you do start wanting to learn to dance tango in class (because that's all you know about), and then that changes because you hear about milongas and you want to learn to be someone other people want to dance with. But recall the moral of The Frog and the Nightingale: don't mimic self-styled teachers who try to woo you.
But if you want to learn to dance tango socially, the people to ask about that are the people you see dancing socially, and who you see or better still, feel, dance well. That is an independent judgement, by you. Most teachers are not social dancers. They just don't dance socially, or they don't do it much. And of those who do, even fewer dance socially, well. They do a different thing - they may perform and they teach dance class which I can say with confidence - having done class and danced socially and having been to many teachers - that dancing socially and dancing in class are not the same thing at all. Not remotely similar. One does not lead to the other. To try and say that you can learn to dance Argentine tango socially by going through the levels of dance class is like saying you can learn to climb to the high level of a diving board only to dive into an empty pool.
I went to Newcastle the weekend before last. On the Saturday night I went to a milonga. I was in a good mood, the community was small. I didn't want to get into an early funk from not dancing and getting hung up on things so after I'd danced one - good - tanda with a woman across the room, I invited a woman down the row from me even though I hadn't seen her dance and we hadn't chatted. I rarely do this with partners, and never with guys. She was surprised I think that a woman was inviting her, but enthusiastic. We established that yes I was inviting her to dance and I double-checked: did she dance with women? Yes, yes!, she said. But I'm a beginner, she said clearly. Great! I said, meaning it. Now it isn't actually always great dancing with beginner women but it very often is; it just depends. But this woman was lovely to dance with. So much so that I exclaimed in surprise: You're not a beginner! But she had been dancing for six weeks. It turned out she hadn't heard of tandas, cortinas, cabeceo, ronda, nothing. She didn't know about by invitation by look but she had twigged anyway when I did it. People who are attuned just pick these things up. She felt lovely to dance with. And she was sixty-five! Now if that isn't an inspiration I don't know what to tell you.
The point is, levels don't mean anything, really, not to me, anyway. They will to some people. You find some - usually ones who you can tell - by the way they dance - who think they are big shots. This type thinks levels are important. They are often teachers anyway or wannabe teachers. They hog the floor, they get in the way of social dancers. They dance wildly and selfishly. They perform - usually for themselves on the social floor where it just isn't appropriate to do so. They are very out of place. Quiet social dancers try not to end up dancing next to them. You really want them to go to the kind of milonga where people dance like them. The main thing is to suss out who thinks levels are significant and who doesn't. And decide which of these you prefer dancing with.
What counts is not levels, but - I've said it many times - compatibility. Do you feel good with the person you dance with? Sometimes you won't feel good dancing with someone with a lot more experience. The person with less experience is liable to think the problem lies with themselves and their inexperience but it is often just a question of incompatability. It is like talking to someone with different values. You click with some people and not with others. But do we ever talk about someone being a beginner in conversation? Not really. Not unless they're a toddler and then we call them...a toddler because it's more meaningful!
This lady said to me: Oh, but I've got so much work [that word again!] to do in the classes.
- Honestly, don't think that, I said with an all-too-familiar sinking feeling, predicting the future and thinking this could be the first and last time I was to enjoy dancing with her.
- Oh, but I do! she said.
- Like what? I said, not wanting to feel tired.
- Well, my feet don't point the right way! she said, ludicrously. But oh how many women do want their feet pointing the 'right' way. I remember wanting that, wanting to look and dance just like my teacher in all ways, never mind that she must have been a (UK) size six and close on a foot smaller than me.
- Your feet felt fine to me!, I said laughing. Who cares what your feet look like? I don't care. Why would I care about your feet? I can't even see your feet!
- You're right, she said, laughing.
But for some inexplicable reason, it's what the teachers say that sticks.
Recently, while travelling, I asked a friend what an Argentine teacher who was at a milonga was like to dance with. I had noticed he had started the evening dancing quite quietly and had gotten ever more extravagant. She wasn't wowed, I remember. She dances with much better social dancers by her own admission. And yet, she pays this guy for private lessons! Tell me, please, how does that stack up? And this is common!
Why don't people trust their own instincts more of the time when learning to dance tango? We go in general I think on a combination of what we think ourselves and what others tell us or what they let us know, in many things, not just dance. We make judgements and adjustments based on this. We do it in our social interactions all the time. But haven't you been in a situation in life where you have learned something largely by instinct, by experience, perhaps alongside someone else who can already do it? Perhaps it was art or cooking, or yoga, or piano, woodwork, boat-building, computers, gardening, learning languages, running, building a business, your job perhaps - the possibilities are infinite. People do it all the time. They start not knowing anything and get very good without ever really putting themselves into a category of beginner or intermediate or advanced. In fact we learn to talk without ever calling ourselves beginner, intermediate or advanced talkers! These categories anyway, are far too general to be of use. I have been dancing socially for seven years but I just learnt ochos - what does that make me?
I am learning Spanish from milongas and taxi drivers, the Duolingo stories, tango songs, parallel text story books and videos for children and 18 rated films. I don't know and I don't care what level I am. What I care about is what I can do - if I can get around or read a book, or a paper, or how much of a film I can watch without referring to the subtitles.
One of the reasons people get stuck with these beginner / intermediate / advanced (I've even heard of' maestro' (!) levels is because not just teachers but gulled students use them, often to feel better about themselves. It is unfortunate that people sometimes say truly dreadful things in class or at the milonga. They can put you down, run you down, make you cry. The cruelty and tactlessness of people in social situations is endlessly variable. I think many don't realise the effect they have. I haven't been back to one of my local scenes for six weeks for just that reason. One starts feeling nauseous seeing the people who have said these things and when after years the people from whom you have heard these things said, either to oneself or to others, start to add up you just stop wanting to go. Seeing them sours the atmosphere. But that is the risk you take going to a place where you can end up talking to random strangers or people who are nothing more than acquaintances. Yet random people can also be kind, complimentary or interesting. You take a chance, going there, that's all. Sometimes you get kisses and sometimes you get knocked. You come to notice that the crass ones start to appear fairly friendless or they ally with a similar type. On the other hand it makes travel attractive as people tend to be on better behaviour with strangers.
So the suggestion is just really to unstick the labels on you. It is a good time to do it. Labelling people is not fashionable now. The zeigeist is swirling with chatter about the variety and uniqueness of each one of us. While that does sound trite and ripe for the sorts of social media posts about 'positive living' that frankly make me beg to see parodies (there are desperately few!), it is also true. Who wants to be a labelled by someone else who doesn't really know you and who has all kinds of vested interests whether they are a doctor, a school teacher or a tango teacher? Let me know your other top professions for people that label you and have power over you...
My son came back this week saying with some sadness in his voice that he wasn't in the top set for spelling. What?! I said, astounded. I say it as his mother but my younger son is a very good speller, all the family know it. He can certainly spell eligible, better than the teacher who wrote 'elligible' on a note this week, or another school staff member who kept writing 'discrete' for 'discreet'. He always has been good yet the schools have always given him words to learn that he already knows and they won't be told. I have tried. but it is like banging your head against a wall But then they aren't teaching the individual. They too are teaching the class. No, I only get 26 words a week, he said, and the two people in the top group get 28. Thus do we have to try to undo the damage of this kind of stupid segregation and labelling - and all for two words that he probably knows anyway. Did he think it was fair, just, a good assessment by the teacher? I asked. Did he himself think the two others could spell better? Not really, he said. I told my son I'd never met a child who spells so well and that school doesn't really know a child or much care. But he knows that because if nothing else my kids get hit and no-one tells their mother, or the dinner ladies serve the burgers and chips with their bare hands....(Oh, the things that go on). Your family knows you though, and cares about you. Yet it is like the lady who thought she had to work on her feet. Despite knowing what is true and what counts, the damage is done and keep listening to the ones who harm them. That kind of hurt sticks because, foolishly, we put our trust in teachers, for whom we are nothing but a job. They forget about us but the things they have said stick with us in life. Despite the obvious warning signs we see in the behaviour of school staff and school life, school is responsible for so much of the limitation we put on ourselves in life - in every area. A lot depends on what you are told by some 'teacher' who should be inspiring and motivating you but so often destroys the budding hope or just enjoyment we have naturally in so many things before we go to school. Dance is a prime example. It happened to me in school in art, sport, maths, science. I don't have talents in those areas but it might not have taken decades for me to get back the confidence to have even an interest in these things after having it knocked out of me at school from neglect or disregard or put-downs or being relegated to lower categories or just written off into no category at all.
Know what you can do and what you want to try. Don't limit yourself because of a label or someone telling you you're some level, like one of my tango teachers who wouldn't let me join a practica until I had done lessons for three or six months. No one who truly believes in you would try to limit you. Think of the films where the protagonist outstrips all expectation. Did it happen because someone was telling her to stick to her level and plod along with everyone else and she'd be a winner? Or was it just the opposite? I think a sceptical and questioning outlook, of oneself and of others is healthy - in moderation. The same is true of self-belief - we need it, in a balance. But certainly one needs enough of the latter to counter the put-downs, those obvious and more sly from teachers and the co-learners they have succeeded in brainwashing. People will try to control you and put you in categories because it suits them, for money, for status, for how they feel about themselves, for their targets, their bosses, their bonuses, for all sorts of reasons. It is just another form of control. But there is nothing more wonderful than seeing someone breaking free from the constraints of others, finding their own way, being themselves and thus thriving.
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