Grotesqueries

Historic orchard (name unknown) Carse of Gowrie

The Carse of Gowrie is a low lying area of land that stretches along the north side of the river Tay between the Scottish towns of Perth and Dundee. It is famous for its soft fruit particularly raspberries and strawberries and is home to a number of historic orchards. Some of these orchards are no longer maintained as previously but, like the one above and others at Megginch (private) estate and Elcho castle they are the focus of revival by the excellent Tay Landscape Partnership.

Espaliered and fan trailed fruit trees at Megginch estate

Apple picking, Elcho castle, Perth, September 2015

I went to some of these orchards last summer, in one case to look at diseases and problems in fruit trees and to see how some of these could be prevented. It was surprising to see how damaged some of the trees were often early in their growth and by what variety: disease, such as bulbous cankers, parasites, accident, storm damage or where domestic livestock or deer had eaten away the bark or rubbed against the trunk. In some cases an older tree had continued to grow but twisted and deformed.

Damage and distortion to fruit trees

A propos the idea of teaching of teaching how to embrace I received an email recently from an (I think) dancer-led tango dance group. The source is nameless because with any luck I’ll continue to receive these emails.  They are one of my favourite mines of grotesqueries: distortions of what I think dancing tango is like.  To my own mind it is not unlike the damage done and often avoidable to those trees.  

A recent crop from the latest email is mild but I saw the “teach you how to embrace” idea rephrased recently:

“The course will cover posture, connection [my italics] and the 'tango walk'”  

I’d  love to see that described in print:  How to "connect”....Perhaps there could be a follow-up:  “How not to disconnect - your guide to avoiding divorce.”  

How would you describe "how to connect" in words, exactly?  I mean in a way that doesn't sound ludicrous and does feels like the kind of embrace you want to stay in for dance?

I can't remember how it happened in my lessons, except being told repeatedly, class after class "Embrace him" and being pushed into the guy or my arm pulled more around the guy. Patently, there was no desire to embrace whoever that particular guy was. It was probably because being a beginner, he couldn't dance and why would any girl want to embrace a guy in the guy's role who can't dance? Besides, I just didn't want to embrace those guys. And that's mostly why I stopped going to class - because in the milonga you choose and are chosen.

Other gems from this edition were:

“the key elements of tango that together make up the ‘tango toolkit’.”

You’re going to need such a toolkit because in places like that dancing tango is work, you’re  going to build your dance and when, like this wall, it inevitably breaks down...

Darn Walk, Dunblane to Bridge of Allan

....you’re  going to need to repair it.

“Each class will build on the previous week’s lesson, so ideally participants will attend all sessions.”

I’ve become a bit better at reading between the lines.  On the surface, it’s straightforward:  miss a session and you’ll make things harder for yourself (because - apparently - you build a dance….).  But what I hear is the controlling tendency:  this is our way and you have to do as you’re told.  It is supplier-focused - the product or service is oriented around what is easiest for them and around class management.  It is not about the person for whom the service is intended, because that would mean people who can dance dancing one to one with people who are new to dance.  

The other problem is that the didactic habit is catching among people who do classes generally.   Since in this sort of “tango”, men “lead” and women “follow” - the women have to do as the men say.  If then something goes “wrong” then it becomes invariably the more powerless, more vulnerable one, the mere “follower”, who is apparently at fault: “you didn’t follow what I led”.  Unsurprisingly,  I didn’t last long in class when I started “having my own ideas”.

But this week this is my favourite:

You can come with or without a partner.  We swap partners regularly so you get to know your class mates as well as have the chance to dance with a wide range of people – one of the joys of tango.  

I suppose that’s laying out their way.  But it will put off couples who like to stick together, people who are unsure, people who don’t necessarily want to dance with lots of people, people who would just rather watch for a while, as you can when you go to the milonga.  Not everyone thinks dancing tango is about dancing as much as you can with as many people as you can.  The message here is clear: these people think that it is and those who don’t agree to fully participate in the spirit of swapping  need not (really) apply.  I think that’s a shame, but, well at least it’s clear.

They do say…

If any class participants prefer not to swap partners this is fine...

but add:

although we can guarantee by the end of the course you will be swapping along with everyone else!

...no matter what you actually had in mind. You can see there’s only really “one way” here.  I find again that implication of control off-putting.  It tends to lead to that kind of dance.

The sad thing is that a dancer-led group which might so easily rather focus on the music, the dancing, the milonga instead of endlessly pushing these classes and workshops - presumably in an effort to expand numbers.  Fortunately another group in that town has done just that - they run a weekly milonga in a bar, that’s all.  If they send out emails I don’t get them.  I haven’t been because it’s far from me midweek, but I’ve met some of the organisers, nice, relaxed people, nice dancers and I like their approach.  I think any group is more likely to expand when non-dancers see and hear about people there having a good, relaxing time in a bar with dancing.  What would you rather do - pay to go to class and work at dance, with other beginners, or go to a milonga and learn to dance by dancing with people who can?

"Notoriously unfriendly?"

Recently, the tango scene where I most regularly dance did a survey which revealed a feeling that there could be unfriendliness in the local milongas towards beginners, new people and visitors. I know from talking to them that sometimes people do find it unfriendly and sometimes they find it one of the friendliest milongas.

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.

Photo credit: Jeremy Richardson, https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaded/13250584/in/photolist- via Creative Commons.

Window to the soul

I saw Mr Turner, by Mike Leigh last week. I had been thinking for a while that this film felt connected to my tango life, and yet I could not see how. Then I read in TangoTherapist’s blog how Sybille realises when she dances with someone that she touches their soul. I think it is that. In this film you see fine souls, driven souls, good souls and broken souls. It’s the same when you dance tango. You can’t hide when you dance. If a person is creative, you feel it, if they are irreverent, ambitious, vain, or patient, strutting, pedagogic, kind, controlling, loud, listening, light-hearted, nervous, overbearing, or if they have a sense of humour, you feel all of these things. Except it is never just that straightforward. People are incongruous mixtures.

In this film, Turner is a coarse brute. But it is the moments in contrast to this that you remember: the luminosity of his art, the light seeming to come from within, how it stands against that of his contemporaries, how he does entirely his own thing. Then there’s the sloppy, grunting Turner who at home cares for his father, loves him and is loved by him.

One of the pivotal moments is when Turner and his partner-to-be in later life, recognise the attractions of the other’s soul. She is an ordinary woman, kind, bustling, optimistic, making the best of things. He sees beauty in her. She, apparently unaware that he is a celebrated artist, suggests he is made of finer feelings than he lets on; she means his soul. The film peaks for me when a successful industrialist comes to see Turner. His paintings are displayed, propped up really, in a leaky room, in need of rescue. The industrialist offers Turner £100,000 for all his paintings. Humbled, Turner considers the offer, yet you know even as he considers it, that he will turn it down, and somehow, perhaps because of that finer feeling, you know why. He thanks the industrialist but says he must refuse the offer, because he wants the British people to have his work, collected, all in one place where it can be seen together, gratis.

The most wretched scene is the final one. I don’t know how much is true and it doesn’t really matter. Turner’s housekeeper in his Harley Street house, loved him but Turner was human and flawed. He used her, treated her casually though he must have been aware of her feelings for him, and did not tell her when he picked up with his new partner. Never attractive, she becomes badly disfigured through disease.  When he was dying in his other lodging with the "other woman", she tried to see him, without success. After his death, as his last partner cleans her windows and lives with her happy memories, the housekeeper, the crone, shuffles round the dark Harley Street house, mumbling pitiably. Seldom was the futility, loss, loneliness and tragedy in the most ordinary of lives so briefly or so memorably described. Leigh ended this way deliberately. These are the broken souls. These people we rarely see in public.

Photo credit http://www.william-turner.org/Rain,-Steam-and-Speed-The-Great-Western-Railway--1844.html, Creative Commonce license 3.0.