Tuesday evening practice at TipoTango Eindhoven (and how I got to go there in the first place)

By Pieter :

"The best way to learn this dance is just to go to social events and do it", she said to me, and after that invited me to dance as a follower...

A few month ago I went to the tuinhuis milonga in Utrecht [review] on a whim. I had heard it was very informal, and so I figured there must be someone there who could teach me the basics. And although that may have been a bit of a naive thought, it worked out quite well. After first talking a bit to two guys who ensured me I should take lessons first but could ofcourse just sit and watch, and a chat with the organiser who was surprised I came all the way from Eindhoven, there was a kind lady (all the way from Scottland!) who would walk around the floor with me, provided she would lead...

After being a true follower for the first time, I knew this would be a very enlightning way to learn a new dance. I followed before, but only when I "knew the steps", and never seriously. When I had ballroom lessons as a teenager, we (a group of boys) sometimes switched to tease the teacher. But now, all of a sudden, I was not thinking about steps anymore, and when switching roles cautiously quite a bit later, I was very conscious of my partner more than of myself. Of course, leading has to be done confidently at all times, and my new awareness made me shaky. Then again: it was my first time.

But now I had a problem. As I often do, I had gotten myself into a niche-of-a-niche. Not only had I gotten to like Tango, I had gotten into learning it as a follower... which means I would have to find leaders who would not mind a man following. For sure, this is not the standard at any school. So, all I could do is wait for an opportunity to go to some informal event again and try my luck.

The opportunity came in December, when I found time and courage to go to a practice evening of TipoTango in Eindhoven. Being new, I immediately got some attention from the people already there, and even though most came with their partner to practice rather than socialize, I danced with Thea (as a leader, but got some good tips), got advice and enthousiasm from Michael, and at the end of the evening was very lucky to find Marianne, a local teacher, kind enough to lead me and have me lead alternatingly, so I could feel what effect certains small movements have. Connection, ballance, clearly moving your weight, and (very difficult for a musician) moving slightly ahead of the music to give your partner time to respond. Keeping my heels together is also going to be a thing... 

So, it is possible to dive into a practice evening unprepared, alone, and without expectations, and have a good time, and learn someting! Chatting with the people present at this practice evening also made me aware that you really have to pick your evenings carefully however. There are also many 'closed scenes' where the reaction "get some lessons first" is rule rather than exception. Still it will be fun, exploring new worlds and new civilizations, and boldly go somewhere with an open mind. For sure, TipoTango was a very nice second step in this adventure. The practice evening turned out to be a welcoming scene for newbies like me.

Disruptive?

When we arrived at El Amateur there were few people. Before we knew there was food there we had decided to dance while it was quiet then go and find something to eat. But we hadn’t factored in the music and by the time we had had our tasty soup next door and the music had changed enough that I wanted to dance it, the place was already filling up. 

I am not unfamiliar with dancing with brand new guys in places I do not know well.  I had done so in January in Letchworth, though only I think one tanda, the music being unsuitable for beginners. In mid-February I took a friend new to dance to a new milonga, La Redonda in Edinburgh.  I had done the same with another friend, also a beginner guy in La Catedral in Buenos Aires in March. We danced all evening.  You never know how it is going to go with each guy.  There are similarities dancing with beginner men in swapped roles but equally they are all different.

But in Stuttgart as time went on I felt a bit awkward.  I felt this milonga was traditional in that perhaps they did not expect or appreciate people dancing in swapped roles or more that they did not appreciate complete beginners even in the middle. Later I found my friend, a local, thought more that they were tolerant as long as we did not bump into anyone. Astonishingly, we did not.  With my eyes open I was less sure but did not encounter any apparent hostility, more perhaps surprise. I continued because this was the only chance to dance with my friend, we did not appear to risk harm to or disrupt anyone and we stayed in the middle. Besides, I cannot help but feel it is no bad thing to share, wordlessly, in public the insufficiently well known view that beginner men can - in my opinion should - dance first as women with a more experienced partner, though ideally I think they would do so with another man.

I am not sure I would do the same there again mostly because I felt in those particular circumstances it would have been better and I might have felt less disruptive to the ambience - if indeed it was felt disruptive - in a practica. Or I would wait until I knew the milonga better. The experience also taught me something about how to dance better in swapped roles with beginner men, something I have since tried in another milonga. Still, another man - also a visitor - commented that what we did was a good thing to do for my friend and for me for which I was very grateful. While seated and after I think my friend and I had danced our last tanda of the evening, the visitor gave him a useful tip.  I never would have but it was not his partner and it was from a man to a man, so it was different.   He leaned across me: "Women automatically close their legs" he said to him in his forthright English. They just do. We don’t. But when we dance as the woman we must! Then it will be easier for her, he said, indicating me. 

Certainly, there is nothing more testing than dancing with a beginner guy, especially taller than oneself in swapped roles and in an unfamiliar environment. My friend said it was his best experience dancing tango. Given three failed attempts in class it could hardly have been worse.  Besides, there is no reason to think the real - as opposed to class - conditions would not be better and his remark made it more than reason enough for me.

Right and wrong

I met and danced in swapped roles with a guy, a beginner.  I shared a story about the contradiction in terms of teaching an embrace (third paragraph) in an “open hold”. He told me in reply that indeed, he had seen in milongas men "driving" women as though driving a tractor. He illustrated what I have seen so many times, in class and in the milonga, by class dancers. 

In the photo above there are no embraces.  You could pretty much drive a tractor through the huge gaps between the guys and the girls.  So what are they doing if not embracing?  Steps.  They are practising steps learnt in class.  People who do this move like zombies.  Typically, they take one step, together, pause, then they take another.  Then he tilts his chest.  She obediently pivots.  Lead (pause) Follow.  Their dance mimics the roles they have accepted.  Obviously, the music - if there is any - is irrelevant.  Speedy zombie version here.   You could argue that music like that doesn't help at all.

It could be so easy.  If only they would embrace, listen, not think.  Not listen hard, not try to walk on a beat, not even listen - just allow themselves to hear the phrasing.

In fact this practica (in photo above) was more like what we in Britain would call a class. There (ART. 13) I saw only one couple embracing. You can see similar things by browsing the photos of milongas near you or that you are thinking of going to on e.g. Facebook and comparing whether what the dancers are doing looks more like the photo above, or more like the embraces here at the Encuentro Porteño in Amsterdam.  Of course the EP dancers are more experienced, but it isn't that. What they are doing is in essence a different dance.

The instruction model based on right and wrong ways of moving means you get class types who (if you were to let them get that close) would "drive" you the way my friend described. Meanwhile, such dancers insist or imply you're “doing it wrong” or that you're not really good enough for them. Inexplicably they still want to get their hands on you. No surprise then when they inherit from class this perspective of “right” and “wrong” steps. This “rightness” and “wrongness” is a strange idea.  The dance is improvised and social, we do it for pleasure. It is not sequenced, choreographed or for performance where “rightness” and “wrongness” of steps or technique might be more relevant. 

But class dancers are quick to criticise “wrong” movements - even on the floor and to lecture you in how to fix them.  At that point you might as well give up.  Many do - the healthy ones. Or they go to the milonga instead.

But many, sadly, do not. They assume the problem really is with them, that they are impaired in some way, that they are wrong and this is what gets to me. Women do this more than men in my experience or maybe more of them tell me. They feel terrible, inadequate.  "I feel so rubbish, so hopeless" they say, over and over.  "I can't do any of what they want me to do in class. The steps and technique are so hard.  It doesn't make any sense to me."  They doubt themselves in just the same way as when the teacher says "Just a few bad habits developing - keep up the classes and you'll be fine".  They don't realise that most people have - sensibly - dropped out because they all felt like that.  In fact they have been wounded.  With many women I meet it's as though they have been wounded in their backs but they don't know where. They just know that they're hurt but they don't even really know why or how or if they've been wounded because none of it adds up.    

The man they dance with who might tell them they're "doing it wrong" - or (more often) the teacher says "Well if you trust me, come back next week and make sure you do the whole course I can fix everything.  And there are always private lessons you know..." Even children know that anyone who says "Trust me" or "Honest!" is as trustworthy as this.

Open-mindedness

On Tango Voice recently there were some interesting comments in a liberal style:

"I am an old man, 70 this year, and dance a simple style, but it seems a shame that younger dancers should be discouraged simply because I, and possibly you, are old and grey in spirit if not in fact. If dancers are fit, and if they can do figures I can’t, and as long as they respect the two or three foot floor tile I claim for myself, well bully for them."

and,

"The evolution of tango was refined during the “golden age”, but it seems, especially with followers putting as much time and energy into learning to dance as leads, that the evolution continues. I may regret that this has largely passed me by, but I have nothing but admiration for those that can dance a musical Salon Tango that incorporates the “Nuevo” repertoire."

Someone else said:

"Personally, I prefer a chest to chest, simple dance with musicality. But I don’t close the door on individuality of style, especially if it’s musical and emphasizes the connection and the embrace.

I do realize that the tango like many other dances, musical styles and everything else is always in a state of flux and evolving. Personally I do not like the evolution to non-tango music and poor execution of moves. But I do have great admiration for the modern top tier dancers like Gustavo & Giselle, or Chicho or many other argentine tango dancers of today. They are very accomplished artists and their dancing is orders of magnitude better than the vast multitude of self-styled “milongueros”.

Too bad I don’t have the youth, skill and talent to equal them, but I certainly respect their talent and their tango." [sic] 

This gentleman is also 70.

Not all that long ago, I thought Chicho's dancing or any famous performer were examples of great "tango".  I preferred when it was to traditional music but I thought it all amazing.

These days I think rather that happily in our part of the world people can dance freely and in whatever style they like, to whatever music they prefer and go to whatever milonga or dance takes their fancy. That said, clarity when you begin, over what you are learning, what you expect to dance, what you can dance, would really help because not all paths lead to the same place.  For instance, there is a chasm separating what Gustavo does - even though it's to traditional music - from the traditional social dance called Argentine Tango. That is why I am surprised and puzzled that a dancer who prefers a traditional dance admires a Gustavo-type dance.

But, you say, when they start out in classes by, say, the Gustavo-style teachers (my first teachers learnt from him) new dancers may not want to become dancers of traditional tango.  Like most, I did not understand the differences, not for months.  But many people in class do want to dance socially.  And in Europe we see dancers, becoming better and more experienced, tend to like traditional music and a traditional setup.  More milongas are becoming more traditional in music, in invitation and in the conditions for dancing like appropriate seating and lighting.  This includes many younger dancers.  In Berlin I was struck that the milongas with best music and dancing attract a largely young crowd.  There are many good girl dancers in Berlin, young or youngish dancing traditional music with good young and older guys. What these people dance rarely bears any relation to the Chicho/Gustavo type dancing.  Not all young people like this.  The international group of lovely, warm, welcoming people in St Andrews, Scotland for example dance a very close embrace to mostly alternative music.  

Like many, I have changed and in a relatively short time.  I went, unwitting, to nuevo style classes.  Within a couple of years I was choosing rather to dance traditional tango, socially.  Had I my time again, had I known what a milonga was, I might have gone along and watched and listened and seen what happened because you learn much that way.  Provided you know that learning to dance tango is very much a question of just showing up at the milongas, not once but for a while, then things start to happen, slowly.  Some people understand this instinctively.  I was not one of these. I was impatient.  Many just want to dance as much as possible no matter to what or with whom though this tends to change with time.  Just turning up though - and it can be easier and more fun going with friends - you see and hear how things really are and you always have freedom of choice, over whether to dance or not, to what music, with which partner and when you come and go.  And you have the milonga chat, the really valuable information and stories and jokes.  Even if I choose not to dance much at a milonga, something good or funny or interesting always happens.  Besides the music and the dancing, conversation, exchanges, life just happens in the milongas.  Peoples preferences and characters  in all their variety are visible and it is absorbing and wonderful to see and to enjoy.

There are places in Europe, even in the UK where dancing in the Chicho/Gustavo way even in the inner ronda or dancing in the centre at all actually, just isn't on. So people who've been to classes and paid and paid and paid for months and years to learn what they think is Argentine Tango then turn up at a milonga run perhaps by people who are not their teachers and they risk being complained about even thrown out eventually or at best they mess up the ronda and wonder why people don't seem happy with them. Going from class to a milonga they might as well have gone from Earth to Mars.  Actually, there are still not enough milongas like that in the UK where the host would step in and have a quiet word. In some, anything goes.  Haphazard music, random tandas, no cortinas, mixed music, little discernible ronda, direct invitation, open hold dancing, poor seating lighting and  floor are all tell-tales. 

But many of the weekend events in Europe most certainly expect a certain style of dance and adherence to traditional etiquette and you can't get in except by registration and selection - on who knows what grounds.  People wonder how you get from class, to the elitist encuentros and the answer is: you don't. You do lots and lots of social dancing because it isn't just a matter of dance hours.  It is different in essence from class dancing. 

Even if dancers do stick to their own two or three feet on the dance floor, completely different tango dance styles in my experience don't mix well.  At least I think many trad style dancers don't feel what they do mixes well with a nuevo style in the same place.   For traditional dancers, it can be worrying at best, anti-social at worst.  Besides, nuevo style dancers don't tend to have the same conventions about e.g. invitation, or about clearing the floor during the cortina.

Tango dance classes do sell even when they are expensive, time-consuming and when what happens there bears no relation to what happens in the real milonga, even when students go to class and to the milonga.  I think that trying to learn this improvised social dance in a class is about the best thing you could do to harm your chances of ever being able to dance it. But my real point is different: teachers who dance for status and money are never going to relabel their workshops "Tango [sic] for performance" because they know the scales would fall from the eyes of the same people enraptured by the "tango" they've just seen performed. That is really what turns my stomach about these performances even while I remember my previous feeling of admiration. There's the swagger and braggadocio of it all and the fact that it's almost always about moves over music but let's put that aside as a matter of taste. What I really mind is the deliberate sleight of hand, the "this is tango" - now pay me to learn what is never going to translate into social dancing in the milonga and when we've bled you dry most of you will (sensibly) give up. And of those who don't, years in the milongas will slowly rub away the harm done in class.

We though, social dancers, can tell the new dancers about the real dancing in real milongas, socially where they choose and are chosen by the people they just want to dance with, who make them feel good and they can get up to music they enjoy when they feel like it.  That is why there is an explosion of good new, young girl dancers in parts of Europe today - just because they are going out dancing tango socially with guys who can already dance.  Guys, incidentally who don't tell them "You're so tense. Relax, can't you." .  No, so the good girl dancers go dancing with guys who just dance with them, nicely.  And there, in the right setting where it is natural to dance what others are dancing they can try nuevo, or alternative or dance traditional Argentine tango socially and know each of these for what they really are.

Cafe Baile: world music, dance and tango at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Dance Ihayami, one of the acts at Cafe Baile

Before children, for two or three years I used to take some of my holiday at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.  These days during August I avoid the traffic, the parking problems and the pedestrians with a death wish and read at home instead.  But if you can run the gamut of the Royal Mile without picking up a slew of flyers, Edinburgh in August can be fun.  It feels a bit like London at this time.  The greater human variety lends something of that exciting buzz I still feel each time I go back to London; for context I now live in the middle of Scotland.  At half past five on Leith Walk I enjoyed the mix of people who have finished work, interesting-looking visitors, a man in drag with wonderful pink and silver make-up and outside the Omni Centre an impromptu African music and dance act with drums and masks.  I felt sorry for two young men in sharp suits who I took to be performers but realised had the thankless task of trying to sell a finance product on the street at that time. 

Cafe Baile is part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  For £9 you get a flavour of some of the Fringe music and dance acts with about half an hour of social tango dancing at the start, the end and in the middle.  It takes place three times over three weeks and I have been going for the three years that I believe it has existed in at least its current form.  This year, it has moved from the Jam House to the slightly more clinical atmosphere of Lauriston Hall. There is a bar.  In the past I have found the acts to be middling to good, a few are superb; one or two have been toe-curlingly terrible. It is all part of the rich mix you expect from the Fringe.   

In previous years I learned not to sit in the front row in case  I became a "volunteer" to an act and later to sit where I pleased - but to know my boundaries.  The hypnotic belly-dancer "Shantisha" who seemed able to move parts of her body quite independently from one another tried to persuade me to "volunteer".  I felt momentarily like Eve with the snake - entranced and appalled; not by the act but at the prospect of being on stage. I have seen for myself you never know what you might be getting in to with these things.  As with so much of life it is not unlike what happens in the milonga: during the social dancing someone I know by sight walked across the room to invite me directly.  He wanted to dance but I did not.  I was sorry to have to do so but relieved when to both requests I said "no-thank you".  Later, I asked a friend sitting next to me if he wanted to dance the Rodriguez, but he too knows his own mind and chose the girl he'd arrived with, sitting on his other side.  That's what can happen with asking, only with friends, there are no hard feelings.

The social dancing is attended by some locals and there are often a few visitors who dance tango too.

Since I have stopped going out to the local milongas as much, I have joined a non-fiction book group in Edinburgh instead.  The first Cafe Baile this year was on the same day as the book group which happened to be taking place a bit later in a pub at the end of that street so I decided to drop in to  Cafe Baile first.

There was a queue before it opened (a bit late), so the room was fairly full from the start.  There were about three tandas before the first dance act but nobody danced the first tanda.  I got up to the second Donato track of the second tanda but only danced one track.  I apologised to my friend and we sat down.  The fourth track was good but it was too late for us.  Nevertheless she agreed to the next tanda, which was vals.   I often hear good vals and milonga tandas in sets with tango tandas I do not want to dance.

It was hard for some visiting women dancers to get dances which is unsurprising when they are mixed in with the non-dancing visitors around the three sides of the dance floor. It illustrates the need for suitable seating where there is tango social dancing.  

At the first Cafe Baile there was scattered applause of the social dancers at the end of some tracks.  It felt very odd because of course this would never happen in a real milonga.  I didn't know whether to feel pleased they like the dance we love and might try it some time or whether to feel dismayed that our ordinary social dance looks to them like a show.  The idea of being a spectacle is for me, anathema.  

But how interesting it might be if someone used an event like this for experienced dancers to invite the curious who have never danced to try moving as one to tango music, without telling them what to do (and making them self-conscious), or pushing them around.  Experienced dancers meet new or potential dancers so rarely because most drop out of class before getting near a milonga or they are intimidated  when they do go because their class experience is so remote from what actually happens in a real milonga.

I did not go to the second Cafe Baile and had not intended to go to the third because it doesn't have the continuity of a milonga, the dancing time seems to be shorter this year and I don't want to sit through an act (or three) if it is poor.  If there was a separate area you could break away for a drink or snack I might feel differently.  

But a dancer had recommended some stand-up comedy by "an Argentinian", who also dances, not too far away.  I was only able to go on the same night as the third Cafe Baile so decided to drop in there beforehand.  I arrived when the doors opened.  Numbers at this time were about two thirds down on the numbers for the first one.  The DJ was quarter of an hour late and by the time the music started at about 1915 about twenty five people were there. The numbers picked up  with more local dancers arriving over the next ninety minutes.

I stayed for the first half hour set of social dancing but did not want to dance, then stayed for the first set of acts.  I enjoyed the Indian classical dancing by three women dancers from Dance Ihayami, soft and strong, elegant and grounded and the mind-bending Japanese electro act Siro-A.  

Then I went on to the comedy, getting waylaid by flyer-touts in the dark Cowgate and lost in the dank and eerie sidestreets.

I stopped by my book group for half an hour on the way back and then went back to Cafe Baile for the last set of social dancing where a friend persuaded me to dance two of the Di Sarli.  Then we danced all of the Troilo, swapping roles throughout. He said there were some very good acts in the second half.  

Photo by Shetland Arts shared under Creative Commons license.

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.  

Milongas - segregation or inclusion?

I wrote this piece as context against my notes about traditional tango music and dancing in Berlin because opinion is only useful if you know where it is coming from. 

I like milongas which have the right physical conditions for dancing, which play good traditional music in cortinas and where people, especially those who are not good friends, when they are not chatting will observe the non-verbal behaviours for dancing found in traditional milongas that are to do with tact and courtesy, invitation and acceptance.

There is a new milonga I like at the university in St Andrews, Scotland, more of a practica, even though it is not at all traditional.  It is attended almost entirely by young and new dancers.  They have picked up on the idea of invitation by look. I go sometimes even though there are no tandas and up to half the music can be alternative.  I go because I like the atmosphere.

I am twenty years outside the "very young" bracket and I came to tango dancing not quite three years ago; so if I go alone to dance as the woman in a place where I am not known I do not want to to compete with a room of young girls. Many men will dance first with who they know and after that with the young - sometimes vice versa  This is not uncommon in tango as in life and young women who dance with experienced partners can pick up the dance quickly and become good dancers.  Similarly, I do not want to go to milongas known to be frequented primarily by couples who tend to go to dance together.

Milongas like these (and others 'specialist' milongas - those with alternative music or those regularly featuring live music) arise in places with an established, often sizeable community of dancers, or one with a strong and specific dancing culture. They cater for different tastes in music, dance, etiquette.    There is much to be said for this separation since reconciliation between people who like different kinds of music for dancing is unlikely.  It is about finding a milonga that suits you.

Sometimes hosts will deliberately set up 'beginner' milongas.  I like milongas with variety - a mix of ages and experience. I like a dance with a local feel, non-specialist, a milonga for everyone who likes traditional music, where there are people who arrive alone, people in couples, new dancers, experienced dancers and visitors. Milongas where experienced dancers dance with new dancers are healthy environments, but not necessarily common. The local milonga playing good music in tandas with cortinas, and the right physical conditions for dancing is also vanishingly rare.  

By "a milonga for everyone", I mean everyone who comes to feel the music, to dance, not to put into practice their latest move from class or to try and remember, while in someone's arms with sublime music playing, the latest message about technique. "Everyone" includes brand new dancers because there is no faster, better way to learn to dance than by dancing with people who can already dance.

I was looking for a tag or label for this post - an antonym for segregation. Roget's suggested connection. I looked for a synonym for inclusion.  I hadn't expected the dictionary definitions for inclusion to align themselves so explicitly with what I think dancing tango and the milongas are about:   "admittance, involvement, embodiment, encompassment, embrace....".