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Digest from 27 Aug 2000
to 29 Aug 2000
Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 03:00:37 -0400
Sender: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
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Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 27 Aug 2000 to 29 Aug 2000 (#2000-233)
There are 2 messages totalling 286 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Fw: Milonguero/Tanguero?
2. a pedagogical approach to tango
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 08:55:26 -0700
From: Virginia Gift <vgift @ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Fw: Milonguero/Tanguero?
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Original Message -----=20
From: Virginia Gift=20
To: TANGO-L @MITVMA.EDU=20
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 8:25 PM
Subject: Milonguero/Tanguero?
Regarding the recent postings about milongueros(a).
On my last two visits to Buenos Aires I spent a lot of time quizzing =
many local dancers and teachers--professional and non-professional, of =
assorted ages---about the difference between a 'milonguero' and a =
'tanguero'. (Where I live--in Paris--the term "tanguero" is used as a =
complimentary form of identifying someone who dances tango seriously, or =
enthusiastically.)=20
The consensus of those with whom I spoke in Buenos Aires appeared to =
be that 'tanguero(a)' refers to people (dancers or those interested in =
tango music) who frequent milongas almost every day, generally no less =
than 3-6 times a week. 'Milonguero(a) refers to those dancers who are =
older (late-50's, 60s, and more), who have spent all their lives dancing =
tango--most probably have never taken lessons--and are still dancing. =20
As in: One night in Buenos Aires I was sitting with three =
milongueros (by above definition) when I saw a younger Argentine man =
(35-ish?) dancing with an American friend. I pointed him out to those =
at the table and said, "He teaches tango to that friend of mine." The =
men all broke into laughter, and one said, "But, he's not a teacher, =
he's a tanguero!"
Comments?
Best regards,
Virginia.
=20
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<DIV style=3D"FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----=20
<DIV style=3D"BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A=20
href=3D"mailto:vgift @attglobal.net" title=3Dvgift @attglobal.net>Virginia =
Gift</A>=20
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A href=3D"mailto:TANGO-L @MITVMA.EDU"=20
title=3DTANGO-L @MITVMA.EDU>TANGO-L @MITVMA.EDU</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, August 27, 2000 8:25 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Milonguero/Tanguero?</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> Regarding the recent =
postings=20
about milongueros(a).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> On my last two =
visits to=20
Buenos Aires I spent a lot of time quizzing many local dancers and=20
teachers--professional and non-professional, of assorted ages---about =
the=20
difference between a 'milonguero' and a 'tanguero'. (Where I =
live--in=20
Paris--the term "tanguero" is used as a complimentary form of =
identifying=20
someone who dances tango seriously, or enthusiastically.) =
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> The consensus =
of those with=20
whom I spoke in Buenos Aires appeared to be that 'tanguero(a)' =20
refers to people (dancers or those interested in tango music) who =
frequent=20
milongas almost every day, generally no =
less than 3-6 times=20
a week. 'Milonguero(a) refers to those dancers who are older (late-50's, =
60s,=20
and more), who have spent all their lives dancing tango--most probably =
have=20
never taken lessons--and are still dancing. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> As in: One =
night in Buenos=20
Aires I was sitting with three milongueros (by above =
definition) when I saw=20
a younger Argentine man (35-ish?) dancing with an American friend. =
I=20
pointed him out to those at the table and said, "He teaches tango =
to that=20
friend of mine." The men all broke into laughter, and one =
said, "But,=20
he's not a teacher, he's a tanguero!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> =
Comments?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Best regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Virginia.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> =20
</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 13:01:23 -0700
From: Carlos Lima <amilsolrac @YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: a pedagogical approach to tango
Ever since I blurted out (22A00, "Re: teacher bashing") an hyperbole
comparing the teaching of mathematics and that of partner dances, a number of
people have put good flesh on that bleached skeleton. This includes people
who mostly disagree with me, as well as people who agree more: I remember
Manuel Patino, Randy Garrou and Sandy Smith. That relieved me of the duty to
come back immediately with something more concrete, but here it is.
I used the word racket. It is not to be taken literally. A lot of people
understand what I am talking about, from both the historical and the current
perspectives. Informal discussions like these do need to assume some kind of
shared background. I am not a dance historian, no money in it, no time to be
even an average popularizer (and who wants THAT). Manuel is right: most
negative comments (in fact most comments, period) come from other teachers,
it is an "internal affair". I am the interloper here, a mere consumer. I
think consumers need a louder voice (the market). We need to go further
steps. It used to be just "Fred Astaire" and "Arthur Murray", remember? I am
so disgusted that the name of Fred Astaire got associated with these, well, I
am tempted to call them rackets, but only metaphorically. The preservation of
monuments should extend to names and memories of great people. These clowns
should be dispossessed, after declaring the name Fred Astaire a cultural
treasure of the world, by us, if the UNESCO did not do it, and won t do it.
(By the way, I have never been a paying student of chain studios.)
Here a sample reason for the metaphor. Say you have dumb "beginner" classes,
then a gap, then a "policy", or a brow beating "policy", to keep students
doing one dumb routine after another (often fixing by practice awfully bad
habits), where the only training effect comes from the effort to remember
which of three dumb items comes next, and when, exactly; things that will
NOT, IN PRACTICE, get them successfully on the social dance floor even after
six months (men especially), so as to almost require private instruction for
anyone who is not willing to look awful for yet another six months. Please,
everybody add here, on their own, every one of the other many tricks to
induce people to spend their money badly and stretch their dependency on very
inefficient teaching --- particularly privates, which, when they are VERY
good, are quite low benefit/cost for anything other than advanced study. Can
anyone think of one or two? Come on! No, I was not, in my Post Scriptum of my
original posting of 22A00, focusing on tango. Tango is comparatively better,
but no cigar.
As far as bad pedagogics versus bad intent, I said that I have not come to a
conclusion of wide spread really bad intent. I mean, fishing for privates is
REALLY widespread, to the point that many teachers will treat you in a
hostile manner, or ignore you, unless you are one of their kids, regardless
of whether you are or not already someone else's pupil! (Sometimes not even
that seems enough, you need to come at least twice a week.) Also widespread
is a lackadaisical attitude toward the profitable use of time in privates, an
indifference toward the high cost that the student is incurring, a
willingness to simply coast along, make small talk, even fail to provide the
full period scheduled. But, I mean, besides that, a conspiracy to keep
students around by purposely teaching them REALLY badly? No, I do not believe
that things are quite THAT bad. The tendency is there to maximize static
squeezing of existing students, as opposed to doing a very good job with
them, which would generate more "advanced" business, and more consumer
satisfaction, leading quite likely to more new happy faces. Believe me it is
there, I am not seeing things, and studio people will on occasion admit to a
thing or two. But see, all of that together does not prove that there is
REALLY bad intent, perhaps just indulgence or lack of REALLY high standards
of integrity. Is the situation different with free lancers? Yes, to an
extent, but not so much as to require an entire different discussion. I
believe most members of the L can fill in the details.
So now, pedagogics. In passing: perhaps I have overly eclectic tastes,
because I care for mathematics, and tango, and other things, for instance,
sailing and music making. They are different, but there are beautiful flows
running under them and tying them together. There is mathematics (e.g.,
relationships, a language, symbols, combinatorics, transforms, even binary
arithmetic) in the tango dance idiom, as in the mechanics of walking, the
musical scales, the airflow around a sail, and the water flow around a hull.
This is subject for a book, and the members of the L need not care for mine
in particular. In spite of that, it certainly is not a good idea to teach
mathematics and dance with the SAME approach, nor is anybody advocating that.
(Oh, but you would be surprised how much transfers!)
So now pedagogics. I look at didactics of partnership dance teaching on its
own terms. At different points over the last couple of years, I have made two
lists, long and far from exhaustive, of things that were obviously wrong with
schools and dance classes I attended, not excluding tango classes, seminars
and privates, and not including issues of actual content. (Yes, tango is
comparatively better taught, perhaps because it is harder to get ready for
the social dance floor in tango than in other dances, so there is a pressure
of necessity.) I am not posting those lists, inspired by two professions that
have a cultural propensity for withholding information (law and the teaching
of social dance). Just one indirect challenge, and let me say right away that
most of the items on my lists are far more obvious than this one.
Over some 21 months I took hundreds of tango group classes, and I kept a
record of 97 to 99% of the vocabulary that was taught. Even though I took
many long series with one same teacher, it was a rare event indeed that an
item taught as a unit ever recurred, even approximately. (I am excluding a
few basic items, mostly those that must recur, such as salidas, ochos, etc; I
am thinking mainly of "the next level" after elementary.) Too much of the
routine teaching consists in piling up "stuff", without much rhyme or reason
to it. Too many teachers are unaware of, or uninterested in, the need to
formulate a well structured core curriculum, and of going over it repeatedly
to anchor the student on it, perfect, polish, enrich in a structured way,
etc, etc. If you dare to propose that teachers, as well as programs at the
lower stages, need stable course plans, or that repetition is essential to
learning well a neuro-motor skill such as dancing is, a number of pat answers
will be heard. (Please, I say neuro-motor, but I do know about feeling and
all that, please believe me. Epure, it IS neuro-motor. By the way, this is of
course one of the pat answers.)
Here are two more. (i) Tango improvisational bla bla bla what, a syllabus?!
No, not a syllabus, no, more something like a lesson plan, ya know. Oh, no no
no no we cannot have a syllabus in AT, no way. (Most of us know what a
"competition style" syllabus is: we most certainly do not want that in AT.)
(ii) You need to keep the usual suspects entertained, i.e., the "professional
advanced students" who like to contort themselves through difficult
sequences. (I could be more precise here, but that might get me involved with
questioning political korrectness, and I have had my fill of that for the
month.)
Well there is some truth in the second pat answer, but I am sure you could
keep "advanced people" happy by supplying them with the means for them to
invent new contortions and, contort better.
It is also important to note that there were exceptions, and what they were.
Five visiting or temporarily re-located teachers / teacher teams from Buenos
Aires (one teaching milonguero, the other four some form of salon) definitely
have stable core curricula that they keep working on. Other re-located
teachers from Buenos Aires have remnants of what was probably once a solid
core curriculum lost to the process of enculturation into the local dance
teacher community. This is my direct experience. I suspect that some other
teachers I have had, both Argentines and non-Argentines, also have stable
core curricula, not observed by me due to insufficient exposure.
Just briefly, another (risky) touch upon the issue of whether being
Argentinean is in effect a predictor of good teaching. OK, as such, it is
not. I keep hearing from non-Argentinean teachers that great Argentinean
dancers are often terrible teachers. As far as I can remember, I am yet to be
exposed to one example. In order for me to undo the conviction, based on my
personal experience, that mother s milk teachers convey a stronger message,
and do so more effectively, one of the things that I would need to see is a
well thought out "system" (even if just a clever choice of routines) through
which the student progresses technically, while acquiring a vocabulary (NOT a
memorized phrase book) with which to talk on the social salon. Since most
non-Argentinean teachers have had many years of professional stage and/or
competitive ballroom training, that should not be so hard. The less
surprising bias would be to see them go to the opposite extreme and ask the
students to spend the first five years working on some tango equivalent of
the five positions. Well, that would be worse, no doubt.
I hope this helps clarify in general terms what I have in mind when I say
that social dance is not taught very pedagogically --- an observation that I
have phrased strongly, but mean constructively. I would like nothing better
than finding a teaching venue where I can learn a new dance, or perfect an
old one, in a sensible, measured, efficient way, geared to those who want to
get from A to D in four reasonable and well grounded steps, rather than to
those who are there to pick up, or to show off, or to dance with the teacher,
or whatever.
Cheers.
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End of TANGO-L Digest - 27 Aug 2000 to 29 Aug 2000 (#2000-233)
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