Re: [TANGO-L] Community growth...Teacher Challenge

[Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG>]

Tom Stermitz offered some very interesting comments.

In most communities, the local teachers are still concerned about
fostering enough growth to sustain Argentine tango in their community.
There are very few communities where are a sufficient number of new tango
dancers that organizers and instructors are simply able to offer to teach
classes and not worry about the community as a whole.

Following up Tom's remarks, it seems as though most communities have
developed from picking the low-hanging fruit.  The initial waves of
interest that propelled growth have ended, and more work is necessary to
sustain growth.  I break the challenge of continued growth into several
parts.

Marketing:
For a community to continue growing, it must attract new dancers.  Word of
mouth is good, but it can be insufficient when a community has plateaued.
The difficulty in marketing is that broadcast marketing is unlikely to
work well for an activity such as tango.  The marketing must be targeted
to an audience that will be interested in learning to dance tango.
Exhibitions at homes for retired people isn't going to cut it.

In addition the marketing must give realistic expectations about what
Argentine tango is.  If the marketing does not, those who show up will
quit after a few lessons.  (Tango shows were once described as the sizzle
that sells the steak, but they may actually only sell sizzle.)

Converting newbies into members of the community:
As Tom has noted, the attrition rate in all dances is fairly high.  Tango
has one of the highest attrition rates.  I agree with Tom that instructors
must work to increase their retention rates.  I think that realistic
marketing is one way to maintain good retention rates, but the teaching is
also important.  The instructors must teach in a manner that the students
can learn enough to dance at milongas within a month and in a style that
is compatible with a variety of styles in the community.  For this reason,
instructors should emphasize social styles of dancing and generic techique
in their beginning classes.

It is a sad truth that there are typically more women than men seeking to
dance tango, and for that reason the effective size of a community depends
upon a community's ability to retain and teach men to lead.  To me, this
does not mean neglecting to teach the women skills.  Rather, it means
looking to teach the men in a way that gets them moving on the dance
floor.  Memorizing complicated step patterns delays getting the men onto
the dance floor.  Teaching tango as small elements gets the men out on the
dance floor more quickly and it allows the women to work on their movement
skills.

In addition, the broader tango community outside of the instructors also
has a role in retaining newbies, and not in just dancing with beginners.
For a tango community to grow, it must have a sense of openess, a
willingness to accept newcomers, and not just visitors who already have
great dance skills.

I also think that the music at milongas can play a role in attracting and
keeping new dancers.  As we all know, good live orchestras generate the
most excitement, even when the arrangements are a bit more complex.  I
think djs can work a bit harder to find the music that has emotional and
fidelity qualites to appeal to a broader audience while retaining the
rhythmic qualities that appeal to more experienced dancers.  There is a
considerable body of tango music from the golden age that was been
recorded well enough, that a dj need not choose between the extremes of
scratchy old recordings and Piazzolla.

The above are elements to consider in pulling together into a community
business plan.  COMMUNITY BUSINESS PLAN--why would one suggest such an
idea?  Most communities have developed without a community busness plan,
but as Tom observed, in most communities growth ground to a  halt after
all the low hanging fruit has was picked.  Growth seems to be continuing
in those communities dominated by a single instructor or couple with a
business plan.

With best regards,
Steve

Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
http://www.tejastango.com/

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