Re: [TANGO-L] Friendly Tango Communities

[Jay Rabe <jayrabe @HOTMAIL.COM>]

    IMO one of the reasons Portland has such a cohesive atmosphere is due
to Bill Alsup. Bill was one of the dozen or so original dancers who started
with Clay Nelson 12 years ago. At some point he created a webpage,
www.PortlandTango.com, where all events in Portland are listed. In addition,
all teachers in Portland are listed. Many other teachers and organizers have
their own webpages too, but no one has tried to compete with Bill at being
the "one-source" for listing events and available instructors. This single
thing, his webpage, creates a sense of unity in the community.
    All teachers and instructors encourage their students to be aware of
and use his webpage to keep up to speed on what's happening in Portland.
This means that any student can easily see and contact other instructors, so
the possessiveness of an instructor for their students is automatically
minimized.

    An interesting side-note: My understanding from several sources is
that, at least in the past, Argentine masters who took on a pupil often
demanded that they study with no one else. While there may be some
possessiveness at the root of that, there probably is some validity too.
It's a common phenomenon at tango festivals for a student to take classes
with different instructors who give flatly contradictory advice on
technique. This can be confusing, to say the least. It's arguable whether
such confusion significantly delays or damages a student's progress in the
long run, but regardless staying with just one maestro avoids that
confusion. The festival format that is used here in the USA of having many
instructors certainly gives students the opportunity to sample different
approaches and ultimately pick those instructors and techniques that work
for them.

    J in Portland
    www.TangoMoments.com



----Original Message Follows----
From: Richard deSousa <mallpasso  @AOL.COM>

Another problem which fractures tango communities is the way teachers
zealously guard their students so they don't stray and learn from another
teacher in the same community.  When this happens usually conflicts arise.
But it's precisely the way beginners and intermediate dancers can improve
because being stuck with the same teacher only stunts the growth of the
dancers.

El Bandito de Tango



-----Original Message-----
From: Christian L|then <christian.luethen  @GMX.NET>
To: TANGO-L  @MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Sent:         Mon, 7 Nov 2005 11:30:52 +0100
Subject: Re: [TANGO-L] Friendly Tango Communities

 On 6 Nov 2005 at 19:30, Polly McBride wrote:

> In fact, all 30 or so Portland
> teachers are meeting tomorrow to discuss how to better promote tango
in
> Portland, how to better support each other's events,

That's probably *the* reason for the success of PDX-tango: teachers
support each other instead of strugling against ...
... you can feel this atmosphere at their events (and I really pity myself
for
not having been able to attend Oktoberfest this year): such a friendly and
welcoming community!

Christian