This post is for male tango dancers. It's a letter to men. There are many classes and forums for dual-role women. Please tell me if you know of any classes or forums that address just the dual-role men.
Gentlemen,
I am a strong believer in Ladies Only tango classes. Doesn't it make sense that for the many of the same reasons, Gentlemen Only classes would be helpful for us? Before reading more, ask yourself. “What is so good about ladies only classes that also would be good for same-sex classes for men”? What is your answer? You can even stop reading, think and then perhaps also email me your answer. I'll make a page break here and give you my email: mark.word1@gmail.com. Think about it before I give my view. I would love to know your opinion. Now, read on:
So, what did you say? Are same sex classes especially good for learning the role one doesn't know as well? I say an emphatic yes.
Ladies Only and Gentlemen Only classes
These are some of my tentative conclusions of same-sex classes and dancing from experiences I will share below:
- Same-sex classes and dancing with the same sex helps one to learn the role one does not know well.
- Beginner following men learn from experienced leaders in Men Only classes (rare) or in practicas. Milongas rarely have men dancing with men because of the problem with a gender imbalance. When I see a lot of women sitting, I rarely dance with another man.
- In Ladies Only classes and dancing, the beginner leading ladies experience well-trained followers. In both cases of same-sex role-changes, this is a great help. Leading Ladies have ample chances to get experience at milongas, whereas, this is far less true for men.
Why I started
My wife is learning the rol masculino (as it is called in Argentina). She practices with me. She gets tired of going to events and not dancing as much as she would like or having many men who were not well versed in musicality. We dance weekly at a small milonga in France, and she is happy to have warm embraces with women rather than dancing with men (and women) who try to impress their partners with their open embrace moves. The nice thing is that she no longer is sitting during great music.
Early experiences:
2010. Austin, Texas. I practice both roles with a close-embrace male teacher. I stop because I feel that I am becoming judgmental with experienced women who do not know how to lean into a close milonguero embrace in their own role. Fortunately, today I no longer feel judgmental. Learning both roles is good for me and a blast. I take my partners as they are. In other words, I am growing up up a bit.
2019. Austin, Texas (returning 10 years later). My French wife takes up learning the "leader's" role in Texas. A great European in teacher from Bulgaria now in Texas helps her. I am was my wife's practice partner for a basic tango walk on both sides of the embrace. I suggest that she do what I did as a beginner--start with a great walk in the parallel system and dance on both sides of the embrace.
2024. In Strasbourg, France, a male friend, Frédéric, leads me for a tanda at an encuentro. It is one of my best moments at that 3-day event. We are both musicians, and exchanging roles was great. We laugh the whole time.
2024. In Slovenia, I continue at a tango camp to learn a bit of the rol feminino, and I also have moments which are truly magical. It is always magical with good, male dancers there. So I again I am enthusiastic, and later start taking basic classes besides just practicing with my wife at a practica in Saarbrücken, Germany, which not to far from my place in France.
2025.
January. At a dual-role encuentro I had several great moments--mostly with men when I was following, especially with Marco from Italy. At this double-role encuentro (3 days and 5 milongas) some things that happened I fully expected. Other things were really demotivating because of some really unkind remarks from a woman and difficult female leaders whom I know struggle with both roles. I regained my enthusiasm at a nearby practica, mostly being led by my wife and a great lady lead, Crista, who showed up once, coming all the way from Luxembourg. I warned her I was a beginner, and she really took that to heart. She ramped up the skill level only after figuring out slowly what I could do.
February. I danced with a dual-role male dancer at a practica. Just like with Frédéric in Strasbourg, Wolfgang is very musical and very clear. He also challenged me to drop the tension I had in my right arm every time I was confused or nervous. We exchanged roles and laughed a lot. Again, with Wolfgang I was totally motivated to improve. Also, I really spoke up with the practica teachers to get their help with my new role, and spurted forward in my progress from their help.
March (now) as I write this: I finally can dance with women who lead. They are usually very light, for the most part, in their guiding movements. I especially value this now, just coming back from an encuentro in Bourgogne, France in late February. I danced with a woman, Marie, who had been in an accident. I danced barely touching her injured back, and it was amazing how well it went, I had tears in my eyes at the end of the tanda. Light and gentle guiding, gentlemen, is actually an amazing thing. Marie changed my dance forever for both roles. It was that powerful. You will especially learn it from women as you progress in being "guided," as the French say, or learn how to "accompany" as they say in Argentina. My hope of being guided by both men and women is getting closer and faster than expected. My wife told me that at the last encuentro we went to last weekend that I was her favorite follower. What an honor!
Gentlemen, I see more and more women learning both roles or even entirely leading other women. Women who lead are often leading women who will not dance with you. It's not necessarily the case that the Leading Lady is better than you that she has great followers accepting her cabeceo. Perhaps, they like a softer lead, or they are weary of men leading with the arms, or you stink, or you are too tall, or too old, or perhaps they simply prefer to give women leads a chance. You might fix everything except "too tall" or "too old," and they still will not dance with you. There will come a time (or you already have experienced it) that the role imbalance has now left you sitting as all women are on the dance floor. In this scenario, can you dance with a man and have a blast? I now can. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it. There is a Biagi tanda playing, and I don't want to sit. Lead me!
Men have an unfair advantage at engineering universities. Women have an unfair advantage in many countries as dancers. Perhaps not today, but throughout time, little girls and boys have been harmed by being told to avoid certain roles. If your milongas have too many women, it is probably because of cultural taboos against men dancers. This is not true in Cuba, for example. The alpha male is a good dancer in Cuba, but not in New York, Berlin, or Paris. Tango can easily become a defacto ladies only event if you live in a country that has told boys from the start that dancing is for girls. It's time to level up and learn both roles. Dancing with men is, in my opinion, the fastest way to learning quickly as a dual-role dancer.
Photo Credit: Thorsten James, Saarbrücken, Germany
Dear Tangotherapist, dear Mark,
ReplyDeletefinally some words about us male dancers dancing as followers. I have been trying to follow the last few years, but I am mostly discouraged, because I feel like I am taking away chances for women to dance in their role. Back in 2008 there was a women's technique class and so many men were dissappointed to have to wait for their improving followers to come back to the practica, to dance with the men again. I have never experienced women being so impatient waiting for men, than the other way around, especially when one side is just practicing to improve the common dance.
My last dances were at a Biathlon close to Mannheim and I had great dances with women until I started changing roles with men. I don't know if it was related, but after my pleasurable dances with men, I could not get the "good" followers to dance with me again. This could have been coincidence of course. I will focus on this aspect, after having been inspired by your blog. Thanks!
"after my pleasurable dances with men, I could not get the "good" followers to dance with me again" By "followers" do you mean women? If so, I suggest they perceived a signal that you prefer to dance with men.
DeleteHi "Sidrone," thanks for the comment. I too avoid dancing with men when there are too many women, and that is mostly the case at milongas. This means that we get very little practice as a consequence of being outnumbered by women. I expect the gender imbalance to grow. The second consequence was mentioned by the anonymous commenter to your remarks: That men who dance with men may be shunned by experienced followers if they dance with men even when there is a gender balance. If this is true (and I think it is), then we have two possible negative consequences for dancing as followers with men (with dancers who have our height and are truly experienced leaders). So be it. I will get more experience mostly by dancing with women leaders--certainly with my wife. As I indicated in this post, there will be more and more women who will dance both roles well. Men beginners will come to tango and as is already true, they will see more and more women who prefer to dance with women beginners than with them. I see this at every milonga--many experienced and inexperienced female leaders preferring to lead both experienced and inexperienced female followers. For on thing there is a size difference, and men have fewer chances to follow. One talented heterosexual women leader told me she has absolutely no interest in leading or following men. Let me get this right: So we men grow up in a gringo culture that tells men that dancing is for girls or gays. Whereas women start young, take ballet classes, Zumba classes, cheerleading classes and then wonder why men are retarded on the dance floor or their partners never even try to dance. If we men start at all, we start late in life, we wish to become better at the art of dance by learning both roles, and unlike women, we are faced with being shunned for dancing with the same sex. Tango will be more and more a women's world. It is a developing consequence mostly growing outside of Latin America. Meanwhile, we have the super macho guys like Sebastian Arce who claims the two most important elements of of tango are (1) showing off, and (2) courtship on the dancefloor! The response by so many men and women was very positive on his Facebook page. Why? I think it is in response to the new wave mostly outside of Latin-American countries that are more and more feminizing tango. Arce also refers to "Wokeism." Is this an example of which he is referring to? Many people want tango to be a dance between a man and a woman. Traditional. I can understand this. I came to tango to express myself as a man. I wanted to be a better leader and support my wife's desire to not sit so much at a milonga. The consequences for her to become a leader, dancing with both women and men, are almost all positive. The consequences for me to dance with men and women are a mixed bag of positive and negative consequences. (1) I cannot practice with men because of the growing gender imbalance, and (2) if a traditionalist woman who sees me dancing with a man, she may avoid or even shun me. She wants a real man to lead her(?). (3) Even homophobic guys have issues with the dual-role male dancer, but they don't mind women dancing with dual-role female dancers. But so be it. I will face the consequences, and fully expect that most tanger@s will even deny that there is a problem for men to learn both roles. I don't expect empathy. It's just my path.
Delete> we have the super macho guys like Sebastian Arce who claims the two most important elements of of tango are (1) showing off
DeleteThe prominence of this attitude is the unfortunate outcome of natural selection - event organisers paying such people to show off e.g. in commercial breaks in milongas which - even worse - encourage newcomers to copy them in classes.
Thank you, Mark, for your work on this topic. I especially appreciate your recognition of a possible style difference: "are usually very light, for the most part, in their guiding movements." I interpret this as a breakthrough in one's following and ability to listen, as well as the leader being clear without having to be forceful to be understood. So much possibility opens up in the dance. So much of tango is felt. . . If you don't know how it feels, are you really dancing as effectively as you imagine?
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is implied throughout, but learning the other role improves ones knowledge of their primary role, bringing a depth of knowledge through experience, rather than through observation, of what one believes of the other role.
Finally, there is so much joy available when dancing both roles. This is so evident at the Totally In Tango (totallyintango.com) events. I hope you get to experience that in the very near future.
Wishing you many happy tango dances . . .
Thanks for the comment. Yes, there is much to be learned beyond the joy of experiencing this new perspective. You say, "Learning the other role improves one's knowledge of one's primary role." I agree fully. You mentioned an event organized by "totallyintango.com." I will be going to their next event in May.
DeleteAlready, my perspective of following has changed since writing this, as I predicted in my post. Just as I did as a "leader," I am taking private lesson in this new role.