Many people have said they have experienced both tango Hell and tango Heaven. I think the main reason that people go to tango festivals and encuentros and marathons is in search of tango Heaven. Or the more final version is just giving up, which is a way to end a succession of moments of living in Tango Hell.
I posted on Facebook the below "tango thought experiment," I was totally bewildered with the responses. Many said that they would never do it. I will post in the comments some of their answers without giving their names, but really? I would find this tango heaven, but I like supporting my local milonga, which is not nearly as ideal as the one described below. I dance with people of all levels and love the social connection.
Would You Volunteer to Live in "Tango Town"?
PLEASE COMMENT: Why would you go or refuse to go to "Tango Town" as described be low in this . . . . . . . . .
Tango Thought Experiment:
Let's say that some social scientists receive a huge grant from a multi-billionaire tango dancer to study the behavior of tango dancers for 5 years. The grant's purpose is to study tango social behavior. The main elements of the study:
- The community pulled together a picked from a gender-balanced 150 participants will a good to excellent level of skill.
- The incentive to participate does not stop people from working, but the will be given 1 million euros, paid a yearly sum (paid in monthly installments) of 100-thousand euros and a 100-thousand bonus at the end of each year. In five years, this is one million euros.
- New ideas from the outside come from regular new teachers who come to teach and dance at the two weekly milongas, staying for two weeks.
- Participants can invite friends to come dance for a week. Ten visiters each week are possible
- The experiment is set in a medium-sized city where you can work and play if you wish.
- You must not travel to dance other than Tango Town's wonderful dance hall. It has free refreshments and orderves, has a wonderful floor, and is set near a lake and the ocean. It is okay to leave on vacation for a total of 30 days per year, but not to dance elsewhere. The purpose is to see what happens if good dancers stay to develop their own local milonga community.
- As long as you follow the contract, you will be given €100k a year (paid in monthly installments).
- You will be given an additional bonus of €100k for staying for each completed year (given at the end of each year completed).
- You must attend the two main milongas. Of course practicas, group lessons, private lessons and other milongas are allowed when in Tango Town.
- The social scientists will study why some will leave, why others will stay for the money in tango hell, or hopefully, because it is their tango heaven. You agree to participate in questionnaires and interviews.
See the below comments. Even with the above great conditions for a local milonga, notice the aversion to building a local scene. Many comments will blow your mind. Add your own mind-blowing comment below!
From Greece: "That's an interesting thought experiment. My short answer: No. I wouldn't join in the first place. Why? I think it would have a negative effect on my improvement in Tango."
UK: "Social tango at its best: And we would over time develop our own tango style and most certainly our own set of rules (i.e. no polyester shirts on the dance floor)"
From Germany: Social tango at its best: And we would over time develop our own tango style and most certainly our own set of rules (i.e. no polyester shirts on the dance floor).
From Germany: "Would rather be broke and travel. Leave, meet new (tango) people, learn, discover. Have actually lived in a kind of closed tango community (minus the $$$) in a 'past life'."
Berlin: "I wouldn't stay if hardly anybody held a job or a serious commitment to the community or to society (other than tango)."
USA, Idaho: "I wouldn’t stay. The first couple of months would be nice—getting to know people and dancing. After a while, a lot of tango “inbreeding” would happen, distorting the dance and boring the most skilled dancers. The occasional outside guests wouldn’t be enough to nurture the growth of the tango town’s inhabitants. After five years, nobody from the outside world would be able to enjoy dancing with any of the “mummified” tango town dancers."
USA, Texas: "That's a whole year of life that cannot be given back to you. I want a rounded life with other experiences and opportunities is a life with choices. A life without choices is a prison." [Nothing in the though experiment says you cannot do anything else.]
USA: "If you ever check out Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, you'll understand why I choose to leave despite how "good" a deal it is on the surface - one man's heaven is another's hell, as they say." [I suppose that means he is what Rubin calls a "rebel." :-) ]
USA: "I'd stay .... regardless ... I'm addicted to tango."
