The first and most important question is "What is the purpose of the Club?"
In my opinion, the best role of a tango club is to nurture community, which means taking a neutral or encouraging stance with respect to local teachers. So, look carefully at whether your goal is to help or compete with local teachers. If you are doing workshops and classes, you will be setting up an antagonistic relationship with local organizers. Also, consider financial risk and liability (injuries from poor instruction or what to do when a creepy guy grabs a sixteen year old). There is a particular rule of thumb for community building: You need to have 25 couples in one room in order to create the critical mass for good social interaction and growth. Maybe there is enough Salsa in Buffalo so you can have five teachers with 50 people each, but tango is more specialized, and an individual teacher has a hard time creating the snowball effect. On the other hand, Teachers are usually better than organizations at one-on-one instruction, group classes and privates. Organizations are usually best at nurturing the broader community. Individual teachers should be able to succeed or fail on their own merits or personalities without causing a rift in the community. In cities without a broader organization, there is a tendency for the tango events to be "silo-ed" with individual teachers, (Class 1, Class 2, Milonga). Competitive instincts (and insecurity) motivate teachers to hold tight to their students and not inform them of other events. If you have a club that is neutral and serving the needs of all the teachers, then the confident teacher will want their students to mix in the community for marketing purposes. Economies of scale favor a larger organization when it comes to advertising expenses, relating to arts funding and grants, and renting a dance space. A club needs to serve the broader needs of all the dancers, so it may be constrained to serving the lowest common denominator. If the club is inviting teachers for workshops, they have to serve everybody, not just the young and athletic. An individual teacher can choose a tighter focus, for example, specializing in show dance or nuevo which are accessible to a smaller subset of the community. Also, an individual teacher can sponsor a workshop, and then offer specific, follow-on instruction so the visitor's contribution isn't just wind blowing through the grass. Tango Colorado follows the model of cooperating with and helping local teachers. The club doesn't really "do" anything, except organize the community- wide practices and a few special events. They rotate through the local teachers for beginner classes allowing them to pitch their on-going classes. If a newcomer doesn't fit with teacher X, they might fit with teacher Y. Teachers all have their own styles, but the students end up trying out different teachers and mixing with each other at the practices, so most people can dance a variety of styles, not just the one favored by their teacher. Tango Colorado can afford to rent a big space (actually we own it, now). It can afford advertising. Officially neutral, it lists all teachers, DJs and local organizers in good standing on its web site. Good standing pretty much means dues are paid up; it doesn't say anything about teaching ability, that is up to the wits of the individual teacher. A teacher has to be pretty egregious to be removed from approval. Yes, there is a behavior code, but again, nothing about skill or ability. There are other models around the country. One of the most successful is the U of Michigan tango club. For the past several years they have had three ongoing classes operating in adjacent rooms, followed by a practice. The Advanced and Intermediate classes come over to the Beginner room for the practice, so in effect, the community comes to the newcomers. If they have 50 beginners in the room, suddenly the social energy explodes to 100 people. I imagine that it takes good people skills for a club to manage the personalities of the different teachers. Boston Tango Society follows the model of a club that does a lot of teaching and workshop organizing. In the old days, they did not even permit professionals (income earning dance teachers) from belonging to the club. Maybe they have changed that policy. You'll have to ask people in Michigan and Boston how well their clubs work for the greater community. On Jan 15, 2008, at 8:06 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I am sort of playing around with the idea of setting up a membership > organization - but even if I do something like that, it's way, way far > off - but I'd love to hear from anyone who has done it....basically I > imagine folks pay some amount per year as members which entitles them > to discounted workshops, free admission to milongas, etc. If you > are a > member of something like this in your community - can you let me know > how it works/is working? > > thanks > b _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
