> As for the difficulty of developing a separate milonga for nuevo dancers, > what the heck do you think it was like creating a milonga in a city in the > first place? Hello!!! My first weekly milonga had 15 people at its grand > opening, and dropped to 5-7 people a week for months at a time when my city > was losing population big-time. Ten years later its at critical mass and > I've stopped keeping counts long ago. So don't say that 40-60 people at a > milonga is not enough people. That's an insult to those in your community > that started with only a handful of people and worked their butts off to make > a viable community. If nuevo and traditionalists can get along great in your > community, then fine. > I think I am not bragging if I say, I was (am) one of the few who made it happen. As for traditionalists and nuevo getting along, there is only one teaching couple who can be called traditionalist (actually they dance mostly canyengue) in Hungary (they organized the first milonga, but the scene did not grow for ages as this milonga grew out of a practica for their single class in the week and they had a very little interest in expanding further). Their students frequent all the other milongas with heavy nuevo influence and vice versa. Also, the teachers themselves are pretty much interested in nuevo lately as a possibility to further their studies. > If you're passionate about something, work on your own to create it. Don't > rely on the backs of others to do the work for you. Yes, it can be a > financial risk, but so was the first milonga in your community. > Please, tell me about it... The first (or really any) milonga in Hungary at the beginning was no real risk as places were cheap to rent (if any) and taxes are still not collected if you don't pay them voluntarily (although a few month ago one of the milongas were hit by ~IRS equivalent agents). Of course, when you have a large school (such as I) and a milonga in it, it is unwise not to. I am the founder of probably the only dancestudio in Hungary which DOES take the risk, and most likely one of the really very few organizers in Europe (next time you visit a festival see if you get any invoice, check if there is a proper company bank account, tax number - PayPal is the best money laundering tool there is) who pay its taxes as required - which at present time means a personal tax rate of over 60%, plus a VAT of 25%, along with costs that are - at PPP - over three to five times higher than in Austria, our neighbour. The result is that a milonga with 60 people is not even breaking even (that, considering zero rental fee as we are the organizers). Price increase is not an option as people would just quit dancing if we would.
If this is to be an international mailing list, please start to think globally, as - apparently - our problems are not at the same stage all over. Also, at some places the evolution of the scene solved some problems that still exist in others (strangely, in the older ones). I believe that many problems with communities in Western Europe and the US is that there are a lot more beginners around at a milonga. I suspect, that the tendency that most Hungarians - even with a lot of encouragement by the teachers - can't imagine themselves to be able to dance at a milonga without feeling inferior for at least a year or more, while your average German or US couple will start to visit a milonga right away (or even before attending a single class - happened here a few times: mostly with expats), produces an entirely different general level of skills at the milongas (unfortunately after this point many people stall in their development - especially the 'traditionalists'). Aron -- Ecsedy Áron *********** Aron ECSEDY Tel: +36 20 66-36-006 http://www.milonga.hu/ http://www.holgyvalasz.hu/ __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4523 (20091019) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
