Tango Instructional Weekends: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

• The invitation of traveling tango instructors to offer a weekend of workshops to dancers is a common feature in tango communities.
  • The stated purpose of these workshops is the provision of information that will improve the quality of dancing of the attendees.
  • With the accompaniment of one or more milongas, this Tango Instructional Weekend becomes an event that brings together many dancers in the community that would not otherwise associate and therefore is designed to contribute to community cohesiveness and growth.
  • With the attendance of dancers from other tango communities, these events may also create and consolidate ties with other tango communities.
• An analysis of the benefits and costs of participation in Tango Instructional Weekends identifies the motivational factors for individuals taking part in these events.
  • The visiting instructors are motivated primarily by the income obtained from providing instruction.
  • The organizers, usually local instructors, also are motivated by the potential profit derived directly from hosting a Tango Instructional weekend, as well as by the accrual of prestige and political influence within the community that is expected to result in the recruitment of additional attendees to their own future instructional and social events, which also promises financial rewards; however, these expectations are counterbalanced by the possibility of financial loss due to the expenses associated with hosting the weekend.
  • Dancers may be motivated to attend by the promise of improved dancing resulting from workshop participation. However, the instructional benefits of Tango Instructional Weekends for dancers are limited.
    • Developing dancers benefit most from instruction in fundamentals of tango dancing taught in smaller workshops by instructors who visit the community on a regular basis; these conditions are rarely met in larger events, e.g., tango festivals with multiple instructors, many of them renowned and with limited opportunity to visit communities on a regular basis.
    • Experienced dancers may be motivated to attend workshops from renowned instructors by the aspiration to emulate aspects of their dancing, although this is difficult to achieve in a brief exposure.
    • All dancers are limited in the acquisition of new dance knowledge by instructor shortcomings in communication, workshop partner deficiencies, and personal capacity for learning due to current level of expertise and the mental and physical fatigue experienced over the duration of the weekend.
• The Tango Instructional Weekend, in its effect of creating a larger assemblage of dancers than normally occurs in a tango community, provides the opportunity for dancers to expand their social networks, not only for dance partnerships at milongas, but also for friendships and romantic and sexual relationships.
  • The importance of a social motivation for the congregation of tango dancers in large numbers is exemplified further by the creation of ‘milonga only’ passes for tango weekends, and by the proliferation of tango events designed specifically for a social purpose, i.e., Tango Marathons and Encuentros Milongueros.
    • The economic benefits of these lower cost events are recognized by organizers of tango weekends.
  • In reality, in most cases the instructional benefits of participation in Tango Instructional Weekends are secondary to the anticipated financial and social rewards.
    • The achievement of financial rewards to visiting instructors and organizers, and of social rewards to event attendees, typically results in community growth and continued distribution of these benefits to participants, thereby justifying their maintenance within the set of normal practices of a tango community, even if the instructional benefits are limited.

A feature common to most tango communities is the invitation of instructors from outside the community to teach tango workshops. The characteristics of these events vary among and within communities, but a typical format is a weekend with multiple workshops; these workshops are almost always accompanied by one or more milongas, usually including performances by the visiting instructors.

These Tango Instructional Weekends are anticipated with varying degrees of fanfare, usually correlated with the reputation of the instructors and the cost of hosting the event. In the third decade of the 21^st century, advertising usually consists of communication via electronic media, i.e., platforms such as Facebook and direct e-mail, often including links to electronic registration for the events of the weekend. This advertising is often accompanied by videos of performances of the visiting instructors. Electronic advertising is typically augmented by announcements made at community milongas and at classes given by local instructors.

Tango Instructional Weekends are advertised primarily as opportunities for attendees to improve the quality of their dancing. Nevertheless, they also are designed to enhance the growth of a tango community and are a sign of the level of development of the community. To better understand the near omnipresence of these events across tango communities, it is necessary to identity the motivations for their organization and for participation. The structure of Tango Instructional Weekends and the benefits and costs for participants in these affairs are analyzed in this post.

The Structure of Tango Instructional Weekends

The defining characteristic of a Tango Instructional Weekend is an event where, in a set of workshops, an instructor or instructors provide information regarding tango dancing, in which both gender roles (leader and follower) participate, with the stated purpose of inculcating the information presented into their paired partner dancing, in order to improve the quality and/or expand the repertoire of movements for the participants. Occasionally, workshops may concentrate specifically on aspects of engagement in a particular gender role in a dance context (e.g., “follower’s technique”). At times, another type of workshop may be offered that concentrates on topics associated with tango social dancing but not directly involving dancing, e.g., aspects of DJ-ing for milongas. Workshop topics not involving partner dancing are almost always auxiliary to partner dance workshops in the Tango Instructional Weekend. In almost all formats described here, visiting instructors are typically available for private lessons.

There are several scheduling formats for Tango Instructional Weekends:

(1) Single Point Instruction

In densely populated areas with large tango communities, a visiting instructor team may travel among nearby communities (e.g., in the New York City area – Manhattan, Queens, New Jersey), offering only one or two workshops in a single time period at each location, e.g., before a milonga or in replacement of regularly scheduled classes on a single (often weekday) evening. In such cases there is usually a local organizer, who may or may not have a significant financial interest in the mini-tour, arranging the schedule. If this type of event includes access to private lessons with the visiting instructors, it is almost always the mini-tour organizer who arranges this. This arrangement is more likely for traveling instructors who are less well known. This format is not of primary interest here, but is mentioned for the sake of completeness.

(2) Partial Weekend Instruction

A single afternoon weekend day (Saturday or Sunday) is set aside for traveling instructors offering two or more workshops. This type of event also may include a Saturday evening milonga with or without a pre-milonga workshop and usually also includes visiting instructor performances during the milonga. In some cases, the visiting instructor may serve as the DJ at the milonga. A minor extension of this format could include a Friday evening workshop, with or without a subsequent dance event (practica or milonga). 

(3) Full Weekend Instruction

The format of this type of event includes workshops on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons and, typically, a Saturday evening milonga, usually with visiting instructor performances. In addition, there may be a Saturday pre-milonga workshop and/or a Friday evening workshop, the latter possibly followed by a practica or milonga. In rare cases, there may be a Sunday evening milonga or practica. A visiting instructor may serve as a DJ for one or more of the milongas. This appears to be the most common format for a visiting instructor event. 

(4) Extended Weekend Instruction

This is similar to Full Weekend Instruction, with the addition of workshops on either or (rarely) both Thursday or Monday. This commonly occurs when there is a 3-day holiday weekend (i.e., with Monday a designated holiday), such as President’s Day (February), Memorial Day (May), or Labor Day (September) weekends in the United States.

(5) Tango Festival

This is a heterogeneous category; there are many variations in structure that organizers will advertise as a ‘festival’. The essential component of a Tango Festival is the inclusion of multiple instructors with two or more simultaneous workshops on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Layered upon that foundation are various other possible events. Sometimes there is the addition of a Sunday (usually early evening) closing milonga. At times there is the addition of a ‘late night’ milonga subsequent to the evening milonga on Saturday. The inclusion of a live orchestra at the Saturday evening milonga is also common. At some large festivals, instructor performances at milongas may achieve a ‘showcase’ status, i.e., interrupting social dancing for an extended period of time. For festivals with high attendance, there even may be additional ‘matinee’ milongas or practicas scheduled at the same time as workshops. Private lessons also may be available on site, often at the same times that workshops are occurring.

Some festivals extend the weekend to schedule events on Thursday evening (e.g., ‘opening milonga’) and Monday; this is common for 3-day holiday weekends (e.g., Memorial Day, Labor Day, Presidents Day in the U.S.). Occasionally there are also Tango Festivals that last even longer, from 4 – 10 days.

More complex Tango Instructional Weekends tend to be held in larger facilities (e.g., hotels, convention centers, universities), rather than in a dance studio where local classes or milongas are normally held. Tango Instructional Weekends with larger attendance are also more likely to contain associated enterprises such as sales of shoes and items of tango-related clothing.

Offering of food and beverages is also an essential feature of Tango Instructional Weekends; at smaller events, these may be supplied gratis by the organizers, but at larger events (such as festivals), there are more likely to be commercial concessions.

As the complexity of Tango Instructional Weekends increases, there tends to be higher attendance, a higher proportion of experienced dancers, a higher proportion of attendees from beyond the local tango community (who tend to be more experienced dancers), and a higher average distance of travel for non-community attendees. Attendance at Tango Instructional Weekends is also highly correlated with the fame and reputation of the visiting instructors, although geographic location, which is associated with population density and ease of travel to the site, are also determinants of attendance.   

Workshop Content

The content of workshops during a Tango Instructional Weekend varies according to instructor, organizer, and community. In general, workshop content usually focuses on acquisition of movements and movement sequences (including improvisation), technique in the use of both previously and newly acquired movements, navigation, and musicality.   

Larger events usually have a greater variety of topics and more focused themes for individual workshops, i.e., less continuity in subject matter across workshops. The level of instruction (basic to complex) ideally reflects the degree of expertise of participating dancers, with a focus on fundamentals (basic movements and associated technique and musicality) comprising a higher proportion of content in communities in the Foundation Stage. Introductory level workshops, designed for recruitment of new dancers are common for communities in the Foundation and Diversification Stages (ibid.), but in general are less likely to be included in the program of festivals, which are designed primarily for more experienced dancers.     

The Participants

There are several classes of participants in Tango Instructional Weekends, each of which encounters different sets of potential benefits and costs in participating in these events.

(1) Event Organizers

A Tango Instructional Weekend originates with the organizers of the event. Most event organizers have full time jobs unrelated to tango. These are usually tango instructors in the local community, although sometimes other community organizers who do not teach tango (e.g., milonga organizers) may host these events. On rare occasions, instructors of other social dances (e.g., Tropical Latin, Ballroom) invite traveling tango instructors to give tango workshops. In the latter case, these are usually smaller events that do not detract from the primary dance focus of the organizing operation.

(2) Visiting Instructors

Visiting tango instructors fall into a diversity of categories.

Visiting instructors may be tango instructors from a nearby community, usually one that is larger and more developed; these are often instructors who travel to teach on an irregular basis and concentrate their efforts primarily on their own local tango community. Most are employed full time in an area unrelated to tango.

In the third decade of the 21^st century, most traveling instructors make a living primarily from teaching tango; these are often dancers who competed successful in tango dance competitions (e.g., Campeonato Mundial de Baile de Tango). Most are from Argentina. In the 1990s and early 2000s the field of touring instructors was dominated by tango stage performers; these are still represented to some degree today, but to a much lesser extent.

During the 2000s and early 2010s there also were invited instructors for tango weekends who would be classified as ‘milongueros’ (a term on which there is some, but not complete agreement; see definitions by: Ricardo Vidort; Cacho Dante; Janis Kenyon; Cherie Magnus), but there are few men classifiable as such teaching tango today (The Vanishing Art of the Milongueros: Studying Recordings of their Dancing that Preserve their Legacy).

There are also some traveling tango instructors, mostly from Argentina, who are otherwise employed at home, who occasionally are invited to teach at Tango Instructional Weekends.

Visiting instructors vary in their reputation. Those who travel only occasionally, primarily to nearby communities, usually are recognized as traveling instructors mainly by the nearby communities to which they travel to teach. The attendance at Tango Instructional Weekends with these occasional traveling instructors is usually limited, the cost to the organizer is less, and the intensity of advertising around these events is lower. Attention, cost, and corresponding attendance tend to increase, in order, with regionally recognized, nationally recognized, and internationally renowned traveling instructors. The greatest fanfare is associated with the latter categories, particularly surrounding instructors from Argentina, and reaching its pinnacle with instructors who have won or placed high in a tango dance competition (e.g., Campeonato Mundial de Baile de Tango) or, in some cases, had a prominent role in a touring tango stage production. The more renowned instructors are those whose primary income is derived from tango dance activities and spend a significant percentage of their time on instructional tours. 

(3) Event Consumers

At smaller Tango Instructional Weekends, the primary attendees at the workshops are tango dancers from the local tango community. Dancers from other (usually nearby) tango communities may also attend workshop weekends. Generally, more renowned traveling instructors attract more workshop attendees overall, more from other tango communities, more dancers from distant locations, and a greater proportion of experienced dancers. Due to lack of self-confidence, inexperienced dancers tend to be less likely to attend a workshop weekend with larger attendance, particularly if the cohort attending the event consists primarily of experienced dancers. Tango Instructional Weekends, particularly the ones with higher attendance, typically attract some dancers who attend the milongas and do not attend the workshops; those who attend only social events are more likely to be experienced dancers. 

(4) Other Community Event Organizers

The involvement of local community instructors and organizers varies. Beyond the organizing instructors, assuming the existence of other local instructors, event participation by these other instructors may vary depending on the reputation of the visiting instructors, as well as on community politics. In some communities, non-organizing instructors may advertise the workshop weekends to their students but do not attend, while in others they attend the events themselves, at least by participation in the accompanying milongas and some by participation in the workshops. In particularly competitive and antagonistic communities, some of the non-organizing instructors neither advertise nor attend the events of the weekend.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Tango Instructional Weekends at the Individual Level

(1) Traveling Instructors

The obvious motivation for the involvement of traveling instructors in Tango Instructional Weekends is to derive income from teaching. This is often accomplished by the establishment a priori of a fixed fee for offering a set of workshops to a community, although other arrangements may exist (e.g., a minimum fee plus a percentage of income from workshop tuition). Variable additions to visiting instructor income may be achieved through private lessons. To some degree, traveling instructors may derive additional non-monetary benefits from their efforts such as satisfaction from successful communication of instructional material to students and pleasurable social experiences, although identification and quantification of these benefits are difficult to achieve. These are the immediate benefits of a particular visit. Longer term benefits may accrue with the establishment of ongoing relations with a tango community. Successful reception of traveling instructor visits can lead to a widely communicated improved reputation for the instructors, which often results in increased opportunities for participating in future Tango Instructional Weekends at other locations.

The costs of visiting tango communities to traveling instructors are more obscure. A loss of reputation may occur if their teaching is not well received and this is communicated widely, thereby decreasing opportunities for revisiting the subject community, as well as opportunities to visit other previously unexposed communities. In some cases, low attendance at workshops may be a sufficient outcome to diminish the reputation of traveling instructors. (In contrast, high attendance may be sufficient to contribute positively to their reputation.) The attitude of instructors towards students (e.g., arrogance) also may harm their reputation. There also may be costs to traveling instructors in their selection of particular tango communities to visit. The success of an instructional tour (i.e., offering workshops in a series of communities) is optimized by minimizing the costs of travel (assuming not all travel costs are reimbursed by participating communities) and the time spent in traveling, and maximizing the monetary income of the tour. The former may be compromised by non-optimal travel routes between communities (dependent on distance traveled, modes of transportation utilized, and calendar gaps in scheduling). The latter may be compromised by loss of potential income due to low demand for private lessons and possibly arrangements for lower contracted fees for communities with lower expected attendance. 

(2) Event Organizers

For hosts of Tango Instructional Weekends, there are several potential benefits. For many hosts, expectation of profit is the primary motivation for organizing such events. Financial benefits from a Tango Instructional Weekend can be immediate or long term. Immediate financial gain is realized when workshop income exceeds expenses. Long term benefits are achieved if the workshop weekend stimulates subsequent attendance at events organized by the host, including future Tango Instructional Weekends. For local tango instructor hosts, return on investment can be realized in increased attendance in tango classes given by the host instructors. There also may be additional nonmonetary benefits accrued by organizers of Tango Instructional Weekends. If the organizers are able to participate in the workshops, they may derive knowledge and acquire skills that can improve their own dancing expertise and, for instructors, provide additional material for teaching. Achieving these favorable nonmonetary outcomes becomes more difficult as Tango Instructional Weekends increase in complexity (e.g., hosting multiple instructors teaching simultaneously in a Tango Festival), when organizational demands deprive hosts from participation in the workshops. A somewhat less tangible benefit to an organizer of a successful tango weekend is an increase in social and political status within the local tango community.   

Nevertheless, there also are significant costs associated with hosting Tango Instructional Weekends. There are numerous financial expenditures involved in organizing such events. The traveling instructors need to be paid their fee for teaching. Likely additional financial costs include payment of travel expenses, lodging, and food for instructors, advertising, space rental, hiring of DJs and other workshop weekend associated personnel, and possibly provision of refreshments for attendees of the workshops and milongas. The time and energy expended in organizing tango weekends cannot be discounted. Arrangements need to be made for visiting instructor housing and food, which for festivals (i.e., with multiple instructors) typically involves hotel accommodations, but for smaller weekends may involve housing the instructors in one’s home and providing food and transportation, which is a significant financial, time and energy commitment. In general, organizing Tango Instructional Weekends detracts from other income producing activities which may be more profitable.

There also may be some medium term costs for hosting Tango Instructional Weekends. The money spent by local dancers in attending these events may limit financially their participation in subsequent local community activities, so that the loss of income in subsequent hosted local community activities (classes, practicas, milongas, private lessons) may subtract from the profit derived from organizing a Tango Instructional Weekend.

In some cases, an event organizer may be willing to incur a financial loss in hosting a Tango Instructional Weekend in the hope that long term benefits may accrue in contributing to the growth and stability of a tango community. Usually this applies to individuals who do not derive a significant proportion of their income from tango activities and often are individuals who possess significant financial assets. On rare occasions, there are benefactors who contribute financially to the support of Tango Instructional Weekends for the same reason, and/or for their own personal satisfaction in observation and perhaps even participation in such events.     

(3) Other Community Event Organizers

For local instructors and event organizers other than the organizer of a Tango Instructional Weekend, the expected benefits and costs are sometimes less predictable. Their attendance at an event of this type usually involves costs in money, time, and energy that possibly could be invested elsewhere with better returns. However, their presence at these events can provide favorable exposure to attendees unfamiliar with them and result in recruitment of these dancers to their own future events. On the other hand, a very well received Tango Instructional Weekend can enhance the reputation of the organizer and result in a shift of dancers’ preferences towards future participation in the organizer’s events and, if one assumes a zero sum game, a loss of attendance and income for other local community organizers. This latter outcome is more likely to occur if other community organizers do not attend a Tango Instructional Weekend hosted by another organizer. In particular, for well-established and highly regarded local instructors, the rise in social status of a previously lower status instructor who organizes a successful Tango Instructional Weekend can create anxiety and may elicit a defensive and perhaps antagonistic response creating or amplifying discord in the community, which usually results in an impedance to community growth and may even sow the seeds of community fission.

(4) Event Consumers

The expected returns for workshop participants are also complex, dependent upon several demographic characteristics. If one gives credence to the messages communicated in advertising, the primary benefits for attendees of Tango Instructional Weekends are derived from integration into their dancing the information communicated by the visiting instructors during the workshops. The potential for acquiring any benefits from workshops is limited by the pedagogical expertise of the instructors and influenced by the format of the Tango Instructional Weekend, but nevertheless also is determined significantly by the status of the student’s dance development.

Inexperienced dancers can achieve improvement in their dancing if there is a concentrated effort in instruction on fundamental skills (e.g., partner connection, basic movements, navigation, musicality), provided the manner of communication is effective. Experienced dancers also may benefit from instruction in fundamentals, but some may tune out information on fundamentals, believing (often incorrectly) that their basic skills are sound; however, the presence of experienced dancers with good basic dance skills in workshops on fundamentals, in their partnership with inexperienced dancers, is likely to assist the latter in their dance development. Nevertheless, it is often the case that experienced dancers would rather be elsewhere. Inexperienced dancers generally benefit more from workshops where they can receive individual attention from instructors; in general, this is more likely in smaller workshops, a condition which tends to be less common for well-renowned instructors. (An instructor’s reputation may be correlated only loosely with pedagogic ability.) Inexperienced dancers are less likely to improve their dancing by participation in tango festivals, because commonly there are greater discontinuities in instructional material among the different workshops, taught by different instructors, possibly creating a condition of cognitive dissonance that reduces the probability of these dancers assimilating the instructional material. If a local instructor lacks the ability to improve significantly the fundamental skills of inexperienced dancers, the optimal condition for achieving these goals may be the repeated visits of a traveling instructor offering a workshop series concentrating on fundamental skills, with smaller classes, and without the distraction of enticing workshops aimed at more experienced dancers. The inclusion of practicas in the Tango Instructional Weekend with the visiting instructor available for assistance is also beneficial for dancers’ incorporation of workshop information into their dancing. Due to financial considerations, these conditions are unlikely to be realized for the more renowned instructors, where higher workshop attendance and content diversity at a higher level may be necessary for the organizer to generate sufficient interest to meet expenses and achieve a profit.

The incentive for participating in the workshops of Tango Instructional Weekends changes as dancers become more experienced. Many experienced dancers seek to add new movements to their dance vocabulary, and are more likely to attend workshops for the traveling instructors regarded as having the highest dance skills, with the goal of adding more complicated movements and sequences to their dance repertoire. However, some experienced dancers, particularly customary followers, may avoid participation in workshops under the assumption or prior experience indicating that the presence of and interaction with inexperienced dancers will interfere with skill acquisition. Experienced dancers also may avoid workshop participation because as dancers gain more confidence in their own dance abilities, they may feel that they have less need for additional instruction to improve their dancing. It is also the case that some experienced dancers may be somewhat resistant to changing their ingrained dance habits. Resistance to change is likely to be greater among older experienced dancers, who may recognize physical limitations to expanding their dance repertoire, or maybe they are just content with an established level of expertise. Older dancers also may lack sufficient stamina to persist in attending a sequence of workshops. Nevertheless, some experienced dancers may recognize the benefit of attending workshops that emphasize technique or musicality, as there is usually room for improvement in these dimensions.

A dancer’s assumed gender role (i.e., leader or follower) may also have an impact on the benefits derived from workshop participation. If there is a gender imbalance in participation, commonly realized with more women (as followers) attending workshops than men, the overrepresented gender will spend more time in the workshop without a partner to practice with. Even if the gender ratio is near equality, the more difficult role of the leader will place competent followers in the position of partnering with a leader struggling with the assimilation of workshop content, thereby increasing the probability of experiencing frustration. Many organizers of Tango Instructional Weekends aim for gender equality in workshop enrollment. The tendency for there to be fewer men than women registering for workshops may result in some women registering in an uncustomary role as leaders, which adds more inexperienced role players into the workshop mixture.   

Impact of Tango Instructional Weekends on the Local Tango Community

The expectation in organizing a Tango Instructional Weekend is that it leads to community growth and benefits for multiple members of the community, without incurring significant losses for individual constituents of the community. There usually is an expectation that the knowledge communicated by the visiting instructors will result in improved dancing for the workshop attendees. There is also the anticipation that an event shared by a large number of dancers within the community will create greater rapport among dancers, even among dancers who usually are associated with different local instructors. There is the hope that the positive energy created by such events, usually climaxing in a well-attended milonga, will reinforce the participation of community members in community events and will result in a desire for greater involvement of local dancers in a wider variety of tango events in the community. The participation of dancers from other tango communities in a Tango Instructional Weekend can lead to or reinforce support of each community for the others’ tango events, especially for nearby tango communities.

However, Tango Instructional Weekends at times can contribute to dissonance and possibly even sow the seeds of disintegration within a tango community. This is more likely to occur if workshop attendees receive different, sometimes contradictory messages from different visiting instructors. This can lead to confusion for individual dancers in the developmental stage, or possibly the formation of different camps of dancers, varying in styles of execution on the social dance floor, which can be a source of conflict both on and off the dance floor. This outcome is possible if different organizers invite instructors who specialize in different genres of tango, e.g., Tango de Salon vs. Tango Escenario; the stylistic orientations of visiting instructors typically reflect those of the organizers, such that Tango Instructional Weekends are capable of focusing upon and magnifying existing differences among different subgroups within a community, thereby throwing fuel upon the fire of competition, segregation and possibly even disintegration of a tango community.

Another source of dissonance may occur if the exhibitions of instructors at a milonga are representative of a manner of dancing that is inconsistent with the content presented in the workshops. Milonga exhibitions by visiting instructors are often a source of inspiration for observing dancers, providing a model for self-improvement. However, instructor exhibitions, with their highly visible space-consuming movements, often resemble to a greater extent dancing appropriate for the stage than for the social dance floor.   

The Reality of Tango Instructional Weekends

The stated purpose of organizing Tango Instructional Weekends with visiting instructors is to improve the dancing skills of the participants. The probability of assimilation of workshop instructional material is dependent on several factors. The ability of the instructors to communicate instructional material is obviously of paramount importance. Instructors who spend too much time talking and too little time demonstrating limit the amount of practical knowledge communicated to attendees. Learning also can be compromised if the instructional material is too complicated or presented too rapidly for most workshop attendees to assimilate. Oftentimes too much material is presented so that workshop attendees experience information overload. During a long workshop or a series of workshops attendees may experience mental and possibly even physical fatigue.

Frequently the content of workshops consists of the presentation of movements and movement sequences. The latter may be beneficial if the movements are familiar and some novel elements are introduced, e.g., with respect to navigational possibilities or musicality. However, if the movements presented for learning are new and challenging, efforts at replication tend to result in awkward emulation and their initial implementation at a milonga often interferes with the harmonious flow of the circulating ronda. Notably, there appears to be increasing emphasis in workshops presented by visiting instructors (even highly renowned instructors and stage performers) on general aspects of dance technique, including musicality. In any case, whether the emphasis in workshops is on learning movements or improving technique, the focus of awareness of workshop participants typically becomes cerebral rather than corporeal. This cerebral focus of attention is often transferred onto the social dance floor, resulting in a less relaxed, stilted manner of dancing and a decrease in the enjoyment of social dancing that accompanies a relaxed state of being. The alternative is to file into memory the material assimilated in workshops, presumably to be retrieved at a later time (more appropriately in a practica than at a milonga), with the inevitable cost of diminution of content retention, as well as its decreased reliability over time. Perhaps this situation could be ameliorated somewhat by the inclusion of more practicas in Tango Instructional Weekends, something that is often neglected, but this might occur at the expense of social dancing time (i.e., milongas) which, as discussed below, is a primary motivator for attending Tango Instructional Weekends. (Alternatively, some participants in Tango Instructional Weekends would treat an event listed on the weekend schedule as a ‘practica’ primarily as an additional opportunity for social dancing.)        

For some workshop attendees, subjective impressions gained from participation independent of instructional value can influence future commitment to attend Tango Instructional Weekends. Some traveling instructors have charisma that creates a pleasant atmosphere in the workshop environment (which can be a welcome alternative to a typically boring weekend afternoon). Sometimes instructor fame may be sufficient to engender the feeling of importance for having been in the presence of a central figure in the tango hierarchy (something one can tell others about to increase one’s own social status in the community). These factors also can result in participants feeling sufficiently rewarded for their participation in workshops, independent of the acquisition of any knowledge that may improve their dancing.

Ultimately, the motivation for participation in Tango Instructional Weekends is determined by the self-interests of the participants. The traveling instructors primarily have an economic interest. The organizer also is likely to be motivated ultimately by an economic interest, i.e., immediate monetary benefits from hosting the event, as well as less tangible economic benefits resulting from community growth; however, depending upon the host, varying degrees of interest in improving dance skills within the community may be present as well. Certainly elevation in social and political status within the community motivates organizers. Developing tango dancers may engage in (an informal) cost – benefit analysis where the time and monetary investments are weighed against the possible benefits of improved dancing. Monetary inflation in the tango world as well as the wider marketplace is also likely to be a factor limiting investment in Tango Instructional Weekends.

Taking into account these considerations, it is expected that the positive impact of Tango Instructional Weekends, in terms of community growth and improved dancing, is  greatest for developing tango communities where local instructors have somewhat limited teaching expertise and visiting instructors with good communication skills can impart their knowledge effectively. This positive impact is enhanced maximally when these instructors visit the community at regular intervals. This often occurs when the home base of the visiting instructors is nearby, which simplifies travel. The benefits of these repeated visits also are amplified when the weekends are well attended and the same dancers are present at each workshop. A longer term positive impact can occur if the local instructor host is capable of continuing to emphasize at least some of the messages of the traveling instructors, thereby reinforcing the content communicated in the workshops. 

These conditions are satisfied primarily in the Foundation Stage of tango community development where, in some cases, there may be an insufficient number of dancers to support a Tango Instructional Weekend. For tango communities in the Diversification Stage and the Period of Stability (ibid.), the heterogeneity of tango skills and possibly philosophical orientations, as well as the likely presence of a multiplicity of instructors, provide a more complicated and therefore challenging landscape for the implantation of information that will modify significantly manners of dancing across this diversity. Inculcation of dancing skills also becomes more challenging when there are multiple visiting instructors with different styles of communication and perhaps non-compatible messages, e.g., as may occur at Tango Festivals, or across different Tango Instructional Weekends organized by different local instructors. At best, under these conditions workshop attendees may filter through an assortment of messages and digest a few morsels of information that modify their dancing, a small educational benefit, considering the cost of workshop attendance. Dancers who attend only the milongas do not receive the educational benefits provided in the workshops.  

Due to the difficulty in teaching a diverse audience, as well as the existence of some ingrained resistance to modification of habits possessed by experienced dancers, the benefits of acquisition of improved dancing skills through participation in workshops usually are diluted significantly in all stages of community development beyond the Foundation Stage (i.e., the Diversification Stage and in the Period of Stability). Nevertheless, in many cases, for those with an open mind, dance skills may be improved through private lessons with some visiting instructors, where there is a focus on the individual needs of the dancer(s), although this requires an additional (often substantial) financial outlay. 

The Social and Cultural Elements of Tango Instructional Weekend Participation

Tango Instructional Weekends are an integral component of First World tango community subculture. Participation in these events communicates to other attendees that one is a member of this subculture, sharing in its practices. It is in these events that members of a tango community identify other members of the community, gain familiarity with them and, because change of partners is the standard procedure during workshops, experience dancing with other members of the community who adopt the complementary gender role in dance partnerships. In this way dancers are introduced to new social dance partners in the workshops; these social relationships can be solidified in the milongas. Participation of members of other tango communities in Tango Instructional Weekends strengthens ties between tango communities, stimulating future travel possibilities for individuals and contributing to the growth and stability of multiple tango communities.  

From an individual perspective, the social rewards of participation in Tango Instructional Weekends may be the primary factor motivating participation. In most First World tango communities, the majority of dancers are ‘single’ (defined here as not in a committed romantic relationship) and social dance environments offer a less pressured atmosphere for meeting potential romantic and sexual partners than do singles bars and online dating or other dating oriented operations (Is online dating harming your mental health?; Every single should learn to social dance). Tango dancing in particular creates a more sensuous atmosphere than other dance modalities, at least partially meeting the need for greater physical intimacy (The Intimacy of Dancing Tango: Therapy for Contact Deprivation in North American Society). Therefore, Tango Instructional Weekends, with their generally higher attendance than other tango activities, and a format for making new acquaintances, offers a particularly attractive hunting ground for those seeking opportunities in forming new or furthering existing social relationships. In some sense, Tango Festivals attract a lot of people because potential attendees expect a high turnout.

The expectation of social rewards for participation in Tango Instructional Weekends is highest among experienced dancers, who generally are socially comfortable with dancing with new partners, in part because of their confidence in their dancing, and in part because of their prior experience with attending these events. In many cases, experienced dancers participate only in the milongas, having calculated that the benefits of attending the workshops do not outweigh the costs of money, time, and energy spent in workshop participation. (Fatigue generated from workshop participation can detract from energy needed for active engagement in the milongas.) It is the preponderance of this behavior that has led not only to ‘milonga only’ tickets for festivals, but also to the rise of Tango Marathons and Encuentros Milongueros without instructional workshops. These latter events also decrease substantially organizer costs of paying instructors for their teaching, housing and feeding them, and covering their travel expenses. 

Despite the expected higher social reward for experienced dancers in attending Tango Instructional Weekends, developing dancers also anticipate social rewards for participation. Their expectations for social reward may not be as specific compared to experienced dancers, who anticipate experiencing rewarding tandas dancing with other experienced dancers and perhaps specifically the initiation and/or advancing of social relationships. In contrast, developing dancers may experience anxiety in encountering a large number of experienced dancers, and generally feel more comfortable at smaller Tango Instructional Weekends, where there are more likely to be a higher proportion of local community dancers with whom they are already more or less familiar, and possibly a lower proportion of intimidating experienced dancers. Nevertheless, for developing dancers, there is likely to exist a greater excitement of participation, of ‘being there’, due to the higher level of stimulation provided by a novel environment with a great deal of energy. There may be some anxiety initially in participating, but there also is hope offered in the observation of the competence displayed by experienced dancers in dancing and in social interaction. For the developing dancer, participation in a Tango Instructional Weekend is part of the process of initiation into the tango subculture and becoming a full-fledged member of the tango community.   

Overview

Tango Instructional Weekends are an integral component of the culture of First World tango communities. They are also a symbol of tango community development, with the frequency and size of these events serving as indicators of the degree of maturity and success of the community. Likewise, the degree of participation of an individual in a Tango Instructional Weekend is an indicator of, on the one hand, the (self-assigned) level of development of an individual dancer and, on the other hand, the degree of commitment of that dancer to the subculture.

The Tango Instructional Weekend originates with the actions of the organizer, who is motivated by one or more factors. At one level, that often emphasized in advertising, there is the goal of improving the quality of dancing in the local community. There is also the desire to grow the size of the community, enabled through retention of existing dancers and (sometimes) recruitment of new dancers. For many organizers, particularly those who derive a significant proportion of their income from tango activities, there is a financial motivation for hosting Tango Instructional Weekends; the pecuniary motivation becomes more prominent as the size of these weekends increases. For organizers with a need for personal recognition by the community, the desire for prestige can be a significant motivating factor for hosting these events. Tango weekend organizers who gain in social status as a result of the hosting these events also may accrue financial benefits from the recruitment of the students of other local instructors to their regular classes. In some cases, these actions may be part of a political strategy to gain power and influence in the community, the result of which eventually may be the elimination of competition and the creation of a monopoly for tango activities in the community.  

The stated objective of Tango Instructional Weekends may be to impart knowledge about tango dancing from expert instructors to workshop attendees. The reality is that this objective is realized only to a limited extent. The teaching of fundamental concepts and movements to developing dancers may have a successful outcome, particularly if the traveling instructors visit the community on a regular basis. However, as the quantity and diversity of information communicated increases with the complexity of the event, the impact on the workshop participant is diluted; in a large festival with multiple instructors it becomes more difficult for attendees to assimilate and synthesize the often fragmented bits of information in such a way as to significantly and permanently improve their dancing.

Therefore, as communities and their dancers mature, the social rewards become a more prominent motivator for dancers’ participation in Tango Instructional Weekends. The importance of this factor should not be underestimated. Notwithstanding some desire to acquire physical skills, the initial decision to embark upon the journey to learn to dance is usually based upon the desire to expand one’s social network; learning to dance is the means to an end. Participation in Tango Instructional Weekends usually delivers the anticipated reinforcement for many attendees, while also contributing to community growth, which further increases possibilities for establishing new social relationships; the delivery of financial rewards to event organizers ensures the persistence of this cultural practice. Therefore, it is imperative that the organizers of Tango Instructional Weekends recognize the importance of the social aspect of these events and strategize to create a socially rewarding atmosphere for the participants.

Given that for Tango Instructional Weekends the primary rewards for visiting instructors and event organizers are financial, and for event attendees are social, notwithstanding the fact that some educational benefits can be derived for some dancers in some cases, the question that can be raised is whether advertising these events as educational is deceptive. The argument made here is that this deception in advertising Tango Instructional Weekends as bestowing major educational benefits upon participants usually has a positive impact in that it promotes attendance, which allows for the realization of financial and social benefits which, in turn, act as a stimulus for maintaining this practice, thereby enhancing community growth and continuing to provide the rewards sought by different participants in the community.