Many social dance styles are increasingly putting more emphasis on the development of technical proficiency. This is great on several levels. It prevents injury, raises the level of dancing, and keeps upper-level dancers engaged. It promotes artistry and interpretation. It’s a conduit for dance growth.
But, it runs the risk of shutting out people who definitely deserve to be a part of our communities.
I recently read a Tango-based article that opens with the sentence “When people really get into tango, it becomes fairly evident that group classes and a few private lessons aren’t really enough.”
Enough for what?
Unless my understanding of the article is completely wrong, it seems to say that ‘it isn’t enough to attract good partners’. (paraphrased) Which is a fair point. Generally speaking, strong technical dancers enjoy dancing with similar-level partners.
But, it is the follow-up point that I take issue with. This follow-up point is ‘Dancers complain about snobbery because they refuse to invest enough in their dance education to be attractive partners.’ (paraphrased)
Investment only works if you have three things: Time, Passion, and Money.
I personally don’t believe that a partner’s ‘worth’ is measured solely by their technical proficiency. It is measured by a plethora of factors – including attitude. Is technical proficiency important? Sure, it can be.
But, lacking the desire or ability to acquire strong, technical proficiency doesn’t excuse ‘snobby’ behavior.
The People who Can’t (or Won’t) ‘Step Up’
It’s easy to say “why don’t they just invest more?” But, some people can’t. Investment only works if you have three things: Time, Passion, and Money.
If you don’t have time, it’s hard to invest. A world-class heart surgeon may LOVE dancing and have money, but they only have time for 2 classes a month. Is dance ‘not for them’ because they don’t have time?
If you don’t have passion, you have no reason to invest. The guy who is accompanying his girlfriend to make her happy may only take group classes. Does this mean he doesn’t ‘deserve’ dances with good dancers?
If you have no money and no teachers are willing to give you a scholarship, you may have to learn only at socials or ‘free’ classes. Should they be ostracized by advanced dancers, since they’re not growing enough?
Disputing the Argument for Snobbery: “Using What You’ve Learned”
There’s an argument for snobby behavior and judging others on their technical proficiency centered around ‘advanced dancers getting to use what they’ve learned.”
I understand the desire for dancers to use what they’ve learned. But, you don’t need to use everything you’ve learned every single dance. Otherwise, the top dancer in the scene would never dance. After all, no one else can do what they do.
If technical proficiency is your only tool for judging someone else at a dance, you’re missing out on what it means to be part of a social community.
If you’re an advanced dancer, it’s great to have several advanced dances in a night. But, dancing with a few beginners or intermediate dancers isn’t going to spontaneously devolve all of your hard-won skills. In fact, it can often illuminate holes in your own technique, and force you to be even more precise.
If your reason for this argument is you won’t have fun unless you use everything you’ve learned, I’d advise you to stop learning.
Why? Well, the more you learn, the less fun you’re going to have! You’re going to keep surpassing all the partners that challenge you. Eventually, there’s going to be no one that will keep you engaged.
Why not just make your own fun in dances? Why not use your advanced skills to create engaging dances with all levels?
Judging on Technical Proficiency
Judging the value of a person only by their technical proficiency is superficial. It turns the social scene into an elite clubhouse: “pay your dues, or don’t enter.”
Yes, it is fair to use technical proficiency as part of your ‘toolkit’ for deciding if you want to dance with a person. Weighing this factor doesn’t make you a snob. Exclusive reliance does.
For example, if it’s my favourite song and I really want to dance it with a strong dancer, OK! Great! It’s part of a balanced reasoning. You want a strong dancer for a specific reason because of the conditions.
And yes, you are certainly allowed to always refuse dances with anyone below a certain level. But, doing this unilaterally and with no other considerations does makes you a ‘snob.’
If technical proficiency is your only tool for judging someone else at a dance, you’re missing out on what it means to be part of a social community.
Even if you only entertain 2 beginners or “not-serious” dancers a night, you’re helping. Even if all you do is talk to and encourage them, it’s fine. I mean, really.
Unless the person is a dangerous dancer, is it really hard to spend a song or two with that person? Is it that difficult to give a selfless dance? And yes, dear Tango dancers, you have the ‘Tanda’. So? Ask halfway through a Tanda, and just do a song or two if it’s that bad!
Why Kindness Grows Scenes
Social dances require new blood to be sustainable. The thing is, new blood doesn’t appreciate the nuances of your dance. There are very few people who try dance once and go “‘Hell Yes! Let me spend THOUSANDS of dollars to grow!”
Heck, I wasn’t one. You could barely convince broke-student me to spend money on anything more than a University club membership ($30 a year) and a monthly social.
What kept me around? The ‘advanced’ dancers who danced below their level to motivate me. The ones who accepted my requests with a smile week after week.
Two years later, I got serious about it. Two years of investing in me as a social dancer turned me into someone willing to fly to other continents to learn and grow. Two years of investment turned me into an evangelist who brought a lot of people into dance – several of whom became ‘serious’ dancers.
I’m a stronger dancer now than some of those people I viewed as ‘advanced’ who helped me up. I still dance with them and have a blast – even if their technique isn’t perfect, and things mess up every once in a while. Even if they’ve stopped ‘investing’ and just dance socially.
It’s Not About Forced Behavior
I’m not going to tell you “say yes to every dance” or “be nice to everyone.” That’s like telling a 5-year-old to “apologize and mean it.” It just doesn’t work – it’s lip service only.
If you choose to judge only on technical proficiency, I will support your right to do so. But, I will not tell you that it is morally right, kind or constructive.
I have always advocated that you should be able to choose if you want to dance at all times, and for any reason. So, it is well within your rights to decline all dances with ‘uninvested’ dancers.
But, that doesn’t make it kind.
It’s my right to not do anything to help a guy bleeding on the sidewalk. I’m perfectly entitled to not want to get his blood on my white pants. But, my personal morality would never allow me to walk past the scene.
If you choose to judge only on technical proficiency, I will support your right to do so. But, I will not tell you that it is morally right, kind or constructive.
I will never hold the position that people must pass a threshold of ‘investment’ to be part of a scene. I will never advocate for any dancer to feel left out or worthless on the basis of skill – regardless of the reason.
I don’t want to promote the idea of dance scenes that are (or seem) snobby. I want to promote inclusion and positivity.
I want to have scenes where newcomers come in and say “Wow! These people are so nice! I want to be part of this,” and where the heart surgeon can say “Dancing with these great people is the perfect end to a stressful week.”
What do you want your scene to look like?
What do you think about dancing with people whose lack of technique actually makes them unpleasant to dance with?
I’ve had some dances with beginners who strongly prioritize doing cool/sexy styling over partnership. I’m not talking about anything really dangerous here, but about annoying things like yanking at/dropping/not taking your hand, stopping/going/not going/accelerating at unexpected times, etc.
It’s always your choice to dance/not dance with someone.
However, my personal opinion is if you are the more advanced dancer and the behavior isn’t dangerous, it’s possible to find a way to enjoy almost any dance. Stress the almost.
If there’s one or two people you just can’t stand and have a terrible connection with, that’s one thing. But, if it’s a widespread problem, I tend to take a look inwards. Usually, there are ways to control the issue to have a fun or tolerable dance.
If there’s absolutely NO WAY you could POSSIBLY enjoy the dance, then a polite ‘no’ will suffice. But, I personally would make all efforts to try compensation for shortcomings first.
For me it is not about technical stull like steps, etc… but the connection. What makes partner unplesant to dance with (for me) is if she is out of tryth, if she is heavy (not her weight, but hanging on me, or if she actually leads (im over 100kg and I know one lady who is able to overpower me to something else that Im doing… really really unplesant when unexpected)
I danced with the lots of girls, who does the technique completelly wrong (usually they dance something else, and try new dance for a first time – like take Zouk dancer and try the slow waltz for the first time) and these weere great dances because they were abel to follow anyway.
I’ve actually addressed that before in the article “Is that dancer really a snob?”
Wow!, your beginners seem like they have excellent ‘Blues’ dancing potential!
I read the same article as you and had a similar reaction. At first I figured it must be written by a dance teacher who has a vested interest in getting people to take lots of lessons, but I also know a lot of dancers in the community who have this attitude. For some people tango is absolutely not just or even a social activity, it is an arena where they can feel successful and important, particularly if they feel unsuccessful and unimportant in other areas of their lives (work, relationships etc). For such people maintaining a hierarchy in the tango scene is not just important it is critical to their self worth.
There are other people, type A personalities, who are incapable of treating any activity with a skill element as a simply a social activity; for them everything in life is a competition.
If dancing with mere mortals is such a trauma for these snowflakes I suggest they go and set up a special tango club for special people where they don’t have to be offended by the incompetence of amateurs. Some such clubs exist but they tend not to last long because the members then start competing amongst themselves and the number of potential applicants is low and diminishing since they don’t encourage newcomers to refresh the ranks.
The whole point of being special is to make sure everyone knows you are special. Bitching about the lower orders helps to reassure yourself and others of your elevated status.
I have three criteria for selecting a dance partner:
1. Technical skill but only to the extent that I can get a clear lead and am not damaged.
2. Originality. Some newer dancers are braver at trying out something different and they are not constrained by maintaining an image.
3. Sexual attractiveness. Yes I’m that shallow. But it doesn’t necessarily translate to the youngest or the most conventially good looking.
4. Height and weight. I generally find it easier to dance with partners who are within a certain range of my own height and weight. I will dance with people outside that range but they will need to be more technically competent to compensate.
I totally agree with so much of this. I’m not a fan of snobbery in any form, and I think that higher-level dancers should, ideally, feel the drive to “pay forward” all the effort advanced dancers invested in them when they were new.
I have seen a different perspective on “Dancers complain about snobbery because they refuse to invest enough in their dance education to be attractive partners.” Some beginner dancers who complain about snobbery are not just trying to have a good dance with a higher-level partner. They believe they should be the advanced dancer’s best dance of the night, and blow their mind. If the advanced dancer isn’t suitably awed and seek out said beginner over and over, they complain about snobbery.
I’ve noticed it a lot with the students who are big fishes in very small social dance ponds, particularly at their first larger social dances. They don’t realize that they are very technically flawed and have room to work; they’re used to being idolized. I’ve found that students who have a good sense of where their skills stand don’t tend to gripe about “dance snobs”. But it needs to be balanced with advanced dancers who are not themselves cliquish.
Absolutely!
This article was meant to tackle a very specific niche – which is the actually snobby dancer. There’s certainly some people who mistakenly ascribe ‘snob status’ to people!
(For that, I would refer them to possibly consult the Dancer Ego Syndrome article, but perhaps the phenomenon of low-level ‘think they’re great’ dancers deserves more specific attention.)
There’s another variation of this that is dangerous (can cause injury) particularly among guys. You could call it a Zouk version of the creepy bachata guy.
These dancers think that they are advanced and force lead advanced moves (like bonecas, tilted spins and cambres) on relatively new dancers. She will follow assuming the guy knows what he’s doing. However these guys don’t dance with experienced female dancers who they know won’t follow advanced moves and might tell them off on it.
How should the new dancer respond to this? If she refuses we might be branded as a snob. How should experience dancers in the scene who see this happening respond to this?
To me, that’s more of a dangerous dancer. My opinion on dangerous dancers is always the same: if you feel unsafe, ask them to stop doing the unsafe behavior. If they don’t, or if you think you can’t manage it, say ‘no’. Appearance of snobbery be darned.
This was specifically targeting actually snobby dancers, rather than protection-based decisions to not accept dances.
The dancing snobbery is a little tricky term. I believe there is big difference beeing snob and appearing as a snob. (and unfortunatelly both have similar consequences for you – they see you as a snob).
As you mentioned – it is fine if you prefer dancing with similar level dancers. But it is great to take few begginers to the dance floor. And it does not make you snob. But others may still feel that way.
When you check the visitors of most social events most of them are begginers. And there are few really experinced dancers. So even if you split the time 50:50 between experienced and begginers, you will dance a lot of times with each experienced partners. And once with only few of the begginers. The result is that you still appear like “He dances with that lady most of the night. And for last three events he did not asked me for a single dance. What a snob.”
I’ve been dancing for seven or so years, and I especially enjoy salsa. I love to dance with beginners because they are so happy and surprised when I can give them a move they never saw before and they can make it thru it. Even if they haven’t been anywhere near perfect I will praise them and encourage them. I feel really good about excecuting a move perfectly, but dance shouldn’t be about being perfect—unless you are doing a performance—dance should be about pleasure.
Hello John. I feel the same way too. Its good that you encourage the follows, since that gives them the confidence and encouragement to learn more. Many beginner follows are usually intimidated by advanced leads since they fear that they might go out of rhythm or won’t be able to execute a step properly. Instead making the beginners feel at ease and reminding them that they are doing a good job is really essential. 🙂
Love this article – I agree completely with everything you say, especially the ‘Why Kindness Grows Scenes’. It’s frightening to see people become such snobs. In my opinion, if everyone just made a little more effort to dance with beginners for at least part of their evening our Zouk scene would get so much bigger and better.
I’m a tango dancer (mostly a follower). I’m interested in the overlap of issues and their solutions in different social dances, and wow, it looks like tango has a reputation for being particularly snobby. This is disappointing, and at the same time, the tango perspective on technique is the one that resonates with me.
In more sophisticated tango scenes, it’s not unusual to dance just one or two songs with someone, especially if they’re less advanced, but also if they’re just unfamiliar. However, in most of North America, many people stop looking for partners after the second song, making it trickier to find a dance for just one or two songs. And if you do dance the last one or two songs with someone, they’ll often expect to dance the next tanda with you as well and may be unpleasantly surprised if this doesn’t happen. I’m happy to pay it forward, but I don’t really want to commit myself to 10+ minutes of being bossed around physically (not that this is what happens every time, but it’s a frequent outcome in “pay-it-forward” mode) with no recourse short of breaking the tanda, which is considered a drastic measure and typically reserved for extreme situations.
For me, the issue with dancing with less technical dancers is never one of boredom or not using what I’ve learned. I am extremely happy to dance with the beginners who lead simple moves that they can execute clearly and not uncomfortably. In tango, just walking with a great dancer can be mind-blowing. With a beginner, it’s rarely mind-blowing, but it’s usually at least OK. The problem is when dancers try to lead moves that are above their skill level and use excessive force to compensate for their lack of technique. In tango, it’s a big breach of etiquette to correct someone on the dance floor, so if you’re dancing with someone who’s pushing you around or kicking your legs, there’s not much that can be done besides deciding not to dance with that person again for a while and hoping that they get some education in the meantime. I — and I expect this goes for most experienced followers — am fine dancing with people who don’t have great technique as long as they stick to moves that don’t require it; it takes a really amazing attitude to compensate for a kicked-off toenail, for example.
In other dances, is this lack of self awareness less of a problem? Do “mere mortals” as Anonymous puts it, realize that they’re not professionals in a show and dance accordingly? In tango, there’s often pressure on teachers to teach moves that students aren’t necessarily ready for to keep them around and engaged. Is this not a problem in other dances? Or if it is, how have you dealt with it? Thinking you’re better than you are seems widespread in social dance. How do you deal with it when it’s causing discomfort or harm to others? Is it OK in other dance scenes to say something along the lines of “can you please relax your right arm” or “I’d prefer not to do that move”?
Anonymous 2, Laura has written quite a bit on the topic, I think this article is the most pertinent one: https://www.danceplace.com/grapevine/should-you-say-something-when-your-social-dance-partner-does-something-you-dont-like/
Lack of self awareness is not any less of a problem in other dances, nor is the problem of teachers feeling pressure to teach too difficult moves; I think the issue is universal.
I quite agree. Thank you for the post.
When I first started dancing socially, I was helped by many who were friendly and gracious enough to dance with a beginner, and I was taking every class and workshop and social I could get to – like 10-20 hours a week with several dance styles. It was intimidating dancing with technically proficient dancers at times and I felt badly about not being able to follow everything they led but, it also helped make me a better dancer (not just in terms of skill but with connection.) Dancing with those leads who only learned enough to “get by” didn’t improve my dancing and it wasn’t terribly fun. The middle ground though, finding partners who also frequented the scene, gave enough attention to their dancing and their partner…it was fun to interact with them and that’s what helped breed the loyalty I’ve found for social dancing. I always try to remember that and “pay it forward” when I attend social events, even though many times I have more technical skill than others present. It’s fun to just adapt to a partner and find our own rhythm and connection…like we would when having a conversation with a new person. It’s these conversations with people who have learned different things than we have, that teach us, that teach them, that grow a community. If social dancing is a conversation, and we remember that everyone has something to say and something to hear, then we build relationships instead of lonely pedestals; much more fun! <3
Great article. It is absolutely not your duty to dance with beginners. But it is a nice, selfless thing to do that helps the scene. I see a lot more female dance snobs than male dance snobs in NY Salsa and bachata, though. And I have no problem with that. I will smile through a horrific dance that is borderline dangerous if the follower is attractive or lasciviously dressed enough. I can’t imagine a scenario where a male is has enough sexual value that a follow would do the same (put herself in a vulnerable situation).
The situation also depends heavily on the ratio of followers to leads. I am far less choosy when there are not enough followers (because I have to be). Last Saturday I had many dances with beginners and my knees were in much pain from having to use so much strength to nullify their disgusting use of excessive force. The advice of my instructor (a follower and self-proclaimed dance snob): “If you’re leading lightly and she’s giving you too much force, match it and overpower her. You’ll always be stronger than her. Or, go dance with someone else.”