How to build a better community.

A Community Divided

Teacher “A” finds tango and decides that will be the focus. Less ballroom, more Argentine Tango. Teacher “A” connects with Argentine Tango “A” would like more to discover Argentine Tango and so the journey begins. Around the same time Teacher “B” makes a similar connection to the dance and creates a new path to tango. They both explore the opportunities of Argentine Tango and continue to create their own way. For whatever reason, they lead separately. Their efforts are never connected or shared, they make their own way independently.

Time elapses and “A” and “B” continue their individual path in Argentine Tango. As an outside observer this should be quite acceptable. Two people, they teach differently, but the dance is Argentine Tango. Unfortunately going your own way was not good enough for each of our leaders. Soon they began voicing their opinion of each other and it is never complimentary. Negative comments and energy became as important as the pursuit of Argentine Tango. Despite the conflict the community grows out of the search forf Argentine Tango.

The growth gives life to new leaders and teachers even as the division remains. New leaders have new ideas, new focuses, and new criticisms. Yet the community grows right along with the negative observations and comments. Sometime they seem to have a life of their own and they do not rest. Old ideas and complaints continue to walk among the dancers always looking for the right opportunity to provide the negative comments to anyone who will listen.

In the name of Argentine Tango, more get involved. Leader “C” has a different point of view about how things should be run, so “C” goes out and creates new events the "C" way. This is good, right? It should be. It is done for the community, to discover Argentine Tango, to get more exposure, to grow the community. But leader “C” has their own beliefs and thus their own rules. That’s OK, however, in the declaration of these new rules emerges a declaration of correct and incorrect. Doing you own thing, a perfectly legitimate endeavor, becomes tainted when organizers negate the other leaders as they explain their way is the right way and all others are wrong. Judgment creates another divide in the community.

Creating new options and opportunities is a good thing, it will only help the community to reach more people and expand the reach of the dance. The conflict arises when any leader knocks the efforts of another. Let’s applaud any effort to expand Argentine Tango. I do not care if it the old debate of open verses close, Golden Age music verses Nuevo; Tango is about the steps and the continued growth of a dance that was created by immigrants from a myriad of cultures to connect and make new friends in a new lonely world far from home. Please let us not forget that this dance was not created as an art form, Argentine Tango, the ever-evolving Argentine Tango, was created as a social dance to meet people and build a new community.

Complaining is easy, but how do we look past our egos and build a community where everyone supports Argentine Tango?

What do you say, any ideas out there? Alittle help here!