An ongoing issue…
Posted by Jain on 30 Oct 2009 at 10:48 am | Tagged as: Practice
I’d like to discuss an issue that has been ongoing for the past few years. In the past few months I heard that some new dancers were asked to leave rueda circles, with the implication that they were not good enough. We’ve been through this many times, but still don’t have a consistent policy or direction.
I feel that it is rude to ask a dancer to leave the circle. If a new person doesn’t know a particular move then they can do guapea – what is the big deal? Sometimes a train wreck might happen if someone doesn’t know a move – so we all get to practice recovering from train wrecks. Usually a new person who doesn’t know the basics will self-select out of the advanced circle, but if they don’t we shouldn’t just kick him/her out.
I’m all for having an advanced circle to do faster and more complicated moves, and the advanced dancers deserve to practice at a higher level. But we need to find a way to achieve this without creating an atmosphere of exclusivity. At one time we discussed creating a list of moves that everyone in the advanced circle is required to know before participating. Great idea, but we never produced or published that list, so we are still in limbo. Until we have such a list, I suggest the following:
1. As Nadja suggested, have a standard greeting for newcomers, explaining our practice structure and encouraging them to join practice from 4:30 to 5:30. I feel that new people should be included in the circle for learning new moves with the rest of us (even if those moves are perceived as complicated).
2. The 5:30 – 6:30 advanced rueda circle should be explained. We can ask new people to self-select whether they are experienced enough to keep up in the advanced circle. If they feel they need more practice, they can use that time to work in a separate basics circle or with a single partner. And it has been really helpful to have Kyra and Darrell, among others, to teach the basics to new people.
We should strive to be inclusive to everyone while allowing everyone to dance to their level. I think we can work toward that by being clear about our objectives and allowing some freedom of self-selection. Until we have a more structured format for determining the qualifications for the advanced circle, we need to welcome newcomers within the structure we have.
See you Sunday!
Jain
3 Responses to “An ongoing issue…”
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Jain- I think what we as a group are aiming for is to have the practice meet everyone’s needs… not just always accomodate the beginners. It’s not a class, and we do graciously teach for the first hour. The studio is plenty large enough for beginners to keep practicing on the side, and also give the more seasoned folks an opportunity to dance at their level. I have spoken to some of the out of town instructors about how to handle that and NOT offend folks, and they have all said to just post the schedule and stick to it. In other cities, they are much stricter than we are , and apparently no one is offended,
for example..I don’t think I’d go to a Tango practice, not knowing tango, and expect them all to revolve around me… that’s just not respectful. So, if people are annoyed at our schedule etc, then I don’t feel responsible for their annoyance. We give a lot, but if practice turns into 2 hrs of enchufla again, we know what happens.. it will fall apart.
So, of course everyone IS welcome to be there, but it’s just respectful of the new folks to enjoy what they want to there and learn as much as they can/want at that time, but not expect us to revolve around them the whole time. Sorry if this seems harsh, but too many folks come and go, and it’s not fair to the rest of us who may want to progress a little.
Hi there,
I’ve been procrastinating, but I do have a short list of representative moves that demonstrate moderate skill level, and could serve as a benchmark for whether a dancer joins the advanced group in the last hour. I will bring my list to Sunday rueda and make an announcement and encourage people to talk to me about it.
I would like to keep the focus on why we have an overall structure: because we want everyone to feel welcome and have fun. And yes, this applies to people with advanced as well as beginning dance skills.
I would also like keep the focus on what the group structure does: allows us all to play together and have fun. I like this better than making individual judgment calls on what another dancer should or shouldn’t be doing, because people do take that personally, whether or not its meant that way, and that’s not what we want the end result to be.
I suggest we take this conversation off the air at this point, if that’s OK, and take it to Sonny’s where we can talk in person and come to some consensus. But I do want to say how much I continually appreciate this community and the attention we all put into making it a good space. I went to Roberto Borrell’s salon last night with a friend who is a beginning dancer, and who said later, “These are really nice people.” That makes me happy.
hey ya’ll:
i’d be more than happy to be one of the rotating peeps who greets and “orients” new/new-ish comers.