Tango Student Retention & Community Building from Stone Soup

Tango, Tango Community, Tango Motivation

These are ideas that the community at large came up with here at Stone Soup in Eugene, OR and some others that I added.  I might just make this an evolving list.  Please comment and I will update this post as an evolving article!

  1. Offer a showcase and/ or performances for students
  2. Offer social Tango parties (different than milongas)
  3. Offer a retreat where people stay together in one place and do more than just Tango
  4. Require for a class than students go to 3 other events
  5. A teacher takes their students on a field trip to another Tango event together
  6. Offer taxi dancers that wear something that designates them as such
  7. Form a welcoming committee where at milongas/ practicas designated people welcome any “strangers” to the event
  8. Publicly recognize newcomers and thank them for coming
  9. Publicly offer a master class
  10. Ask current community members to talk up tango and bring new people to an event
  11. Have advanced dancers join a beginner class
  12. After class/ milonga/ practica all go out to a restaurant/ bar and hang out together
  13. Have a potluck
  14. Watch Tango movies and talk
  15. Form an online community through news groups or Facebook or ?
  16. Switch around DJ’s so their friends come
  17. Have a Q & A session on a juicy Tango topic
  18. Have a special milonga just for beginners
  19. Do Guerilla tango
  20. Affirm people’s dancing – tell them what is good about their dancing
  21. Have a monthly recruiting milonga
  22. Eating between classes and the milonga/ practica
2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Mary  •  May 3, 2009 @4:03 PM

    #11 was especially salient for me when I started dancing tango. Though I’m fairly certain I would have eventually been bitten, the fact that more advanced dancers just happened to attend my first 3 or 4 classes made a huge difference in understanding what could be possible with tango, having a tango “high”, wanting to return immediately for MORE. (In fact, it strikes me as odd now when I attend beginner classes comprised entirely of beginners).

    #2, or a version of it, was also helpful. Local instructors hold practicas that, at least when I was attending regularly, had a social, milonga-like feel, but not so intimidating as an actual milonga.

  2. Patrick  •  Mar 6, 2011 @9:00 PM

    It’s nice to see this list. This is an ongoing pursuit in our community.

    We also encourage advanced dancers to dance more with beginners at the milongas and practicas.

    Thanks for posting this.

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