Duka ya Dansi (Swahili for Dance Store) came from my experience in social dance where I struggled to find a place to dance when in a different city or country. It is also an application of what I call my real-life-PhD, whose thesis was proposed to me by a professor at Stanford: “Developing sustainable business models for dancers and dance”.
People who do something well get picky about with whom and where they do it.
As I talked to other social dancers about my struggle to find a good place to dance when in an unfamiliar place, I found out something interesting; some of the very good social dancers would rather not go dancing at all in a new place, than risk having a mediocre dance experience. Those who had the good fortune to have a wide network of dance friends could ask about the good places to dance, but most others just had to be daring and risk a bad experience, or worse, miss out on a great experience by going to the wrong place. I therefore resolved to tackle this problem by creating some directory of great dancing places.
For the rest of the Summer of 2019, I talked to various dancers within my circle and as well as some out of it. I asked them if it actually was a problem for them (it was a bigger problem for amateur dancers who didn’t have the wide network that well-known professionals had), and how those who had that problem solved it (Google was the top choice). Of course, Google doesn’t know of the distinction between what I call, a Latino Party and a Latin/Salsa/Bachata Social: both may seem to be playing the same music (ok both reggaetón and bachata are Latin music, but they are quite different), but they may have different people within them and definitely have a different interaction dynamic.
I almost missed this great party in Quito, Ecuador because I went on the wrong night.
As I continued my research, I noticed that my brother, an instructor in Salsa and Bachata was struggling to make an income as a dance instructor for these genres. I talked to other dance instructors about their experiences and heard stories such as working at dance studios where students paid $125 for the lesson, but the instructor only got $25 for that session. I read reports of how physical trainers also struggled, when they started out, to attract and recruit clients. Finally, I thought about my struggles with unemployment, the frustration brought on by using services such as LinkedIn, and the resentment generated during the application process.
I also understood some of the reasons for the patterns I noticed. The lucrative recurring private-lesson model of DanceSport is reinforced by a competition culture that emphasizes looking good with one dance partner (usually a teacher); it is therefore easier for an instructor to earn a higher income than in Salsa and Bachata where the community’s emphasis on being able to connect well with random dancers reinforces the group-lesson model (which can be less lucrative for a given individual instructor). The reason studios and gyms take such a high percentage of the fees their patrons pay (beyond the fact that they can) can be rationalized due to the fact that they bear the burden of bringing in customers whereas their employees (more frequently, contractors) just need to show up and teach (without worrying whether there will be students to teach or not). Finally, when it comes to the horrible experience job applicants have when filling out applications (for example an application that asks you for your resume, then proceeds to ask you type out everything in your resume into a portal–Lord Jesus!), a friend pointed out that she who pays, gets the software developer’s attention, and the positive experience.
So, what if I combined the two experiences together? Can I make it easy to find an amazing dance social in a foreign place while helping individual instructors market and build their livelihoods?
Duka ya Dansi is my attempt to answer this question.