A milonga held in a community hall in a tiny village in Buckinghamshire might seem an unlikely entry on anyone’s tango bucket list, but it had been on mine for rather a long time.

Tango Secrets is run by Irina Zoueva, a teacher and DJ who followed my blog from an early stage, as she found it helped her teaching to get the perspective of someone new to tango. She was also kind enough to message me the solution to a problem I was having very early on: tango maths …

It seems funny to even think of it now, but I used to think that dancing musically required on-the-fly maths:

If I’m just walking, I can walk for seven beats and do a weight-change on the eighth. Or I can do a rebound on the 7th to return on the 8th. It’s as basic as can be, but it feels nice.

Any figure, I have to know how many beats it will take to complete in order to finish it at the end of a phrase – and the more complex the figure, the less chance I have of getting it timed to the phrase because I’m having to (a) work out how many beats it will take from start to finish, and (b) count back from there to figure out where in a phrase I need to begin it. And which foot I need to be on at the beginning.

Irina said that followers don’t think in terms of figures, they are only following this step, this pivot:

You don’t have to finish, let’s say, an ocho cortado, or any string of figures or step, by the end of the phrase.

Ocho cortado, as you describe it, is: Forward step, rebound, pivot, back into cross. Suppose you do the pivot on the last beat of the phrase. So what??!! You just pause and complete the cross after a lovely, musical suspense. The follower doesn’t know you are doing an ocho cortado. For her, she just steps forward, side, back and pivots. What does she care that your OC bridges the gap between phrases?

The beginning of my journey away from sequences and toward truly improvised dance didn’t follow far behind, but at the time that was a blinding revelation which massively reduced the mental load of leading.

It was some time before we met in person, and it was of course no surprise that she was a joy to dance with. So experiencing her DJing and the atmosphere of her own milonga had long been on my ‘must do’ list!

However, a small village in the middle of nowhere isn’t the easiest of places to get to by public transport, and even less so to get home from! Living centrally, I’d long since dispensed with my car, so it was only when a friend offered to drive me there that I finally got the chance.

Tango Secrets

Turn up at the official start time of most London milongas, and your main company for the first hour will be tumbleweed; not so here! We arrived on the dot at 7pm to find a half-full car-park, and the dance floor was busy from the very first tanda.

Also rather uncommon in London is cold Prosecco in the fridge, Malbec on the counter, tea and coffee making facilities, and a good selection of fruit, biscuits and other snacks – all included.

I’m now very used to the friendliness of festivals outside London, and this had the same feeling. But beyond friendliness, there’s the mystery of atmosphere: some milongas have it, while others don’t; I’ve often mused about what makes the difference, without reaching many conclusions. Tango Secrets has it.

Irina’s DJing did have some simpler rhythmical tandas early in the evening, but almost all the music was layered, and there was a decided lyrical bias. I was dancing from the second tanda, and was in musical heaven! I danced the vast majority of tandas across the evening.

Fortunately, the quality of the dancing matched that of the music. I think there was only one tanda when I left it too late, and all the followers were either dancing or deeply engaged in conversation. The rest of the time, I was able to cabeceo someone, and every tanda was in the good to great range, with the vast majority at the latter end. It was again festival-like: good floorcraft, and everyone all about their partner and the music.

I couldn’t believe it when Irina called the last tanda – or, to be more accurate, I thought she did. She was in fact announcing the last two tandas, and I’d already removed my shoes after the penultimate one before hastily putting them back on! As I looked around, I saw that Irina was free, so had a truly delicious final tanda to provide the perfect ending to a wonderful evening.

Fortunately, my friend and chauffeur for the night – and also one of my favourite dancers – is also keen to return. I won’t be able to make the June milonga, but already have the July and August ones in my diary. The spirit of BsAs lives on!