That was one of my more entertaining tango evenings …

It started innocently enough in the afternoon, by dropping into the outdoor milonga at Spitalfields. My general view is that outdoor milongas are overrated, the romance of dancing under the sun generally outweighed by, well, the sun. For me, being fried to a crisp by laser-like sunbeams tends to take something of the magic away. But as it was around the corner, it seemed polite to at least drop in – and this afternoon both weather gods and weather apps assured me it would be 21C and overcast …

They lied.

But the music was great, thanks to Dominika Cazamea playing a great mix of tango’s greatest hits with some contemporary versions of classic songs, and some lovely followers were there. So in spite of the sun and the usual Spitalfields floorcraft, I had a good time.

Jamboree

The evening’s plan was to check out a new-ish milonga with a live band, Jamboree. Tina, Sylvia and Joy were joining me, and we also had a delightful bonus guest in the form of Alessandra, a visiting tanguera from Italy.

I hadn’t known anything about Jamboree ahead of time, but anywhere that has live music is somewhere I want to try for sure. The band, it turned out, was truly stunning! More on them later.

The impression I’d gotten from someone who’d been there before was that Jamboree was a bar where people mostly go to listen to the music, and a few people dance.

No.

I mean, it started out like that. I was fortunate enough to have lovely dances with Tina, Sylvia and Alessandra before things went too badly downhill. But as the evening went on, more and more people piled onto the floor, and in the course of the piling, four things became apparent.

First, this was not really a milonga. We did have a decent tango contingent, but others were dancing … other things. These included, I’m reliably informed, jive and salsa. I mean, I’m an open-minded kind of chap: if people want to dance inferior forms of the art, I’m not going to kink-shame them. But the wide variety of movement types did make for an, uh, lively floor.

Second, while the dancers considered the main area a dance floor, the drinkers didn’t. When they wanted to get more drinks, they would simply stand up, step backwards onto the floor, and walk in a straight line from their seat to the bar (for increasingly drunken values of ‘straight line’). Others stood in the middle of the dance floor to hold conversations.

Third, the more the non-dancers drank, the more convinced they became that they could dance. More than one of them didn’t want to put down their drinks in order to make their attempt. The percentage of (a) actual dancers and (b) sober people on the dance floor became smaller and smaller.

Finally, for all the times I’ve ever said that London floorcraft couldn’t be any worse, I would now like to withdraw this claim: it has been very comprehensively debunked. By the time I got to dance with poor Joy, it was just carnage. I was literally using my hands and elbows to fend off leaders ahead and behind me, as neither were paying the slightest attention to anyone around them, and the guy ahead was clearly extremely drunk.

I was relieved when we were finally safely back at our table. Or ‘safely,’ as it turned out: a wannabe performer (of some unidentifiable dance) managed to lead his follower to kick one of our bar stools. Ok, not ideal, but that can happen. Then he did it again – about 10 seconds later. Then, perhaps 15 seconds after that, he kicked it himself. Sylvia went to move the stool out of harm’s way, but I said I preferred it right where it was – protecting my legs! When they moved to my right, I slid the stool along with them to keep it between me and them until they were safely out of range.

Another guy (a very bad jive dancer, I’m told), was bumping into people non-stop. His first follower thank-you’d him at the end of the first song, but he was back with a new one by the third song. She thank-you’d him halfway through that, and fortunately he didn’t find any other volunteer crash-test dummies.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

The bar did provide one final point of entertainment. While I’m not averse to a single glass of wine when dancing, given the amount of drunk-dancing going on around me, I decided to stick to soft drinks. While I was waiting at the bar, a guy next to me was really curious about the dancing, and wanted to know where he could learn. The thing that had piqued his interest: he’d noticed that I’d danced with four different women in succession! Well, we do need more leaders …

The music: heaven and hell

Sean Teo was DJing, and he played some great music before the band’s first set.

El Chamuto Milonga was truly wonderful! They had been billed as a trio – a cellist, pianist and violin player. Tonight, however, they’d managed to acquire a bandoneon player too, so the trio became an absolutely fantastic quartet. I cannot tell you how much I loved their playing. Here’s a sample clip, shot during a quiet point of their first set (I’ll dance Piazzolla with the right partner on the right floor, but mostly I prefer to listen to it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLBAFv6yfEM

But that was also the hell. Because by the time they were ready for the second set, the floor was a war-zone, and I wasn’t confident that UN peacekeeping forces were going to arrive in time. Having such beautiful music, and being unwilling to go anywhere near the dance floor, would have been too painful to bear; I decided to head out.

Which was the final entertainment of the evening. It started to rain as we were leaving, and having cycled there, I decided that taking the tube back was the better part of valor. However, the rain had pretty much stopped before I got as far as the tube station, so I started cycling home. Within two minutes, the heavens opened, and I was soaked. By this time, I reckoned I couldn’t get any wetter, so figured I might as well carry on. But by the time I got to Old Street, it was raining so hard that my contact lens floated out! Being now unable to see anything further than the hand in front of my face, I ended the night folding my bike (yay for Bromptons!) and taking a cab the rest of the way.

So, that was my Sunday; how was yours?