Romantica Milonguera is my all-time favourite orchestra, and I’d twice been fortunate enough to be able to dance to them performing live – once in London, and again in Salon Canning.

You might have imagined I’d be first in line to buy a ticket when they made a rare visit to London for just one evening, but there was a catch …

The event was billed as a concert rather than a milonga, and there was, initially, no mention of dancing.

That was also an experience I’d had before. It wasn’t quite as painful as it might have been, given I’d been awake for almost 48 hours straight, but all the same my feet were itching to dance, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to repeat the experience without the travel-induced exhaustion.

But as the date got closer, I heard whispers that we might be able to dance. Those whispers got gradually louder before it became official: the first half of the evening would be a sit-down concert, while there would be “some dancing” in the second half.

The vague terminology was simply because the organisers – London Tango Week – had no idea what percentage of the audience would be dancers (the orchestra has a significant following among people who don’t dance tango at all), and didn’t want to promise an experience they couldn’t deliver. But eventually it was announced that anyone could dance in the second half.

St James’s Church and I also have a bit of history. The last time I was there, which was one or two years ago now, I was getting married. Indeed, my seat at the very front had me in almost the exact same spot in which this occurred. The church lasted longer than the marriage, which I guess is fairly typical.

The make-up of the orchestra has varied significantly over the years, though founding members pianist Tomas Regolo and violinist Lucas Furno remain. But the current line-up is as magical as ever, and it was a phenomenal evening!

The singers sang one song as a duet, without mics, and that was especially beautiful. But the rest of the orchestra needed to play quietly to balance that, so while it was slightly disappointing when they went back to the mics, I fully understood the need.

When the second half began, nobody wanted to be the first to brave the dance floor, especially as the dance area was directly in front of the orchestra! But Luciano and Elena took a deep breath and headed onto the floor, Tina and I followed, and within a minute or so, we had a packed floor. It was even cool enough for me to dance in a jacket (bottom-right) – we’ll gloss over the fact that I forgot to remove my sunglasses (thanks to Laura Beduz for the image).

It wasn’t a milonga experience, in that there were no tandas, and limited opportunity to swap partners, but Tina and I agreed we’d look for anyone who seemed to be waiting to dance. As it turned out, we simply swapped partners with another couple, but since I had two lovely partners, I wasn’t complaining!

I did dance with one other follower, before excusing myself to shoot a quick video.

Before we knew it they’d announced the last tanda. I danced that with Tina, and of course the audience wasn’t going to allow the band to leave without an encore, so we got a final, final tanda too.

I had a bit of a chance to chat with Tomas, and to thank him for allowing the use of their music in YouTube videos, which made possible the wonderful music in Tango: The dance that changes everything.

Tomorrow night is the start of the three-day-long London Tango Marathon. I was surprised how much I loved it last year, so am very much looking forward to it!