The Grand Milonga of the Toronto Spring Tango Marathon demonstrated the restorative power of tango!

It was only the third time I’d danced this year, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go given the pain I’ve been experiencing – but as it turned out, I danced almost non-stop for four hours and had an absolutely wonderful time …

Licensed to travel and dance

While the ultrasound had appeared to confirm my surgical repair had failed, the MRI revealed a different story. The pain is actually a result of extensive internal scarring from the surgery (not a comment on the surgeon – the repair was a major one). The bad news is that the recovery time is expected to be measured in months; the good news is that it’s safe for me to travel and to dance – and the first weekend in April provided an overdue opportunity for both.

I had the chance to take a weekend trip (long story!) to Toronto, a city I’d visited once before, when I was 14 years old. The same two places were top of my list for this trip. First, the CN Tower on Saturday.

This was followed on the Sunday by a train ride out to Niagara Falls and back, which was a long day but very much worth it.

I also made an unusually brief trip to the US, even by my standards – about five minutes in all.

Between the two, however, was an unmissable opportunity on the Saturday night …

The Toronto Spring Tango Marathon

One of the many magical things about tango is that, no matter where in the world you travel, and no matter what languages you do and don’t speak, there are almost always embraces waiting for you.

When I first checked the milonga schedule for Toronto, it initially looked like this might be an exception. Neither of the weekend milongas were running. However, I quickly discovered the reason for this: they had closed to avoiding competing with a marathon running from Thursday to Sunday.

The Saturday night was my one free slot, but fortunately it was possible to buy tickets for the individual milongas.

While I’ve been to plenty of festivals, this was my first marathon, and (BsAs aside) the first event I’d attended without knowing anyone. Yes, despite my conviction that it was scarcely possible to turn up at any milonga anywhere in the world without bumping into someone I knew, it was the case this time.

Couple all of that to feeling rusty after so little dance, and I wasn’t 100% sure what to anticipate. I determined to go there with no expectations.

While some friends consider my whirlwind visits to long-haul destinations to be borderline insanity, I always insist you can do a great deal in a short time if you set your watch to local time the moment you board the plane and accept that sleep will be a limited commodity.

I must confess, however, that the milonga timings did test my resolve! Things kicked off at 9pm, running through to 3am. There were three good reasons to play safe and turn up at the start:

• I wasn’t expecting to be able to dance for anything like six hours
• My body-clock was still somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic
• The live orchestra was scheduled to play before midnight

Turning up at 9pm is the reason the place looks rather empty in the first couple of video clips .

After that, I was too busy dancing to do any more filming, but the live orchestra was kind enough to provide one more opportunity – by playing a milonga tanda. While I very much enjoyed listening to it, deciding against dancing it was definitely the right move!

Not knowing anyone at all can make cabeceo … interesting. I did attempt to identify some potential targets by watching during the first tanda, but the seating area was extensive and the room was soon packed, so tracking down individuals wasn’t terribly practical. I reverted to my usual strategy: look for followers who are clearly engaged with the music while sitting or standing. This has proven remarkably reliable over the years, and tonight was no exception.

The DJ was Fernando Corrado. Regular readers will know that I keep notes on every DJ at every milonga I attend, and the DJs are often the deciding factor in my choice of events. I’d experienced Fernando’s DJing once before, at El Boliche, and he absolutely lived up to his aim of emulating the BsAs milonga experience.

The flow of music was superb, which was how I found myself back on the dance floor tanda after tanda, the endorphins from the dance acting as highly-effective painkillers.

I’d been warned that European marathons are often predominantly open-embrace in style. I don’t know whether that’s also true in North America, but it certainly wasn’t the case here: I’d say that traditional close-embrace prevailed by some considerable margin after the first hour (when the more nuevo types took advantage of the empty floor). With one exception, every follower I danced with either moved directly into close-embrace or did so very quickly when we started dancing.

Floorcraft was very good in the outer ronda; the inner ronda was a vaguer concept. Generally I stuck to the outer ronda and had no issues, but there were a few times when I took pity on a couple trying to join the floor and moved in to allow space for them. On one of these occasions I briefly found myself trapped between two wannabe performers playing pinball. My follower found the most creative way of warning me when one of them was barrelling toward us on my blind side: she did an unled gancho. That created a very obvious and organic blocking signal!

The Palais Royale orchestra was absolutely fantastic. All the more so given that the Palais Royale orchestra doesn’t exist! Pianist Elena Losseva decided to organise an impromptu band from various talented musicians, both local and otherwise.

She pulled together an ensemble comprising Fabián Belmonte (vocals and bandoneon), Obadiah Wrynla (bandoneon), Moshe Shulman (bandoneon), Devan Moran (violin), Miranda Shulman (violin), Olga Dyakina (violin), Soohyun Nam (cello), Lauren Falls (bass), and herself on piano. I have no idea how much time they got to practice together, but you’d honestly have been hard-pressed to tell they weren’t an established team.

Dancing to live music is always special, and I adored every minute of it! They also played in tandas, avoiding the one issue you sometimes get with live bands – no obvious point for partners to, uh, part. When the music is continuous, there’s always the opposing worries of outstaying your welcome or causing offence. I really wish all orchestras did the same.

They played two sets, and it was approaching 1.30am by the time the second of these ended. I decided to end on a high note, and not push my luck.

Quite a few of my partners expressed surprise on learning I was visiting from London (and not the more local one), and I had to explain it was just a happy coincidence that it was the weekend of the marathon – but it turned out to be a very happy one indeed! Many thanks to all the organisers, musicians, DJ, friendly locals, and of course the delightful followers.