This was my third visit to the Sheffield Tango Festival, after first attending in 2023 and returning last year – and I’m already looking forward to the next.

This one was home to no fewer than six miracles – and that doesn’t even include me surviving the weekend on a diet mostly comprising tea and cake, with a splash or two of Malbec. On which topic, get yourself a cup or glass of one of the above before reading – this is a long one …

Things got off to a sociable start on the train from St Pancras when some seat-rejigging broke the ice at a table of four. The other three were northerners, but I speak basic conversational Yorkshire so had a very enjoyable chat on everything from American politics to schooldays.

Miracle 1: The world’s friendliest festival

The team prides itself on creating a super-friendly atmosphere, with particular effort made to welcome newbies and beginners.

One element of this was having some festival ‘ambassadors’ wearing silver wristbands, with a table where they could be found on the opening night. If anyone was feeling nervous or having trouble getting dances, they could approach an ambassador who would either dance with them or introduce them to some people. I thought that was a wonderful idea which I’d love to see taken up at other events.

Another is to have a ‘friendship tanda’ where all the leaders stand on the floor, and followers can choose their leader. You then dance for a couple of minutes before swapping again. So in the course of one tanda everyone gets to dance with around 7 or 8 people, which is a great way for new followers to put themselves on the leaders’ radar.

The kitchen also helps. A completely separate area where people can drink tea and chill makes it easy to have conversations with friends and strangers alike. Especially once Charlotte arrived with the world’s largest supply of her amazing homemade cakes. I’m convinced half the festival registrations are made on the basis of these, and I’m not entirely sure mine isn’t one of them. Here’s a photo of the spr–

Damn, left it more than 30 seconds.

Miracle 2: Perfect role-balance

Most festivals aim for role-balance, accepting equal numbers of leaders and followers, along with dual-role dancers. However, there can sometimes be a rather large gulf between goal and reality – including at last year’s festival.

I have a blog post in which I outline my three theories about how this happens, but an additional issue became clear at Sheffield last year: there’s no reliable way to identify the female leaders/dual-role dancers.

The team solved that problem this year by having pink wristbands for dual-role dancers and female leaders, and it seemed to work extremely well. The role balance was Tango Secrets level, with almost everyone in the room on the dance floor for many tandas. While a few and equal number of men and women sitting is just a rough indication, it really did seem perfect to me – and that was backed by the many happy comments from the followers I spoke with.

Miracle 3: Floorcraft transformed!

This was a miracle about which songs will be sung through the ages. I plan to write a tango about it: Un Pista Milagroso. I’m going to see if Pugliese will compose the music for it – I thought we got on pretty well when we met.

The floorcraft on the Friday night was the worst I have ever seen anywhere outside London. It was abysmal! The main ronda barely moved for minutes at a time, the inner area was like a motorway pile-up, there were people zig-zagging between the ronda and the centre, as well as one or two leaders desperate to complete that 12-step sequence they learned in some workshop last week even if it meant barging people out of the way … it truly was carnage.

It was less problematic once the alternative floor opened, and syphoned off the people who do That Sort of Thing, but it was still very, very bad. Almost every conversation I had with a fellow leader included reference to it.

However … by the Saturday evening, it was absolutely fine! Leaders were now expressing astonishment at the difference. When I mentioned it to one leader, he claimed that Anne had Had Words From The Stage on the Saturday afternoon! However, she denies this, so the mystery remains!

It was great for the rest of the weekend. I only shot one video clip, a vals tanda on the Sunday afternoon (dancing in daylight – radical!), but it gives a good flavour.

The DJs

The DJ line-up was the dream-team.

The opening night was Anna Jorgensen, who had gone straight onto my personal A-list when she closed the festival last year. Now as then, I was hardly able to drag myself off the dance floor, all my resolutions about pacing myself completely lost to the wonderful music.

I heard good things about El Negro Flores, who DJ’d the Saturday afternoon. That was the one milonga I didn’t make, so I’ll have to wait for another opportunity to find out for myself.

Saturday evening was John Tan, another DJ introduced to me at the last Sheffield festival, also making it onto my A-list and remaining firmly on it this time! Absolutely fantastic.

Sunday’s extended milonga was begun by David Prime, internationally known for 96% superb music, 1% fake endings, and 3% crimes against humanity. All three were duly delivered. I was wise enough to go and drink tea during his first alternative tanda, and foolish enough to dance the second – a mistake I shall not be making again! But at least it wasn’t xmas (IYKYK).

Taking over later in the milonga was Saretta Tintore, who was new to me. Wow! By that point in the festival, the mood was very much for lyrical music, and she certainly delivered! I hadn’t planned to stay ’til the end as I was going to the after-party, and 11 hours of tango seemed a bit ambitious, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

Also new to me was the DJ of said after-party, Joe Cullingford. His music was just the perfect ending to the weekend, mostly the big classics and a few well-chosen alt tandas.

Sonder Tango

The live orchestra was Sonder Tango, who fully lived up to expectations! They were absolutely incredible.

I danced non-stop through both of their sets, so the only video I have is of the opening song (for those unfamiliar, it’s a sign of respect to an orchestra to simply listen without dancing during the first song).

After that I took a leisurely 0.01 seconds to cabeceo a follower for an amazing dance.

I’ve said before that there’s a paradox with live orchestras. In theory, it ought to be harder to dance to them, because they play their own arrangements, and often like to include some playful surprises. But I found right from the start that I actually found it easier – and later solved the mystery.

With recorded songs I know well, there was a huge gap between how I thought I ought to be able to dance them – expressing every note – and how I actually could. But live music took away all those expectations, enabling me to just enjoy a free-flowing experience, and laugh if I was caught out by any surprises. I was later able to take that attitude back into dancing to recorded tracks.

But I think another huge factor is that there’s just so much joy in the room when people are dancing to a fantastic live band. The energy is infectious. The dancers feed off the vibe from the band, and vice-versa.

They were playing in tandas in the sense of three songs then a gap, though mixed orchestras within them, which thankfully now seems to be the norm with live bands. When there’s a natural point to change partners, it removes any concerns around over-staying your welcome on the one hand or causing offence on the other.

When the final set began, I didn’t have far to go to find a great partner as we were sat chatting at the time. I really didn’t want the band to finish, and I got my wish for a while: they kept announcing the last song, we kept demanding more, and they kept delivering. I think it ended up being a tanda of about seven songs in the end!

This included a live milonga song. That phrase normally strikes fear in my heart, but this too proved fantastic fun!

There was only 45 minutes left until the end, and as much as I was loving John’s session, no recorded music was going to top that experience, so I decided to end things on a high. My hotel was only a 15-minute, mostly-downhill walk, but I’d been dancing all night; I took an Uber.

Miracle 4: Following

Is it just me noticing them, or are there now a lot more men learning to follow? We’ve had a good number of female leaders for years now, but it’s only recently that I’ve noticed a non-trivial number of men following at milongas.

I was looking forward to doing some myself, and didn’t have long to wait. No longer than the first tanda of the festival, in fact, when Tina turned it into an intercambio one. This was great fun, and her successful navigation of Friday night’s floorcraft truly was a badge of honour!

Emma Hall even got a photo – my first ever festival photo as a follower.

Since I can so far follow steps and rebounds with some reasonable degree of success, while pivots remain a distant ambition, I exclusively followed milonga tandas. Quite a few of the dual-role dancers were kind enough to take me out for a whirl, most of them adhering to the terms & conditions (the ones who did attempt to lead me in pivots rather quickly saw the error of their ways).

One of them even included some traspié – another flagrant breach of the contractual agreement – and I actually followed it surprisingly well! I may delete that clause from the contract.

I had an absolutely fantastic time. Learning to follow is definitely one of my tougher challenges, but I realised another miracle had occurred. Within my current constraints, I’ve reached the stage of consistently loving it! That’s definitely a milestone worth celebrating.

Miracle 5: Energy for the afterparty

Having danced the extended Sunday session from 12.30 until 7pm, I could easily have gone back to my hotel room and gone straight to sleep! I’d had a blast, but was absolutely exhausted.

However, there was an afterparty, and clearly no party would be complete without my presence, so what could I do? Astonishingly, I managed to dredge up some energy from sources unknown; possibly all that cake.

It took place in a funky coffee shop/bar with wooden flooring. Two types of wooden flooring, to be precise, with variable friction and ridges between them, which was as ‘interesting’ as it sounds – but we were all having too much fun to care. I just made a habit of announcing ‘ridge’ to my follower when we were about to cross one, and reserved most of the pivots for the less sticky section of the floor.

I had several very enjoyable tandas to the aforementioned excellent music, especially early on when there was that most precious of tango commodities, room to walk!

Once the floor got crowded, however, there were definite shades of Friday evening’s floorcraft! I’d said to a friend that the place had a very BsAs vibe – drink some Malbec, chat to some friends, dance when you feel like it – and I decided the time had come to focus on the first two of these. This proved a most excellent way to pass the time.

Sadly there can be some ageism in tango, but definitely not here: the oldest dancer was 240 million years old. (For the avoidance of doubt, I’m referring here to Anthea’s partner, not to Anthea.)

A friend announced that the song just starting was one of her favourites. We’d had some absolutely beautiful dances during the festival, and I didn’t want to dilute those by doing battle on the now-chaotic floor. However, I realised the entrance section was completely empty aside from a couple standing at the bar, so I declared it our private pista and we had some equally delicious dancing there.

I used the same space when it came to a long-awaited opportunity to enjoy a brief but wonderful dance with Ann, who’d been mostly too busy to dance during the festival itself.

My international bar-based tango teaching career

That couple standing at the bar had actually wandered in off the street by mistake. They heard the music and walked in, late enough in the evening that there was no-one at the door to let them know it was a private party. By the time their interloping was detected, they’d already bought drinks so were safe from being escorted off the premises.

They loved both the music and the dancing, and wanted to know where they could learn. There and then seemed a good answer, so I gave them the legally-required warning about what they were getting themselves into, followed by an impromptu lesson. This seemed successful.

I shall be disappointed if I don’t run into them on the dance floor somewhere in a year or two.

I keep it pretty quiet, but I’m actually an international bar-based tango teacher, as I’d done the same thing at Bilongon a couple of years ago. A group had gone there simply to drink before one of the women got intrigued by the dance and asked to try it. She did have the advantage of being a salsa dancer.

Our recruitment campaign wasn’t over yet. I could see the woman behind the bar watching with a fascinated expression, and a friend said her colleague too was really interested. So much so, in fact, that they kept the bar open an extra hour – until 1am instead of midnight.

One final miracle: The healing power of tango

I went to the festival expecting to have to adopt a more measured pace than my usual ‘gimme all the dance all the time’ approach. I currently have constant low-level background pain, and about once per tanda get sharp pain which feels almost like my hip giving way momentarily.

However, my restrained approach, er, wasn’t. Far from doing any harm, this appears to have done me rather a lot of good! The background pain is still there, but the sharp interludes reduced from once a tanda to once or twice a day.

As always, a massive thanks to all the organisers and helper team, to all the followers who made it such a magical experience – and, of course, to my leaders! Hope to see many of you again soon, perhaps at Tango Secrets, Tango Feast, or Cheltenham.