I was awake and out of bed at the crack of noon, as I had a packed afternoon schedule ahead of me: drinking a hot chocolate at Cafe Tortoni, one of the city’s Grand Cafes.
While most of the city virtually defines ‘faded grandeur,’ there’s nothing faded about the grand cafes. They’ve been beautifully maintained or restored, and the impressive settings leads to queues of people at the door …
Continue reading Cafe Tortoni; Pablo & Noelia class; and a sociable night at BilongónThe day opened with a great deal of drumming outside our apartment block, which I initially assumed was part of a five-day national celebration of my arrival. It involved lots of men in blue shirts, and lots of buses parked haphazardly all over the place.
I went to confirm my theory, and with the help of Google Translate learned that it was bus drivers who, as well as welcoming me, were striking over pay. And using their buses to block one of the main avenidas in the city – namely, the one we live on …
Continue reading Bus games; five minutes in La Catedral; and a wonderful La Cachila at Club GricelThe two-tier pricing controversy escalated, so now has a standalone post here.
It’s Alessandra’s first visit to BsAs, and in the first couple of days she wanted to spend every waking moment in the daytime out sightseeing, and then every waking moment at night in milongas. By day five, she finally understood that you can only do that for so long! She visited museums and galleries in the day, and had no energy to dance in the evening; I had a quiet day at home, and was out dancing until 3.30am.
All the same, the night was a first: I left before the end of the milonga! Only 30 minutes before, mind, but still …
Continue reading A rhythmical revelation at Porteño y BailarínAlessandra hasn’t quite grasped that mornings and I have an uneasy relationship at the best of times, and when operating on BsAs milonga time, I view them in much the same light as Guardia Vieja tandas.
Instead, she decided that pre-9am was a good time to suggest going out for coffee, and about an hour later was the perfect time for a Spanish lesson …
Continue reading A very Argentine afternoon, and closing Parakultural at 4amIt was a year ago to the day that I was last here in BsAs for a month-long stay. As a freelance writer, I don’t earn any money when I’m not working, so my last visit was one week of pure holiday, and three weeks working holiday. This was … not a good plan!
Don’t misunderstand me: I had a truly wonderful time. What I did not have was much sleep! So this time I decided to take the financial hit of three weeks’ holiday and just the last week of working in the mornings …
Continue reading A wonderful welcome back to my second home: closing El Beso at 3amI don’t generally use my privates to work on figures, but I did want to add the back cross. There are times when a slow rebound feels right for the music, but I also feel I over-use them, so wanted to have something which had a similar feel to it, but allowed more variety.
I’d had a private on this a loooong time ago, but because I hadn’t felt confident enough to use it in milongas, I’d long since forgotten how it worked. So that was Emma’s task last night …
Continue reading A back cross private with Emma, and a practica to put it to the testMilonga (the dance) and I have an unusual relationship.
Most leaders run a mile from it during their early years; I didn’t. Because I could dance to the beat long before I had the vocabulary to dance to the melody, I was actually very happy with milonga tandas from a very early stage. And because a lot of leaders hide, it made it very easy to get dances, even as a raw beginner.
But as my lyrical dance emerged and evolved, my rhythmical dance felt increasingly unsatisfactory – all the more so at milonga speeds. I wasn’t so much afraid of boring followers as feeling bored by my own dance. I was doing the usual leader’s milonga journey in reverse: I’d now become one of the leaders who avoid it …
Continue reading Milonga with Diego; a workshop with Corina and Ines; and an unusual Tango GardenThe Argentine Ambassador’s milonga is one of my absolute favourites. A spectacular setting, fantastic DJs, three dance floors, and a friendly atmosphere. If the grandeur were more faded, you could almost imagine it were BsAs.
One difference from the real version is that, in London, a flexible embrace is the norm. That’s also the case in some BsAs milongas, but in the more traditional ones, the prevailing style is very much sustained close-embrace: where everything can be danced chest-to-chest. I therefore followed up with a private focused on this …
Continue reading Another magical milonga at the ambassador’s residence, and a breakthrough lesson with EmmaDiego B had given me two recommendations, one quite some time ago, the other just yesterday – but I have my suspicions that the two may be related.
The first, dating back some time, was that I needed to have the courage to cabeceo more advanced followers. The second was to suggest I dance at Un Placer …
Continue reading Much pleasure indeed at Un PlacerThree things to me are clear from my following adventure: I’m really enjoying it; it’s helping my lead too; it’s going to be several months before I get anywhere close to being able to follow competently in a milonga.
That being the case, and with my month-long return to Buenos Aires rapidly approaching, I decided it was time to use my last few privates before March to tune-up my lead …
Continue reading Returning to leading lessons as BsAs fast approaches
journey of a trainee tanguero 
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