Continuing my approach of ‘if tango won’t come to London, then the Londoner must go to tango,’ Friday night saw me board a train headed into deepest Surrey.
Biela Tango was found by Tina in her own search of Places That Aren’t London. I recognised the names of some lovely dancers in the RSVPs, so that was good enough for me …
Continue reading An almost perfect tango weekend, at Biela Tango and a small imported corner of ArgentinaI haven’t yet had a chance to put my new London mindset to the test – viewing most London milongas as Tango-Inspired Contemporary Dance events – as this weekend’s dancing comprised Tango Secrets followed by Corrientes. So one outside-London milonga, and one London milonga which falls firmly into the Argentine tango category.
There was one other Argentine tango vs TICD issue I wanted to explore: the question of escorting a follower back to their seat at the end of a tanda – or at least to the edge of the dance floor in the vicinity of their seat …
Continue reading A lovely weekend of tango, with no TICD in sightI’ve had a number of follower friends comment on not having seen me for a while, and I’ve explained that I’m doing significantly less dancing in London milongas these days, and more time heading outside the capital.
The reason for that is less apparent to followers than it is to (likeminded) leaders, in large part because followers frequently dance with their eyes closed …
Continue reading Argentine tango, and tango-inspired contemporary dance: a new mindset for London dancingMost blog posts are a joy to write, because they are either, well, describing a joyous experience, or at least documenting learning points for me, and learning is also a joy.
There are others which are harder to write, and where I hesitate before doing so. This is going to be one of those …
Continue reading A Tale of Two Tuesdays: It was the best of tango, it was the worst of tango …It’s always a bit of a culture shock, returning to London tango after BsAs; all the more so when timings meant I couldn’t make my usual favourite milongas.
The two milongas I did get to really brought home to me how much of a role is played by sheer chance when it comes to our tango experiences – and how that’s particularly true in London …
Continue reading There’s a lot of chance in London tango – but not enough leaders taking a chanceI debated whether to write this post. Floorcraft is a perennial topic, and the view from friends who’ve been in London tango far longer than I have is that nothing is going to change, so there’s not a lot of point in yet another discussion about it.
But at the same time, it is without question one of the biggest differences between tango in Buenos Aires, and that of London – and during my recent month-long stay in Argentina, I came to see the topic in a whole new light …
Continue reading Not just another grumble about the F word
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