Tango can sometimes be feast or famine for me these days. The last week or so has been very much feast – including literally. A four-day festival last weekend, Tango Secrets on Friday and Alma de Tango on Saturday.
I don’t often dance in London, but when I heard that Sonder Tango was going to be playing live at the Alma de Tango Festival, I couldn’t resist …
Continue reading Dancing to the wonderful Sonder Tango at the Alma de Tango gala ballIt’s been a little over two weeks since moving, and in that time an empty space filled with boxes has – with substantial help from friends – been transformed into a beautiful home. It’s been an extremely satisfying and fulfilling process.
It’s also been a very tiring one! Although I did take a week off, the rest of the time has combined unpacking, organising, administration and DIY with paid work. Something had to give, and much of that something has been sleep …
Continue reading Dance. Always dance. A beautiful evening at Tango Secrets.Like the Septonathon, the Etonathon is not technically a festival, but a series of individual milongas requiring no pre-booking. However, since I’d very much enjoyed the approach of treating the last one like a festival by doing the lot, I decided to do the same again.
This one was a little more … committed. And perhaps I should have been: ten milongas over five days, and with two minor exceptions I was there from start to finish at all of ’em …
Continue reading Magical madness: 40 hours of dancing in five daysWith or without the pandemic interruption, five years is a lifetime ago in my tango journey. Way back in the Paleolithic era of 2020, with a little over a year of tango under my belt, I’d made it my mission to sample every milongo in London, and The Light was one of these.
Visiting it had very rapidly seemed like a mistake, as I soon discovered it was where all of London’s tango teachers, DJs and organisers went to dance socially. I danced exactly three tandas, all of them with the follower friend who accompanied me, and that was that …
Continue reading Seeing the New Tango Light in a whole new lightThe Argentine ambassador’s milongas are always very special events. Not just for the privilege of being able to dance in such splendid surroundings, but also because the Argentine culture is very much present.
When it comes to the warmth and zest for life, I always feel like a little bit of Buenos Aires is alive under the grey skies of London …
Continue reading A tale of two cultures at the Argentine Ambassador’s milongaWhen I’m not able to make it to Buenos Aires, I nominally budget for six tango festivals a year. So far this year that has encompassed Sheffield, the summer Feast (in lieu of the spring one) and Cheltenham.
To come are the October and December Feasts, and since I’m not counting a random single night of a marathon, that left a gap I was able to fill with what I guess I’d have to call an almost-festival …
Continue reading Septonathon, a truly wonderful almost-festivalThe 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 …
Continue reading A flying visit to the Toronto Spring Tango MarathonIn tango, traspié refers to an interrupted step typically danced in milonga tandas – for which the literal definition is ‘to stumble.’
After six months off the dance floor, I got to enjoy one festival and six milongas before the return of symptoms suggested the surgical repair may have failed …
Continue reading My very own milonga traspié, and the power of the three PsYeah, I know: Londoners complaining about transport is a bit rich. In truth, the fact that I was able to make these journeys at all is testament to how fortunate we are. But hey, it’s my blog, so you’ll have to humour me for a moment.
Sure, I have plenty of TICD within easy cycling distance, but my idea of tango means heading outside London, and my xmas plans in particular required heading west, young man …
Continue reading Tango so good it’s worth battling the xmas transport systemRomantica 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 …
Continue reading Romantica Milonguera at St James’s Church, PiccadillyRegular readers will know that I mostly dance outside London these days, but when a new milonga opens, and it’s just 20 minutes away, it seems reasonable to at least give it a chance. Wednesday night, then, saw me at the opening night of the city’s latest addition, Milonga Abrazáme.
It could easily have been a very bad idea. I’ve danced once before at the same venue, and the combination of a very sticky floor and a wall of lights that makes it impossible to cabeceo across the room was enough to deter me from a repeat visit. Both issues were still very much present …
Continue reading The opening night of Milonga AbrazámeKapka Kassabova probably frustrated every other tango author and might-be tango author when she snaffled the absolutely perfect name for a book on the topic: 12 Minutes of Love. (Which I really must review sometime soon.)
Last night’s Tango Secrets was four hours of love – or rather, three hours and 48 minutes, as the inconsiderate Elizabeth Line schedule means London-based visitors have to skip the last tanda …
Continue reading Three hours and 48 minutes of love: A perfect night at Tango SecretsI was rather shocked to see that my last following lesson was way back in September! I had another private with Emma in the diary for a week ago, but unfortunately she caught a nasty bug and then disappeared off to India. (Bit of an extreme way to avoid subjecting herself to my following, if you ask me.)
I knew I desperately needed more practice, but I’d felt hesitant about doing more than extremely occasional intercambio tandas at milongas, for two reasons …
Continue reading Solving the problem of how to get more following practice, with a visit to Queer Tango LondonLast time my Feastward journey was cancelled by Storm Ciarán; this time by Aslef! But at least the latter gave notice, allowing me to rebook my train journey for the Wednesday evening.
I’d actually only danced once since the last Feast, at Tango Secrets. That’s been partly a lack of time, and an aversion to heading out into freezing temperatures – but mostly it’s because I’ve reached an all-or-nothing mindset with tango …
Continue reading Adopting an all-or-nothing approach – and having it all at The FeastI’m still not sure what I did to offend the tango gods, but it seems to have been something rather major. They laid on a fortnight-long perfect storm of events to spoil my tango fun – going so far as to throw in an actual storm.
Even The Feast wasn’t entirely immune this time …
Continue reading Badly offending the tango gods! But their spirit of forgiveness was in full flow at The FeastMy continuing tour of global glamour spots saw me visiting the renowned Datchet Village Hall for the Tango Journey Popup Tango milonga.
The milonga had been recommended to me while I was at Biela Tango by David Thomas, who spoke very highly of the DJ, David Thomas …
Continue reading The unbroken record of delicious outside-London tango continues, with the Tango Journey Popup milongaContinuing 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 ArgentinaWe’ll gloss over the circumstances which brought me to Israel for a few days, and simply say that the opportunity arose, and I’d never been before, so it seemed like a good idea!
Of course, one of the wonderful things about tango is you’re never a stranger anywhere: wherever you travel in the world, there are hugs waiting for you …
Continue reading Milonga Milagro – and a friend – providing the perfect welcome to Tel AvivI 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 dancingThat was one of my more entertaining tango evenings …
It started innocently enough in the afternoon, by dropping into the outdoor milonga at Spitalfields. My general view is that outdoor milongas are overrated, the romance of dancing under the sun generally outweighed by, well, the sun. For me, being fried to a crisp by laser-like sunbeams tends to take something of the magic away. But as it was around the corner, it seemed polite to at least drop in – and this afternoon both weather gods and weather apps assured me it would be 21C and overcast …
Continue reading Heaven and hell at Jamboree (and suing the Spitalfields weather gods)Most 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 …The Feast is always a delight, but I’d originally thought it might need to serve as something of an antidote to the previous weekend’s London Tango Marathon. Amazingly – and despite floorcraft crimes deserving of 20 years to life – I had an absolutely dream time there, so I had two magical weekends, rather than one.
The trip got off to an interesting start with the train. The journey had everything: drama, pathos, comedy …
Continue reading Feasting upon delicious tandas and school dinners in sunny DevonWhen I wrote that festivals are my future, I’d contrasted those with London tango; but this time I was combining the two. Make a cup of tea before reading: this is a long one.
To be honest, I had very low expectations. Not of this specific event, but of any London tango festival. As it turned out, only one of my expectations was met (you can guess which one, can’t you?) …
Continue reading The London Tango Marathon: An event full of surprises!Technically where my tango began was in my living-room, since my introduction to the dance was with Mariano in privates at home – followed by some group classes at Tango Garden. It was also at Tango Garden where I technically first danced in a milonga, after all of five lessons!
But it was at Tango Space where I found my first tango home, made a great many tango friends, discovered several amazing teachers, and where I first danced in a milonga with fellow beginners …
Continue reading A nostalgic return to Tango Space at the Shield: Where it all beganA milonga held in a community hall in a tiny village in Buckinghamshire might seem an unlikely entry on anyone’s tango bucket list, but it had been on mine for rather a long time.
Tango Secrets is run by Irina Zoueva, a teacher and DJ who followed my blog from an early stage, as she found it helped her teaching to get the perspective of someone new to tango. She was also kind enough to message me the solution to a problem I was having very early on: tango maths …
Continue reading Tango Secrets: A long-awaited visit to a tiny village in BuckinghamshireI’ve been back in the UK for almost two months now, but the pull of BsAs hasn’t diminished in the slightest. While most of my body got on the plane to Heathrow, I seem to have forgotten to pack my heart. If only my bank account shared my sentiment, I’d get straight back on a plane again tomorrow.
Fortunately, there are places in the UK where the spirit of the city is alive, and I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy three of them since my return: the Argentine ambassador’s milonga, the Sheffield Tango Festival, and a return visit to Tango by the Sea …
Continue reading My heart remains in BsAs, but the spirit of the city is alive in the UKThe Sheffield Tango Festival was a first for me, but it certainly didn’t feel that way: there were a great many familiar faces and embraces from London, Cambridge, The Feast, Tango by the Sea, and – in at least one case – Buenos Aires.
Of course, the ‘familiar faces’ part is for varying values of same, and in some cases it was the embrace rather than the face I recognised …
Continue reading Many familiar faces and embraces at the delicious Sheffield Tango FestivalIt’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 chanceOnce again, I feel like I’ve been here forever, and I feel like I arrived ten minutes ago.
After a final early morning’s work, it was off to El Abrazo for the last milonga of the trip. This was once again at El Beso, my fourth visit this week. It was a wonderful way to end my stay …
Continue reading My farewell milonga, El Abrazo – and a surprise lift to the airport!Following another heavenly Tango Champagne Club on Tuesday, and a delightful Perfume de Mujer on Wednesday, it was back to El Beso for the third-but-not-final-time this week for Tango Camargo.
Today I got a wonderful surprise in the form of an unexpected live orchestra …
Continue reading The El Beso afternoon milonga fun continues, at Tango CamargoHaving a strict curfew to ensure I can be awake at 6.30am, my milonga options are now very limited. Almost all of the evening ones are non-starters, as they begin at about the time I need to be heading to bed.
The music at last week’s Perfume de Mujer was pretty much exclusively rhythmical, but my afternoon milonga options were that or– Well, that …
Continue reading If you can’t beat the rhythmical music, join it: Perfume de Mujer at El BesoThe shock to my system of having to get up at 6.30am yesterday for a week of working in the mornings saw my afternoon nap end at 7pm – so no dancing yesterday. However, that gave me a decent amount of total sleep, enabling me to skip a nap today and head back to the Champagne Tango Club this afternoon.
As an aside, there’s overlap here with some thoughts I had about time. Some might consider doing nothing more than working and sleeping yesterday to be a poor use of a day in Buenos Aires, but when the result is a day in which I feel refreshed and truly able to appreciate dancing, then I consider it time well spent …
Continue reading I’m really going to miss the Champagne Tango ClubThis city can make me feel like a tango god. When I get the right milonga, the right atmosphere, the right music, the right follower, the right floorcraft … when everything flows effortlessly, my partner and I reading each other perfectly, and I feel like I own the floor.
It can also make me feel like a tango toddler. When I’m at a milonga where the music is relentlessly fast, where everyone is spinning in high-speed circles, and I wonder what the hell I would do even if someone was looking in my direction …
Continue reading Feeling like a tango god or tango toddler; rarely anything between the twoA tango lesson we all learn rather early is that there are never any guarantees. You can go to the same milonga in the same place with the same DJ – even dance with some of the same people – and have wildly different experiences on different occasions.
While our head may know this, however, it can still prove difficult to convince our heart that we haven’t found the secret formula …
Continue reading A dangerous visit to Perfume de Mujer at El Beso; go to dinner with Ale, but never travel with her!Given that Alessandra and I generally enjoy different milongas here, it may say something that we were both in agreement on the most recent additions to the list: Muy Lunes at La Comedia, and the Champagne Tango Club at El Beso.
The former was a nice atmosphere, and we both had a good sociable evening, but virtually none of the music appealed. The latter was a complete contrast music-wise, and was for me that rarest of tango species: an absolutely perfect milonga …
Continue reading A tale of two milongas: Muy Lunes, with one success; and a perfect Champagne Tango ClubBeing Argentina, there are some complications around time. The country is located at a longitude that would properly put it either four or five hours behind GMT. But the place decided to temporally relocate itself some considerable distance to the east, and have a time zone just three hours behind.
Additionally, Argentina may or may not observe daylight saving time, depending how it feels. The national government decides this on a year-by-year basis, perhaps by rolling dice or flipping coins – but, either way, individual provinces are free to either go along with that year’s result, or adopt their own daylight savings policy …
Continue reading Sans Souci lacking the king of sound engineering; a few tandas at La Comedia; and bed at 6amIt had to happen at some point. Tango wouldn’t be tango without the downs as well as the ups, and my stay had been so amazing to date, it was inevitable the tango gods would eventually notice they hadn’t had their fun with me for a while.
It had seemed like a promising night: the reliability of midnight to 2am-ish at Parakultural, followed by the fun of trying out a new milonga at Pipí Cucú from 2am-ish to 4am …
Continue reading The fickleness of tango finally shows up: An empty Parakultural, and a dancing desert at Pipí CucúDiego has been encouraging me to cabeceo more and more advanced followers, and I have been doing this – very happily here, and with a little more trepidation in London. I did, however, draw the line at teachers and performers.
Until last night, when I danced with at least two, and I suspect more. Entirely by mistake, mind, but hey …
Continue reading A sleep-deprived mistake turning into a wonderful surprise, at Milonga en lo de BalmacedaI have a dozen identical white linen shirts, which you might think sounds like a lot. But given that I generally need a change of shirt during a milonga, and am sometimes doing two milongas a day, dropping and collecting laundry is a regular task.
The hours of my local laundry are clearly shown as 11am to 9pm. Of course, this being Argentina, that doesn’t mean 11am to 9pm. It means ‘We do, broadly speaking, have the general ambition of operating hours which may perhaps bear some resemblance to these. Oh, and we may randomly close for half an hour to an hour at any point.’ Which explains this sign when I got there at 5pm …
Continue reading An Argentine embrace, and a wonderful night at Muy Martes and ParakulturalLife has been pretty stressful of late, so one of my goals for this trip was a take a more relaxed approach to my stay. Instead of spending all my time zipping from milonga to milonga, to dial things down, and focus on quality over quantity. Also, to curb my FOMO and feel relaxed about re-visiting milongas I know I love, as well as exploring a few new ones. Oh, and get some sleep!
I’ve been … somewhat successful at this, mostly sticking to one milonga per day, and taking some downtime just to rest and relax at home. However, I discovered that making friends with D’Arienzo has had one downside …
Continue reading Discovering the downside of my new-found friendship with D’Arienzo, at Los Domingos and La LucyThe last time I visited Confitería Ideal was back in 2019, when it was a building site. The good news was that the bags of cement had been replaced by tables and chairs. The bad news is that the new owner has no interest in sullying his shiny new building with milongueros.
They allowed us in, but strictly on condition that we consumed calories rather than burned them …
Continue reading A visit to post-building site Confitería Ideal, then Sans Souci at La NacionalI 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 3amMilonga (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 PlacerI thought I’d written a blog post about my previous visit to Etonathon, but if I did, WordPress search can’t find it. The executive summary is that I had a wonderful time, and added it to my ‘must go again’ list. So I did.
Etonathon is also clearly just far enough outside London to fall into the, well, ‘outside London’ category. Great floorcraft, great music, and very musical dancing …
Continue reading Seeing out the new year at Etonathon and Tango 178The closure of Salon Canning sounds so terribly wrong even as a written phrase, let alone a reality. Yet it’s true: the most famous milonga venue in the world has closed its doors to tango.
I first heard the news as a rumour, without any linked source, so Googled ‘Salon Canning closing.’ In a bittersweet moment, the first hit was to one of my own blog posts …
Continue reading A eulogy to Salon CanningFilling the tango festival gap between the November and December Feasts was a new-to-me one: Tango by the Sea, in Felixstowe. I did have to take the ‘by the sea’ part on trust, as the furthest I got from the dance floor was a cafe about 200 feet away.
Actually, they refer to it as a house-party rather than a festival, as a way of emphasising the relaxed and fun atmosphere they want people to enjoy …
Continue reading Tango by the Sea: More festival heavenReturning from The Feast feels a little like returning from BsAs – that I’ve been living in this incredible, magical bubble, and now I have to return to the everyday world. It’s almost jarring.
Last year, I described how it was a bit of a slow-burn as a first-timer. The vast majority of Feasters are regulars, so all know each other, and are keen to dance together again. But by my third visit, I was one of those regulars, and was receiving invitations from the first tanda …
Continue reading A long weekend of heaven, at The FeastFive months ago, returning from BsAs, I wrote about my determination to keep the Argentine spirit alive in my own tango – and so far, I feel like I’m succeeding.
I’ve reluctantly conceded that one key ingredient here is dancing a lot more outside of the sub-culture that is London tango. Reluctantly, because I’d love to dance a lot in my own city, and I do see London milongas doing their best to bring the Argentine spirit to London …
Continue reading A three-hour round-trip journey to dance in Cambridge, and worth every minuteNo offence to Devon; it’s a pretty part of the world. But given that I could travel to many European cities in the same time and for the same money, I wouldn’t be heading there without a very good reason. The Feast tango festival was that very good reason.
I first attended The Feast in December, and fell head-over-heels in love with it …
Continue reading If I go all the way to Devon, you can bet there’s a good reason for it!Felipe Martinez recently talked about the difference between danceable music and music which moves you, literally and figuratively. I think that’s a good way of describing what is, to me, the difference between rhythmic and lyrical tango.
I’d expected the work I was doing on double-time to increase my enjoyment of rhythmic music. It has, but to my surprise, that wasn’t the biggest benefit …
Continue reading The only leader is the music: A joyful FeastIn a city in which anything can happen, and frequently does, this afternoon still stood out! This was followed by a curfew-busting visit to Salon Canning.
It was the second time this trip that I got to hear my favourite orchestra play, but the first time I could actually dance to it …
Continue reading Ending an amazing day dancing to Romantica Milonguera playing live in Salon CanningFriday and Saturday nights are my curfew-free days, when I don’t have to work the next day. Friday had proven a washout, as my afternoon nap lasted until 11pm, and failed entirely to make a 1am visit to La Discépolo – but tonight I danced until 3am.
This was a return visit to a milonga I really enjoyed – and again with a live orchestra, this time La Juan D’Arienzo, who I’d really loved at La Viruta …
Continue reading Sans Souci with La Juan D’Arienzo (eventually!)I’d intended to start the dance day with another visit to El Abrazo, but in the end tiredness won out, so I spent the afternoon relaxing and napping.
That left De Querusa …
Continue reading De Querusa, and a friend I apparently hadn’t metPrivate and video interview complete, it was playtime! I’d had a great time at Sueño Porteño last time, and was looking forward to a return visit.
There was a small administrative matter to take care of, and this didn’t prove easy …
Continue reading Sueño Porteño delighting me, before a brief visit to La del Centro in MarabuI’m now halfway through the three-week period in which I have to work as well as play, and I’ve more-or-less settled into a pattern:
In my quest for afternoon milongas which run some way into the evening, I seem to be sampling every milonga El Beso has to offer! Today it was Tango Camargo, which was very much like El Abrazo: older crowd, relaxed, friendly, simple dance.
Antonio wanted to ease himself in gently with a group class and practica, but as this was also at El Beso, I persuaded him to come with me to at least watch and soak up the atmosphere …
Continue reading A dreamy Tango CamaroToday we were sad to bid farewell to Tina. Not being overly keen on doing this at 7am, I did so at 4am before going to bed.
But I was very happy to welcome Maria and Antonio, who I hadn’t seen for a very long time! They arrived at around 9.45am, but were kind enough to go drink coffee around the corner until we’d crawled out of bed …
Continue reading The departure of La Tiñaorita, and arrival of Los ItalianosThere are certain things which only make sense in Buenos Aires. To anyone who has visited, this will make perfect sense: you’re tired from lack of sleep due to last night’s milonga, so you go for a nap in the evening and wake up around midnight ready for your next one. Repeat daily. Or on Fridays and Saturdays only, in my case!
That was Diego, in this case, but I entirely understood the sentiment. After four hours of sleep, I thankfully returned to sleep a little later and emerged around noon. But still went back to bed at around 7.30pm ready for a nap before we left at 9pm …
Continue reading “Sorry, I’m really tired: I won’t be coming out until after midnight”Surprisingly, an entire week of 6.30am starts didn’t kill me. But the benefit of the early starts is that by 11am, my working day was over – and weekend mode engaged!
I did have a couple of things to take care of before the dancing began, and of course Argentina does her best to entertain us in even the most mundane of activities …
Continue reading The tango gods can be fickle: From El Beso heaven to Salon Canning limboIt’s two-and-a-half years since my last visit to Sueño Porteño, now relocated to a beautiful but cramped venue, and it still makes me feel like a tango god! This was milonga 10 this trip, in 13 days. Just saying, to the sceptics!
Terry had booked a table for him, Rita, Tina, myself and Beatriz Dujovne, author of In Strangers Arms: The Magic of the Tango …
Continue reading Sueño Porteño still making me feel like a tango god – and a triple mix-up!Getting up at 6.30am was a severe shock to my system, despite being good and going to bed before midnight. I did survive working for a living, but was very tired afterwards. I’d never previously mastered the art of the afternoon nap, but this time I went straight to bed and was asleep in minutes.
While I slept, Tina was somewhat busy shoe-shopping …
Continue reading Learning to nap, and Cafetin del Almagro LightTina went shopping at a market, had lunch, and visited Cementerio de la Recoleta. I don’t plan to visit that one, but will at some point go to Cementerio de la Chacarita to say hello to Pugliese and Troilo.
While they were spending time with people of varying degrees of aliveness, I opted for a lazy day at home before just one milonga …
Continue reading La Glorieta de Belgrano, with accidental gelatoA friend suggested I might get more sleep if I weren’t writing my blog posts. In truth, I’m buzzing so much when I get home from milongas that there’s no chance I’d sleep anyway if I tried going straight to bed. Writing is for me a way of winding down, even if I do also do it for a living!
I have made it to bed on previous nights, albeit sometimes at 5am. Last night, however, I was so euphoric that I might as well have had a nose full of cocaine for all the hope there was of sleep …
Continue reading Last ones standing: Closing Salon Canning at 4am (Video)Every day is a school day in Argentina. Today I learned: trust Terry on milongas, but never on cafes! He’d seen our visit to Cafe Tortini, which was beautiful but had mediocre food at tourist prices, and told us we should instead have gone to Cafe de Los Angelitos. So we did, with him. It was beautiful, but had rubbish food at tourist prices.
Service was so slow it took 45 minutes to get our glasses of water. We wanted coffee, but didn’t dare order it – we’d have been there for another hour or more. When presenting the bill, the waiter pointedly told us that the total didn’t include service. I pointedly left the appropriate tip for the standard of service …
Continue reading Another grand cafe, then one of the best tango nights of my life!Yesterday we were unexpectedly transformed into tango performers, and today we equally unexpectedly qualified for the Nobel Prize for Sheer Bloody-minded Determination!
I promise today’s blog will be the very last time I will ever again mention SIMs and data …
Continue reading Qualifying for a Nobel Prize before a visit to BarajandoThere have been many notable achievements throughout history, from great scientific breakthroughs like the discovery of electricity, to social and political triumphs like voting rights for women.
I think it is, however, fair to say that all of these pale into insignificance against the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced: loading a sensible amount of data onto a local SIM in Argentina. There is a Nobel Prize for Sheer Bloody-minded Determination awaiting the first person to achieve it …
Continue reading Ok, there may have been two milongas today … and a kind of performanceI slept for about nine hours, though still felt that was about ten hours short of the required quota. However, we did nothing in the morning, so a bit of lazing was the perfect start to the day.
This was helped considerably by my foresight. I’d decided that a one-month stay was more like short-term living than long-term holidaying, so had brought with me some key home comforts – including my favourite tea, infusers, and pint mug …
Continue reading Accidentally achieving one of my goals by going to the wrong milongaI’m again numbering the milongas to help me keep track of them, but don’t expect anything like my previous crazy pace! One reason for staying here a month is to take things easy – an absolute maximum of one milonga per day. Yes, really. Honestly. You’ll see.
Knowing my love of live orchestras, Terry had pointed me to Sans Souci. We’d first been treated to a live performance of Orquesta Típica Misteriosa Buenos Aires at La Viruta on our previous visit, and I loved them! Terry kindly made reservations for us, as well as him and Rita …
Continue reading Milonga 1: Sans Souci at La Nacional, with Orquesta Típica Misteriosa Buenos AiresMy first tango festival was supposed to have been in the spring of 2020 – and we all know how that went! It was some 18 months later when I had the opportunity to finally participate in one. The Feast was said to be a very friendly one, so off I went to a very soggy Devon …
It was such a magical event that nothing I could write would do it justice. Plus my sleep-deprived brain likely can’t even remember all the highlights, so view this blog post as just a very inadequate taster …
Continue reading My first tango festival: Falling head-over-heels in love with Tango FeastI’d planned to go to two back-to-back milongas on Saturday, dancing from 3pm to midnight. That plan didn’t work out: I ended up dancing at three back-to-back milongas, dancing from 3pm to 3am. It wasn’t quite my record in terms of number of milongas in a day, but it was certainly my UK record.
I’d also planned to do about 50/50 dancing and socialising at each milonga. I managed that at the final one of the three …
Continue reading Dancing from 3pm to 3am: Three milongas in 12 hoursI was going to say it was less than a month ago when I described my tangostential crisis, but as I caught a lurgy and was out of action for half of it, it was actually four milongas ago that I wrote:
I’m now at a somewhat odd stage in my tango – and I’m not quite sure what to do about it […] I feel simultaneously delighted with where I am, and frustrated with where I’m not.
Every problem in tango turns out to be either far simpler, or far more complex, than I imagined. Fortunately in this case it was the former …
Continue reading Four milongas later, my tangostential crisis is over (for now)Having been given a potential solution to part of my tangistential crisis, Tango Terra tonight offered an opportunity to at least partly put the theory to the test.
It wasn’t a particularly crowded milonga, but Terra does have one characteristic which proved useful in the circumstances …
Continue reading A small but encouraging tangistential test-run at Tango TerraTango highs and tango lows are familiar to anyone caught up in the clutches of the dance. Days when we can do anything; others when we can do nothing. After a time, you just get relaxed about that – or at least come to accept that there’s nothing we can do about it, so there’s no point getting stressed.
But I’m now at a somewhat odd stage in my tango – and I’m not quite sure what to do about it.
Let’s start with the good news …
Continue reading A heavenly Nacimiento, but a tango existential crisisI’m climbing the stairs in an unfamiliar building in an new city in a country I’ve never before visited, and whose language I do not speak. But already I’m starting to feel at home.
The music drifting down the stairs is known. In my tango bag, my usual companions: dance shoes, a shoe-horn, a hand fan, a box of mints …
Continue reading What is tango?I wrote last time about my tango crash, feeling that with my newly-improved posture, it was like I was starting all over again when it came to learning how to dance.
Emma diagnosed the issue and provided me with a way forward, but circumstances conspired to delay my first real-world test until the Los Angelitos 10th anniversary milonga on Sunday …
Continue reading Five hours of wonderful dance, and I feel back on trackSaturday saw a rather special event: the Argentine Ambassador’s Milonga, at the ambassador’s residence in Knightsbridge. It really did feel like being in Buenos Aires!
Admittedly the grandeur of the setting would have been more faded in BsAs, but the crowded floor, the atmosphere and even the heat made for a very convincing impression …
Continue reading The magic continues with a slice of Buenos Aires in KnightsbridgeI had to be almost bodily dragged to Negracha. I’d heard people talk about it, and seen a couple of videos, and it was clear to me that the level there was far too high for me.
But the visit turned into something I couldn’t have dared hope for. There are a couple of pieces of context needed to make sense of what follows …
Continue reading A truly magical experience – and a rhythmical breakthrough – at NegrachaI wrote last time about the excitement I feel, at finally feeling like I might start to enjoy rhythmical tandas as much as lyrical ones. But there’s also the other side to this, which is why I choose the above image for this post.
There are times in my tango journey where it feels circular: Oh, this again! But it’s of course really a spiral. We learn something on one level, then we return to it later and explore it on another level. And we continually get deeper into each element – like revealing the fruit beneath the peel. (Hey, this metaphor is worth what you paid for it!)
Turning my attention now to rhythmical dancing is like revisiting everything from scratch …
Continue reading Rhythmical dance is bringing me back to basics in a whole new wayTuesday saw me at the first post-lockdown milonga in London, and that was followed by the re-opening of Tango Terra on Thursday and Los Angelitos on Sunday …
Continue reading Completing my hat-trick of ‘welcome back’ milongasTuesday night saw the first London milonga re-opening after 14 months of lockdown, one day after ‘freedom day’ in England and Wales. I was of course there, despite the 30C temperature!
The evening began with a one-hour mixed-level lesson that turned out to be more mixed-level than expected …
Continue reading Dancing at the first milonga in london after lockdownI highly recommend this panel discussion. It’s two hours long, and I fully expected to listen to maybe half an hour of it to get a sense of some of the issues, but found it so engaging I ended up listening to the whole thing.
I must say that coronavirus was not a category tag I ever imagined creating for this blog!
Tango Terra is always quieter on a Sunday, and more so this week. I think some are now deciding to err on the side of caution where the coronavirus is concerned. I heard also that the Tango Space milonga the previous evening was very quiet too …
Continue reading Getting my fix in while I can, as more London milongas close
Thursday evenings normally begin with the Tango Space intermediate lesson, but I decided to skip that tonight.
Although the Tuesday and Thursday intermediate classes are theoretically geared to the same level, in practice there’s a significant difference in attendance and approach. The Tuesday version, taught by Pablo and Eva, assumes comfort with all of the improver level content – as is reasonable, given it’s intended as the next step. It tends to attract those who are further along the intermediate scale …
Continue reading It’s true what they say about Russian tangueras …
I caught the end of the lesson as usual, and it was a pleasing-looking movement.
I’m not sure whether the intermediate sequences are getting more accessible, or whether I’m making more sense of them by connecting more dots. We’ll see how I get on with Luis’ version on Thursday …
Continue reading Calesitas, chaos, criminal cabeceos and coronavirus contingencies
There’s a tradition in tango that you don’t dance the first song of a live performance, as a courtesy to the band: giving them your full attention. At Los Angelitos tonight, however, Martin Alvarado specifically asked people to dance from the first song – but it seemed nobody was going to accept the invitation.
I looked at the empty floor, looked across to one of my favourite followers, looked around at the very large number of people sat around the dance floor – then decided the opportunity was too good to be defeated by feelings of self-consciousness …
Continue reading Another tango first: the only couple on the floor for the first half of a song
In Luis and Natalia’s intermediate class, we’d been playing with the contra-giro over the past few weeks, so they decided to do the same with the giro tonight. Or, more specifically, a medio-giro.
You can obviously enter a giro from any step – forward, backward or either side. The version I’ve used so far has been from a side-step, and the one we used tonight was from a back ocho. We played with a few different variants …
Continue reading Connecting some dots, and returning home to Tango Terra
If Tango Terra and Los Angelitos are the milongas that make me feel like a grown-up, The Light is the one that made me feel like a toddler! It was the highest level dancing I’ve ever seen in London.
I danced exactly three tandas, all with the same friend. The rest of the time, I just watched …
Continue reading A trip to The Light, a milonga way above my pay-grade
I love that milonga so much.
Emerging after four hours of almost non-stop blissful dancing, you feel like it’s about 2am. But it’s still 8pm, and even allowing the obligatory blog post and time needed for the buzz to wear off, you can still be in bed at a civilised hour …
Continue reading Mmmm … Tango Terra! And a more streamlined approach to the blog. Maybe.
Sometimes lessons can pay unexpected dividends some time later. There can be things I didn’t really grasp at the time, which later make sense. Or things I thought were minor points, which subsequently reveal themselves to be far more important.
There was one of the latter in a private with Maeve. Indeed, I didn’t even include it in the blog post at the time, as it just felt like a reminder of something I already knew …
Continue reading Something else clicked: a way to encourage weight-sharing
It was on 28th October 2018 that I first ‘danced’ in a milonga at Tango Garden, after a grand total of five lessons, with the courage fostered by not knowing what I didn’t know.
Some fifteen months later, I figured the various broken limbs would have healed, and the building been repaired, so decided to pay a return visit for the 7th anniversary of the popular Saturday afternoon milonga …
Continue reading Returning to the scene of the crime, at Tango Garden
The theme of this week’s Tango Space intermediate class was advertised as a cross-system sequence. This would usually be enough to send me running for the hills but for two things …
Continue reading A minor mystery solved, and a bit of Tango Terror
There’s a Catch-22 with my plan to expand my core vocabulary. The stuff I’m now adding in to milongas feels less fluid, so I’m reluctant to interrupt the flow of the dance by using them too often – but unless I use them more often, they won’t feel more fluid.
That feels like a particular dilemma when I feel like smoothness and musicality are what I’ve got going for me right now as a tango dancer; if I put those at risk, I have nothing …
Continue reading Deliberately taking one step back to get two steps forward
Daniel Pereyra was DJing at Los Angelitos today, and while I hadn’t ended up his biggest fan last time, today was a complete contrast! The music could almost have been one of my own playlists.
I loved almost all of it, and danced all but two or three tandas …
Continue reading Today’s Los Angelitos was almost in Tango Terra territory
Thursday’s lesson was on ‘dancing to the pause.’ This was familiar territory to me, but was still a really useful lesson – partly for one simple movement, and partly as a reminder of how far I’ve come from my mathematical days.
The lesson started with the 8-beat phrase, and an initial suggestion to slow on the 7th beat in order to pause on the 8th. This is a very slight variation on what I usually do when walking to rhythmical sections, which is to decelerate on the 7th beat in order to do a weight-change instead of a step on the 8th …
Continue reading Tango maths revisited, and the fragility of tango heaven
After yesterday’s work, it was time for the week’s second instalment of Tango Terra fun.
My new shoes had finally arrived, and they were absolutely gorgeous
Continue reading Tango Terra was heaven again, even with overly-tight new shoes
Things have been pretty non-stop of late, and I did briefly consider skipping the class to just go to the milonga – but I’m so glad I didn’t!
The Thursday intermediate class is always excellent, and tonight we started with what had to be the most ironic exercise ever for me …
Continue reading A fabulous lesson as always, and some (likely explicable) magic at Tango Terra
Ever since I started considering dropping the Tuesday Tango Space milonga from my weekly schedule, just to calm things down a bit, it has been conspiring to prevent me from doing so …
There was a discussion on a tango forum recently about how much focus we should have on technique during a milonga.
There were two schools of thought. One, that technique should always be a focus. Two, that milongas are places to have 100% of your attention on your partner and the music …
Continue reading Technique in milongas, and taking my chances with Troilo
I’d been considering cutting back from three milongas a week to two, allegedly to give myself a saner schedule, though the smart money would be on me using the time to try new milongas.
However, last week had cast doubt on the idea of giving up the Tuesday one. Plus, when I think about it, there’s a very long gap between Sunday and Thursday …
Continue reading There’s a long gap between Sunday and Thursday …
I learned my lesson from last time: namely that there is no point being there at 3.30pm when the milonga officially starts.
It began last time at around 4.20pm. I did enjoy socialising beforehand, though, so decided a 4pm-ish arrival would be about right …
Continue reading One worrying moment at Tango Terra, and two great ones
I loved tonight’s intermediate lesson with Luis and Natalia.
The eventual aim was a lovely flowing circular sequence with a double sacada. It’s again the sort of thing that would have had me running for the hills a few months ago, but tonight I was able to keep up with the various versions along the way, and I think the final one too. We actually ran out of time on that one, so I can’t be 100% sure as there was no opportunity to video it, but I’ll try it at Saturday’s practica and we’ll see …
Earlier, I was considering dropping the Tuesday milonga from my schedule.
I hasten to add that’s not because there’s anything remotely wrong with it. Rather that, just as I did with my classes, I was wondering whether it was time to take a saner approach to my milonga schedule. I currently do three milongas a week, and was contemplating reducing it to two …
Tonight’s intermediate class was building on last week’s class, adding a couple of different ways to continue it.
I won’t bother describing the sequence in any detail, as that wasn’t the point of it for me. I’m never going to use it in a milonga, but I liked it for three reasons …
Continue reading An exciting class, and an excellent Tango Terra
This week might look a little like a return to The Crazy Days, as it comprises one private lesson, either two or three group classes and three milongas. But that’s merely the coincidence of a teacher’s availability, the monthly Tango Space workshop falling on this weekend, and what sounds like an interesting class before the Los Angelitos milonga on Sunday. Honest.
After yesterday’s private, I was looking forward to a chance to seeing whether I could feel a difference in my ochos in a milonga, and the answer was a clear yes …
Continue reading A temporary return to The Crazy Days, and increased milonga vocabulary
Los Angelitos has so far been a staple part of my Sundays, but with Tango Terra having taken the mantle of my favourite milonga, I’ve decided to alternate the two …
Continue reading My new Sundays: alternating Tango Terra and Los Angelitos
My planned exploration of new-to-me London milongas hadn’t got very far, albeit for the best of reasons: finding one I adore.
But I was curious to try Carablanca because it seems to be a Marmite milonga. I’ve heard reports from those who love it and those who hate it, but rarely anything in between …
Continue reading My first visit to Carablanca, and probably my last
Intermediate classes can vary tremendously in focus, from long, complicated sequences to pure technique.
Tonight’s Tango Space class was my idea of the perfect group lesson: half technique, and then a sequence which was really also a disguised technique exercise …
Continue reading A fantastic class, and a wow milonga at Tango Terra
In my admittedly limited experience to date, it seems some tango DJs are more consistent than others in the type of music they play. Bruno at Los Angelicas and Shaun at Tango Terra are very consistent, reliably playing a high percentage of music to my taste. The DJ at tonight’s milonga is more variable, in my view, which got me to thinking about what factors might be at play.
If you’re a tango DJ, please do comment below; in the meantime, here are three theories …
Continue reading Thoughts about DJs, and a flattering and amusing moment
It’s about how good a match they are to my personal tastes.
Los Angelitos is normally reliably great as it combines my kind of music – thanks to Bruno sharing my tastes for slow, lyrical songs – and my kind of followers. This week, however, it was lacking the first ingredient …
I arrived at Tango Terra as it opened at 7pm, left after it closed at midnight and I think in all that time I sat out three, maybe four, tandas.
It was the xmas edition, and very busy. Although it was only my third time there, there’s quite a lot of overlap of followers from Tango Space and Los Angelitos, so plenty of familiar faces – and some great new ones …
Continue reading A fantastic evening at Tango Terra, and very sore feet!
My plans for last week and weekend included the Tuesday Tango Space milonga, Tango Terra, Tango Shelter and Tango on the Thames. I got to do exactly none of that, as I was struck down with flu on Monday.
This was the short-and-sharp variety: a couple of days where everything hurt and I couldn’t even get out of bed, but free from symptoms eight days later. The first couple of days were the worst, but it was the weekend which was most frustrating. By then, I felt mostly ok, just tired and not wanting to risk passing it on to anyone else, so I skipped the two planned milongas …
Continue reading Back into a milonga after nine, long, tango-less days
Where I once did a crazy number of classes, it seems I now do a crazy number of milongas.
I had Los Angelitos today, then it’s Tango Space on Tuesday, Tango Terra on Thursday, Tango Shelter plus Corrientes on Saturday, and Tango on the Thames on Sunday …
Why does no-one ever believe me when I say I’m only staying for the first hour of a milonga?
Today was the final Tango Space workshop of the year, a one-hour one billed as lessons Pablo and Anne had learned from their students, followed by Prosecco and mince pies – then the monthly Browns milonga …
Continue reading They make long hours at this time of the year
I caught the end of the Tuesday intermediate class before the milonga and it looked like it was a nice turn, so I was looking forward to the Thursday version with Luis and Natalia. But it turned out it was actually voleos*!
*Variously spelled as voleo or boleo, but I suspect the latter arises only because of the Spanish pronunciation. The former also wins the Google Spellcheck Test (try each and see which has the greater number of hits), so voleo it is here …
Continue reading Erk, voleos! But the Tango Terra fun continues, and a musical mystery was solved.
Tonight was my type of music, my type of followers, my type of dance.
Mara Ovieda was again DJing. There were a lot of lyrical tandas, and the more rhythmical ones still had depth to them. I only sat out a few tandas, and that was mostly because I was busy chatting …
As I mentioned last time, I’m no longer writing full blog posts for milongas, just a few snippets of things that stand out.
The first of which is what definitely counts as my best ever reaction from a new follower …
Continue reading Los Angelitos, and my best ever reaction from a new follower
I’d intended to go to the Tango on the Thames lesson and milonga on Sunday, but my BsAs sleep deprivation finally caught up with me, a week later. I think I’d largely been running on adrenalin since our return, riding the high!
I had a lazy day Sunday, and was in bed by early evening yesterday, so now felt rested – if not entirely relaxed due to a bit of a frustrating end to the day. I trusted that tango would take care of that, and indeed it did …
Continue reading A new, abbreviated blog format for my regular milongas
I’d caught the end of the intermediate lesson on Tuesday, on leader and follower decorations, and it had looked fiendishly complicated. I very much hoped Luis and Natalia could be counted on for either a more accessible version, or a careful build-up to the final thing.
I needn’t have worried. Not that I could do the final version, which involved the leader pivoting on one foot while doing lapices with the other, but Luis did indeed break it down well. I was able to do my own version of it, pivoting on two feet without the lapices. And my ‘one thing from each lesson’ approach meant that while I wasn’t going to do the whole thing, I did very much like another new way to do a medio-giro …
Continue reading Another ‘one thing’ from my lesson, then a great night at Tango Terra!
Less a short film, more the video equivalent of a snapshot. All shot handheld on my iPhone. But while it won’t win any cinematography awards, it captures the memories rather well!
I’d wondered how it would feel, returning to dancing in London. Whether my familiar milongas would now feel strange. Tonight’s didn’t: lots of friends were there, and I dived straight back in.
What did feel strange was that it had been four whole days since my last milonga! Technically, three days, I suppose, since we left Yira Yira in the early hours of Saturday morning and I was at the Tango Space milonga when it started at 8pm on Tuesday. As an added bonus, there was a touch of Buenos Aires to the dance …
Continue reading A touch of BsAs in London, and dancing almost every tanda
My third and final private was another with Laura, and it was an absolutely amazing one! Half of it was devoted to technique, the other half to more simple tools for use in crowded milongas and to give me more options for expressing the music.
We worked on the first step of the walk, aiming to get a vertical diagonal feel to it – pushing down into the floor with the standing foot while creating a rising sensation in the chest. Laura also had me try the Argentine style position with my left hand …
Continue reading An amazing private, a lovely dinner and two last milongas
My plan for the day was simple: work in the morning, a 90-minute private in the afternoon, a suit fitting, the first hour of a milonga in the evening and in bed by midnight.
Some of that happened …
Getting out of bed at 7am was again difficult. Well, impossible, I guess, as I didn’t. I had a rather abbreviated breakfast before work.
I’ve never been able to nap – once I’m asleep, I’m asleep, and being woken by an alarm after a short time just makes me feel like death. Not even death warmed up. But a bout of insomnia a long time ago did teach me that rest is the next best thing to sleep, so I decided to have a very lazy afternoon, just reading in bed, before heading out to an 8pm milonga …
As is usual this week, I had work in the morning. Getting up at 7am is never pleasant in my world, but it wasn’t as bad as yesterday thanks to me exercising restraint where milongas were concerned.
After work, it was time for my second Spanish pronunciation lesson, dealing with the rest of the consonants …
No, don’t worry, I don’t mean I caused another diplomatic incident, this time by mispronouncing something, I mean I actually took a lesson in Spanish pronunciation …
Continue reading A lesson in Spanish pronunciation, and Misteriosa Milonga
Most of my lessons are very technique-focused. The great thing about those is that a small detail can make a massive difference to the experience you give to a follower. The downside, however, is that because you’re always revisiting the basics, it can make you feel like you’re starting all over again.
Today, I went from feeling like starting again from first principles to feeling like a tango god …
Continue reading From tango lesson to feeling like a tango god in three easy steps
I first saw this venue in a performance video rather early on my tango journey, and have wanted to visit it ever since.
Here’s how Wander Argentina describes it …
Continue reading La Catedral and El Tacuari: not much dancing, but there was applause
I got as far as the hotel lobby then had to go back upstairs for my sunglasses; seems I’d forgotten what it was like to leave the hotel in daylight.
I’d originally planned to go to La Maria Rolera to see how it compared to its sister milonga on Tuesday, but Diego was insistent I had to go to the DNI practica, and I’m certainly not going to argue with his recommendations.
I did, though, manage to go to both …
Continue reading A relaxed afternoon at the DNI Practica and La Maria Rolera milonga
You’ll have to excuse the blobby photos from milongas. I’m really trying not to take photos this trip. Instead, I’m shooting very short video clips with my phone, and will then edit them into maybe a 5-10 minute overview of the whole trip. This means most of my photos are in fact screengrabs from video, thus not the greatest quality.
The daytime part of the blog is rather brief: I had breakfast in bed, then lazed (apart from accidentally writing a blog post).
I made up for this laziness in the evening, managing one-and-a-bit classes and three milongas …
Continue reading Patio de Tango, La Viruta and a magical evening at Salon Canning
My sartorial standards in milongas are respectable, but I’ve now given up on mornings. We just made it to the hotel breakfast room before it closed, and I was unshaven, with uncombed hair and wearing my Virgin sleep suit.
Breakfast was spent sorting out some more of our tango schedule. With up to 20 or so milongas from which to choose every day, it’s no easy task …
Continue reading Some reflections, some wanderings and an ‘entertaining’ milonga
Many friends have claimed I don’t understand the concept of holidays. There is some truth to this. With my background in business travel with extremely limited time off, I’m used to making the most of the time, so there isn’t much lazing around. I’ve always taken the view that you can do that with greater comfort, convenience and economy at home.
However, this morning was a relaxed one. I did nothing more than visit the two tango shoe shops directly opposite the hotel …
Well, ok, yes, but ‘best night of tango of my year-and-a-bit of dancing’ is a little longwinded and doesn’t quite have the same ring to it …
Continue reading The best night of tango of my life (so far)
Today was a fairly thorough introduction to Buenos Aires. In particular, how Argentine time works.
Our plan was to attend a class, an afternoon milonga, another class and an evening milonga. We only managed the latter two – mostly because we spent a great deal of time getting our hands on some cash …
Continue reading A busy first day – but just the one milonga …
I’m not generally going to the pre-milonga Tuesday lesson these days, but the topic was one I must have missed before: ocho cortado with circular movements. That sounded both fun and useful, so I headed over for that.
As it turned out, we didn’t get as far as the circular movement part, but I didn’t mind at all …
Continue reading Making friends with ocho cortados, and my first milonga fix for a fortnight
Los Angelitos is normally my dream milonga. Lots of slow music, and plenty of followers who enjoy it as much as I do. This past Sunday, however, was a relative disappointment.
But the Tango gods made it up to me by giving me my usual Los Angelitos experience at the Tuesday Tango Space milonga instead. This is usually a really good experience, but generally doesn’t hit the heights of LA; tonight it did …
Continue reading Tonight the Tango Space milonga was my Little Angel
Today was a rather a mixed day. Started well, went downhill and looked like it wasn’t going to get any better, but was rescued in the end.
It began with the unofficial practica, which we’re currently hosting at home while the numbers permit. There were eight of us today, which was a full house …
Continue reading A mixed day, but began and ended on a high note, so calling it good
Yeah, this is another lengthy blog post. You know the drill: grab a cup of tea or glass of wine before reading …
Some might argue that a 2-hour practica, 90-minute group class and 3-hour milonga is a touch enthusiastic. Indeed, an unkind person might be tempted to suggest this has shades of a return to The Crazy Days.
Especially as I was doing all of this instead of going to a friend’s birthday party, but then she is a tango teacher so is understanding of the early-stage addiction to all things tango …
Continue reading A really useful hiphop-free practica, and a crowded but fantastic milonga
When Fede said my dancing on Sunday was my best yet, he was referring to my posture and technique. Behind this was a single secret he’d been trying to share with me for some considerable time: do one thing at a time.
With a back ocho, for example, lead a side-step first. No more than that. Don’t enter the side-step deciding in advance that it’s going to be a back ocho, as that will lead to me blending the two, compromising my posture in the process …
Continue reading Six-point-three lovely tandas, and my one-year appraisal
Having re-added giros to my milonga repertoire, two things have become apparent. One, I was worrying unnecessarily about them. My standard was, in fact, perfectly typical of someone at my level.
Two, that isn’t saying very much …
Continue reading One perfect lesson, one beyond me, and the best compliment yet
I hadn’t had the greatest success with vals workshops in the past, so was hoping that the third time might be the charm.
Fortunately, that turned out to be the case – despite the inclusion of a decidedly intermediate-level sequence. My working theory is it’s because I’ve become Irish, and therefore automatically a better dancer …
Until today, the side menu simply listed all previous posts, most recent at the top. You could just scroll all the way down to the very first post.
But it seems WordPress thinks I write too much …
Continue reading Why the side menu has changed (aka I write too much)
Ok, this one, too, might sound a bit like a return to The Crazy Days, with a practica, group class and milonga all in one evening – but it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Tonight’s Tuesday milonga was temporarily relocated to O’Neill’s this week due to redecoration at the normal venue. As there was no separate room for lessons, they were offering an all-levels class which sounded like it might be fun (‘Tango Secrets’). Plus the milonga was likely to be crowded given the smaller space, so I thought the pre-class practica might be a good plan if I hoped to do any walking …
Today was a little like going back in time to my crazy days of tango, when I signed up for every class and workshop on offer, peaking at seven classes and a milonga in one week.
Today was a two-hour practica, a 90-minute intermediate class and a milonga …
I had to work late, meaning I would – shock! – not make it there for the start of the Tuesday Tango Space milonga.
I like to be there early for one of two reasons. One, I love to walk, and at most milongas the floor will be at its emptiest at the start. Two, at the Tuesday milonga, most people there have already done a class so many only stay for the first hour of the milonga – so that’s the main window of opportunity when it comes to dancing with my fellow students …
I could only make the final hour or so of the Spitalfields milonga, and had four tandas, two of which were hilarious for different reasons.
Regular readers will know that when it’s clear I’m dancing with an experienced follower, I will do my best to create space for her dance via the parada-and-pause approach: lead a parada, pause, relax the embrace and see what happens. Prior to tonight, I would have said there were three levels of response to this – plus a level zero …
Continue reading Two hilarious tandas at the Spitalfields milonga
I’d heard mixed reports about the Tango Bridge milonga. It’s always hard to find a consensus view, as different people have different tastes, and what is great for dancers at one level may be less so for those at a different one.
I’m of the view that I ought to try each central London milonga at least once – and live music tonight seemed the perfect argument for trying this one now …
Sometimes tango can be cruel, when, for no discernible reason, nothing seems to be working. Other times, tango can be very, very kind. Tonight, she bestowed only kindness on me.
I danced exactly four tandas, far less than some nights, but every one of them felt lovely …
The last vals workshop I did, back in June (a time that already feels a lifetime ago), wasn’t a notable success. I’m hopeless at switching between single- and double-time in general, so something that required me to do so quickly and learn a new sequence was never likely to end happily.
I was hoping today’s vals workshop with Juan Martin and Steffi might be a different story; sadly that was not to be …
Continue reading I love vals, but vals workshops don’t seem to be my friend …
There are those who might question my commitment to the left side of my ‘fewer classes, more dance’ equation. And technically it is true that I’ve been doing four group lessons a week, with Juan Martin and Steffie – but that ends soon, and the plan after that is just one lesson a week.
But I don’t think anyone can query the right-hand side of the equation. Tonight was my fourth milonga in as many nights. I was feeling tired, but hadn’t been able to make the last couple of Tuesday milongas – my father visiting one week, and a night kayak trip the other – so didn’t want to miss a third one. I will, though, keep the blog post brief so I can get to bed …
Continue reading From a crazy number of lessons to a crazy number of milongas …
I am officially now a giromaniac.
After a false start a couple of months ago, I’m finally able to fluidly lead giros and contra-giros in a milonga. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me feel! Partly just the relief of finally getting there after so long, but mostly because it completely transforms my dance and the crowded milonga experience …
Continue reading A giromaniac is born, and a whole new tango world opens up
As with Spitalfields, I’d first seen Tango on the Thames long before I danced; stood and watched for a while, and thought of it as one of those delightfully eccentric English things done by people who aren’t me.
It was an incredibly hot day, 32C ambient, and more in the sun. We estimated when the sun would have dropped beneath the building line and turned up at around 7.15pm, which was perfect timing …
Continue reading Tango on the Thames tangasms, with giros and counter-giros – and accidental ganchos
The previous blog post was a long one; this is short, just a fun time at a new-to-me milonga.
Last time I danced at St Columba’s Church in Chelsea, it was in the huge basement room with hundreds of people at the Romantica Milonguera live performance. Tonight, it was the more modest (but lovely) ground floor room for Dante’s milonga, Sans Souci …
Continue reading Taking a chance at a new-to-me milonga: Sans Souci
I enjoyed my first taste of barridas, so was looking forward to another class on these with Juan Martin and Steffi. I had been warned that leaders often over-use them. A well-executed barrida once or twice in a tanda can feel lovely, I was told, but not more than that.
Like seasoning, then: just the right amount really adds to the dish, but too much can make it inedible …
Continue reading Rebounds, barridas, sacadas, planeos – and a very busy time at a milonga
I decided last time that Juan Martin and Steffi’s classes are so good that I had to take full advantage of their limited time in London, despite my determination to do fewer classes and more milongas. The classes do at least double as a way to get to know followers for the Los Angelitos milonga which follows, so I can kind of claim they are in the spirit of dancing more.
Today’s classes were again advertised as technique-focused, with ‘pivots and communication’ the theme, though interestingly that turned out to be more true of the beginner/improver class than the intermediate one …
I don’t know that tonight will be the last Tango Space class I’ll do, but it was my final planned one at least.
Tomorrow I’ll be trying the beginner/improver lesson at Tanguito with visiting teachers Juan Martin Carrara & Stefania Colina. They are covering the next four weeks while Bruno is on holiday, so if I like them as much as everyone tells me I will, then that will be my group lesson plan for the next month …
Continue reading End of a Tango Space era, and a surprisingly good milonga
Yeah, ok, the Saturday evening milonga at Browns isn’t quite like that, but it has always felt like the most intimidating of the ones I’ve been to so far. More so, interestingly, than the massive Romantica Milonguera milonga in May.
I think it’s the combination of a relatively formal setting, what appears to be a high level of dance, an atmosphere which has always felt somewhat on the serious side – and very few familiar faces (the usual suspects in the workshop didn’t stay for the milonga). A far cry from the informality of the Tuesday night milonga in a student cafe …
Continue reading Testing my confidence at a grown-up milonga, and a very obvious next step
I’d decided that moving fully into a Just Dancing phase – as in ceasing all lessons for a time – was just a bit too radical for now. In part because pre-milonga group classes are the best way to meet followers and decide which ones I’d like to cabeceo given the opportunity.
But my focus at present is very much on enjoying the dance, and worrying less about what I’m learning. Which also, I think, needs a new approach to the blog, but I’ll get to that …
Continue reading Kicking off the Just Dance phase, and a new approach to the blog
As someone put it today, it’s 37C in London and Boris has just been appointed PM: we have officially entered hell.
No more so than in the back room at the Shield Cafe, which is an oven at the best of times …
Continue reading Fewer classes, more dancing (though not in 37C temps …)
Of course, getting the final piece in my vocabulary jigsaw puzzle doesn’t mean that I can rest on my laurels for a while. Indeed, having made the decision to stick to simple, musical dance, then that puts all the focus on my technique!
The idea of today’s private with Julia and Fede, then, was just to dance and for them to figure out the priorities for refining my technique …
Continue reading More basics, more presence, more musicality and one more milonga
After successfully setting aside my dance inhibitions in yesterday’s practica and lesson, it was now time for the real test: how well this would work in a milonga!
The good news is that the answer is … very well indeed. The bad news is that it comes with a caveat: with the right conditions …
Continue reading The good and bad news about finding my dance
I was spending a couple of days in Boston, and was lucky enough to be upgraded on my flights – but that wasn’t the only upgrade I got. On Wednesday evening, I found myself in an intermediate class for the very first time …
Continue reading Getting an impromptu class upgrade in Boston
I was feeling relaxed about tonight’s improver class, as the cross in cross system was essentially working yesterday (when I remembered to do the leader-only weight-change, doh!). So tonight would be a chance to work on my technique.
After that, my plan was an hour’s dance in the milonga, then trying to recruit a few volunteers to help me practice my giros in the practica from 9pm …
Continue reading More crossed crossing, and some counter-clockwise circling
There is something special about dancing outdoors. My introduction to the art had been in a Hyde Park bandstand in April, followed by Spitalfields in May. Another visit to the latter yesterday maintained my newly-established ‘one outdoor milonga per month’ tradition.
It was a very warm day, with temperatures in the 24-26C range, but at least there was a bit of a breeze with it …
I realised today there’s quite a difference in musicality between what I do in solo practice at home with Mrs Mop, and what I do in milongas. Part of that is entirely understandable: at home, there are few demands on my attention dollar. I normally decide in advance what types of movement I’ll be practicing, so I can spend 50 cents each on technique and musical interpretation.
In a milonga, of course, my partner and the navigation need a lot of my attention, and usually I’m deciding on the fly what movements to lead, but there’s another factor …
Continue reading Actitude, Pugliese and following the follower
As I mentioned last time, my plan to tone things down doesn’t kick in quite yet. Today had two afternoon Tango Better workshops with visiting teachers Fausto Carpino & Stephanie Fesneau, followed by an evening Tango Space one on the milonga rhythym.
The first workshop was on Connection and lead, which sounded like it could be relied on to be exploring fundamentals rather then requiring me to learn new steps. The same wasn’t going to be true of Milonguero Turns, but they did make learning the steps very easy …
Continue reading Three workshops in a day – or not winding down quite yet …
It could be said that a case might be made for the possibility of formulating the bare bones of an argument somewhat suggestive of the idea that I may have been taking my tango schedule to something of an excess.
Mounting a defence against this accusation would be a little tricky in a week in which I was initially scheduled to have nine group classes, a practica and a milonga …
Continue reading A relaxed milonga, and a plan to tone things down
I signed-up for an interesting-looking workshop. I hadn’t made the connection, but this turned out to be because the teacher, Veronica Toumanova, was the author of Why Tango.
The workshop was called Using momentum to lead and follow, and it started well …
Tuesday was the second improver class of the week, with more calesitas. I really like the balance of the Monday and Tuesday classes: the Monday one is always more complex but introduces me to new things, while the Tuesday one is simpler and focuses more on technique.
Tonight, we both entered and exited the calesita via ochos. You could exit with either a front or back ocho. The back seemed to work best when I had enough momentum, while the front was plan B for when things were slower …
The 3D Marathonga was a 12-hour milonga running from 4pm Saturday to 4pm Sunday. I had no plans whatsoever to still be there at 4am, but the opportunity to do some dancing early on, have some dinner and return for more later seemed like a good plan.
3D is named after the three original DJs: David, Diego and Daniel. I’m told Diego is no longer involved, so strictly speaking it’s now 2D …
Continue reading Dancing with the cool kids at the 3D Marathonga
This week had looked like a solid plan for refining my ocho technique: a 90-minute private on Sunday, beginner and improver lessons on Monday, and improver lesson on Tuesday.
As things turned out, I had to work on Monday evening, so lost those two lessons. Still, I practiced in front of the mirror and it did seem like my side-steps were to the side, I wasn’t collapsing my inside shoulder to any notable degree, and I was giving a nice (if virtual) hand-push for the pivot. All that remained to be seen was whether this was a solo practice fiction or whether it manifested itself with a partner …
I talked before about the delusional phase most tango dancers get to enjoy.
In conversation among experienced dancers, someone said most people make it through the first couple of years of tango thanks to a healthy dose of self-delusion. By the time they realise they weren’t anything like as good as they thought they were, they are over the hump – or at least, too far in to escape.
I was complaining that having an advanced tango dancer as a life-partner meant that I never got to enjoy that myself …
Wow!
I’ve absolutely loved Romantica Milonguera ever since I first came across them, so leapt at the chance to see them when they made their first ever visit to London. They were doing two live sets during a milonga, with recorded music the rest of the time.
Very few people I knew seemed to be going, so wasn’t expecting to do much dancing, but I was going to be more than happy just viewing it as a live concert …
Continue reading Romantica Milonguera live, and a whole-evening tangasm
With Hamdi and Amy still away, the improver class was again being taught by Federico and Julia. When they arrived about 15 minutes before the class was due to start, he wanted to know what the leaders had done to the followers yesterday!
There were about a dozen men and only one woman present …
After the Hyde Park bandstand milonga, Sunday provided another opportunity to dance outdoors. Rene and Hiba from Tango Fever organise Tango@Spitalfields, held in the Amphitheatre Canopy outside Patisserie Valerie.
It felt strange to be going there to dance: I’d passed several of these milongas in my pre-tango days, and always thought of them as a really fun idea. I never imagined I would one day be participating!
Continue reading Venturing once more into the great outdoors
Saturday was the monthly Tango Space workshop. This is usually in Farringdon, but this month was at Browns, Covent Garden, and with a guest teacher from Argentina.
The guest was Pepa Palazón, who organises the Viva la Pepa milonga in Buenos Aires and also runs the excellent Pregunta para vos website featuring interviews with famous tango dancers – thankfully with English subtitles …
Continue reading A Very Un-British Workshop, and trying a new milonga
I realised something after yesterday’s class, in which I wasn’t on great form despite my hopes that I’d really be able to work on my technique with a familiar figure.
I wasn’t stressed about it, but that’s not new: I’ve long accepted that the random ups and downs are just part of the deal. The realisation was that, actually, I still enjoyed it …
Continue reading Enjoyment, addiction and dim memories of a time Before Tango
The first time we did planeos in the Tango Space class, I had been puzzled by them. After some solo practice and an improver’s class the following evening, they made more sense – though it still wasn’t anything I was going to attempt in a milonga.
This time around, the bank holiday meant no Monday classes, which gave me one improver’s class to see whether I might get comfortable enough to try it in the milonga which followed …
If I were in any doubt about my addiction to tango, this evening would have dispelled it. This was the first week since I started dancing in the milonga after the Tuesday class that I was unable to do so – and I really, really missed it …
I wrote about one major milestone earlier this month: finally feeling like I have enough vocabulary to cope with a milonga where there isn’t much movement. That was followed by my first tangasm, and another really good experience in the Tuesday milonga a week later.
I realised afterwards that another milestone has been achieved …
Tonight’s Tango Space lesson was on the medio-giro, and with no class on Easter Monday, it was straight into the improver’s class.
But I felt comfortable with the beginner’s version from last time, and it’s something I use a lot in milongas, so didn’t mind jumping in at the deep end this evening …
Continue reading When tripping over each other’s feet is a good thing
Warren Edwardes runs regular free milongas in the bandstand in Hyde Park. These are semi-official: held with permission, but without actually hiring the bandstand, so they rely on other park users cooperating. Normally, they also wouldn’t have the lighting, but the Royal Parks people kindly switched them on.
The space is small, and tonight was popular, so things were absolutely packed. All of which left each couple dancing in about three square feet, leaving room for precisely one step forward and one side-step …
I said that I was prepared for a disappointment after last week’s amazing milonga, and I think if things had been terrible this week, I’d have shrugged and figured that tomorrow’s another day.
Instead, it was just puzzling …
Tonight was my best tango experience yet!
The evening began with the Tuesday improver’s class, on the cross in cross system. Yesterday I’d been having mixed success with this, as I’m new to walking in cross system anyway. Tonight was still mixed success, but weighted more to the success side of the scales …
Tuesday evenings are straight into the improver’s class, as that precedes the beginner’s one. After a warm-up dance, we started with outside walking and then moved onto the cross.
I hadn’t been happy with my lead of the cross. It felt sloppy, and followers often ended up in a kind of half-hearted one. But tonight it clicked into place, and the key was fairly obvious in retrospect …
After rather too little sleep last night, I was feeling very tired, but didn’t want to miss a second Tango Space class, so decided willpower would make an adequate substitute for energy.
The theme was the back ocho, and the improver version ended in a new-to-me version of a Medio-giro, with a parada to complete the sequence …
Saturday was the 6th anniversary of the Tango Garden milonga, and it seemed as though everyone who has ever been there had turned out to celebrate.
It was great to see so many people there from a social perspective, but from a beginner dancer one, it was challenging! For five reasons …
Continue reading Deciding in future to stay far from the madding crowd
Tonight was the second Tango Space class of the week, again on the medio-giro. In hindsight, I should have gone to the improver’s class rather than the beginner’s one, as that would have further developed my skills; it just didn’t occur to me in time.
But the beginner’s class was still great to get lots of practice, and in a rather crowded room that included adjusting the size and angle to suit the available space, so that was really useful …
Continue reading Awarding myself achievement points for three things
The Royal Festival Hall regularly offers free social dances in the Clore Ballroom, a wonderful open space at the back of Level 2. Tango with a live orchestra takes place every year on 27th December.
It all sounds delightfully romantic. A festive time of the year, an amazing location, a fantastic live band, lots of friendly people. And it is all of those things …
Continue reading Playing tango dodgems at the Clore Ballroom
In my final lesson on Sunday, a 30-minute one with Mariano, I had one perfect moment.
My then-gf wasn’t happy with my lead. ‘More chest!’ So I stopped. Mentally ran through my checklist for the walk. Feet grounded. Knees soft. Upright posture. Shoulders relaxed. Head up. Push back against the floor. Lead with the chest. Arms doing nothing other than maintaining the embrace. Then I began walking.
Everything came together. ‘Yes!’ she said, emphatically. ‘Now you look like a milonguero,’ declared Mariano. Just for that moment, I felt like one too …
Continue reading One perfect moment … and many imperfect ones
Today was the beginner’s group lesson at Tango Garden. It was supposed to be on the ocho, but turned out not to be as there were several people there for their very first lesson, so we instead just did the walk. But practicing the walk with a partner suits me just fine, and it was actually a great confidence boost to successfully lead two first timers.
I went back later for the practica, and instead found myself dancing one tanda in the milonga …
Curiosity and obsession …
I get curious about anything and everything. I flirt with understanding everything from the construction of modern skyscrapers to how DLR trains know where they are. But every now and then, I take an intellectual lover.
My bookmarks were packed full of articles on everything from floorcraft to musicality. Our cleaner was bemused by my practicing my walk in my home office before work. YouTube had virtually stopped recommending anything that wasn’t a tango video. From flirtatious glance to tango leaving her toothbrush in my bathroom had taken but a few weeks …
Continue reading Five lessons and a milonga
