Berlin - Thursday: Villa Kreuzberg, "Loca" at Tango Loft and....birds.

Graffiti-art, Spree-side gallery

I was really looking forward to Villa Kreuzberg (Kreuzbergstr.62, Restaurant Tomasa VillaKreuzberg).  Several people had recommended it. The host and DJ was Felix Hahme

The setting is lovely - a beautifully lit house, which is a restaurant, beside a park.   There is a small area outside the main dance room to hang your coat and a chair to change your shoes unless you prefer the decent facilities attached to the restaurant.  Given the often restricted choice, many in Berlin changed shoes in the dance salon.  The room is a lovely space though a little dark for invitation by look.

I was approached and invited directly by  five guys, probably as a result of the lighting.  Direct invitation was more common in Berlin than I had expected though not in the venues with more traditional music and better dancing: Milonga Popular, Alma, Nou, Cafe Dominguez and Max & Moritz. There was a mixture of invitation at Loca.

At Villa Kreuzberg the room is quite long.  Although you can see straight across on the short sides you cannot easily see diagonally even if the floor had cleared during the cortinas. This is a common problem with rectangular rooms where men and women are not seated opposite one another on the long sides.  Felix has a new milonga forthcoming and the lighting in the picture here reminds me of how it was in Villa Kreuzberg.  Video.

There was a practica going on to - almost inevitably - lush Di Sarli before the milonga, the kind so repeated in classes it has put me of that music.  I have the same problem with Canaro's Poema, but seeing Ricardo Vidort dance it, more than anything, is helping me get over this prejudice. That, and not hearing it too often.
  

The majority of the dancers at Villla Kreuzberg that evening were over 35 with a scattering of younger dancers. I noticed more good dancers arriving after 2200.  Before this was some of the most execrable dancing I've seen in a while, wholly and obviously based on class-moves. This is what performance-style moves that are widely taught in class look like when danced by those not destined for  performance. The music is the modern band, Color Tango's version of Gallo ciego. You can see this kind of thing any day of the week in Europe.   That needn't be the case if people dance from the music, rather than starting from "moves". 

Musically, though, things looked promising.  There were two great tandas to start, then a middle-of-the-road vals tanda,  There was a poor Rodriguez.  There was a (best) forgotten Canaro including duck quacks and a mixed (in terms of merit) milonga, tanda.  I began to feel depressed.  It is particularly depressing when good dancers dance to this sort of thing.  The floor did not clear during the cortinas indicating indiscriminate dancers who did not really care what they danced to, nor with whom, nor that they were blocking the line of sight of others who might want to invite by look.

When it comes to animals in tango I can tolerate (but not much more) Donato’s Gato. It's danced here in cayengue style.  It's danced here in the popular, modern way of young people dancing tango all over the world, stylized very differently to the first clip, with ganchos, leg wraps and volcadas.  It is closer to the popular image of tango from touring shows and TV.  Each to his own but they strike me as different dances and I don't just mean the canyengue style. I prefer the first couple - the way they dance is more suited to the music. If the older couple were to dance to say, De Angelis' La vida me engañó I imagine the way they would dance would wholly change, yet I imagine the younger couple making little distinction.  What seems clear to me is that there is a certain "Look at us" about the young couple. The other show is also a show - but it's different. If they are concerned about the look of things, and I'm not sure that they are, then it's a different look quite apart from the canyengue.   It knows it's a show in a different way.  It's droll, a bit vaudeville but the dancing is still good. For me, they are more attuned generally.

I like the musical birds best: Di Sarli's violin-birds in El amanecer. It's danced here, musically, but it's about the movements, the tricks, about technical mastery.  Should technical mastery be the aim of social dancers?  In a show perhaps, or if your aim is to show-off your skills, but that's just not very...social.  Social dancing is about embrace, connection and musical feeling.  The difference between social and performance dancing reminds me a bit of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  There are the goats on one side of the river and the lush meadow on the other.  They are two different worlds.  The goats are ambitious and have to prove themselves by crossing the bridge. But you know what they say about the grass being always greener on the other side.

Canaro's El pollito (1931) has the unmistakeable idea of birds cheeping, and doing that for which I find no equally evocative English words: "frétiller du croupion".  "Croupion" is the back end of a bird. "Frétiller" is waggling.  You can hear how much the track developed, musically from 1927.

The D'Arienzo El Pollito, does have something of the bird about it but if so, it has to be the boss-bird. It's a strong track. D'Arienzo's Lorenzo is more bird-like for me.  In fact, its friends remind me of a group of slightly mad fowls:  Ataniche,  is danced here in a social style, connectedly, the dancing coming from the music. This dance to Rawson is relaxed and light-hearted and I'm delighted pretty much any time I see guys swapping roles.  Here's Jueves danced the way I probably most dislike.

Gallo ciego (there are good versions by D'Arienzo and Tanturi) means, and the music sounds like, being off your face, though it still reminds me of its literal meaning - a rather desperate, blind cockerel somewhere between crazy, comical and pitiful I can never quite decide.  I find the Tanturi more light-hearted than the D'Arienzo.  There's also a famous Pugliese version. 

At Villa Kreuzberg there was another Di Sarli within an hour, starting with Marianito and I'd had enough - not the worst track, but very far from the best and more than enough Di Sarli for me. It was barely half past ten.  It was perhaps premature on my part but I'd had some difficult dances to the two good tandas at the start; I was demoralised by what came after and the extent to which people didn't seem to care about what was played.  Although people can change, unless there is some catalyst, past behaviour is nevertheless the best predictor of future behaviour.  I couldn't see things improving.  As I was putting my coat on outside I heard Lo pasao pasó and hesitated a moment, but only a moment  Still, that is a good opening track and had it been first I might have stayed.  I felt so frustrated I forgot to take a photo and went on to ...

...Loca, a monthly milonga held at Tango Loft with DJ duo Gaia Pisarou and Francesco Cieschi. 

I didn’t arrive until nearly 2330. A great Rodriguez track was just ending as I arrived. It is a wonderful thing to arrive to good music.  Ricardo Oria, writing about Nortena recently, said "You hear tango music; you climb the stairs; breathe it in; you feel at home." Arriving to good music is exactly like that.  I remember whatever came next was good too and my spirits lifted. The music generally was good. There were a few tracks I wouldn't have played but it was mostly great tandas.

The dancing was mixed.  I met my friend again from Roter Salon and danced a lotthat evening and, for a change, only with guys. 

At about 0130 after sitting out a tanda there was a poor milonga track to start the next one.  I always think a poor opening track is a bad sign - something's changed or someone has taken their eye off the ball. I would rather there was a strong opening track, but worse even than a weak opening track is a weak middle track in an otherwise good tanda.  I thought the music might be going downhill and prepared to leave.  

The second milonga was great so I stayed and danced it. For the next hour or so the music was good though very strong.  I danced it all with my friend:  D'Arienzo, Pugliese,  Tanturi, Biagi, Troilo, one after the other but all or nearly all classics.  There was a late and dramatic Di Sarli that I never dance, tracks like the 1958 Bahia Blanca and Una fija. I did dance them and the place closed around 0300.

Berlin - Wednesday: El Ocaso, Roter Salon and about dancing away.

Roter Salon

I lost my points of reference in Roter Salon.

After what (didn't) happen in Alma, while I balked at being indiscriminate about accepting dances I suppose I thought it would be better to be more...open to experience.  Dancing away, alone you can adopt different strategies: I had tried "very cautious, dance with no-one you haven't seen dance"; now I was going to try "discriminate - but be open to the unexpected".

By this stage, it seemed obvious to reconsider what it means to dance away, as a woman in her forties, alone and unknown.  I  went to Berlin feeling sad and confused.  Instead of going there in February when the Tiergarten feels sparse, grey and desolate and the wind bites, perhaps I ought to have gone with a good book in search of sunshine and sea or got stuck in to some early spring cleaning in Scotland.  Instead I found myself going to milongas where I would be anonymous.  The milonga will have its own problems, or there your character's flaws are magnified in ways you might prefer not to recognise.  Still, it is a good place for forgetting the issues at hand, for forgetting generally.

I should have known from past experience that dancing away in these circumstances can be hard.  In the summer of 2014 I went to a couple of places I didn't know in London and then to some milongas across the south of England for the first time.  Afterwards, I wrote to a friend:

...I'm off dancing as in, no more going off to find strangers to dance with. I feel so battered and bruised after this summer. I seldom seem to be at ease, at least when away.

The sensible reply:

Away is inherently difficult. Many porteños dance only in their neighbourhood and would find as much discomfort as you dancing elsewhere.

I appreciated that and felt better.

If you are dancing away, alone, you will go to many strange places, be treated as fresh meat by piranhas or be ignored or knocked back. It's easy to become too sensitive to small things, tactless remarks you might otherwise shrug off. In that environment, as with all change and uncertainty it is good and necessary to have something familiar. I had the music in the unknown streets and in the milongas.  I walked around Berlin playing Rodriguez and Donato and later, D'Arienzo and Fresedo, mentally making up tandas and learning to tell how the tracks would go from the titles. Doing this with the first two was more than enough.

It had occurred to me in Alma that perhaps there is a sweet spot for catching dances. Wait too long and you miss it. "Why isn't she dancing" can turn all too quickly into "No one wants to dance with her" or "She doesn't want to dance with anyone" and whether that's in your mind or is real is equally fatal.

But I don't like to rush on to an unknown floor.  There is pleasure and much understanding to be gained in sitting for three, four tandas or longer. Eventually, I find those few or, more likely, that one who is musical, tall, who dances unpretentiously and in the embrace.  But the chances of his being unpartnered and willing to dance with a stranger he hasn't seen dance, are small.

I had tried to get in to El Ocaso, (Frannz ClubSchönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin Prenzlauer Berg)  which later I heard recommended several times.  It took me a long time to find since there was a queue of teenagers down the street.  Thinking it must be elsewhere, I wandered into the Kulturbrauerei, an easy mistake.  This is a walled enclosure, a former brewery with cinema and clubs.  In fact the venue is not hard to find.  Frannz Club, dominates the corner of  Schönhauser allee and Sredzkistrasse.   Just inside one entrance to the Kulturbrauerei two men directed me for tango to the other end of the enclosure.  From there I was twice more redirected  and hustled along the way by a guy bombed out of his mind on drugs.  Back at the club, I jostled my way up the steps to speak to the harassed doorman.  "Round the back!" he indicated with his thumb. I went to the back door of the club from where I had first been directed away.  There was a different man there now who was adamant there was no tango that night due to the pop concert.  Puzzled, I dropped a note to Frank Seifart who replied promptly to say they were in the restaurant inside but by then I was nearly at Roter Salon.

Roter Salon (Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, 10178 Berlin) was very...red! You can easily see it on an upper level, from the street.  The DJ was Michael Rühl who is well-known for his decades of  experience as a DJ and dancer.  I had heard the music described as trad and there were plenty of lovely tracks in tandas with cortinas but it wasn't traditional in quite the way I think of traditional tango.

I was early and would have felt too conspicuous alone in one of the seats so chose a sofa near the bar in the top left hand corner, which in fact is so inconspicuous it's out of sight in the photo.  There is nowhere to change shoes besides in the ladies on the next floor up.  Everyone changed their shoes in the main room. It was all very matter-of-fact.  A woman was brushing her hair in the entrance to the salon and an older man combed his on the sofa next to me. I shivered and had no interest in dancing with him even before he stood up.  I ordered a glass of wine at the bar but wondered if I should stay. I watched a man patronise a woman, excruciatingly.  I don't speak much German, but it wasn't necessary. She kept dancing with him, seeming to put up with it.  Many do.

A guy walked up to invite either me or the woman next to me, he didn't seem to mind which.  I assumed, deliberately, he hadn't meant me and felt needlessly guilty for lumbering the other woman because of course she could have done the same.  Later he invited me by look.  I accepted, hesitantly though whether because, now on my third day I just wanted to dance with a second guy or know that I still could, or whether I just wanted to be seen as competent on the floor I'm not sure.  None of these are good reasons and the latter, if nothing else, is very disrespectful to a partner.  We danced in open hold.  Usually, I don't see the point of that although I dance this way sometimes with smaller, musical guys.  I danced with the woman sitting on the sofa.  We had chatted and danced again later.  Every milonga I had been to so far was attracting a different crowd although in Alma I had noticed a small crossover of the clientele (of men, mostly) from Milonga Popular.

A guy I hadn't seen dance invited me by look from a distance. Again, I hesitated and accepted. He was full of music and humour. We felt the same music, danced and parted, danced and parted until the early hours and sometimes didn't part, but sat down for a few minutes and danced again. He persuaded me more or less willingly into volcadas and legwraps. I wondered when I had become so inhibited and distrustful, found myself dancing to extravagant music I probably wouldn't, ordinarly, was surprised and nearly didn't care and thought I was having a great time and perhaps I was. With reservations. Even so, I sat out Remembranza by Los Auténticos Reyes, a modern D'Arienzo cover band, and a Di Sarli tanda with A La Luz Del Candil, Por Quererla Asi and Nubes De Humo, both of the latter with Jorge Duran.

On home ground, I think we apply more stricture. We are more careful. The adventure and fear of striking out on your own is thrilling, it shakes things up a bit, makes us challenge and test our ideas, even if we return to them. In this unusual evening I found myself dancing to Domingo Federico's Leyenda Gaucha, having mentally sworn I would not play or dance to that orchestra. I turns out I am open to persuasion to Federico until the early 50s and perhaps to other music I have rejected til now.  Mid-evening I danced a tanda or two with the guy I'd seen at Clärchens then accepted another dance from my new friend. Some think it questionable to dance so often with a stranger but I didn't care. It is rare I find so much music and fun in another.  In any case, what happens on the floor is on the floor. Outside the milonga it is a different world.

Still, I was puzzled - here was an experienced dancer who didn't fit in Roter Salon among the older crowd though age-wise he was in that group and who didn't fit with the young, cool crowd either. But I guess I felt a bit like that too.

Berlin - Tuesday: Clärchens Ballhaus and "Alma" in Tango Loft

Entrance to Clärchens Ballhaus

Clärchens ballhaus  (Auguststraße 24, 10117 Berlin) I heard referred to as a student milonga (it's free), a tourist milonga and as sometimes great, sometimes terrible. But  for the cool crowd, regular Tuesday an Thursdays are not the most popular day for dancing in Berlin.  I imagine Clärchens brings in a mixed group which changes from week to week.

I wasn't at all sure what sort of set-up I'd walked in to when I arrived.  I got a drink at the bar off to the right and wandered around the restaurant at the back of the room.  I had to get changed.  There was an adequate ladies room but I do not remember a cloakroom for coats and shoes. There were no free tables around the floor so I went to join a couple of women who were sitting by the stage (and DJ station).  This is the first problem at Clärchens.  There is no obvious single seating and no-one to seat you with other women, say.  Unless you go to sit on the stage with other women then you could have a lonely night. The trouble with sitting, displayed on a stage, while others are at civilized tables, is that I can't help but think of Amsterdam street windows in the red light district.

Pre-milonga practica, Clärchens Ballhaus

I had expected a much older style room. But in fact the room has silver streamers hanging from the walls so I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in an old room that was decorated in the seventies. It certainly had a sense of history.  That picture is fairly realistic if less flattering to the place. Here is another, taken from the entrance. The restaurant extends into the room at the back.

The lighting was "functional" which is to say if it wasn't exactly atmospheric it's certainly bright enough for invitation by look.  It needs to be because the room is quite large.  This was the next problem.  All the women I danced with I chatted to, around the stage first.  I found the room big for cabeceo across it and no way in that setting could you go and stand nearer the woman you have in mind without being horribly conspicuous and potentially too indiscreet.  So I didn't and I didn't see guys doing it either.  I know guys so good at cabeceo that they can make discreet invitation clear at long distance but I cannot.  A guy did try insistently to invite me from a bare metre away where he sat at his table but it just felt uncomfortably close and odd.  Many people were there I think to eat not to dance and the seating did not clarify who was there for what. It is not such a fun or easy place to go alone whether or not there are free tables.

There were two or three couples on the floor when I arrived.  I realised it was a lesson, run by Felix, the DJ from the night before and his partner.   The milonga began at 2115.  I was astonished how different the music was from the previous night. It was all great classics but much softer, slower music.  My musical memory from here is not good, but there was certainly Canaro, I think some excellent Laurenz, perhaps Donato. It was all good though there were no cortinas initially.  Felix said he played them from 10pm.  I asked him which music (of the two different nights) was the "real Felix".  He said both of them which was nice to hear.

The ages of the dancers were completely mixed. I danced with three women two of them visitors from abroad like me, and one recently returned to tango.  Of the visitors one was brand new that night to dancing and one was experienced.  While I was in Berlin several people made the point that there are always many visitors dancing tango in Berlin.  There was only one guy I wanted to dance with and I could see he would be in demand.  I danced with him the next night and he was also a frequent visitor from elsewhere in Germany.   My impression  at Clärchens was of a crowd of new dancers, holidaymakers and visitors on business.  It got a bit busier and it was very mixed social dancing.  I liked the music but I had a sense it was going to stay soft and I wanted more variety - a mix of the music from Clärchens and Milonga Popular would have been nice.  I also wanted better dancing with guys so after an hour I went on to...

..."Alma" in Tango Loft 

This is a monthly milonga held in Tango Loft (Gerichtstraße 23, 13347 Berlin). This is another I found out about by word of mouth.  Its events are published on Facebook.  I found out later that this particular milonga apparently has a reputation as one of the top places for dancing. It was not particularly busy.

Street marker for Tango Loft

Tango Loft is a bizarre place, or rather the contrast between how you arrive there and what is inside is marked. See the notes on safety

about getting there. Look for the neon green symbol on Gerichtstraße. Tango Loft is down the alley underneath that sign.

Alley down to Tango Loft.  

Much less worrying by day! 

The bottom of the stairs seemed also to be the back of a kitchen for a restaurant on the ground floor. The walls inside the entrance was covered in graffiti. It was a dingy place. The photo of the stairs makes it look better than it is. I squeezed past people in overalls loading plates, hectically, and made my way up the staircase, wondering how on earth this could be the way into the venue everyone I'd talked to in the UK had mentioned.

Up to Tango Loft.  But the interior is nothing like this...

Inside, the facilities are good.  There is a place to leave coats and change shoes and a good ladies room.  I have not shown any pictures of the surprising interior because it is a lovely space and worth finding out for yourself....

Into tango loft...

I arrived at about 2315.  There was great music from Ismael, perhaps the best I heard that week but in the way of the younger DJs I remember most of what I heard to have been fairly high energy.  All though, or nearly all  were great classics and not as dramatic as the  music at Milonga Popular the night before.

I found the seating difficult.  There are tables and chairs along the large window on one side. I watched a surprising number of dancers watch themselves in the reflection of this window! There are bar stools and tables around the bar and more relaxed lounge style seating in the other seating area (not easily visible from the bar).  Invitation in Tango Loft happens mostly in those two areas.   As there were far fewer people on Tuesday than on Thursday when I next went, the lounge area was not really used much.  I sat by the window which was a mistake. I was too hasty in my choice of seat but I wanted to move away from the area where most people seemed to know one another. The better idea might have been to meet them.

The dancing was good.  Just about everybody knew each other.  No one was taking any risks with the unknown. There was a surfeit of good, young, known women dancers.

A few guys hovered but I hadn't seen them dance and no one I had my eye on invited me. I didn’t get on the floor and left about 0030 when I had started to feel conspicuously part of the furniture. Despite the lovely music I don't know that I would go back to Alma either unless I was going with friends.

Berlin - Monday: Milonga Popular

Graffiti art, Spree-side gallery

Milonga Popular at Freudenzimmer, Mehringdamm 61, 10961 Berlin (in Kreuzberg) is not well-advertised publicly though it is well-known.  I found out about it through word-of-mouth though its events are on Facebook. Perhaps because of this semi-underground vibe I heard it described as the home of the tango hipsters of Berlin.  At one time there were more of these in Berlin.

I didn't know any of this when I arrived. Like many milongas in Berlin it was not especially easy to find. There is no photo because since it lies down a dark alleyI was thinking more about whether to proceed.  As I hesitated someone exiting told me to go to a door in the bottom right-hand corner and up some stairs until I saw the red candle.  There were no signs but I heard the music as I went up.

A class or practica was in session as I arrived around 9pm. In Berlin this common.  The four practicas I saw in Berlin were all indistinguishable from a class in Britain with active teaching, demonstration and repetition. In London, classes unfortunately precede many milongas.  Some admit they go to these as ice-breakers, just to meet people easily, with whom they might then dance in the milonga.  I think that is perfectly possible - and cheaper - in the milonga itself.  

The difference in Berlin is that I had a sense that people go to class and practicas with a view to going to milongas whereas in Britain some people go to class in preference to a milonga.  Going to class is a sort of end in itself, like going to pottery.  Unlike having the pot as the goal of the class, social dancing is not always the goal of people who go to Argentine tango class.  That is a valid choice.   Sometimes the goal is just to move up to the next class.  This view of technical progress in social dancing dominates among people learning to dance tango this way.  A couple of years ago as a visitor to a class in London I met a woman who, in the two years she had been learning, had never been to a milonga.  

In the past dancint tango was learned socially for enjoyment, for pleasure.  You can still find this today.  Of any milonga I have been to Milonga Popular stands out as the milonga where new dancers learned from experienced dancers, not by being taught, simply by dancing.  

Milonga Popular had a cool and happy vibe with a mix of dance experience, mostly young, new and inexperienced women dancing with mostly young to middle aged, experienced guys.  A gentle young guy I chatted to said it was characteristic of this milonga, less so of others.  In the event I found this skew common in the more trendy Berlin milongas, though never more so than in Milonga Popular. Learning to dance from more experienced dancers is a great principle but age-wise, this is often the way things pan out.  A woman I partnered had only been dancing a few months though if it hadn't come up, I wouldn't have known - she was lovely to dance with. I realised this was probably the case with many of the young women here learning to dance mainly by dancing with experienced guys.

Three of the four people I spoke with there all mentioned the feeling of the music.  I have rarely heard that from new dancers in the UK.  There is nothing nicer.

The main seating area, a relaxed open-plan area on one side of the room, was dark.  Another side of the room is dominated by the entrance, a stage and DJ box and next to that, a bench, which takes perhaps six people.  From here you are next to, virtually on the floor.  The bar is on a third side of the floor, opposite the DJ.  Some guys stood there.  Because of the location and the light guys who want to invite girls by look need to come over and stand very near the bench, making something of a mockery of the concept of discretion in that custom. I was tired from travel and not planning to dance but the view of the floor from here was excellent so I chose to sit on the bench despite the lurkers.  The floor seemed to be a kind of smooth plywood but I found it fine. 

There was a very large room for coats and shoes behind the main room. Going by the latest Facebook event for Milonga Popular I think this may now be a second dance room.   Off this was a fairly small and poky ladies room.

Felix Naschke was the DJ. The traditional tandas that there were, were good. There were great Biagi vals and milonga tandas which I danced; a d'Arienzo milonga and Caló, d'Arienzo, Biagi and De Angelis tangos. But it was mostly tanda after tanda of high energy and drama with little respite.  There was though, an enjoyable D'Agostino/Vargas. Of the softer music, D'Agostino seemed to be the most "on trend" in Berlin.  The music is light, distinctive and I find it very relaxing.  It is not as quirky as some of the other soft, but still classic music, which I also like but heard less of.  Other tandas which I did not recognise or enjoy were a strident Salamanca and one of Domingo Federico - again high energy.

I was dancing one of the fevered Biagi milongas, Flor de Montserrat, I think with a young woman.  Being new in the other role this milonga perhaps wasn't my wisest choice but when the music pulls you up you sometimes only realise this later.  The venue was noisy and I could not understand why the music was so quiet.  I was desperate to signal the DJ for more volume but couldn't see him through the crowd and pillars. When finally in view I saw him, head down, pre-listening on headphones to potential future tracks.  Eventually he saw me and to his credit the volume immediately went up - but the track was almost over.

I danced with the charming and gentle young man I had been talking to, the only guy I danced with that evening.   He invited me to a difficult De Angelis. Later we danced another wild Biagi track.  He danced softly and I felt that he preferred softer music, guessing Demare - does anyone dislike Demare?  This turned out to be true. He said he had occasionally taken over from a DJ who wanted to leave. 

I asked what music he liked.  Canaro, he said, which, in view of the atmosphere in Milonga Popular, was surprising.  I liked him more.  Few DJs would be so honest as to cite Canaro as the first orchestra they mention liking.  If you want to dance easily with a beginner, choose a  Canaro tango.  Many are steady and calm.  God knows why so many teachers choose extravagant Di Sarli in class.  But Canaro's music has its complexities.  The nuance is less in the rhythm, more the tone which, across his tangos is extraordinarily varied.  Neither is Canaro one-sided, rhythmically.  Tangos by Quinteto don Pancho (also Canaro) are much livelier and Canaro milongas are frenzied. 

I asked the young man he liked Fresedo and was taken aback when he said "Who?" and asked me to spell the name.  This was before I realised how little Fresedo seems to be rated in Berlin.  

There was one other guy I would have liked to dance with. He was slightly older and danced a milonga very quietly and musically, with containment and none of the smooth, solemn or aggressive confidence you see in some of the most sought-after guys in European cities, events or good milongas.

Somehow, between chatting and watching, I managed to stay about three and a half or four hours. Someone told me that at about 1AM there are free cocktails, but I left around that time and may have this wrong...

The use of force

Fighting impalas

I couldn't have predicted one of the best things that happened, dancing away.  It wasn't the beginning of a great friendship.  It was not that it was a marvellous venue, though it was nice. It was not a musical vortex into an evening of one danceable track after another. It was not one of those rare and magical dances where the world recedes and you seem to enter a different dimension of music and connection and shared movement, now and together.  It didn't start auspiciously at all.

I arrived towards the end of a pre-milonga practica.  There were maybe three middle-aged couples on the floor and their teacher.  I sat by the bar and passed the time of day with the barman while I waited for people to arrive.  I wanted to see how the seating would pan out.

A couple of older guys arrived and sat further down the room, chatting.  One of them began saying hello to people.  The other stayed where he was, waiting for his dance partner to arrive. Later, I watched this couple dance tanda after tanda together, quietly, smoothly and beautifully, in the embrace.  At one point something went slightly awry for a second or two, perhaps somebody tripped, I don't remember exactly what it was.  I wasn't quick enough to look away.  Separately, first he and then she caught my eye, embarrassed, and we smiled.  In the milonga a lot of things including invitation and refusal, are understood individually, yet are secret more widely and it's how it should be.

Suddenly, the guy who had been moving about and who was much smaller than me, had approached and was asking me to dance.

No matter how often this happens I am always taken aback. It's different if you know the person well and it's even different if you might have been chatting with someone beforehand because you've had some time to consider how you might reply if they do ask you - directly - to dance. But it's different to be asked "cold" and unexpectedly by someone you don't know, especially if you haven't seen them dance. It's against traditional milonga etiquette which avoids imposing on people like this. I am not great at managing this well in the milonga. I can usually handle it in familiar territory but dancing away in new places again makes things different.

Many say, and I agree, that your chances of an enjoyable dance under these circumstances are very small.  Before this evening, initially, I had danced little in these unknown milongas.  But the evening before I had taken a risk accepting a guy who had invited me by look and from a respectful distance even though I hadn't seen him dance.  Things had gone quite well. I generally figure that if a guy I haven't noticed dancing has seen me in inverted traditional roles and still wants me to dance with him as the girl, then I am more inclined to be less cautious than usual.

Perhaps it was the memory that the previous evening's risk had paid off.  Sometimes though, some of us just do feel we should spare people who ask directly the embarrassment of a refusal.  

Update, 2023:  Spoiler alert:  we are being manipulated.

I have no idea why, when, rationally, it is they who put us on the spot.  Sometimes a direct refusal to a direct request can blend into the general activity of the milonga and that makes it easier.  Here, though, there were probably fewer than a dozen people in the room and I had a sense that everyone knew one another.  Locals are always curious to to see how a visitor dances.  They watch to see who they first accept and murmer "Good choice!" or groan inwardly for them...I knew this!

Perhaps it can be hard to turn down a walk-up because we feel that their gaucheness is unwitting, but our refusal would be knowingly done. This assumes the request is not predatory which is simply too difficult to know.  Assuming it is not, you, then, are in a position of comparative knowledge about etiquette and therefore I think, of responsibility and responsibility to be decent and not unkind. 

Update, 2023:  This is far too generous.

And yet...if you don't want to dance a dance that is intimate, really, my feeling is you just shouldn't.  I knew this too.  But, under pressure it's easier to apply right-thinking to some circumstances than it is to others.

I find the "don't feel bad you would be teaching them a lesson" argument a bit arrogant and hard-hearted. In reality, if I see it coming and I don't want to dance, I avoid eye contact, or if I was caught unawares, when it's busy, all things being equal I can often make up an instant excuse. But the music was great and for an unfathomable combination of the reasons I gave, and a couple of seconds in which to decide - I did accept him.

As the only couple on the floor, though I didn't want to look, I imagined all eyes on us.  I was pushed into ochos and out of them.  I had no freedom and no choice over how to move or when to move.  There was no invitation, no suggestion, there were only orders.  This is what happens with guys who "do" not guys who "feel"; guys who just implement upon you, do to you, moves they have more than likely learnt in class, never mind that they are in fact embracing another person and a stranger of the opposite sex.  These moments are precious!  I completely fail to get inside the head of a guy who thinks it's fine to push and pull women about as though we are a sort of particularly flexible life-size doll.  

2023 update:  That's because there's a healthy "empathy gap". 

It feels like they think we are inanimate that we have no feelings about what is going on.  These are not the guys who listen to the music and their partner.

I was jammed up against him yet there was no connection.  I felt like property, like an object and I was desperately embarrassed for him and for me and my poor judgement. 

2023 update:  That's why you shouldn't feel bad for ever turning down walk-ups.

There might not have been any music, it felt so irrelevant in the circumstances.  I immediately considered leaving after the first dance but realised this would be worse than having refused him at the bar.  I felt completely stuck. The second track began.  What on earth to do?

In dance as in life, we deal with being pushed around differently and maybe how guys deal with it tends to be different to how women deal with it.  Sometimes people just put up with it.  Sometimes we put up with it but as a trade-off for other things.  We might put up with it - but only once. Some of us simmer with resentment, but put up with it. The more belligerent, confront.  The impetuous, the strong, the aggressive, courageous or foolhardy fight back.  Sometimes we don't put up with it and stalk off, aggrieved, angry and making a loud point.  At some stage we've probably all done each of these but each of us probably does have a tendency.  As things turned out, this time I didn't even think about it.

I stayed but found myself wordlessly refusing to be shoved around. He pushed me firmly forward or sideways.  I resisted.  To my astonished mortification he pushed more.  I dug in my heels, aflame with shame and fury.  When he released the pressure, I turned or moved where he had wanted. I could tell he was puzzled and couldn't think what else to do.  I stood my ground.  Things repeated themselves and reached a crisis.

I can't remember exactly when they started to change.  Perhaps at the end of the second track because I'm not sure I could have borne another two dances.  Nor perhaps could he.  But certainly in the third track a miraculous thing happened.  I realised the guy wasn't pushing me. He let me turn on my own.  He gave me physical and musical space.  Nobody had said anything but he had listened, heard and understood!  It was a wonderful, astonishing moment.  We had started to have if not quite a conversation, then an understanding.   In the fourth track I could close my eyes and relax.  I don't know that I can remember being so relieved and pleased in a dance.  At the end, through my daze at how unexpectedly things had changed, I realised he was saying nice things and we parted on good terms.

I sometimes wonder how his story goes.  Perhaps his starts, "I took pity on a stranger and wished I hadn't bothered." But I hope it doesn't.

I must have been riding a euphoric high or been too surprised at what had happened or had become over-optimistic because although I can remember thinking "Oh no, not again", I nevertheless accepted another guy who appeared next to me from nowhere.  He walked right up and held out his hand which is a particularly difficult thing to refuse.  This is another danger of accepting walk-up invitations - you become even more fair game for the truly predatory guys who struggle to get dances locally. I endured two tracks before being shocked into a chasmic volcada in the last bar. This is what happens when you have people who do different dances calling them by the same name and meeting at the same event.  If the lesson earlier had been "people can listen and change tack" I think the lesson of that lesson was "do not push the lessons you learn too far..."

Thanks to http://www.micro2macro.net for permission to use their photo.

Tango, trouble and "disrespect"

At the end of February, The Courier newspaper which circulates to about 50,000 in the central region of Scotland, published an article about the tango social dance I run in Perth.  Although it was a "Lifestyle" person-centered piece and I dislike that kind of attention, I did it because I wanted to publicise the new (not-for-profit) milonga I had started here.  also also wanted to say why I thought learning to dance socially was entirely possible, indeed preferable, to learning through classes.

When the article appeared it included an embarrassingly large photograph but a photo had been mandatory for the piece. Worse, the title referred to me as an "expert" tango dancer.  I had tried to get this removed but the paper stuck on that point. As a friend later pointed out to me, in "much of that kind of popular reporting of tango dance. ...newspapers' often say 'expert' and its means only 'someone who can can do it'." I considered it a small, if embarrassing, price to pay to spread the word about social tango dancing in my local area.  I had no reason to publicise the piece on social media or here, for the sake of it, not only for those reasons but also because some new people had heard about the group through the article so it had already achieved its purpose.

I am sceptical about "expertism" in some fields especially in the social sphere. I believe social learning and independent experimentation can take many people far. In the piece Berlin milongas: People and dancing I claim at most a "middling" dance ability. I am no expert tango dancer, would not want to be, would never make that claim personally and would immediately wonder why somebody wanted to make that claim.  Fortunately, few believe everything said in the papers. 

However, recently I was challenged about this article by someone who (rightly) mocked the "expert" line.  The challenge was that in the article I had been disrespectful towards everyone who teaches tango.  They said they did not understand why I was attending a practica when the piece said I was against practicas.  There is nothing against or about practicas in the piece. I think practicas as a form of social dancing are fine. 

I wasn't disrespectful and I am no threat.  I am not even competing for the money in instructors' pockets.  I am merely one of a small minority who believes in learning to dance socially by, well, dancing socially.  Disrespectful is trying to promote a tango class and workshop business model in a social dance group that specifically says and is well known for the philosophy "Learn to dance by dancing" not "learn to dance in classes by partnering with other people who can't dance".  Disrespectful is making personal remarks about an individual or implying unkind things about their dance or dismissing their views as inexperience. These are all personal, ad hominem and therefore disrespectful attacks. To dispute an idea is not disrespectful. If that were the case, as religious zealots would still have it, we could ring-fence any idea we didn't want contested and say arguing against it was disrespectful. And when people in power ring-fence ideas and say you can't argue with them we call that repressive, we call it an abuse of power. Eventually, we call it a dictatorship.

Fortunately people can hold and air their differing views in our society, without official penalty and sometimes without social penalty too. I was delighted at the weekend, in London, to enjoy lunch and conversation about ideas with an atheist libertarian at one end of the table and a conservative Reverend at the other.

I don't think those of us who hold contrary views should feel stifled from expressing them.  If anything, given we are a minority, and an understandably silent one, I think it is all the more important those views should be heard.

Who are we?  Well, it feels a bit like it felt being a "No" voter in the Scottish referendum except at that time we knew we might be about half the population.  Friends said to me then, on the quiet, we support "No" too, but we just don't want to, you know, say [in part because of the intimidation of and violence towards people and property that "No" voters experienced].  Many, in the social dance world, especially those who blog anonymously do not want the flak of going against the grain.  My ideas about how best to learn the kind of Argentine tango I like to dance are different from teachers, that's all.  Not disrespectful, just different.  Different from the majority, different from those with power and status. And airing those views isn't disrespectful either.  It's just unusual because not many people do it and more are afraid of causing waves in their class-based "communities". 

Actually, I don't even think that the dance I like to dance and the things taught in classes are the same dance. It sure doesn't feel like it. So if we renamed these dances say Argentine tango and British tango all these differences, disputes, ideas about disrespect could disappear because we would be talking about two different things.  But no-one goes to class to learn British tango.  They want to learn Argentine tango.

It is true that I do not believe that classes teach people how to dance the kind of tango that I like to dance.  Many, perhaps most people in Britain don't want that though - they want a kind of dance movement they are happy to call Argentine tango, despite that they pretty much ignore or don't care much, if at all, about the music, and they go to classes meet that need.  That kind of dance for me, feels like a series of islands which are sequences of steps with perhaps dead sea (walking) inbetween.  I confided to one guy who's been dancing for a year or so: "I like it more when you don't do the stuff you've learnt in class, when I can feel you're just yourself". He replied with the saddest thing I've heard in my tango dance life:  "But without moves, what have I got?" He travels miles for classes in place of local social dance events.

Classes also teach people to be aware of how they look and to dance, say, a dance with long, extended legs and decorations for the girl.  Plenty of people want to look elegant, the idea being that might make some people want to dance with you.  I used to think that.  But making yourself look good takes your attention away from the dance you are having now with your partner and that for me is what counts. So when I see decorations I immediately think, she cares more about how she looks than how she feels for her partner.  For the guy it's the show moves of planeos & aggressive sacadas, learning how to inflict voleos, colgadas and volcadas on girls who have little or no choice about whether to do these moves.

If you want to be a tango performer with the sequences that are used in tango performance to create a stylised look  then a class is the place to go. Besides that, I think there are many other excellent and valid reasons why people do tango dance classes.  I know a number of teachers who are warm, welcoming, fun, popular, great with people, they run social dances, play good music and have many other good qualities.  A few even extol the milonga: a new dancer was sitting between me and a very honest teacher.  I heard her tell them that the place they would really learn to dance was in the milonga. But what I believe about classes is separate from all of that.

I think, in fact I know, because I feel it, that classes ruin many people who would otherwise have been great dancers.  This is why I hold the views I do. To pretend I don't feel that would be lying.  I can't help but feel this and it is endlessly frustrating to me to find many new dancers whose natural sense of music and movement is so regularly and predictably ruined once they start doing classes at which point I often stop wanting to dance with them. The problem is worse with men than with women but it affects both.  I danced with a new guy who had a gentle embrace, a nice connection, was not over-ambitious and - praises! - was tall. When I next danced with him a few months later  it wasn't the same at all.  I felt all his new and contrived moves from class as I was more or less gently shoved about, and I felt an all too familiar sorrow for the loss of the fledgling dancer. You've been doing classes?" "Oh, yes!" he said. 

The reason I want to share these views is because in Britain today classes have a large monopoly over new dancers. More people start to learn to dance in class than walk in to a milonga on spec or come along (and come back again) with friends.  Perhaps when the balance tips in Britain from a class culture to a milonga culture that will no longer be the case. But this present monopoly is destructive because, proportionally, very few new dancers make the transition from class to milonga. Perhaps that's because the milonga is too intimidating and when they do eventually get to the milonga their dance has usually got so messed up they're not fun to dance with. Or maybe in class it was just too weird to be that up-close-and personal with a stranger so they gave up. Or the people just don't have a good enough time in class to want to take it elsewhere. Or the time they have in class is good enough for them not to want to dance socially...

I have found that most people in Britain today believe that the route to social tango dancing is through class instruction.  Among those who do classes almost no-one will change their views because they have generally invested in them too much time, energy and money and have subscribed to the false idea that dancing tango is "hard".  It is a feature of today's society that class instruction is the way to learn just about anything.  The class market is a captive and eager market.

For some reason, people think it is easier to reach for their wallet and a class than it is to walk in to a (cheaper) milonga, get a drink, sit, watch and listen to the music.  I think that is a far better way to start learning than to self-consciously walk zombie-like about a room with someone you may not want to be that close to.  I think so because to dance well, I believe you need to know the music you dance to.  The feeling that makes people dance well comes from the music. By watching people who can dance you get an idea of what the dance is like.  Without knowing the music, without an idea of what the dance is, how can you hope to dance it? By finding people with whom there is a mutual desire, as opposed to a forced, class imperative, to dance together there is more likely to be a genuine dance. I remember the same person who said I had been disrespectful also said, a long time ago, that you can tell who will dance best on a floor by the way they first embrace.  There is much truth in this.

I dance with a lot of new dancers, in the dance I have been running locally and in milongas, practicas and the odd lesson I have gone to more recently, out of curiosity.  At one of these I danced with two brand new women dancers.  They were both able to dance nicely and naturally in our first dances.   They could easily and quickly have become lovely dancers as most new dancers do, given the right opportunity. But one was harangued by an instructor into sidestepping (because turning naturally is apparently too hard for beginners), so that by the end of the lesson when I next danced with her she was totally unable to turn naturally as she had before.  The other dancer had had a bubbly, happy confidence and a great connection. When I next saw her at a milonga two days later she had been lectured and thrown about the floor all night by the instructor.  I tried to dance with her.  Her head was down, she was looking at her feet and could hardly move.  I didn't recognise her by her demeanour or her movements and felt stricken. "Close your eyes, it's easier" I attempted. In many self-conscious brand new dancers I have found this simple act magically removes or reduces that natural self-consciousness that many feel.  The quality of their dance leaps in feel and they report a better experience. But it requires much trust on their part and much care of that trust from their partner.  "No, no, I can't." she replied.  "Why not?" I asked, startled at the unusual response.  "Because I won't be able to concentrate." "On what?" "On all the things I'm supposed to remember to do".  I remember that awful feeling from when I did classes as the "follower" - a term I dislike.  This once natural dancer had lost all that initial relaxed confidence.  I saw another dancer also being jerked about by the same person in one of the ugliest parodies of dance I can remember.  I notice now I have unconsciously avoided dancing with these women which is a great shame because they seem to be lovely people and I like dancing with people I like.

It isn't just this instructor, it's what happens when people focus on movement, when they concentrate on their bodies more than on the music and the other person and when they aren't treated well by partners.  I see it every time I go out, or go to a class or practica.  When I go to good milongas I usually see a few couples really listening to the music and dancing with each other fluidly, as one, that rare creature with one body and four legs. These are the people who are hypnotically watchable.  It's not something you reach through classes, it is a totally different way of dancing, one that has nothing to do with classes.  

How is it that some people who did do classes become good dancers?  I think years of experience in social dancing in the milongas eventually rubs off the effect of classes for the few that survive the transition from class to milonga.

If I were to be more open, and yet still not be disrespectful or guilty of ad hominem argument.  I might venture the rarely mentioned fact that tango classes are in fact usually about business, about making people feel they are making progress in learning to dance Argentine tango so that they come back for more.  Just about everyone then becomes locked into a psychology based on the paradigm of their dance looking good instead of the feeling of the music and the dance.  It's a concept that is about improvement, attainment and success over enjoyment. That approach relies on people believing that dancing tango is hard but fun  The idea is if it's hard it's worthwhile and brings status from improving and "earning" the ludicrous "reward" of dancing with good dancers. And if it's fun you keep doing it so that you progress from beginner through the levels spending a great deal of money in the process.  The idea that dancing tango socially is about about relaxed and entirely improvised movement that springs directly from the music without need of any intermediary other than a partner that can already dance never really gets a look-in.  The reason for that is because there isn't much business to be had by beginners just dancing socially with people who can dance.

As it stands though, some dancers say they prefer to travel sometimes far to a class (where they will dance badly and deafly yet have a strong and persistent illusion of "progress"), than stay and dance locally and socially.  Simply, they actually prefer classes to dances.  I find that killing, terribly sad. At a guided practica recently with perhaps twenty five people, few of them new, everyone had to pair up and every single person did so before listening to hear what the music was.  Because in class music doesn't really matter at all. A friend told me the other day that they attended a class where music did not feature at all.

If I were to be not disrespectful but just irked and honest, I would talk about the damage that classes do and that I see new dancer after new dancer ruined  by self-consciousness, made deaf to the music in class, turned into sub-beginners; new dancers that I might otherwise have been able to dance with, new dancers that ought to be the strong future of a local group of social tango dancers.

Generally though, I just try to promote the virtues of social dancing, which I do mostly by dancing socially and hope that some new dancers slip through the class net and learn to dance with the rest of us who welcome new social dancers.