Tango On The Thames

The Shard, London, June 2011

If you want to skip to the milonga, it's in the last four paragraphs.  

The Shard was built not far from where I lived, latterly in London.  It was all just an idea, a plan when I left for Scotland in 2007.  As I came back to visit London first with a baby and toddler in 2010 then with very young children, then alone, it became a symbol for me of the continuation of London's development, while I was not there to see it, to be part of it.  On my first trip to London for dance in 2013 I was looking for the boat for Tango on the Thames at its previous incarnation near Blackfriars Bridge.  I had got off one tube stop too early at Embankment instead of Temple.  I decided to walk up the Embankment towards Blackfriars, somewhere after Waterloo Bridge, the second seen in this photo, where I expected the boat to be.

Jubilee/Hungerford bridges, Embankment to the left

Near one of these iconic dolphin/sturgeon lamp standards (this one is a copy on the South Bank of the Embankment's nineteenth century originals) I found myself looking across the river.  

Vulliamy's dolphin lamps

All around me were signs of my previous life in London.  I had lived there for only five years but the city ensnared me as nowhere had before.  The old Hungerford bridge was how I had approached London from Waterloo when I began to know the city better.  It was narrow and noisy next to the clattering train line in to Charing Cross.  The more pedestrian-friendly Jubilee Bridge next to it was not built until 2002.  Shell Mex house - the Art Deco building with the clock face - was where I worked on a project.  English National Opera was barely ten minutes walk away.  I used to bike down from Marylebone to get in for £10 in the stalls with a student card from Birkbeck college to see far better productions than I ever saw at the more famous Covent Garden.  That seemed to me to be for people who cared more about money and the opera experience and telling people about it (I met them, elsewhere) than about the innovative, interesting productions at the Coliseum. There used to be good classical CD shops run by rather intimidating, knowledgeable young men on the South Bank and St Martin's Lane.  The Savoy Grill was just behind me where I once had a meal and Rules that I never did get to.  

All around were the upper rooms of pubs used by amateur philosophy groups that I visited before deciding to study it properly and venues some friends and I used for an ambitious non-fiction reading group which, surprisingly lasted for a few years despite its origins in Kew far away in west London and my moves on to Marylebone in the centre and Borough to the south.  Up-river, west, St John's, Smith's Square where I had been to marvellous concerts: Masaaki Suzuki performing some of the Bach cantatas and where I heard, rapt, the first of many Bach Passions live for the first time.  Further back on on Albemarle Street - the first one-way street in London created after the gridlock caused by the popularity of Humphrye Davy's lectures - the Royal Institution.  I became enthralled with science there in my late twenties, realising at last there, in other well known venues for public lectures and in late night conversation in Gordon's wine bar just behind me that truth, even partial truth is more marvellous and stranger than the consolatory fiction of religion which I had grown up with, weekly.   Permeating it all was a personality who had introduced me to many of these things and who had also pointed me in the general right direction of so many things as I was about to waste my mid to late twenties on just work and poor lit-fit in suburbia beyond the M25.  

Across the river, the South Bank.  Here I pushed my first baby in his pram on great loops through Southwark during the difficult first months when between frequent stays in St Thomas's Hospital I was too shaken by motherhood to take him on the vertiginous escalators down to the Underground to try going elsewhere.  Green Park was as far as I ever got besides a couple of mistaken trips to Oxford street with a newborn, in the battle to feel normal.  There was the London Eye where the second child, agile, rumbustious, utterly fearless and barely two, disappeared into the crowds on his scooter.  I had brought them down on an early foray to the capital by train from Scotland.  There was the development of shops and restaurants outside the Royal Festival Hall which shops were built while I lived in London.  Hard to remember there was nothing really there before.  On the same day, the same child vanished again on his scooter in the time it took to turn my head to see if his brother was following.  I have lost my children, nearly always the same younger, toddling, bluestreak son, in a park near a river here in Perth, from inside the Ladies in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, from a playpark in Switzerland (actually, that was under daddy's eye), at North Berwick beach, twice on the Southbank and other places I don't care to remember.  As I raced past the diners sitting outside the restaurants a woman, understanding that instant, lurching terror, called out to me.  He had scooted inside a neighbouring restaurant...

Diana Memorial Playground, Kensington Gardens
with the wonderful, indefatigable Tiggy

From the Embankment I looked at the Shard nearly finished and was surprised to find myself overwhelmed.  I realised I felt bereft of London and my old life.  In nearly the same moment I also realised that like the river in flux, nothing stays the same and that I was recreating my London, when I brought my children here to make their own discoveries 

South Bank

Trafalgar Square

....and when I came to discover dance here, criss-crossing London exploring the museums and milongas and making new friends.  Tottenham Court Road was no longer the tube stop for Malet Street and Birkbeck's philosophy department, but I could cut through there past the School of Oriental and African Studies, past the back of the British Museum and across Russell Square, past Giraffe restaurant in the Brunswick Centre where, with my baby I met a friend, taking the memories with me but on to places like Tango Garden and new experiences.  So in 2013 I did get to the boat, a bit shaken but feeling cleansed and relieved somehow.

London, March 2015, Sunday: I went to Tango on the Thames (now my second or third visit) for all of half an hour at the end. DJ Tony. The new boat used now I heard is a bit smaller  and not in quite the same location. It was not my kind of music. The best track was Clavel del aire (1937) amid a tanda of less well known/poor OTV. There were two "extra" tracks after La Cumparsita. 

The dancing wasn’t what I personally prefer. The ronda was lamentable.  As is the case with places like La Mariposa, Tango Garden and 178 - and not like, say, Tango Etnia or Corrientes - I often hear these social dances called “friendly”. I have discovered this is tango code. Some milongas are described thus by dancers who struggle to get dances at places with better dancing. It is not surprising that places with good dancing often do attract discriminating dancers, so less accomplished dancers can sometimes struggle and find them “unfriendly”. My dancing is not accomplished; it lacks years of experience and it is certainly simple.  For these and other reasons like height, age and all sort of other things like many I can struggle to dance especially in places where I am not known.

None of this really matters though. Milongas attract certain types of dancers in the way different books attract different readership or in the way that anything offering a product or service attracts a particular group or market segment. It is absurd to be snobby about what books you read or what events you like to go to. It is just a question of preference. I don’t really understand how preference converts into snobbery. Taste is surely just difference in preference and I don’t really understand how taste works.  The reason I objected to those claims about Troilo-Marino was because they were trying to co-opt preference into some idea of sophistication and to say on no justification at all that that kind of music, was better than others. That, in my view, is snobbery of the worst kind because it manipulates beginners and preys on natural (if mistaken) feelings of inadequacy at being beginners.  It tries to persuade people to accept something just because some others think it so and because if they don't, well then they won't be that sophisticated, will they. What is sophistication anyway? Smoke and mirrors by the sounds of things.

At Tango on the Thames it was very hot and the floor was horribly sticky. I have noticed at Tango West too, that the temperature affects the floor significantly. The floor also had a remarkable slope. I haven’t heard a report though about the new boat. The price in March was steep for milongas in my experience - £16 including a buffet. I was glad I had not paid for the full experience. I see now that dancing on the new boat is £10 including tea and biscuits and there is an adjoining restaurant for those who want to eat. It probably isn’t really fair to say how a place was based on a half hour experience but the feeling of the milonga and what I saw was much the same as when I’ve been in the past.  I heard in September a much better report about the same DJ’s music though no change on the dancing front. 

London - Carablanca and Corrientes in 2015/2016

March 2015

Friday night: Carablanca Tango Club, Conway Hall, near Holborn.

I had been here (in its incarnation as a milonga) once before.  Previously I had known it as a venue for public lectures. The best thing about Carablanca is the venue.  It has lovely wood panelling.  There are red cloths on the tables, a makeshift bar and you can order (not great, I found) empanadas.  Perhaps it is memory but the room has a glow.  It just feels like a good place for a milonga. It is also quite busy with, I think a decent floor. There is a decent Ladies room and you can hang your coats up outside the hall which means it has, happily, far less clutter than some milongas.

I found it a bit snooty when I first went in 2013, older men standing around in groups looking me up and down as though I was slightly soiled goods on sale.  I didn’t hang around then - there seemed to be nothing much doing.  I walked the room because people can and do stand in front of you when you are seated at Carablanca.  I have met all kinds of people there - locals and visitors, experienced dancers and new dancers which probably accounts for the range of behaviour. I spotted a guy who gave me the eye discreetly and we danced.  He was an experienced visitor from Paris.  The two of us, comparing similar notes about the place decided to leave and try Negracha instead.  There we met another experienced Frenchman.  The three of us went together to or met at other milongas over the rest of the weekend.

In 2015 I danced mostly in the other role which was new for me. I picked up, am still picking up the role slowly by dancing socially.  At Carablanca in March 2015 I found - if you can look past and ignore any cliques you don’t want to become too aware of -  a lot of great dancing with women. I danced most of the evening so was not really aware of the guy dancing except for a couple of tandas I danced with a man I know who was there from Cambridge. The music that night was from Aytek Erdil (also Cambridge) with great track after great track.  I have only heard him on that one occasion.  I had a fine time.  If I was to go back anywhere in London and there was the kind of DJ I like then based on that Friday’s experience this is where I would most look forward to dancing.  In the way that milongas can be entirely unpredictable, especially when going alone, I would also expect Carablanca to contradict my expectations and to in all likelihood leave London with a different favourite!

Saturday:  Corrientes Social Club, at Chalk Farm.  

The room is very large, with a good floor, tables, cloths. I don’t remember any solo seating apart from sitting on the edge of the stage, which is well used for that purpose (mostly by women) if you don't mind that sort of display.  I  rather do mind.  Of course you can pretend to be casual about it but the fact is if you perch in a long line of women on the  stage at Corrientes or at Eton or at Clärchens ballhaus in Berlin for that matter, you are “making yourself available” as though you are up for auction - or worse.  It is all rather more explicit than I care for.  Worse, if you are not chosen, you will be left on the stage looking like broken teeth and - after being essentially rejected - you need more sang-froid or insouciance about that very public circumstance than I generally have or would want to have.  I prefer a proper (small) table suitable for a solo person and a seat.   Whenever I have been - or have heard reported - women have been in large excess. One person said ”I once counted thirteen sitting adjacent in one stretch. They looked extremely unhappy. I barely saw a single smile all evening.”  

I do not recall a specific problem with the lighting but then I was either sitting with a group at one table or inviting across a corner to the stage.  Hence, I did not even try to invite between tables which I have heard reported recently are in extreme gloom. I also heard reported that there are spotlights which shine in the eyes of the dancers.  When I see Corrientes in my mind’s eye it is indeed under a contrasting aspect of gloom and glare.  Lighting apart, the room to my mind is too big for cabeceo across it.  You have to try to invite, hopelessly down a line or across a corner.  No surprise many are in couples. Because of - not least - that difficulty of invitation the wiser way to go as an unknown dancer would be as a couple or in a group.

I did not spot the bar until near the end so I could not find water for most of the night.  The first person I asked did not know either and suggested I take my chances with the taps in the Ladies.  Eventually I spotted a makeshift bar in the corner.  

When I went there was fairly extravagant music from DJ Beto in keeping with what I imagine that crowd likes.  That night he shared the DJing with the regular house DJ at the time.  There were a lot of tracks I thought might have been good for performance but hard for social dancing, even if I had known them.  When Beto did play a hit tanda it was great - there were two fantastic d'Arienzo tandas and one by Tanturi.  Most of the music though was high drama and high energy.  I was disappointed as I had heard good things about Beto’s DJing in other venues.  I guessed and it seemed confirmed when I later heard a report about Beto’s DJ in Corrientes - that he plays differently for that specific crowd -  one I guess I don’t fit.  In that report from January 2016 by 00h30 there had been no tango from D'Arienzo, Tanturi, Fresedo, D'Agostino, Canaro, Donato, and poor tandas from OTV, De Angelis (twice) and late Pugliese. The good tanda of that evening - Di Sarli - was reported as of the same type that had been played before the late arrival of the DJ on that night. I have heard reported that there have been organisational problems with classes overrunning into the milonga time, music too quiet etc.  

In March 2015 it was my second visit to Corrientes and the dancing hadn't changed: self-consciously elegant dancers.  I can’t help but feel the dancers would appreciate mirrors.  I found some of the dancing mechanical and contrived.  I can’t help but be reminded by some of the dancing of the women in the film “Stepford Wives”: accomplished, professional, but to my taste rather robotic and artificial.  When I went though there was a lovely dancing couple whom I had seen twice at other venues. They were musical, discreet, traditional dancers, very watchable.  I was surprised to see them because they were so different to most people there. They stood out with their musicality and connection.

I recently heard the dancing reported as “very poor...a vacant, show-based dance with almost no relation to the music.” Corrientes though is reckoned by some to have some of the best dancing - depending very much on who you are and how you define that.  Lots of teachers go, that’s true.  How you see it depends I think on what the dance is to you and for sure the dance means different things to different people.  But if you want to try to join the A-list, it’s the place to go. The same report from January 2016 described the milonga as “creepy” - having the trappings of a milonga, but not feeling like a milonga in spirit.  I thought that was well described. I guess “avant garde” is  another way of putting it. Also, video.

As with the dancing I think it depends on what you look for in a milonga.  Some people want mostly to see and be seen or to exercise "sophisticated, advanced level” moves. Some want something else. Corrientes feels a bit shell-like to me.  You know what you hope for, but when you tap it - it’s empty.   Despite the way things were I had a surprisingly grand dancing time there, mostly dancing with women and switching occasionally with a guy who asked.  It helped that I met Costa and Flo’s nice crowd from Cambridge and that was the best thing about Corrientes for me that day.

London milongas (and museums)

I have long been avoiding mentioning the controversial subject of milongas in London.  Tango Commuter's post about London started to tip the the balance for me. That and a general sense that reviewing milongas might be helpful for potential travellers with limited time and resources or just for those interested in the conditions of different milongas.  I just intend to say how I or others more recently have found things and for that to be useful it would be more useful if you knew what I liked. I said back here a word about recommendation and I know I said here that I would first try to give an update on what I feel about tango music and the conditions for dancing but that will have to wait because life continues apace.  To trust a recommendation, it is as well to know what someone doesn't like as what they do but I’m sure the former will become clearer in time.

When and where?

As Tango Therapist says, you can find the milongas mentioned below on the London Tango Calendar and also in Tomorrow's milongas, which lists many events in the south east of England as well as in London. I find Tomorrow's Milongas the most useful public resource to plan trips to dance tango in the south east. Would that more areas put aside their rivalries and followed that lead. Were there for instance Tomorrow's Milongas - the Midlands, Tomorrow's Milongas - the North East etc, making it easy to find milongas in those areas, more visitors might travel to those regions to dance. Better still, please consider telling your local organisers about the universal Tango Timetable which I see more organisers using all the time. I am told there are many tango timetables but I was impressed by this one. It is very simple and allows you to filter by location and event type. It is so easy to use and so universally applicable. I have been to quite a lot of milongas across Britain in a relatively short time but I still find checking for milongas in different areas a real hassle. I have to ask friends and check the websites and Facebook groups I happen to know about but travellers from far may know little or none of these. I wish there was a standard tool so that travellers and new dancers can do this.

I used to live in London but did not visit its treasures as much as I should have.  Now, when I go I generally hope to visit a museum, see friends for lunch or drinks and go out to dance.  I know I am not going to be able to avoid mentioning some of the places I love in London so this post is about some of London's great museums and the milongas near them that I have been to.

How much do I know about the milonga scene in London?  In short, only as a visitor although I have been to quite a lot of the milongas.  I first went specifically to explore the London milongas over about five days in February 2013 when I had been dancing for about nine months.  I went again in September 2013.  I went briefly mid-week in the summer of 2014 and then probably not again until March 2015 and then again in November - so probably five times in all.  

In that time, I went to Carablanca (older, more sedate crowd) - more about it in another post as I went there again more recently. Negracha is another tango dance club with a nuevo room downstairs and a traditional room upstairs. Usefully for central London the latter has a coat check. When I went and I think still now it attracted a younger, fitter, wilder crowd. Both Carablanca and Negracha are on a Friday night. These days I would prefer to go to Carablanca than Negracha but I have been to both on the same night. It is perfectly possible as they are a short walk apart. On the other hand, I heard good music from DJ Ivan - who runs Negracha - in another milonga in November whereas the guest DJs in Carablanca can be hit and miss.

Wild Court, off Holborn, leading to Negracha.

Sir John Soanes Museum is just round the corner from Holborn. It is a simply fascinating place. Fifteen minutes walk away, north of Fleet street is Dr Johnson's House. I spent a quiet, rainy afternoon browsing the rooms there in November reading about this humane, social, well connected, rather ill man. The house is signposted but not that easy to spot. It is this building with the steps:

In 2013 I went to Tango Garden practica on its opening day. The building is Georgian and lovely. It is inside a playpark for children called Coram's Fields. There was tea and cake and it was relaxed. I danced quite a lot. More recent reports say that it is still friendly, that the music is not bad but not great but that the dancing and the ronda is poor. I would guess it is frequented by new dancers. The floor, according to report from September, is apparently excellent.

Tango Garden venue, Coram's Fields.  Photo taken 2011 - After Children, Before Tango

There is a good museum near here called the Foundling Museum. You are in Bloomsbury, so the British Museum is a stone's throw away.

I nearly danced in this square in 2014 when Tango Garden was closed. I had planned to go there with a non dancer. These are the calm gardens of Russell Square nearby. It was raining though so we had tea in the garden cafe then danced nearby on the smooth floors of the closed cafe in Senate House, home to the University of London library.

Another milonga I have been to is Tango on the Thames (also just called "the boat") which I'll report on in another post as I went more recently. The photo shows the Embankment, by Charing Cross near where I believe the (new) boat is moored. Don't rely on this photo though because it is old. The Benjamin Franklin House is just up towards Trafalgar Square. This is a very spare museum but the story is told by actors and audio and it was very effective. Franklin was just such an interesting man. Nearby, on Villiers Street is the institution which is Gordon's Wine Bar. I spent evenings here in my late twenties. Apparently my father did the same as a subaltern in the 60s. The port is insidious. It takes possession of you, unawares. Hours passed in conversation until a searchlight-like brightness suddenly filled the candle-lit cave at closing time.

Hungerford and Jubilee Bridges to Charing Cross station

The National Gallery is nearby on Trafalgar Square and the National Portrait Gallery is around the corner. 

National Gallery

For peace, you can take refuge in the very beautiful St Martin in the Fields to the side of Trafalgar Square. I have often heard excellent musicians practising there for the evening concerts.  

This is my friend Christian who I have known for many years, taken with my boys in Trafalgar Square a few years ago.  

He is a knowledgeable and interesting man who runs groups for debate and discussion. One of the more public ones is the Cafe Philo usually at the French Institute in South Kensington on Saturdays or occasionally in a pub. It is run one week in English, the next in French. When I drop in I always meet interesting people.

I am getting over-enthusiastic, I know, about the glory of London....

...but in a city like this, how can you not? 

Across the river the walk along the South Bank is one of my favourite things to do in London. 

The South Bank walkway

It is quiet, away from the noise of central London, always entertaining and the panorama of London's architecture unscrolls on the opposite side of the river.  

South Bank to the right and Embankment to the left

I have been to the Crypt milonga in Shoreditch (before it reopened). It was an atmospheric venue attracting an older crowd. I think that may have changed. The organiser runs a heavy schedule of classes and workshops and I have heard no recent report. Also in Shoreditch: The Light (I believe it has moved venue again). The floor, seating and conditions generally were poor at that incarnation of the Light. I didn't like the atmosphere much or the women who appeared to be soliciting guys for dances. I hear that organiser never used to have good floors but I have heard no report of the most recent venue. 

I am not going to mention all the bars and cafes in Shoreditch. It is so trendy if you live in central Scotland and spend your days largely in Berghaus, Merills and weather-appropriate trousers, it's scary even for an ex-resident of central London. But it is exciting - right on the edge of the City this explosion of hipsterdom and multi-ethnic life. The graffiti there reminded me how unexpected London is. Also, how diverse and largely how tolerant. When I moved to Perth from Borough, south London over eight years ago one of the many striking differences was the diminished ethnic diversity. There were some Polish shops, you might meet the odd Spaniard, the occasional European but when for instance I walked around town or took my babies to the baby groups there were very few faces that were not white.

 

Dennis Severs' House has been recommended to me but whenever I have tried to go it has been closed. He recreated the home of a family of Huguenot silk-weavers from 1724 to the start of the 20th Century.  He refused to install electricity or plumbing and shunned modern ways of life.  I asked my friend to remind me of the quotation he'd mentioned previously by Severs. He said "Something like: 'The twentieth century is a nice enough place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there'".  He said he was reminded of it recently when he heard someone refer to Jacob Rees-Mogg as "the Member of Parliament for the eighteenth century".  Perhaps he is entrenching. He used to be known as "the honourable Member for the early twentieth century".   The motto of the house is Aut Visum Aut Non!  I have been though to the Geffrye Museum on Kingsland Road, not too far away. It is a tranquil oasis of social history.

During these trips I also went to Pavadita in Hammersmith West London - its milonga, its practica and to the 2015 New Year event. I also went to Corrientes. More about both of these anon.  I went to La Mariposa on a Sunday afternoon in Balham (when it was upstairs) but I believe it has moved. It felt like a nightclub in the afternoon and was not particularly well attended. There was a lot of alternative music and I found the atmosphere louche but it is another one called "friendly".

Another milonga was Tango Etnia by Regents Park not long after it opened. At that time it attracted good, young dancers.  Since then I have heard in the lower hall about "bags and coats heaped around, way too few places to sit, chaos on the overcrowded floor, almost impossible to dance."  I have also heard about problems with atmosphere and behaviour but that the upper hall, when it runs is better.   

Tango Terra in Seven Dials by Covent Garden had in 2013 and still now has live music and recorded music. I was too new at that time and it is too long ago for a report of mine to be valid but another report from October 2015 described it as a "tango disco" with traditional music in tandas with cortinas but skewed towards later showy stuff. The live music was from a duo including the organiser Martin on bandoneon which was "OK for a tango cabaret but not much good for dancing". Dancing was described as London-poor, tolerable in the ronda only because attendance was about fifteen couples in a large space.

I went once to a milonga in Tango South London, most memorable because it was so far away in East Dulwich and everyone that evening was very smartly dressed. It was also where I learned about Michael Lavocah's book Tango Stories, Musical Secrets, which had just been published.  The teacher/organiser, Claire Loewe I have always found friendly. She once rescued me in a class in Negracha and made me feel better when we danced together. The Tango South London crowd go on holiday to the stunning Bickleigh Castle in Devon. It is in gorgeous countryside at the end of a quintessentially English leafy country lane. I met them there in 2014 when I was in the area. The milonga was in a beautiful room, though very dark and invitation by look was difficult. Despite the lovely surroundings I felt uncomfortable and danced little.

Bickleigh Castle

I also went to Eton (Thames Valley Tango) by Windsor just outside London to the west. I have been there many times.  More about it another time.

Windsor Castle

Some of these milongas I have been to more than once. On my earlier trips I also did a few classes with at least three different sets of well known teachers in London.

It was quite daunting going to London on my own to these places as a new dancer. Looking back although I did have good times it was probably enjoyment of the “interesting” variety than straightforward pleasure - as you would probably expect for such a new dancer and unknown visitor. There is much variety of dance and music and atmosphere in London, certainly far more than where I live. Your age, your dancing, what you wear, your attitude, how discriminating you decide to be, and especially whether you know anyone are all factors which will affect the success of a trip. 

London has something of a reputation for being unfriendly and dancing within the regular London community but I heard that said often about Berlin too, even by Berliners. It is said of many places so if you are uncertain, then the answer is clearly to go with a friend or in a group. London also has a reputation among more traditional dancers for dangerous dancing and anti-social milonga behaviour. I tend to dance outside London when I go to the south. While it is not by any means true that all Londoners dance this way it is also true that you can often spot a Londoner in a milonga outside the M25 (London ring road) by their dancing. Sometimes I can't help but wonder what made them make the trip. A recent example might clarify. It happened at one of the milongas at Eton - a very popular traditional milonga outside London: 

Thames Valley Tango

The floor cleared during the cortina as is, happily, normal there.  A fashionable young woman I have seen before dancing in central London stayed with her partner on the floor where she had been executing her flashy heels-off-the-floor style in a busy ronda.  I was sitting in my chair and I had had my eye on a girl I was thinking of inviting.  The couple standing on the floor, waiting for the next tanda, were blocking my line of sight.  I asked them to move so I could see the girl across the room to invite her. Besides women loitering for dances, there are few things I dislike more than leaving my seat  to look for a dance which in my book counts as prowling.  I don't even like to stand to invite because there is nothing discreet about that.  This experienced couple did not understand what I was asking.  Even when at last they understood what I was asking, I don’t think they quite understood why or perhaps that sense of entitlement meant they thought that I ought to find somewhere else to sit until they moved on. 

I love London because I don't live there now - for the buzz of the capital so very different to rural Scotland, to visit a museum, see friends and dance some but I have no great expectations of the dancing there, the atmosphere in the milongas, still less of the conditions for dancing.  I am in no rush to go back there specifically for the dancing but then our preferences are all different…

Reviews

Someone (not the person below) said recently: "It would be a very interesting thing to hear frank anonymous feedback of the frustrations at events".

A:  I think the topic of how and whether to review (anything), and how to take a review is useful and interesting yet it doesn't come up much, anywhere.  Things are reviewed all the time, for no doubt all kinds of motives and they do have effects, good and bad - materially and emotionally so I think for all sorts of reasons the subject is worthwhile.  Besides, I want it clear that I'm not just out to cause trouble, that that isn't the point. Do you think it's a good topic?

B:  Yes

A:  The Berlin pieces are read consistently, so are useful I guess. I thought I'd do a shorter version for the places I went to last year in London.

[Later] How did you find the piece?

B:  If that's what you want to say, it looks OK to me. But it seems highly sanitised in places.

A:  You mean it "focuses on the positives"?

B:   No. I mean it omits material negatives.

A: The careful reader will note where there is *no* mention of good music or good dancing - and where there is.

B: Then I guess I was not careful enough, because I saw mention of good dancing. Carablanca's most widely acknowledged feature is utterly dire dancing.

A:   My visitor's experience of Carablanca was not that and it is a piece by a visitor. But leaving disagreement about what Carablanca is like aside, Britain is my doorstep. You are very careful not to say anything specific. Why don't you think I should be? I think it is perfectly possible to say things by omission.  I've had a rocky time with controversy this year and if the way things have gone have made me more aware - and I wouldn't have it otherwise - it also ended up making me materially less happy in comparison to when I didn't know things and just accepted how things were.  So if you don't mind I'll be careful where I think it needs it and write for the equally careful reader.

B:  Sounds like you're risking a careful reader spotting where you think there's no good dancing.

A:   What's wrong with & where's the risk in that?

B:  The same risk as making your message clear, I'd say. Being that a reader sees you're suggesting a milonga has no good dancing, leading to someone giving you a hard time.

A:  No one can really give you a hard time about saying good stuff. What people choose to see between the lines is up to them.  What would you have me do? Upset organisers and make others worried about having me at their milonga? You don't publish or say critical things about specific milongas.

B:  I sure don't. I'd not feel comfortable in publishing reviews with material negatives omitted. I'd be encouraging some people to visit and be disappointed - with the milonga and with me

A:  It is an excellent point but still I think the way to go is discreet & careful & suggest the bad by omitting it from what was good.

B:  You can't have it both ways. Either some people are going to hear the message about the bad or they are not. And in my experience those most likely to hear it are the organisers themselves.

A:  Writing openly and honestly about an experience would mean really not caring about upsetting organisers. Don't you care?

B:  I do, and though not much, enough to mean I'd rather write no review.

[Later, the review rewritten]

B:  It now looks more balanced and hence more useful to me.

A:   I do care about upsetting people and if I do this I worry about having nowhere to go through realising by writing just how things are or by not wanting to risk long travel by being turned away at the door for saying how things were in the past or because an organiser has solidarity with another place that may not have come out well in a review.

Ultimately I want better music and better conditions more widespread. I'm trying to figure out a way of helping people hear about, consider even the conditions in a milonga & make choices based on that & if my view on places I've been is a way to do that then maybe that is the way to go.  What happens to me personally is subservient to getting better conditions generally in milongas. But if I can't go, I can't contribute.   I want to know why you don't want to upset hosts who don't have good conditions.

B:  I don't want to upset anyone unless I think it is has a good chance of leading to improvement and there's no better way to make improvement.

A:  But you think it's OK for me to?

B:  Not in general. I think that it is good to have milonga reviews that tell dancers about the good and bad of various milongas so they can choose. That helps good conditions more through the effect of dancer choice than organisers reading direct much more.

A:  Agreed. That's the idea.  I don't want to be a me-jay about good conditions and good music but it seems to me that the people I saw doing all the talking about DJing (on e.g. online DJ forums) and to a lesser extent hosting are the ones at the bottom end. And yet dancers flock to hear them and not to, say, Brighton where the music and conditions are great. I understand that organisers get upset when people say things they didn't enjoy about their milonga. It's hard, after the effort people go to. It would be easy to think - why doesn't the reviewer set up something of their own instead of criticising other people. But that isn't possible here right now...

** Hesitation**

A:  You know, people who review books, especially writers say this: “It's sometimes better to say nothing than something hard, even if it's true.”  I have great respect for Anthony Grayling and I'm pretty sure this is largely his view. The novelist I stayed with in Brighton - it was her view too after someone trashed an early novel of hers.

B:   Better for some, no doubt.

A:  I gain at best, no personal advantage that I can see from this sort of thing. I worry about going too far.

B:  Too far for what?? :)

A:  Just a sense of maybe overstepping some line.

B:  A line drawn by people you don't care about, perhaps..

A:   Maybe. Not sure. "Causing trouble". "Being a troublemaker". It's not as though I can't defend things though, as though there aren't reasons, genuine concerns. I suppose because most people seem happy with the status quo some would think "Why would she try and stir things up if most people are happy?" But I think also some people, maybe even many are not happy but not dissatisfied enough or difficult enough to make a fuss. I saw in one of the Facebook groups how strongly some people feel when others block their line of sight for invitation during the cortina.   

Do you think there might be some kind of consequences of open, honest reviews?

B:   I'd guess some people will like you less and some people will like you more.

A:   Clarity then :) Even that consequence would be a pretty good result :)

**Hesitation**

During a conversation in the queer tango community it was reported that there are milongas - or at least a milonga - where same sex couples have been thrown out. I asked which milongas.  I thought sharing them was of public interest especially where people might go to a lot of trouble and expense to attend a milonga only to find themselves barred.  The person reporting wouldn't say though.  It was this, ultimately, that persuaded me that an open and honest review of a milonga was preferable to saying nothing.

**Hesitation**

I asked a couple more friends and both said they would find an open and honest review more useful than one that omitted anything that might be less than wholly complimentary.

**Hesitation**

A:  I re-read the conversation about milonga reviews. I know you said for you, there are better ways to improve things. Do you think I can do anything better than say how I found things such that that information might assist in dancers making decisions that might ultimately lead to better conditions in existing or new milongas?

B:   I don't know what other options you have.

A:  I think the main thing is there are so few places with, for me, good conditions, music, atmosphere, dancing that I'm not really going out to dance out anyway, so there doesn't seem to be much to lose.