Stuttgart - El Amateur milonga

Teehaus im Weißenburgpark

I loved the name, El Amateur, long before I saw the place.  That alone is a call to those who prefer traditional social dancing to events centered around the professional tango dance industry with workshops and shows.

Access

The location of El Amateur is wonderful with great views over the city.  It is not in the city centre but it felt to me like a place doing its own thing and unapologetic.  I was told there is no public transport to get there, that taxi was best. I see that public transport will only take you so far.  You would have to walk at least 25 minutes on foot and it is uphill. 

Adventure
I had left the Sunday afternoon milonga in Tango Loft less than an hour before.  By the time  I had returned to the hotel, showered and changed it was nearing 8pm and the milonga would start in half an hour.

As things turned out my friend - a local - decided to come to this milonga.  Though we had never danced he had had three failed attempts to learn to dance tango in class and was now very into the contact improvisation dance scene.  He suggested given the hour he pick me up and we go by motorbike.  I agreed after much hesitation and only after establishing his last crash had been several decades previously.  He promised “bicycle speeds”.  In childhood or teenage years my father had said I would be disinherited if I ever got or perhaps even rode on a motorbike.  The force of that statement more than any genuine threat had stuck through life.  I have had friends affected by serious and fatal motorbike accidents and seen them on the roads so have had every inclination not to get involved.  In the circumstances though it did seem like the best way - so I thought until, rigid with fear, I had to get on the thing.  He told me my skirt could not catch but I nevertheless hitched up my dress beyond I felt - once astride the machine - what decency required. Though it can hardly have been further than 3km distant and we apparently never topped 40km/hour I think it was thrilling but terror, especially on bumps, curves and acceleration overpowered most other sense. Trying to take my mind off things I wondered if I had control issues and decided if not on the salon floor then certainly as regards personal injury.

The setting 

...of the venue is casual.  You can sit outside with a drink before the milonga but I just sat down to get over things, revive feeling to my tense limbs and to remember about breathing. 

Bar

Inside there is a bar for which at that stage I was extremely grateful.  Apparently the restaurant is closed just now but there was nevertheless good value African food in the adjoining room served by a lady from the Congo to whom we spoke in a mixture of English, French and German as she spoke them all. This room also serves as the bar.

Host

Though we did not really speak I understand the host was Otto. Johannes, who I believe is the regular host, was on holiday. Entrada was by donation. We gave 10 euros apiece. 

Conditions

My quick photo makes the room look less nice than it is. It is true it is not as jazzy or as stylish as Tango Loft but the conditions for me were superb. Seating, lighting, floor, room shape and size were all ideal.  You could see all potential partners from wherever you were in the room without moving, though some guys did.   As in many Buenos Aires venues you need only move your eyes.  I feel  especially in unfamiliar places or where I am less at ease the more you have to turn your head, still less crane your neck, you start to leak discretion and the milongas for me are all about that.  We got a table and were able to keep it. I already knew this milongas has existed for twenty years. Seeing it I was not surprised. 

I had been to a cafe in a beautiful park above the city that day.  It had had the same relaxed feeling as the El Amateur milonga.

Attendance

I am poor at estimating and did not count but there was enough for a good evening. The lower end of thirty to forty perhaps. It seemed to be mostly locals who sat for the most part down the left hand side from the door with the better dancers toward the further end towards the DJ spot.  There was a handful of dancers from the milonga weekend: a group who came together including DJ Stephan, his wife with I guess their friends and one other. 

Atmosphere

It was just...quiet and focused on dancing. One or two of the Tango Loft group did not seem to dance much so perhaps they did not like it or were just tired. It was a very different atmosphere to Tango Loft.  Despite that it was all new to me and I was dancing for the most part with a brand new beginner guy and in swapped roles I felt much more relaxed here. Otherwise I found the atmosphere hard to judge partly I did not know the place, second because my friend and I were so unusual in that setting dancing the way we were. 

Music

The music was probably - eventually - the best I heard all weekend. The DJ was Mohamed of Sydney, possibly this guy, friend of DJ Stephan Resch. When I walked in though I thought I had made a terrible mistake. The music was simply awful: heavy, plodding Guardia Vieja.  I was shocked and disappointed.  It went on for at a guess two, perhaps three tandas. I went to change my shoes in the Ladies, we paid the entrada and the music was still terrible.  At this stage I had not realised the DJ was a dancer from the milonga weekend. To escape it we went to see about food and drinks next door. I started to feel euphoric but I think that was more happiness at survival than the sekt. 

I considered leaving in the time we were eating next door except that I could not just then face getting back on the bike.  I heard two or three bearable tracks, heading towards good. Had it lasted any longer I might have left or gone outside for drinks and to watch the sun go down. 

Suddenly the music changed, became and stayed wholly good, which is to say, mainstream, until near the end of the milonga. I asked the DJ about the start and he said he often started that way and that some people like it.  Some do but not I think the same people who stay for most of the rest of what he played. It is, in my view, a common DJ error.  De Angelis came up in the conversation and he said he rarely played that orchestra, I don’t know why. I think many people find De Angelis hard or hardest to “get”. It was the last orchestra for me. Not everyone likes it perhaps because some DJs can play such terrible tracks by him. I remember hearing only one (good) De Angelis track played the whole time I was at the Stuttgart milonga weekend but heard it often in Berlin. 

There was another change at about 2340 to I think possibly Varela/Ledesma Qué tarde que has venido which I did not want to dance. I felt it a shame.  I know some like this but it was so different from everything that had gone before and to which everyone had happily danced.  Many had left already I guessed because it was a school night.  I waited to see what was going to happen. It turned to I think Pugliese which was OK but I do not dance that in swapped roles and decided to call it quits.  I noticed someone else doing the same.  It was nearly midnight in any case.

Dancing

The outer ronda seemed fine. Inside the ronda were the beginners, weaker dancers, people who overtook and one or two wilder dancers though in fact we were not so many. If I had not been dancing with a complete beginner I would not have wanted to be in the middle there. 

I danced with three guys besides my friend and enjoyed them all.  Two appeared to be visitors.  “Viel sonne” remarked one, wryly, of my British, sunburned back.  I agreed in English and squirmed, still Britishly.  It was clear I had been outside incautiously that afternoon.  Then, in German: Did I not speak German? Again, I squirmed. Not enough to converse.  Like many tolerant, accomplished Europeans he repeated what he had said this time in English and agreed to my remark that his accent his was not German, telling me his country.

The women nearest me were not looking my way and given the spectacle my beginner friend and I must have made I can’t say I was surprised.

Three other guys, locals I think, I would have danced with but they did not seem to want to dance with me either. I felt rather shunned. I considered they found our dancing so awful in swapped roles that they couldn’t face me as the girl, or to an objection to women dancing in the other role, or simply an objection to a beginner guy dancing at their milonga. But with so many variables and plenty others besides it is not worth guessing. So there were some OK to good guy dancers there I had not seen at the Tango Loft weekend and the same in girl dancers.   There were also the kind of average dancers you find everywhere at local milongas in Europe.  Some local dancers stayed only for a couple of hours, arriving and leaving early or arriving later and leaving later - another reason to DJ buffet style - which the middle part was - as opposed to as an arc or mood DJ.