"And your husband?"

The only frustrating thing I found about this way of doing thing is that it can be hard to get the guy’s perspective on things to do with the milongas - but maybe I was in the minority in wanting that. I spoke a lot to women about those things but I did not know the guys, sat separately from them, was not staying in a tango house where such things might have been easier to find out and I was there for a short time so I spoke comparatively little to the men.

In the Buenos Aires milongas I went to most, chat between men and women sitting separately was on the floor, between tracks. Chat at this time is not my default tendency. If the music is great and my partner can dance then after a pause to breathe and go back into myself for a moment, all I want to do is dance and soon, to make the most of the music. Chat between tracks can continue quite a while.  Even so (very traditional) convention is to talk only about music.  Given the way guys can be over there, this I knew to be a wholly safe topic, one I was comfortable with.  

Otherwise things might start with the (relatively) innocuous:  What do you do? although even that when it happened to me felt fairly personal compared to the things most guys say.  And no sooner that then:  And your husband - what does he do?  Within seconds you are on wholly different ground.  That guy was clearly wise to those of us who, though married, do not wear a ring.  But then some of the guys there believe - or perhaps they know - that once they know they have you in dance they may have more success in pressing an advantage.

But the opening question is nearly always De dondé sos?  In the great cacophony of chat that erupts in the room and if you are softly spoken it could easily take until into the next track for your partner to understand where you are from.   The standard questions which follow are:  Hablas castellano?  Pero entiendes castellano?  Te gusta Buenos Aires? And after that, though you may not have had the conversation you might have liked you have at least survived the basic small talk. They could well ask Es la primera vez acá? - whereupon you realise they sussed you long ago...

No chat?

The question of how you can chat when when your seat in the milonga is fixed preoccupied me before I went to Buenos Aires. 

It is true there are milongas where there is no fixed seating and in theory if you knew people you could I suppose chat to them. I tended not to go to places without fixed seating. 

I worried whether I would chat at all, anywhere. But no, even with my wretched Spanish I did not for a moment find chat a problem in Buenos Aires inside nor outside the milongas. I chatted for hours to hosts or travellers in my accommodation, to other dancers, people who owned or worked in accommodation for dancers, to locals, expats, tourists, milonga hosts, bar staff, Ladies room attendants, DJs, tour guides, people on tours, people in shops and kiosks, bus drivers, taxi drivers, subway attendants, even passengers on public transport - or rather they occasionally said things to me. In fact, all the things I worried about (and what did I worry about beforehand - how to pay for drinks?) were not the problem. Things I had not anticipated were more difficult but overall problems were relatively few. 

Still, before I went I worried: what if no one chooses me? What if I sat conspicuously not dancing for hours?  In those circumstances, how would I, who loves to chat, who loves to meet people, who loves the random conversation had by chance, how would I sit all night next to women I might not like and probably couldn’t talk to in Spanish even so? And who knew if they would want to chat? But these were not generally problems either:

Even if you do not chat, there is a lot to observe and listen to in the milongas.  The Buenos Aires milongas besides are so very different to the European milongas I have been to that there is even more to observe than is usually the case. Many women do not chat, choose not to chat, maybe because there is so much to see and hear.

When you are given a seat at a table or even when you enter the Ladies I found it normal to acknowledge everyone and say hello. And that might be all the interaction there is, especially if there is already a group at the table. Women may not necessarily start talking to you. Perhaps they are a bit put off by these closed northern types coming to their milongas and interacting so nervously and differently to the way they do. Yet the default position of most, possibly all local women I found to be kindly. I often started conversations with a question, made friends and discovered many interesting things. People seemed to appreciate my lamentable efforts in Spanish - and sometimes switched to English.

Still, it does happen that you are sitting with people you cannot talk to or do not want to talk to and you are not dancing either and you have perhaps watched for a while already.  At these times, even well before this point it is normal that you may want to chat.  Occasionally I saw a woman, generally a tourist I did not know but had maybe seen before and was curious to meet. Or, more likely, I saw someone I knew - often a local or an expat, or they saw me. You can talk to people not at your table as you pass theirs when you arrive, when you leave, when you go outside for air or to and from the bathroom.  I saw relaxed local couples greet friends on the way to or from the floor or between tracks as they happened to part from the embrace beside people they knew.  Or you can perch. 

For the record, perching is not a term I ever heard. But perching happens after the tanda starts when it is looking likely that the majority of invitations are over.  If you then see your friend or they see you and, say, you are both alone, one of you can go and talk to the other for a track or even the rest of the tanda "perching" while the chair next to them or next to you is free if the person who occupied it is dancing. I think this is female nature among many of us, but perhaps not all.   Perhaps too it is a complete faux pas but I saw this happening and did it too. This applies I guess more to the women. Men move around more - to the bar, some lounge about or stand but I think women are more focused and specific in where they go, in how they move around the milonga because in the traditional milongas women do not move randomly about and certainly they don't just (apparently) casually hang out around the salon the way people can do in Europe. But when the tanda ends you have to leave whoever’s chair you are perching on before they get back to it.  You cannot just swap seats in the milonga - not even at your table. When you are given a seat at a table you are given a fixed position at that table. Having said that, there are exceptions. I gave up my seat once to stay chatting to a friend well after midnight in Gricel but at that time there were more seats empty than taken.  

After people have sat down and are looking for their next dance, their neighbours do not talk to them to give them opportunity and focus to do this. This is surely just good manners and it mystifies me that it is only partially observed and only in some milongas here because after all the cortina and the start of the next track only lasts a short time.

A relaxing way to do things

Centro Región Leonesa

I usually feel disturbed without space for invitation and acceptance. I like - often prefer - to sit with others but I do not like seat hopping. It is very useful to have a seat for your handbag, perhaps a wrap and a table for your own glass.  If you have your own seat partners know where to find you.  Provided the floor clears during the cortina as I always saw it do in Buenos Aires, men can invite discreetly from their seat with neither sex standing, bunching, blocking, milling about, prostituting and all the attendant stress and unsuitability of all that for invitation.  

My seat, besides, defines my own space and makes my relations from it to other people, especially potential partners, clear and defined. My own seat and table can feel occasionally like a prison but more often like a haven in the sometimes psychologically turbulent world of the milonga. It is relaxing to have your own seat, even more so, if you are a regular, your own table.  No wonder such a privilege is coveted there.

Much of the time in Europe seating in the milongas, the use of it, the lighting and room size are so problematic for some of us that getting to the dance floor can be a miracle.  This is especially true if you do not know the milonga or where is the best place to sit, or where there are seats but in reality nobody sits there. In the central, traditional milongas of Buenos Aires that I attended most often I did not find things to be like that.  All of that is taken care of so whether you know the conditions of the milonga matters much less. 

 It is professional. I would arrive, pay usually outside the salon, wait to be greeted and seated.  I found women usually seat women and men usually seat men, but not always.  Occasionally I had to go and find the girl who would seat me and usually this was when she was also bar staff.  Sometimes bar staff seated me, sometimes the host and sometimes in several milongas it is Danny who is neither host nor bar staff but who specifically works seating people.  If you are alone you are seated either with other men or with other women. Or you will sit in the area(s) for friends and couples - or you may also be seated in this area if you are late and have not reserved. Reservation was common for some milongas and some venues like Obelisco or Centro Región Leonesa. Locals and expats seemed to do it often. 

In these milongas in Buenos Aires where you are seated seems to depend on many things like where there is space, whether you are are known and how known, whether you are a regular, perhaps your dancing I don't know, even perhaps how much they like you... Contrary to what I often heard before I went I found you can usually see partners but then I am tall and generally I prefer not to be in a centre front row regardless - not that I ever worked up the nerve to state a preference. Once on a quiet day in Salon Canning I saw much variation in seating. With plenty of spare seats some were sitting at the front, some at the back, some in the middle. So I guess people familiar with the milongas maybe do state preferences if they do not already have their own regular table. 

The great thing there is you keep your seat, guys know where to find you, bar staff come to you. It is so much easier. It is all set up so that those who want to dance can get straight to the business of invitation, acceptance and dancing  with the minimum amount of difficulty.  It is such a low-stress, relaxing way to do things.  I say again, we have so much to learn from them. 

Cultural divide

Although I made no claims for my skills in acknowledging people inside the salon I still feel rather hoisted by my own petard.

I went to this milonga where there was a visiting Argentine teacher and very musical dancer who I have seen at a few dances and chatted to briefly, mostly about music. He was nearby in the salon as I arrived and I nodded an acknowledgement. He nodded. 

So I was about to move away when he said “Hello” in a surprised tone by which I understood he thought I had not acknowledged him properly.  I was taken aback because I was sure he knew I had acknowledged him. He must have realised I was surprised because he said “A kiss?” which surprised me further yet by which I understood him to mean: because isn't this what we in the milongas normally do with people we know? and indeed in Argentina I found it so, even with people I had met only lately.  He embraced me. To explain my more northern approach on this occasion: I didn’t feel I knew the guy well.  But Argentina is a different culture in terms of how people interact with one another. I was glad he had bridged the divide and better than me. 

Someone I know from South America was there and though I don’t know her well, I know her better - in fact I was there because I knew she was going. Her Latin warmth is infectious. Talking to her is like being in the sunshine and boy, does she understand the guy-girl thing in the milongas the way women from South America and more Latin cultures than ours often instinctively do. 

Milonga reviews

Future milonga reviews are moving here.

Older reviews will stay here for now but have also been copied over.  New reviews will be posted on Milonga Review only.  The first new one to be published there is of the Padanaram milonga today.

More general posts to do with dance and things related to the milongas will continue to be posted here.

In an ideal world...

- A whole post about the entrance to a milonga? The entrance is the door!?

- No! The entrance is a big deal.

How you are greeted sets the tone and where you sit can define your afternoon or evening. This post is about how I like the entrance to be. It is heavily influenced by how I often found it in Buenos Aires.  How I wish we would learn more from them:

You pay the entrada ideally - but not necessarily - outside the salon. It is how it happens in BA and I remember it at eg. the Stuttgart milonga weekend, La Redonda (run by an Anglo/Argentinian couple), the Cambridge Spring Festivalito (St Paul’s) (once) Tango West. In Buenos Aires I love the thick curtain, which in memory is usually red, that separates the street and/or the area where you pay from the salon.

Nobody makes you give your name, still less write it down on a piece of paper. Nobody makes you sign in. If I found out an organiser’s name, it happened most naturally when I was introduced to them by someone else. 

There are no rules, posters, leaflets or notes on display about how to do, well, anything. 

You are greeted - perhaps by the host or the person who seats you. The host may introduce themselves - but not necessarily. I find it hard to imagine a scenario where a dancer would not reciprocate in those circumstances. Then if the host really wanted to note down peoples’ names discreetly I suppose they could - but why would they? If people like a milonga they will come back and tell their friends. There is no other way more successful.

If you are unknown you are told where the facilities are including where to change shoes/leave coats.

If you are unknown and arrive alone it is assumed (for seating purposes) you are alone unless you say otherwise - as you might in a restaurant. 

Also as in a restaurant you are taken to the seat which is yours for the time you are in the milonga. If I am somewhere I do not know, especially which turns out to have difficult conditions, I appreciate this even more. I do not enjoy walking in to an unknown milonga and wasting time and energy trying to figure out the dynamics of the room/seating/invitation or wondering if I am taking some regular’s spot or committing some other mistake or faux pas. I like to be given a seat, a democratic seat and get to the business in hand. I have never been to a milonga in Europe where things happen this way. 

I liked being seated with other single women. If I am alone or new somewhere being seated and being seated with women takes the pressure off.   Once only in Buenos Aires I was taken to a table with a single man. It felt extremely odd.  It was an evening with live music in Club Gricel (not Daniel and Juan's). I didn’t like anything about that milonga and left after about an hour.

Upon arrival, people acknowledge each others’ existence inside the salon. Some of us in Europe can be so bad at that and it creates such a poor atmosphere.

Bar staff come to the table and take your order.

Catharsis

A guy came to sit on a chair to my left. Like me he was visiting for a few days from I think Wroclaw. While we watched he cracked jokes. I had been feeling the strain the last couple of days, his humour was cathartic and I was grateful for the easy banter.  

He had seen my friend was new in the milongas.  In a stage whisper he said Ask your friend to ask that girl to dance with me. He indicated the girl to the right of my friend.  He leaned across me - Ask her for me he hissed again. I knew my friend was safe but looked at the visitor askance at this attempt to play a newbie joke and we all laughed.  He didn’t get the dance he was hoping for. You dance with me again! he said. 

No! I said in mock outrage. Besides, I will dance the rest of the tanda with my friend in a moment. 

Ah, he said feigning injury. What do you call it when a girl says you know, no, to a man? I gave him a “Don’t come that” look and was annoyed to feel my heartstrings tugged even though I knew he had contrived the situation and just for fun.  But I could not bring myself to tell him the word I was sure he knew.

I wouldn’t be a second choice anyway, I said, avoiding it.

Third, actually, he said evenly in his apparently artless English that I knew to be anything but without guile, yet the very brazenness was part of a game. I looked at him, predictably speechless at the affront yet knowing it was in jest.  He looked.  The tension sung in the air a moment then we broke down into laughter that continued quite a while. 

Eventually, he said: You will change, you will come back and dance with me.

Really? 

Ah yes, he said.  Women always do. I gave him another look between scepticism and pretence at being impressed.  At least, my last resort, I can tell myself this he said and again we laughed. 

I met a local girl in the Ladies. We both wore pink dresses.  She had long blonde hair that reminded me of another woman from Stuttgart with whom I had danced at the 2015 Edinburgh International Tango Festival, though that women had been as tall as me.  I had seen her in the regular milonga that week and though she had looked I had not been brave enough to invite her. At the festival she was sitting at the end of a row with no chairs at right angles and no bar or obvious place from which to invite anyone sitting there.  Because of the seating that year in the South side venue she was in a very difficult position for invitation. She did not appear to have danced much yet I knew she could dance. I wished now I had invited her in the milonga instead. The only way to invite was to prowl round and loiter by the entrance. I hated the idea that I would try to invite, she might refuse and in that exposed position I would suffer.  This was before I for the most part stopped moving from my seat to invite women because I feel that indiscretion too much.  I persuaded a guy friend to come and pretend to chat to me by the entrance and to tell me if she was looking.  Do guys do this?  Do guys suffer such anxiety for us? I wondered thinking the situation absurd but finding no other way.  She did look, we danced and she was a dream to dance with.  I have been wanting to dance with you she said to my relief.  I looked for her when I travelled but did not see her.

The girl with similarly long blonde hair wore a dress that was very pretty and I said so.  She returned the compliment.  She wore specs.  Later I saw her dancing and thought her beautiful, happy, slim and a good dancer. Later still, shortly before I left we fell into chat. She said she had been at Tango Loft on Friday then to a milonga in Darmstadt on the Saturday which she said was lovely. It turned out to be Sascha Weinberger’s milonga  though he was away that weekend. I have wanted to hear Sascha DJ for a long time along with other German DJs Thorsten Zoerner of the Dusseldorf TangoAtelier  and Christian Walker of Freiburg (does anyone know if he has a regular DJ slot?). Her weekend - Friday at Tango Loft, Saturday in Darmstadt, Sunday at El Amateur seemed like a good idea. Before I left she embraced me.  Because I had liked her straightaway I was only half-surprised at her warmth and openness.  I felt happy too.  With the relaxed chat that evening I started to feel myself again in the milongas and for the first time that weekend.  I was sorry it was just before leaving.

El Quinto milonga, Nottingham

I went on from the milongas at the Cambridge Spring Festivalito to the milonga called El Quinto in Nottingham. My plan was to combine this milonga with another run regularly on Bank Holidays at nearby Beeston the next day. I stayed at the Holiday Inn conveniently just off the motorway and five minutes from the venue. Were you to consider this, the hotel doesn’t look up to much from the outside and the reception/bar area is as you might expect but I found the room itself fine with excellent blackouts. 

Entrance

Parking was conveniently behind the hall and free. You pay the entrada inside the entrance to the salon. I was greeted and as at Camtango asked to give my name though I did not learn my host’s. I was advised to walk behind the dance floor in a narrow gangway - a new innovation apparently, as - controversially - in Edinburgh - with which hosts the organisers at El Quinto have ties.

Telling unknown people what to do is one way I suppose. After all, I might have been a new dancer but I tend to find that people, even new people can work this out for themselves - or they demonstrate they cannot which is also useful for everyone. In that case a regular may quietly, wordlessly even, guide them the right way.  This is a form of social learning, I find that preferable and not just in practical terms - besides saving a new person from embarrassment it may show them a friend and an ally which, god knows, in many milongas a new person needs.   

I find what happens to you at the entrance can set the tone of a place. 

Much later I took a couple of photos from two corners of the room but as I walked back to my seat was told by the organiser that there was a “photo policy”. I wasn’t made to delete my photos there and then but was asked to execute care if posting them because not everyone likes their photo taken. Yet whole room photos are very useful to convey a sense of venue, numbers, ronda, and type of hold or embrace prevalent in the room. My photos are not at all intended and rarely do focus on individuals. It is a shame really because of the 26 or 27 people in the photo I was going to use not one of their faces are visible, nor are they near the camera yet it shows the attractive room nicely. If you want to see it, do get in touch. But as I say below the rules are strict there so here is a photo of the floor instead.

I asked where I could change my shoes. There are two Ladies rooms to the rear of the salon and a convenient bench outside them to change shoes. Most people seemed to observe etiquette in this regard which was such a relief though it is still not quite universal, even in civilized milongas. 

Atmosphere and Invitation

Still, there was a distinct sense of everyone trying hard to “do the right thing”. That is good I suppose in that most requests to dance I saw happening were by cabeceo.  The downside of this rather self-conscious observation of milonga etiquette was a somewhat stilted atmosphere for the first two or three hours or so. Feelings about atmosphere especially as a visitor are very subjective but someone I found fun and relaxed felt the same. 

Even so, at least five men invited me directly, or as good as, but not in impossible ways. I did not for (nearly) the most part find it difficult to refuse, feeling sure and relaxed about my reasons. 

Room and seating

The room itself I thought was lovely. It is used as a wedding venue. There is a high ceiling, beautiful windows, attractive lighting. It is also one one of the coldest venues I have been to. People told me this was usual here and I noticed blankets hung up outside the ladies room with a sign from the hall management saying: If you are chilly in the hall please use them. Luckily I had a good wrap. Someone said to me recently at another cold dance “How did you know it was going to be cold.” I don’t. I just anticipate that it might well be, because it often is! 

There is a bar, also free water and a refreshments table which that day had biscuits and cheese, cake, sausage rolls, grapes.

There was a card of rules on all the tables (see photo).

Seating was at tables, then there was the gangway around the hall and some seats without tables behind these for the more retiring or for latecomers. Visibility of potential partners was excellent. If you wanted to move seat I would not say it was a particularly easy place to seat-hop. I felt it more a “keep your seat” kind of place. I like this and find it civilized though it can be hard if you arrive alone and unknown and don’t have people to chat to. This was my case but I chatted to all the people around me - at least half a dozen - and despite dancing very little this, watching and listening kept me there for several hours. The chat I found relaxing even if the atmosphere I felt was, in some way that I think was related to the rules, a little less so.

Numbers, floor and dancing

The photos I have show about thirty but not everyone is necessarily in the photo so there may well have been more.

The floor was old and I had previously heard possibly rotten in parts. When I saw it I had misgivings but my first two tandas on it were with a lovely dancer with a warm, fun personality, and it was simply a joy and pleasure to dance. In these conditions I was pleased to find the floor unproblematic. Sometimes I find a floor becomes difficult by the type of dancing one accepts. Thereafter I did find it so and with the knee/back problems which I could not risk aggravating I quit dancing early.

There were only a few guys in the room I really wanted to dance with that day and I danced very little, partly because I was no longer in the mood for dance due to the sound issues (see below). I wasn’t really paying attention to the girl dancing but find it is generally always better than most guy dancing.  Had the sound been better I might have tried my luck with the women later on though I find I need the atmosphere to be relaxing for that to work.

Music and sound

The DJ was Solveig (Bergen, currently in Norwich). 

I had hopes for a great set after hearing Solveig earlier in the year in Cambridge, but at first I was alarmed. There were two good Di Sarli sextet instrumental tracks and then La Estancia which I don’t think is the best for dancing and Maldita which is very like it. Luckily my partner was great and so it did not matter as much as it might otherwise have done, or as much as it would have mattered to me if I had been dancing in swapped roles.  I find better examples of early Di Sarli here - all lovely tracks for me. 

In El Quinto I recall next about another two tandas of slow, leaden, Guardia Vieja type music I did not know similar to the start at El Amateur. I started to wonder if I had made a terrible mistake. Then there was a very good D’Arienzo tanda but it had been slowed down and thus I could not imagine dancing it. I mean the actual sound of the music was slowed down i.e. as if a tape or record was being replayed at a slower rate. DJ software such as Traktor can do this. I looked to the DJ in astonishment and frustration. Tanda after tanda was like this. I queried the slowness with the DJ but she was not aware of it which astonished me further. It made tracks I knew to be famous unidentifiable, even the orchestras became hard to identify. I knew them yet did not because something was so wrong. I heard Rodriguez tracks I knew I knew and was eventually able to associate orchestra name with the weird sound but still the track names remained bizarrely out of reach because the link between name and right sound had been cut like a rope bridge hanging by just one side.  There was also a significant crackle in one of the speakers which the barman I think helped to resolve. Much later towards the end of the afternoon the slowing of tracks either fixed itself or I got so used to it that I no longer noticed it but it completely put me off dancing - even in the other role. I have never had an experience quite like it. It was a shame because after the very shaky start in musical choice the tandas soon became of the sort I remembered from Cambridge - mostly great and mainstream.

Cambridge Spring Festivalito: St Pauls

The day after the opening milonga in Cambridge at Romsey Mill I did a morning tour of the city then went to the afternoon milonga for three hours from 3pm.

The location this time was St Paul’s where I had been before, but this time it was upstairs. 

Entrance - Juana was taking the entrada again, but this time in the hall downstairs.  She told me where to go. There was a room next to the salon jammed with people’s kit. Just as I was wondering where I could sit to change my shoes a woman who had walked in said “It would be nice if there was somewhere to sit to change your shoes” echoing my thoughts. We found a chair or two between the bag room and the salon but in that case you might as well change your shoes in the salon itself. 

Lighting was good, all potential partners were visible.

The floor was excellent. 

There was a kitchen with drinks and snacks.

Seating:  There were chairs but no tables. People took drinks into the salon which led to the inevitable confusion of glasses and risk of spillage on the floor. There was some seat-hopping which is more explicable with the absence of tables: people feel freer to move around.

Atmosphere: It was relaxed, more of a practica feel but people still observing the norms: invitation was predominately by look. I quite liked the fact that I could move around the room more freely and chat to different people. Not everyone of course wants this but most people I find seem to like to chat at the right time and to meet others. As in life, one feels one’s way. On this particular instance as a visiting single I felt more relaxed than the previous night though being able to see people easily really helps with that. I think a more formal milonga without the helpful structure of Buenos Aires style seating can be quite a trial as a visiting single female dancer - depending on the conditions, attendees and things like how much space between seating there is which affects opportunity to chat when not dancing. So although I generally like the conventions around seating and tables I was happy for the change in this case.

Numbers and dancing: There were surprisingly few I thought for a festivalito but then I think it was my first of this type of event and realised many were workshopping.  I saw or spoke to a number of travellers. There was a woman from the milonga desert otherwise known as Kent. There was someone I knew from Leeds, someone from Manchester, three who I see around Eton, two from Edinburgh, a DJ from Chicago who was travelling and doubtless several others. A number, possibly the majority of the Cambridge locals I met were from other countries.

There were few good guy dancers. Some of the guys who could dance from the previous night were not there or were there but mostly watching or stuck in the DJ-and-friends group. I danced with a couple of guys and then decided to dance with women, some of whom I already knew. 

Music:  The music was disappointing. I would not have recognised the DJ (from the music) as the same guy I heard in Carablanca.  Many tracks were not what I think of as mainstream and many were, but I just find that frustrating.  As happened the next day at El Quinto and was to happen again at Beeston that weekend there was a half-good half-poor Di Sarli sextet tanda. I heard something I thought was Pugliese and so did the Chicago DJ but I asked Aytek later and it was (unusual) Troilo. I think there was Pugliese-Maciel of type Cascabelito (1955) and Remembranza (1956).  As music it is nice but it just does not impel me to my feet for dance the way other tracks do. I will happily sit to that and watch the spectacle - often to Pugliese the dancing is just that. There was one very early Guardia Vieja type tanda that was sufficient to send me to the kitchen.  The Di Sarli I heard was of type La Capilla Blanca (1944) which is justifiably famous.  There was good Donato and good Fresedo. The milonga and vals were nice. 

Nevertheless, it was somehow not an unpleasant afternoon mostly because the girl dancing was so much better than the guy dancing. 

My best memories of that afternoon were chatting to a sunny American woman and just the variety of chat generally and seeing Aytek holding his baby on his knee at the DJ desk.

I came across a basement wine bar underneath a wine shop on Mill Road. I wanted to be on my own for a while. The guy in the shop was pleasant and so I had a very good glass of wine in that quiet downstairs darkness. I had slept little and napped at my Airbnb for an hour  before realising I was simply too tired to go out.  I was disappointed that I missed dancing with several people I knew would be there that evening and who were expecting me to be there. I heard the next day that the low light had meant invitation was hard by look.  The music (the DJ was John Tan) was not what that friend preferred.

Next time round I might just dance night.  so there is time to do things in the day, rest a little and dance at night.  I especially like this when I am away visiting another city.  It seems I am not alone.  A friend and I were comparing notes about our weekends dancing away in different places. She told me she had done the same. I had gone sightseeing and danced, they had done workshops and gone to an afternoon dance. All of us skipped our milongas in the evening as a result.

Disruptive?

When we arrived at El Amateur there were few people. Before we knew there was food there we had decided to dance while it was quiet then go and find something to eat. But we hadn’t factored in the music and by the time we had had our tasty soup next door and the music had changed enough that I wanted to dance it, the place was already filling up. 

I am not unfamiliar with dancing with brand new guys in places I do not know well.  I had done so in January in Letchworth, though only I think one tanda, the music being unsuitable for beginners. In mid-February I took a friend new to dance to a new milonga, La Redonda in Edinburgh.  I had done the same with another friend, also a beginner guy in La Catedral in Buenos Aires in March. We danced all evening.  You never know how it is going to go with each guy.  There are similarities dancing with beginner men in swapped roles but equally they are all different.

But in Stuttgart as time went on I felt a bit awkward.  I felt this milonga was traditional in that perhaps they did not expect or appreciate people dancing in swapped roles or more that they did not appreciate complete beginners even in the middle. Later I found my friend, a local, thought more that they were tolerant as long as we did not bump into anyone. Astonishingly, we did not.  With my eyes open I was less sure but did not encounter any apparent hostility, more perhaps surprise. I continued because this was the only chance to dance with my friend, we did not appear to risk harm to or disrupt anyone and we stayed in the middle. Besides, I cannot help but feel it is no bad thing to share, wordlessly, in public the insufficiently well known view that beginner men can - in my opinion should - dance first as women with a more experienced partner, though ideally I think they would do so with another man.

I am not sure I would do the same there again mostly because I felt in those particular circumstances it would have been better and I might have felt less disruptive to the ambience - if indeed it was felt disruptive - in a practica. Or I would wait until I knew the milonga better. The experience also taught me something about how to dance better in swapped roles with beginner men, something I have since tried in another milonga. Still, another man - also a visitor - commented that what we did was a good thing to do for my friend and for me for which I was very grateful. While seated and after I think my friend and I had danced our last tanda of the evening, the visitor gave him a useful tip.  I never would have but it was not his partner and it was from a man to a man, so it was different.   He leaned across me: "Women automatically close their legs" he said to him in his forthright English. They just do. We don’t. But when we dance as the woman we must! Then it will be easier for her, he said, indicating me. 

Certainly, there is nothing more testing than dancing with a beginner guy, especially taller than oneself in swapped roles and in an unfamiliar environment. My friend said it was his best experience dancing tango. Given three failed attempts in class it could hardly have been worse.  Besides, there is no reason to think the real - as opposed to class - conditions would not be better and his remark made it more than reason enough for me.

Lomuto: the good, the bad and the unbearable

I drafted this back in at least January 2015 along with other pieces about music I was writing at the time but life took over.  I post it here because I came across it while searching for something else and was reminded of the mention of Lomuto at the Edinburgh International Tango Festival here and here.   I discovered that I have heard before the Violin Gitano mentioned in the EITF post.  In January 2015 I was still going  to the Counting  House in Edinburgh though not for much longer and used to hear this sort of thing often there.  The music and atmosphere drove me out as it has others though the music would have been sufficient reason.  We rarely hear from people who leave the milongas or find out why they stopped going because often we never see them again and it is easy to forget who is not there in the crowd of those who are.  But I think about them - who they were and why they left and whether we will see them again.  Glasgow has the same problem with music.  Pieces of this sort are...

Lomuto's Cicatrices,  Te aconsejo que me olvides (both 1928)  Viejo amigo, Mi pibe (No links besides Amazon links to this).  Both of these including Patadura  are 1929.  The Patadura track is embedded in a tanda of that sort but if you can listen to all of that you have a stronger will than I.  I have heard Soy un arlequín from that tanda enough times in Edinburgh to last several lifetimes.  It was previously mentioned here with reference to the Canaro instrumental though I have heard the Lomuto more often.    Sin clemencia was, when I used to go, another Edinburgh standard as was Como los nardos en flor (both 1930) and, (brace yourelf) Violin Gitano (1938).  I could go on...but listening to some of this is quite unpleasant.  No wonder Lomuto can have such a bad reputation.   I think there are good Lomuto songs, but few and I heard them played only a couple of time while I was in Buenos Aires.  The more traditional places play rather the instrumentals and then sparingly I would say.

There are the Lomutos which I don't mind and would dance but at the moment I think there is something a bit brash and insistent about the instrumental sections of Yo Nací Para Querer.  There is an element of that I find even in good Lomuto, especially the instrumentals - it is the style of those rhythmic pieces.  Yo Nací Para Querer has a very distinctive Lomuto sound and a lovely melody.  I think that is one of the curious things about some good Lomuto tangos - this gorgeous melody and the very strong rhythmic instrumentals.    Callecita de mi novia I rarely hear but quite like though it rather falls apart for me with Omar's entry.   Monte criollo I think I heard DJ Dante play at his Oxford milonga last year.  Rightly popular are the steady tangos like El cornetín del tranvía (1938) and Nostálgias (1936), but I find more pull for dancing in the tangos with both rhythm and strong melody:  Gólgota , Otra vez (both 1938), La gayola  and even the shrill Copa de ajenjo (both 1941). I melt at his lovely and more romantic tango Por la vuelta yet it still has strength which is a hallmark of good Lomuto for me.  Bad Lomuto just plods.

I confess a closet admiration for Lomuto's milongas. Qué tiempo aquel (1938) is justifiably played.  I hear, like and dance Parque Patricios (1941) and Serenata (1944).  There are some jerky sections in that and I think they need to be danced smoothly and with pauses to take care of the partner.   I like his No hay tierra como la mía (1945) though it isn't the Canaro (both 1939).  His Azabache I find strikingly like the more rightly popular Caló version (both 1942).  Though I prefer fast vals I think he is good with vals especially Idolatria 1937 or the delicate and lovely Lo que vieron mis ojos though I can understand these may not be for everyone.  My heart though is with his very individual instrumentals and there is a good tanda here by DJ Jaana Hänninen featuring the great Catamarca and the even better Criolla Linda which I find wholly irresistible.  I might not miss Lomuto in a very good set but I would probably object to a duplicate of some orchestras (though never good D'Arienzo) at the expense of Lomuto.

There is a more unfortunate Lomuto tanda on TOTW here from DJ Patrica Petronio who writes a blog Tango Salon Adelaide.  Back here there was much discussion of one of their milongas. It might have been on this post that I became curious about the music they had played and said in the comments how nice it would be to see the music that had had such an effect.  The comment was not published.  Having seen that tanda I am disappointed they did not publish the music because I think the set would have revealed much though I better understand the reason for that earlier censorship.  Both censorship and not publishing the music are demonstrations of fear of something, which is sadder than it is disappointing.

“Our right”

I would guess it was to either the Pugliese-Morán, the D’Arienzo-Valdéz or maybe the De Angelis-Martel of type No te perdono mas on Monday night at the Edinburgh International Tango Festival that I saw the VIPs, who arrived late, join the social floor. You could tell who they were because in their first movement they carved up a good quarter of the dance floor for themselves.  Everyone cleared the inner ronda for them which they proceeded to use effectively for a demonstration within what had been a social dance.  Perhaps they found the ronda too sluggish.  Or perhaps those "rules" didn't apply to them.  I have seen some pretty outlandish stuff from from professionals in various rondas but nothing quite like that though it is true I tend to avoid going where there are professionals.  It was clear they took it as their right.  It is another reason why I prefer dancing in the afternoon at festivals - the professionals are away giving classes.  I did not stay for the show.

Where, really, is the skill in performing memorised movements with an experienced partner you know well and dancing so aggressively that everyone clears away from you? 

Professionals who dance in the ronda not taking the space of other people are the ones to watch, without mincing or showing off or the irony you sometimes see.   I like an ironic show, in fact it’s the only kind of show I really do like and I love to see quiet humour and play by couples in the ronda. But I don’t usually like irony in the ronda because it mocks the social dance that everyone is there to enjoy and where I do see that it is usually by professionals.

I like to see how professionals do in a ronda dancing between two couples of ordinary social dancers. Ideally I like to see what they do with an ordinary social dancer and to see how that person enjoys the dance. But actually any amateur dancer who dances improvised, socially, with respect for others, who can dance with different partners of varied experience and make them all feel good is to me so much more skilled.

EITF: Monday

Monday night

I had stayed overnight in Edinburgh after the main festival milonga the previous night.

On the Monday afternoon and the evening milonga I stayed sitting for the most part with friends, none of whom, curiously, were from Edinburgh.  When they said they found the atmosphere closed I wondered if there was a connection between the two things.   I enjoyed the girl chat. For me that Monday afternoon and evening were the best part of the weekend largely for that reason. Sometimes we danced.

The DJ I was most keen to hear was Juan Venegas Ortiz. Juan used to live in Edinburgh but retains the ties.  I knew he could do good sets but sometimes I would hear the odd bit of drama and the occasional Guadia Vieja tanda and occasionally more than a bit of these. I was curious to see which way he was going.

The music was the best I heard this weekend.  I stayed in the salon and danced more so my music notes are more confused for that day. However, I can say  that of the two DJs I heard that day Juan is the DJ I would hear again, being the more mainstream.

As I recall there was great D'Arienzo, good Rodriguez including Este es tu tango and Por eso canto yo. The latter is OK and nice music but not among the best for dancing I think and I find that repeated "ding" on the piano a bit contrived.  I hear it as uncharacteristic of the orchestra, in fact come to think of it it doesn't sound at all like the pianist I expect in that orchestra.  Or maybe it is.  I guess if I'd been on the piano and made to record that track for dance I might have protested the same way.  He sounds a bit ironic to me.

There was a tanda by Laurenz.  I remember because I had two of my best dances of the weekend to that and the Rodriguez with a visitor from somewhere near the Midsummer Tango  event. A friend had previously told me about it. The visitor looked a quiet, even hesitant dancer, easily missed, but I suspected he did not feel that way.  Indeed, he was quiet, assured and musical which is how I and many girls seem to most like them. He disappeared off to class at one point and I could not fathom why he would think he needed to.

I think there were the irresistible Demare vals including No nos veremos más.  Unless I am mistaken there were the Troilo/Marino milongas I like including Barrio del tambor so I guess the others were Con mi perro and the seductive Con permiso but hard to dance without being unpleasantly jerky for the woman. I think these are the best of the possibilities though I suppose one might have been Cimarrón de ausencia. I have a feeling there was also a Troilo/Marino tango tanda of type e.g. Copas, Amigos y Besos  though I think the Biagi/Ortiz is better,  Sombras nada más (“show me that tango passion”- a great tango for performers) and Siga el corso. 

There might have been later Pugliese-Morán of type Pasional and Barro.

I recall dancing good Malerba and next to my note about that is that there was a there was a weird vals I couldn’t place and terrible OTV tangos.  I have heard ropey OTV from Juan before e.g. Viento Norte.  Boy, can you hear it’s 1929.

Not to do him a disservice one of the DJs this day played poor OTV tangos of type Justo el 31 so it might not have been Juan. No matter, whoever it was, this track does not fit in an otherwise largely mainstream set (which Juan’s was). I failed to find the track on the internet, for reasons that will become obvious so here it is on Spotify. I have met people who genuinely like this type of thing and I think all these sort of tracks should be saved up for that select group to enjoy at special milongas of just this sort of music because to inflict them on the rest of us is pure torture.  It isn't just me, see my friend's comment on the similar Lomuto below.  I believe there was also Viejo Arrabal which reminds me of a doolally elderly lady lost in dreams of girlhood. I cannot again find a link on the internet (hint: no one else likes it either) but here it is on Spotify.  Seguime corazón which in comparison has a lot more about it. I don’t know if it was this because I see different versions of it on the internet apparently by OTV though with different melodies but this struck me as easily the best of those.  Considering the rest of the tanda though I'm inclined to think it sounded more like this.  Even if it was the first version, OTV is not for everyone though I heard it played - especially the instrumentals (and not rarely) in various milongas in Buenos Aires.  There is a world of difference though between the (lots of) poor OTV and say Ventarrón.

Most of the rest of Juan’s set I enjoyed and there was a good mix. The dancers showed much appreciation at the end.

Monday Night

Monday night

The salon was prepared differently for the evening compared to the afternoons events. It looked nice but it was darker though this does not really come across in the photos.

The DJ was Jörg Haubner (Germany).  First I should say that once I plucked up the courage to ask him about some of the music which I did several times he was approachable, pleasant and patient.  When I asked him if a tanda later on in the evening was his second Canaro he looked at me as though amused and said yes but that his second one was with Famá from a different era. I had danced I guess the later Famá (which he played earlier) which included perhaps Al subir, al bajar - a mood changing track and one of the happiest I can imagine if you aren't snooty about Canaro and I have been surprised by the number of unpretentious guys I like who refreshingly are not.  At any rate I did not know to recognise all the tracks and asked if I could note the tanda which I had quite liked. He agreed, kindly and I wrote it down but unfortunately as I wrote it on a napkin it did not survive until I had time to reconcile my notes. The earlier one he played later was of type “special” Canaro e.g. Bernabé la fiera - El trapero - Ya vendrán tiempos mejores.  This would go well I feel with that type of OTV I mentioned above, or the Firpo or Lomuto which came later.

I arrived to great D’Arienzo or rhythmic Tanturi - I think it was great D'Arienzo to start and mostly good Tanturi later. There were very few people that early but I knew one lady and we danced it. It was one of my favourite tandas of the weekend because the music was great, I liked my partner and she could dance and with so few around I felt relaxed with no pressure.  Not too long after I danced milonga and later I think Biagi with my most regular guy partner in Scotland, swapping roles back and forth.  Because we know and feel at ease together I felt my normal self return. My eyes were red with sleeplesness but even so I knew after that I was going to dance more naturally than earlier in the festival.

There were De Angelis/Godoy vals which I hear less often but I think they are nice: Angélica (1961)

Hermana (1958)  - I do not think I have ever heard this - and Imaginación (1950).  I have a note that they were played early though and this felt a bit odd because they feel like tracks later in the evening, or maybe that is just in memory I think I heard this sort of thing in Berlin.

Other vals were the OTV of type e.g. La Serenata, Amor Eterna  which I hear little and Amor y Celos.

It was towards the second half of the night during the Canaro-Famá from the earlier period that I considered leaving. After that there was:

Pugliese Moran which was for sure a contrast, of type e.g. No me ecribas, Sin Palabras.

There were Lomuto vals Bajo el cielo azul and Rosas negras  which I don’t think I’ve ever heard but think is nice as with several Lomuto vals. He seems made for the genre. There was the more well known Un vals/Se fue.  

Then D’Arienzo/Valdez of type En el cielo and Por tu culpa te perdi.  Why I didn’t leave at this point I can’t remember.   It is possible it was fascination to see what came next.  I know none of us girls had danced much or at all in a while. 

In fact it was Firpo.  Firpo has become so unpopular among mainstream dancers that I have even seen an encuentro promising no Firpo - no Firpo as advertising, that's how unpopular it is among most good dancers. There was La Bordadora.   I looked at my friends. One gaped in disgust and disbelief saying What is this dirge.  I am afraid I laughed because that is exactly how I often describe this funereal music. I remember a long time BA resident saying in Lo de Celia, a traditional milonga in Buenos Aires, pretty much the same thing when a different (and much better) Lomuto track came on. You have to be careful though with Lomuto, a hair's breadth separates the good from the very bad and, as with OTV not everyone likes it.  And never play Firpo tangos.  Actually I heard the same thing said about Lomuto in another milonga there and by another ex-pat. In the majority they are used to different sorts of tracks.   After that was Firpo's La Carcajarda which I recognised from that cackle.  

Of visitors I did not know I danced with I think four guys during the EITF and one  ambidancing woman.  I wished I had been more relaxed for better dancing with girls before the Sunday night  but did find the conditions inclined me that way.  The best part of the festival for me was the girl chat, hearing the differences in music played by the different DJs and the opportunity to hear La Juan D'Arienzo. 

Edinburgh tango festival: Sunday, including La Juan D'Arienzo

Greyfriars kirk

I usually avoid live music and cover orchestras but this orchestra has a world class reputation and I bought a ticket in advance.  I had already heard recordings of their great instrumental tracks.  Initially I had intended to go to the EITF only for this orchestra.  Music and dancing in Edinburgh as it is means so far this year I had danced there just twice (at La Redonda).  

It was not, therefore for the local music and dancing but curiosity, the chance to dance with visitors, to see my visiting friends and to catch up with people I had not seen for a long time that persuaded me to go back to the Sunday afternoon cafe.  

Afternoon cafe

Someone outside said he had come for the milonga but that the class was still going on.  A class overrunning 45 minutes after the start? I queried.  He had been outside for fifteen or twenty minutes so perhaps not quite that long he said.

I chatted to the box office staff for a while and by the time I went in to the salon the milonga was underway.  The DJ was Antonella Cosi, head DJ at the Edinburgh Tango Society (ETS) and organiser of El Tango Club milongas.  I arrived to a cracking D’Arienzo tanda, type e.g. El cencerro, El caburé, Ataniche which immediately improved my expectant mood.

 Unlike the previous day I was wearing girl clothes and heels. People gave compliments for which I was grateful.  I was to need them later. 

Cortinas
Though the cortinas were longer than the previous afternoon during one of them I counted twenty on the floor. 

Forgive the diversion:  In the ETS regular milongas in the Counting House the confusing,  frustrating and absurd notion of the "silent cortina" used to be the norm until a year or two ago - the excuse being that it was less disruptive.  Less disruptive no doubt for those who want to stay on the floor - as if these are the only people who matter.  Tolerance of, in fact support for that habit remains and was apparent at the festival among some of the ETS head honchos, despite the extraordinary rules. Once started, the practice snowballed as it often does with such things.  It reminds me of feet on seats in railway carriages.  Some years back some rail companies, sensing much public distaste took a tougher line on that practice and it seems to me to have dropped off.

You see people not clearing the floor generally in ETS milongas and notably among those who are anti-cabeceo. The Counting House milongas were my nursery and it is because the floor at the time so seldom cleared that it was a year or two before I learnt the that the cortina is not only an opportunity to swap partners, but more importantly, it lets everyone see to invite by look so that all may have an opportunity to invite efficiently and discreetly, not merely those already on the floor and with no plans to leave.  Now those who remain on the floor usefully demonstrate their disrespect for others who, seated, are trying to see across it.  It is curious that those not clearing the floor included some of the ETS committee which apparently does exist though its members are still, as far as I know not elected or officially named. Even the student tango society holds elections. What with half the committee sticklers for rules and somewhat more traditional music and some quite clearly not, ETS looks under some strain these days. 

Dancing

I spotted about five guys I would have liked to dance with - four of them from out of Scotland.  I had had a good seat but was blocked by the odd couple in front and I did not want to move.  There were younger girls and good dancers in better positions.  I decided to call it quits before mid afternoon. 

Atmosphere

A complaint I heard more than once over the weekend was that the atmosphere was flat.  The same adjective was used by different people. Nonetheless, I heard that at least one of the evenings, I think it was the Saturday night sold out.

***

After I had changed my shoes I spotted my friends, popular dancers, arriving as I left. How had the Saturday night been? Their expressions registered dissatisfaction again. More hand-offering? No, just people who know each other dancing together and sticking together and not great dancing. Had the floor cleared in the cortina? No. That had been the other problem. 

A good milonga started and I danced it with a female friend in my chunky, sparkly pink flip flops - repeating almost exactly the same circumstances from three months previously when I had danced like that to amusement in La Viruta with a porteña I had met in the more traditional milongas. We had been about to leave when a great milonga started and she had asked to dance it.

I left more upbeat again. What’s wrong with me?  I half-thought at my inability to get the dancing I wanted. I wondered at the thoughts of the other women I had seen leaving or who would leave.    I had not realised at that point that the largest single influx of visiting dancers was probably from London, which explained much.  Twenty-five in number I heard from one of them, though they did not all arrive together.  There is a distinctive London style in the milongas because I can sometimes recognise such dancers when I see them on the outer side of the London orbital.  

As I walked along outside at the pavement cafes guys looked, caught my eye and held it.  I started to feel better.  A tall, good-looking guy standing on the pavement about to make a phone call grinned at me from behind his sun-glasses and complimented my pink shoes. I answered my own concern: Nothing, in real life! I thought, pleased. It only seems like it in the world of that milonga. I felt relieved I’d left and spent a tranquil couple of hours in the sun.

Curious to see how things had worked out I went back for the last hour and chatted with friends.   The atmosphere and conditions felt unstable. I did not feel like taking any chances and danced with women I knew though even then not well but also with one or two guy friends.  One gentle dancer always understands the conditions of the woman: "But it took me a long time to realise that" he said.  He said lovely things about my dance as though he realised I needed the boost.  I had been relaxed outside the milonga and still was, in the fun chat with my friends, but realised that inside the milonga I was not relaxed enough to dance as I wanted in the other role.  Besides, the music had deteriorated by the time it reached that last hour. 

***

Music

The volume was significantly better than the previous day.

I heard tracks that did not sound anything like D’Agostino then two D'Agostino, I think Así era el tango and Ahora no me conoces.  The mix of those two with something else was so odd I assumed it was an error.

Then there was:

• great rhythmic instrumental Di Sarli of type e.g. Retirao, Catamarca, Shusheta
• Demare songs with singer Horacio Quintana of type e.g. Torrente, Solamente ella, Corazón no le digas a nadie (nice, but not the best for dancing for me), Igual que un bandoneon.
• Canaro vals of type e.g Sueño de muñeca, En voz baja, Ronda del querer  
• Great Troilo with singer Fiorentino of type e.g. Total pa' qué sirvo, Toda mi vida, Tinta roja, Cachirulo
• Infallible Caló songs with singer Raúl Berón, of type e. g. Jamas Retornaras, Corazon no le hagos caso, Trasnochando, 

I remember less clearly the music in the last hour although there was Canaro, possibly with Melodia Oriental. I don’t think it was the Zerillo version. There was a dire tanda, very poor Lomuto I think, typical of what I remember from the ETS regular milongas type e.g. Cuando llora la milonga  I want to say there was Violin Gitano but I can hardly believe it could be that bad and yet I know it can.  I am pretty sure there was Quiero verte una vez más probably in the Lomuto tanda though it might have been the Canaro, I forget. Both are nice for me.

Sunday night

The main milonga of the weekend was in Greyfriars Kirk, situated within the tranquil setting of its kirkyard.

The DJ was Ewa Zbrzeska with performance from the live orchestra.

Sound from the DJd part of the night was extremely loud and inescapable from speakers all round the floor. I had heard poor reports about this DJ and would be unlikely to attend a milonga with her DJing again. Much of the music was very “tango passion”, not what I enjoy. As an example I believe there was De Angelis/Larocca of type Volvamos a empezar  and Como nos cambia la vida and early on at that, or something similar which felt even more odd at that time. I think I heard Troilo-Marino too or much in that vein.

In the past the Greyfriars' floor had been notoriously slippy but was about perfect now. 

Seating and lighting was quite good. You cannot see everyone for invitation because of the size of the venue but guys could move around to invite from different spots without too much bunching and loss of discretion.

The ronda does not look too bad in the top photo, which was taken at about midnight but you can see the right hand side is not as well defined as the left.

The orchestra was great. I danced four tracks with a woman friend and enjoyed it. I would have danced more with others but felt you particularly need the right partner and better conditions for that strong music. I could feel it coursing through me. It was like being in, being part of the music as with the best recorded music only more so. At least two people who did the orchestra’s musicality workshop said it was the best part of the weekend for them. One who went said: a live orchestra for a dozen couples and his expression spoke his enjoyment. I half-wished I had attended but don’t think I could have borne any required partner rotation which is usually the risk in class.

EITF: Music, Saturday afternoon

The DJ was Mike Quickfall, The 2.5 hours I heard of the set was quite good. The tracks were great and good tandas but rather unbalanced.  I was surprised how many good tracks because while I had heard a good set by this DJ when he first started, the next set or two that I heard was or were so alternative or had had just poor music (therefore not what I call traditional, even if it is old) and not what I liked that I did not go again. 

Tangos were in four, vals and milonga in threes, cortinas were pretty short, ~10s. I did not keep track of it all as I danced some but what I heard was roughly like this:

• Good trad vals on arrival. Later on there was an alternative vals.
• OTV - Anoche a las cuatro - Mi taza de cafe - Una vez
• Another Mi taza de cafe, in the next tanda: Malerba. I have heard this DJ repeat tracks and also orchestras before in sets to the detriment of balance. There was another good track or two, my sense was that it was Malerba and José García mixed but I was chatting. I think I heard Qué no sepan las estrellas by García. If I’ve got that right it was a bit of an odd mix. Despite that Malerba is very distinctive it didn’t jar badly with me - but might have if I’d been dancing. 
• Great rhythmic Laurenz including No me extraña and Amurado and I think De Puro Guapo but again I was chatting. 
• There was vals Lagrimas y sonrisas, Biagi I think, then something I didn’t know then Corazón de artista, Malerba but I thought it worked OK at the time. Who would think this vals could be so different from his serious, ponderous, tangos?
• There was great Fresedo, good D’Arienzo with I think El flete about here, good milonga, good rhythmic Lomuto songs, good Donato songs. Then there was nice Rodriguez and I heard a Biagi tanda which I’d seen on the playlist and knew to be great with e.g. La maleva and friends. It was not necessarily in that order.

What I heard then this time was quite an earthy set with OTV, Donato, Rodriguez, Lomuto.   To break up the earthy tandas it would have been nice to have something smoother and more sophisticated - Caló, D’Agostino, De Angelis.  Perhaps a Troilo or Tanturi for a different sort of rhythmic sound - to break up the rhythmic tandas I had already heard. Someone who listens, who stayed later than me and hasn't much time for the earthier music said that later there were missed cortinas and that as well as the two Donato tangos I heard there was also a Donato milonga…

The good music I heard was largely ruined by the volume. The speakers were at one end. Even opposite these by the entrance and DJ spot it was far too loud, sometimes deafening. I have also heard very variable sound from this DJ before at the Counting House - too quiet and too loud, usually dependent on whether he was dancing or not. Once that afternoon during a cortina when I was - madly - for a short time sitting near the speakers chatting, I felt the sound go inside my body and and felt it reverberate right through me more than I actually heard anything. Luckily i had blocked my ears and moved straightaway. Later in the weekend I saw an experienced dancer wearing earplugs and thought her wise.