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.