I had had a lovely morning and was a little reluctant to run the gauntlet of the milonga. I arrived at the start to find it very quiet and considered perhaps I ought to have stayed out in the city and the sun, but remembered when a milonga is quieter you can often have a better time. Deciding to see about dancing with women I wore flats yet accepted, inexplicably, a couple of guys I had avoided the day before, mostly I guess because they invited very respectfully, yet still too near for the quiet conditions. The downside of a quiet milonga you don't know is it can be harder to refuse invitations you do not really want. I accepted a couple more in conditions that were nigh on impossible to get out of but were my own fault. Then I accepted someone who looked good yet I suspected was too forceful which was true.
The effect of dancing one does not like is tension and stress, visible both on and off the floor. I had been manhandled, the floor was becoming and my knee hurt.
But my luck changed. I was on the stools watching the floor while there was no wall of women. I had not seen him dance but from the quiet, fun way he invited at a distance just knew he would dance well. Humour is often a shortcut.
Later, I sought a dance by mirada across the tabled area and got a nice, traditional Buenos Aires type dance with a guy older than me. He did a double take perhaps because I had not seemed to want to dance for so long. Look. If he keeps looking, smile. (Maybe) an invitation. I think that's how it works.
On Saturday night, fuelled by the type of music, the atmosphere felt busier and pumped. I had had a nice, relaxing evening in the park prior to arriving quite late perhaps 2330. The milonga had started at 2200. I soon felt uncomfortable and could not settle. I did not find partners nor expect to and quit after two hours. I saw others also leaving before me especially after 0030. I think I danced once through direct invitation I had found hard to get out of but again that was my own choice and the dance was fine.
On Sunday afternoon the weather was gorgeous again. I figured the way things had been I was probably going to have a better time out of the milonga than in. I stayed out in the good weather and did not go to the dance until the last 90 minutes, around 1730. I sat near the front of the little used seating with tables to watch the dancing with only the floor in front of me, inexplicably well out of reach of all most invitation. Under pressure the gaze can narrow. I had seen the desperate covert and less covert gazes of women who are not dancing. Unwilling to be anything like then, I found my head physically would not turn towards where the guys were. Don’t be perverse I scolded myself, moving to the quieter side of the bar where I fell into easy conversation with Kenneth. I was surprised then to be invited by one of the good dancers and the only guy in fact with whom I'd chatted hitherto. So those theories I mentioned I suppose were borne out - knowing people and becoming relaxed/distracted seemed to work.
The dance was the swooping, elegant and athletic European style. Being my first dance since the previous afternoon I was not warmed up and felt as stiff and awkward as the Tin Man. That style tends to make fewer concessions to the conditions of the woman than others. In similar circumstances I often have a sense that I must try to keep up. But it was one of my best dances of the weekend.
So I had three good tandas over the four milongas at the Tango Loft milonga weekend which, proportioned against travel speaks for itself. The conditions regarding seating, lighting and invitation were not right for me personally and during the weekend I felt stuck between the guys who wanted to dance with me but with whom I did not want to dance and the guys I wanted to dance with who did not want to dance with me. Even so although there were plenty of good dancers I did not have much sense that I wanted to dance with many of them - or perhaps that is just what happens when you feel guys do not want to dance with you. Who after all would want to dance with someone when, apparently invisible to them, the feeling is clearly not mutual?
I am glad I went to Stuttgart. Tango Loft is an attractive venue, Kenneth is a warm host and there was plenty of good dancing and from the milongas the weekend offered much for reflection. As in Cambridge, in Nottingham and this weekend at Dumbarton Castle rather than at the new milonga in Glasgow with which I combined that trip, my best time was outside the milongas, exploring and being shown the city. As so often in life friendship makes all the difference.
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