Practising what you teach

I haven't been writing much on The Outpost.  It is summer.  We are outside more during this all-too-short season.  It is the school holidays and I am busy trying to keep the children off the screens and as active as possible.  There has been a lot of sport.    I have also been writing, finally, about things that preoccupy me rather more than seriously than tango on The Intertidal Zone, a littoral, a foreshore, a place where things get washed up.  

On Saturday though I went to a milonga with a show, or rather, the teachers apparently like to call it a demo, not a performance. The venue was unassuming from the outside - a church hall in Linlithgow but the floor was good enough, there was the low-key, pleasant decoration with fairy lights and tartan bunting that these hosts do well.  The dance space could be made bigger or smaller with the seating layout. Despite the much higher than average number of good dancers the floorcraft was so-so because there was such a mix of experience and attitudes on the floor and many people had not danced together before.  

The DJ was Bogdan, a fun guy and a good dancer.  There were enough good, classic tracks (and tandas) of traditional music.  The tracks were not always the best quality and they had not been automatically normalised for the same volume but - perhaps for that reason - he stayed mostly at the DJ spot and was for the most part an attentive DJ.  

The good dancers came from the south of England, friends of the hosts, Chris and Monique Bean. It was a surprise to see the aristocrats of UK social dancing in this little Scottish hall with the local yokels. The English sat, for the most part, in two groups in different parts of the hall and generally seemed to dance together.  That was not surprising given (most of) the local dancing and the fact that the visitors did not know people. Perhaps though it will start something off. These hosts are the right people for that. It could certainly do something special for the Scottish scene.  This public event seems to have replaced, this year at any rate, the private event they held last year. 

 Was the dancing good?  There was plenty of good dancing. Not for me but I have never felt in with the vibe of that rarified element of the (mostly) southern crowd and don't look to those guys for dance though some are super dancers. One or two of them skimmed over me in the deep past when I used to dance in the south and though I wish it were otherwise a brutal combination of timidity and pride means I don't often do second chances.  I feel lucky to have danced with those I have and don't want to spoil the memory by looking and getting a refusal.  Did anyone ever say tango wasn't screwed up?  I don't do second chances for girls that turn me down either which makes for a restricted dancing life in places where you see the same people.  

I don't find dancing in Scotland relaxing though on this evening some of the free red wine helped with that. I caught up with one or two local friends in chat and even danced a couple of tandas with people who invited me to lead them.   For a forty-five minute trip both ways it wasn't much.   I was glad though that I went out and perhaps it stopped the rusting up entirely.  The last time I had been to a milonga was during a weekend trip to London / Cambridge / Norwich  nearly two months before. 

The teachers Alexis (Chile) and Celine (from Sète in France) danced the most unshowy demo I think I have ever seen mid-milonga. Someone later said they used to dance even more simply.  I wish I could have seen that. It was not unlike just watching good social dancing. I wondered though, why we were watching it as a demo or performance. You can see similarly good dancing in the ronda in any good milonga. There was, mercifully no VIP table.

Another nice touch was that they didn't dress up. He didn't wear striped, baggy, look-at-me tango trousers.  In the milonga you would not have thought him the teacher.  He just hung about like an ordinary guy in ordinary clothes.  She chatted with some of the dancers, unostentatiously. Similarly, the hosts of this milonga make almost a point of not making dancing a fussy affair, dress-wise. For the show Alexis put on a jacket - that was about it in terms of dressing up. Celine danced in her skinny jeans and a thin knit ordinary yellow top. They both wore the same grey, flat, unfussy canvas shoes. I saw the soles and am not even sure they were dance shoes.

It was nice.  I see that most of their videos are not so casual in tone and dress but it felt to me like a redefinition of what a mid-milonga performance usually is  It showed dancing tango as simple, elegant and normal. It didn't look like they were trying to show-off steps people had been learning in the workshops.  It made dancing tango look like something to do with your friends any day of the week. Like all good dancing they made it look easier than it is but unlike tango on TV, the sheer unfussiness of it all made it look like something within the reach of everyone - which it is.  

The tango they danced was a low-key Orquesta Típica Victor track.  Celine seemed almost embarrassed by the applause. Alexis kept trying to 'give' it to her. It was all modest, downplayed. I warmed to them. I chatted to him later and said how different it had been to most performances. "We are social dancers", he said, quietly, in explanation. But you teach people how to embrace? I said, meaning: how do you teach something that comes from a unique feeling between two individuals with their own chemistry and compatibility. There seemed to be, conveniently, a language issue at this point or maybe he just didn't get the point which I left unpacked.  He is, at any rate, a quiet, self-contained guy.   I suggested that he might draw a small box in the centre and dance inside that next time. He laughed. 

If teachers are trying to promote themselves as teachers of true social dance - and these two come as close to it as any I've seen - the obvious thing would be to refuse to dance demos.  Students, everyone in fact, could just see them dancing in the real social conditions of the ronda - demonstrating truly, that they are social dancers, practising what they teach.

Comments

It has long been a curiosity to me that comments on this blog are often anonymous. The Outpost, as its name suggests, is not where you find the currently standard messages in the tango world about the necessity of hard work, finding a good teacher, apeing and admiring performers and so on. The tango community, country by country, and certainly in the UK, is relatively small. At the most popular milongas it is common to recognise most faces.  It is not then surprising that most agreeing with the views here wish to remain publicly silent, or at least, anonymous. 

However, The Outpost has recently received numerous spam comments. I wanted to share the most recent one with you to illustrate how sophisticated these can be. 

"Hello there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a team of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche.Your blog provided us beneficial information to work on. You have done a marvellous job!" 

A whole team genuinely wanting to express solidarity would not be afraid to say who they were.  The anonymity and non-specific yet supportive nature of the comment, the flattery, and the fact that it is on the same post that is currently being targeted are the clues.  Most people who write comments on blogs like the Outpost are querying, elaborating or disagreeing with something.  There are comments genuinely supportive and for a moment I paused over the spam button with this one.  It demonstrates how much spam has evolved.  

Forbidden pleasure

Mark Cartwright

The same friend helped me translate this tango some weeks ago.  It turned out to be fitting after what she had said about her own upbringing:  the girl from a good family who seeks out pleasure in life where she shouldn't.  Perhaps there is irony then that the title of the tango is 'Como has cambiado pebeta':  How you have changed, girl.  And yet, in the grander scheme of things, how much do girls change?  This friend still seeks pleasure in the milongas.  To many, all that entwined dancing and partner swapping still sounds risque and to some, and downright morally untoward.

It was during this translation that I realised it is the things that are culturally un-British that are hardest to translate.  As, between dances, we made progress with certain phrases, her eyes shone as she explained.  Perhaps it was the topic of forbidden desires. Her voice was rich with delight and the enjoyment of revelation.   I love the lyrics of this song.  The last verse is like the shutter of a camera clicking - cameos from which the reader must draw their own conclusions.   Without the music it stands very well as a poem. 

Tango, the dance and even the music was and still is forbidden to some. My father disapproves that I dance. Whenever he has generously given me money it is always with the proviso that none of it goes on tango, and I am not extravagant with dance. If shoes are the indicator of this particular addiction, I have only ever had 3 pairs of heels and two of these have years in them.  "I mean travel", I can just hear him saying.  

My husband tolerates my hobby but never mentions it. I met a woman whose grandmother, in the 1920s was forbidden anything to do with tango and only found freedom much later in playing the music after the death of her parents and husband.  But tango is more innocuous than many non dancers think. There is a lovely line in Bill Swan’s book: Sex is just a crude substitute for tango . (Interactive version here.): "divorce leads to tango, not the other way around". In the same book I laughed aloud at:

The pedestrians are seldom aware that they rank just below broken tiles in terms of their desirability on the dance floor. Waiters are the worst. They think that it is first and foremost their place of work and their territory. People who are not at the moment ordering, consuming, or paying are an unnecessary and inappropriate inconvenience. Making matters worse are the teachers... 

In the milonga I asked Isabella:  

"But why does it say “the night is thirsty”?

Thirsty for you! For people! she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. The night wants to drink them all up! 

Incidentally, 'Vuaturés' is an Argetinian corruption of the French “Voiturettes”. These were a kind of early car - just the sort of exciting novelty a girl like this pebeta would love to go for an, undoubtedly illicit, spin. According to a discussion on Todotango, they were later banned as they were - evidently thrillingly - dangerous. 

In correspondence, Santiago mentioned this interesting snippet: 

By the way, it is not the only tango mentioning vuaturé in its lyrics. The original text of Gloria (although that part is not sung by Nina Miranda in its famous Raciatti version as far as I recall) says also:

" Yo no quiero farras ni champán

ni vivir en un petit-hotel

y a la voituré que vos me das

yo prefiero un coche de alquiler"

I don't want parties nor champagne

nor to live in a little hotel

and as to the voiturette you give me

I prefer a rental.

¡Cómo has cambiado pebeta! Vos sos              La que ayer iba cantando un amor, Y al pasar eras feliz, Tu charlar, tu reír Tu gozar de la vida. ¡Cómo has cambiado pebeta! Vos sos La que ayer iba cantando un amor, Hoy fingís mientras pensás, Que el vivir es penar, Es sufrir y es traición. Pero tu historia es vulgar, Novela de arrabal Mil veces repetida... Niña bien, “vuaturés”, Mentiras a mamá Y óperas de sueño ausente. Bailes de matiné, Juramento al bailar Amando en tiempo presente. Tiene la noche sed, Esquinas sin farol Boca sin rouge al partir.

How you have changed, girl. You who Yesterday went singing of love And as you went by, were happy Your chat, your laugh Your pleasure in life How you have changed, girl.  You who Yesterday went singing of love Today only pretend.  Really, you think That life is pain, Is suffering and betrayal But your story is commonplace, A trashy novel Repeated a thousand times A girl from a good family, “Voiturettes” Lying to mama And going about drugged from lack of sleep Afternoon dances Promises to dance Loving in the here and now The night is thirsty Unlit street corners A mouth without lipstick upon leaving

Milonga volume

I went to the milonga on Sunday. I had tied it to a day out in Edinburgh, to the Queens Gallery, which I can't recommend enough. 

The Counting House, venue for the Edinburgh milonga had, unusually a visiting DJ, this one from Amsterdam: Jimi Chimichurri which is one reason I had wanted to go. She looked fun and danced both roles. For reference, the set, as many do, started fairly classic but turned increasingly away from that. It was also loud, that loudness where you have to raise your voice for a conversation and you want to leave. But I'd stayed after my day out to have a meal and wait for the milonga to start, never mind the hour's travel. With time invested, sometimes hope does not die immediately.  I spent more time at that noise level than was good for me. I quit on one of the tracks with a new partner. I stayed a good deal outside the room chatting, translating lyrics, waiting for the music to change or the volume to come down or both. 

One guy I met said his theory that the reason so many DJs play so loudly is "they must be half deaf."  This is not the first time an experienced dancer has said so. I can only think, it must be true even though so many of them sit behind the speakers where they don't hear what the dancers hear and are - one hopes not deliberately - slightly more protected than the rest of us.

I could only think this must unfortunately also be the case at the Midnight Milonga in Glasgow on Saturday. DJ Iain played the good music so very loudly in that small room that I think I danced two tandas before leaving within two hours. It was a two hour round trip for a matter of minutes in the ronda.  I can't see myself rushing back. I last went in January when much of the music was non-traditional with some classic tandas inbetween (DJ Susan).  I find a note from last year that says  I stayed 45 minutes.  Hope burns eternal. 

The rest of the time there I spent again outside the room, protecting my ears. I remember thinking that at some 10-15 metres from the room the volume was about what it should be. Again, instead, I translated lyrics or chatted. 

A propos that milonga, I mentioned recently that milongas in the south of the UK can be around £10 whereas here they are more often perhaps £7 and some of these include tea and cakes. The Midnight Milonga is an exception. It is £10. Fresh fruit is included but not the cakes and other nibbles there used to be, perhaps because they come in packaging. The milonga has now gone "zero waste". A sign said bring your own cup from now on and use one of their jam jars for tonight.  So I drank wine from a jam jar.  The price is the same though. I remember money has always been a bit of an issue for the teacher-organiser. 

Regarding sound levels, it was a similar story at the first milonga at my recent weekend in Toulouse. My friend and I were sitting at the table next to DJ Greg who seemed energetic, hyped even, which tends to worry me, in a DJ.  Memories of head-banging to Pugliese crowd in.   I spoke to him later without recognising him at first, perhaps because he was so calm, even analytical.  On that first night though the music was too loud for me.  Within five minutes of meeting the friend I was looking forward to chatting with, I had to tell him I was going to sit in the area behind the speakers.  I was worried he might be offended as we don't know one another well but such dilemmas loud music forces upon us.  My friend stayed where he was. He is already deaf in one ear.  He had an unhappy time that weekend.  I wondered if I could have mitigated that at all had we been able to sit together properly in the milonga that first night but the volume prevented that.

Be aware how either short exposure to very loud noise or prolonged exposure to unsafe levels of noise can damage your hearing. Get the app, mentioned here. And don't risk staying anywhere where it even crosses your mind that it's loud. 

Sound and noise

Caird Hall, Dundee

In the local library this week I walked past a woman at an unexciting-looking table of pamphlets. She was from a local hearing charity. After my recent discoveries at the audiologist I went to chat to her. 

She now worked for this charity because, like the woman I saw at the audiologists (who had been a mortgage advisor) her adult son also had hearing loss. Sadly, he had been in a car crash, his jaw had been broken and his hearing damaged. The week that I saw her he was just back from a holiday abroad and had totally lost the hearing in his bad ear. 

- I told him to get straight down to A&E [the hospital emergency department] for a steriod injection in the eardrum.  Then you wait and hope. You used to have to take tablets then lie down for two weeks and hope, she said.  

We live on a noisy planet. I thought things were getting better in the 90s. For a while fashion turned beige and styles were loose and flowing. It was a kinder, more natural look compared to the boxy, shoulder padded 'power and money' styles of the money-grabbing 1980s.  We didn't know then we were comparatively innocent.  Necessity may have forced the climate crisis up the agenda and there are signs of more social responsibility but the world seems busier, louder and more rapacious than ever.  There are no real, large-scale solutions in place to address the issues of traffic and waste avoidance, especially single-use plastic, to name but two.  Not in the UK, at least, not yet and time is running out.

Here in Perth I live on the edge of the town centre opposite a park and a stone's throw from the majestic Tay river.  In many ways it is an enviable location and I am grateful for the sun playing on the trees and the grass that I see through the window even now.  But I also live between a road and a railway. Both have become much noisier in the twelve years we have lived here. The trains are faster and louder. Writing to Scotrail asking for them to slow down in town has had no effect. The trains routinely break the speed limit.  When we first moved in when they crawled past our houses and you could barely hear them.   Traffic has built up too - the sheer volume of it now together with the tractors and trailers bombing through town and the lorries, the motorcycles, the emergency vehicles all adding to the cacophony.  I am lucky that while we sometimes go the busy, polluted, deafening but quick route through town to get to school we can come back through a gorgeous park.  The council doesn't maintain it any more.  It was supposed to be a joint community-council project but I heard that now, apparently, apart from grass-cutting it is maintained by a few volunteers

Rodney Gardens, Perth

These places are havens from noise but land is more often grabbed for development and profit than to create these sanctuaries for people and nature to thrive.  Here is the view this morning from the railway bridge down to the distant road bridge, I had travelled up five minutes before.  You can't see easily in this picture but it is jammed, as is usual now, with traffic.  Pedestrians and bikes invariably accommodate one another on the narrow space of the railway bridge.  I met a nice elderly man at one end.  We said good morning as we passed and  - as we do in Britain - remarked on the fine day.  On a bike or on foot it is a kinder, more humane way to travel.   

Minutes after leaving this bridge four cars passed over the pedestrian crossing I was standing on with my bike, one of them missing me by inches.  This is common and it is why I don't let my son walk to school alone although he is ten.  Frenetic, noisy modern life is not good for us.  It long ago reached the middle of Scotland.

It is not just airport workers and road menders whose hearing is at risk.  In fact, those workers wear hearing defenders so are probably less at risk. Ordinary life can cause hearing problems. The charity worker said that only last week her own mother had been to a concert at the Caird hall in Dundee - a respectable venue where the Royal Scottish National Orchestra plays regularly. She had come home and phoned her daughter saying there was water running somewhere in the house but she couldn't find it.  It turned out to be tinnitus in her ears following the concert.  I rarely go to concerts anymore nor the cinema. The last time we went was to a superb concert by a private school.  But we were in the front row, right next to the pipes and drums which were first on. My younger son scarpered immediately to the safety of his grandparents' seats much further back.  The sound in the cinema is so loud it makes the room vibrate. 

The hearing charity is seeing a rise in teenagers too, suffering not hearing loss but tinnitus from overuse of headphones. Wearing these, like swimming also causes wax to harden in the ears. With, increasingly fewer treatements available on the NHS, syringing the ears is one of those to go. Why? Because I was told recently, water can get where it shouldn't and cause infection. Some of the equipment is quite old (metal syringes) and they can cause damage if they go too far into the ear. There are just a lot of risks which GPs don't want to take. 

What should you do then? NHS guidance is to soften wax by putting a drop or two of olive or almond oil in the ear for two weeks. But stop putting oil in your ears says this specialist. Get a microsuction treatment instead. You can get microsuction on the NHS but apparently, at least in Scotland there is only one audiologist per health board serving 150,000 people.  The waiting time sounded like the way it is for physiotherapy - months and months.   Privately it costs £50-70.  So why don't GPs don't have microsuction? Less because of the cost of equipment apparently and more like the cost of training someone to use it.

Many of us feel that if we can't afford private health the free National Health Service is our only option. But more and more is being cut out of the NHS, some of them things I can remember my parents having treatment for. Moles are no longer removed unless they are a cancer risk and physiotherapy referrals for musculoskeletal (MSK) issues take months. Ears aren't syringed. Travel vaccinations aren't provided, varicose vein removal, tonsillectomy...the list goes on. See the 2018 list here of procedures that have been cut.  There is much sense behind some of these but if you are in constant pain what do you do? 1 in 5 of us are likely to suffer hearing loss.    

But health is really all we have. When that goes, it affects our happiness. our families our friends, the hobbies we have, the things we can do, the places we can go, our children's childhoods. If you can, better pay up. If you can't, I just don't know....My heart goes out to the people with pain or people with MSK problems who can't afford treatments that aren't funded any more or that are in departments that are so over-stretched they will have to wait months for them. 

Inside your ear is the cochlea. Sound doesn't go right there. It is a complicated and delicate business - first there is the ear drum, then three moving bones and then you get the cochlea which is wound up like a snail. If you were to unwind it it would be about this long she showed me with two fingers indicating maybe 10-15cm. The cochlea has hairs on it which turn sound into electrical signals to the brain. Watch the video from the US National Institute on Deafness and other Common Disorder to find out or remember how astonishing this process is. No wonder people took so long to accept evolution as a theory over the "the world had to have been designed" idea. Once you have seen the video you will want to look after this delicate mechanism even more. Age makes these hairs droop she said, so they don't hear so well. But a shock can damage them too, like a firework. 

Can they be restored? I asked.  No. That is why prevention is so important.  Although there is recent research on fish and other creatures where they have managed to regrow similar hairs.  The lady from the charity said that we should be getting a hearing test every 3 years.

- Really? I asked, suprised. From what age? 

- From your 30s.

- Oh! I said, thinking that we know about eye tests and was, it, after all, so different for ears?  Is that, common knowledge? 

- By no means! she said That's is why I stand in libraries telling people this sort of thing. It commonly takes ten years between people first having a hearing concern and getting hearing aids. It is not something many people want to face up to. The tests are free [in Scotland] she said. From Specsavers [a chain of opticians] or Boots [a chain of pharmacies / chemists]. 

We talked about measuring decibels. I had looked into it a little and found that tools to measure sound really need to be calibrated if they are to be accurate and the calibration equipment adds a lot to the cost. I use an app, she said. When I go out with my son if there is a lot of background noise he just can't hear me. She uses it in bars for example to show staff what the music level is compared to what is safe.  She tells them her son has hearing loss and explains to them what the level should be. Wherever possible she chooses places don't play music and that have carpeting and soft furnishing which apparently helps a lot. Wetherspoons [a chain of pubs] apparently, doesn't play music. Who would have thought! 

If your ears don't already warn you, do get that app. It's called Decibel X. It won't be perfect but it's something. In the milonga, if you have to raise your voice to speak to the person next to you, you are,  if you stay, likely to damage your hearing. Practically no DJ will, in my experience, lower the volume enough or at all whether asked directly by attendees or by the organiser.  Most take is a criticism, an affront, not as useful feedback.  But don't risk staying.  Just leave. 

Milonga organisers

I am not inclined to knock a milonga organiser or perhaps I hope I am less inclined than I might have been.  Having run some milongas, I know what is involved.  So why knock them unless, that is, the organiser does noxious, harmful things and provided they are not malicious and controlling or try to squeeze out other organisers. A few, especially in Scotland, don't announce the type of music or the DJ but in the wider scheme of things Scotland's milongas are not, despite the longevity of some of them, as developed as in much of Europe.  There are milonga organisers, everywhere, sadly, who do all of these things, but, in general, milonga hosts are the ones who provide a place for us to dance. 

Those whom I do find frustrating are the ones who cancel but surreptitiously remove all evidence that there ever was going to be a milonga. That is not only unreliable but underhand and luckily rare in my own experience although I have heard of it.  It is just a question of openness, honesty and apologising for the mistakes we make and the obstacles we all encounter and can often do nothing about.   

For a milonga organiser to do what they say they are going to do largely means running the milongas when it is advertised, starting the milonga when it is supposed to start and playing the music as advertised.  Some DJs at special events, will, in their wisdom wait twenty or even thirty minutes after the event is billed to start until they deem there enough people to be worthy of playing the music. Disappointing and arrogant though this is, not to mention disrespectful to the people who have turned up on time to dance, it tells you so much about the personality of the DJ that it is worth knowing. DJ Eleanor aka Ms Hedgehog was the last person I heard do this last year but, not to single her out, it is relatively common among a certain style of DJ, especially guest DJs I have noticed.  Local DJs almost never do this, probably because their career would be short if they did.

I remember an organiser of several milongas in a city near me and the 'capo' of everything in one of my local scenes once writing a quease-inducing Facebook note about how amazing milonga organisers were and how we should all (practically), love, honour and obey them. I say obey because this couple had been known to stop their milonga to get everyone into proper lines and lecture them on how to dance in an orderly fashion.  That couple didn't survive too long and scared away many people during their reign. One can't praise oneself or one's actions even try to induce praise for oneself. It does not work that way and is liable to backfire. It is the same with the term milonguero. You can't call yourself a milonguero, never mind a milonguero de ley. It doesn't work that way. It's a title of respect accorded by others.   It's the same with calling your milonga "warm and friendly".  Milongas that really are like that don't need to say it.  It's the ones that force those ideas upon you in their advertising that, contrarily, an attendee might be wise to be cautious about.  When brandished like a stick it is more warning than anything else.

A woman, a super dual role dancer, told me recently that she used to run a milonga with a team of others but it was so much work, attendees took it so much for granted, often complained that things weren't just so for their preferences and the commitment of the organising team was variable.  Unsurprisingly, she gave up. She now goes to a midweek student practica in Delft where the dancing is apparently good and it has been known for at least one good dancer to cross Holland to attend. 

Running a milonga can be a huge amount of work, especially when food is involved.  When you break it down there are a lot of jobs:

- admin and room hire

- advertising

- food and drink shopping and prep

- DJing

- preparing and setting up the room, floor, lights, sound system

- kitchen  / bar staff

- someone on the door (optionally),
- greeting guests, checking everything is running well, dealing with any incidents and general hosting

- clearing up

There may be other jobs I have forgotten. So, there really is a lot to do and many organisers will tell you they don't get much opportunity to dance or aren't, after all that, in the right frame of mind to want to dance.  

After room hire, food, the buying of any equipment for the food, music, lighting and other start-up costs, DJ fees if necessary, never mind the fees of any visiting performers they don't tend to make much if any money.  Good milongas usually take a lot of time and effort from many people.  These things being the case, and if there is little or no money in it, you would have to be of a particularly altruistic disposition to want to run a milonga.  Either that or you find a way to make it profitable or so low-stress that you do in fact have opportunity and desire to dance.  

It is always wonderful I think how cheap many milongas are. For £7, the price of a couple of drinks you can enjoy a whole evening of music, dance and society.  This might rise to £10 in the south of England or £20 (in our area) for a special event milonga with a show and sometimes a buffet. But many eschew these since they are not interested in the show, the buffet in my experience is seldom up to much and the attendees tend to be the same locals you can dance with on an ordinary day at less than half the price. In Edinburgh, the price of the four hour practica + milonga is still an astonishing £3.  I have noticed that the longer the milonga the better value they tend to be, especially once you factor in the time and cost of travel.

Done for the right motives running a milonga is practically a service to the community. That is one reason why I think it can be a good idea if they are run by the community. In Newcastle as in Padanaram, as with the community run TangoMac and TangoAires in Liverpool there is apparently a team of people who run their weekly milonga. It has always seemed to me a sensible way to do it if you can make that team effort work.   To some extent that organisation is true of the Edinburgh tango society (though it is shadowy) and the Glasgow tango collective (run by a group of friends - see the Tango Aires link ). 

There is good news on this score. There used to be a (very short) midweek practica in practica, run by teachers. It started off as a milonga, La Redonda but soon became a practica prefixed by a class. These things are burdensome to teachers and not particularly profitable.  It has recently been taken over by the community to run. While it was good to hear that, as with Tango Mac, people will take turns to host and DJ I cringed rather when I read it was done "with the blessing" of the teachers. Still, it is nice that they are looking for ideas on how to make this "the best community practica in Edinburgh" although as far as I know, it is the only community practica in Edinburgh.  It would be naive and misguided to think that a milonga or practica shouldn't have the stamp of the organiser, their vision, ideas and preferences; usually their success comes from just that.  One hopes though that openness to comments from the attendees is the sign of open, and not overly-controlling organisers, 

A milonga is a delicate system, a gestalt. Like a party, its constituent parts all need to work well - music, lighting, sound, floor, hosting, attendees, dancing, atmosphere - all have to combine and harmonise together to be successful and then it is so much more than just its parts. To create something like that comes down largely to the personality and the abilities of the host in this art.

The milongas in Europe of which I have particularly good memories are still Costa and Flo's Pasional in Cambridge, warm hosts with much of the classic Buenos Aires style music I like to dance by Chris (setlists here);  Tango West in Bristol with super hosting by Andrew, and Franc's Oranjerie milonga (now defunct) - he was a charming host.  I also like Iain's milongas because although the space is small he such a lovely host and the Tuinhuis milonga (the entrada was an optional DJ contribution), when Laura ran it.   I enjoyed Richard Slade's Menuda milonga (now ended after ?seven years) on the second occasion I went because he was an easygoing host, the venue in a Dorset village hall was gorgeous, and there was a barbecue.  I went with the ever-amiable Iain which caused a transformation relative to my first experience when not one person bar a very small foreign visitor would dance with me.  The Wilhelmina pier was special for the setting.  Perhaps had I written up some of the many others I have visited since 2017, when I stopped writing milonga reviews, I would remember them better...

Curiously, none of the many London milongas feature among my favourites.  I feel conflicted about the UK's Eton milonga weekends.  Eton is west of London.  The milongas are known internationally by some but the milongas have now moved to the nearby village of Old Windsor.  The former venue was undoubtedly attractive.  People came from all over the UK and there were occasionally some international guests though it could get impossible busy.  It is certainly an opportunity to hear a  variety of different DJs though whether all of these are worth travelling long distances for is questionable.  Personally, I invariably preferred the host's own mostly classic musical choices. I liked that you did not have to book.  The new venue has, mercifully, much easier parking.  The venue is not quite the same though not so different that one would avoid it.  Some people don't go now because there is no train station - often a significant determinant in whether to attend or not.  It has the advantage though (on the one occasion I have been to the new venue) that there was not, as there was before, the standing and bunching to invite and women did not loiter in conspicuous desparation for dances.  I do not go as much as I used to, the double role events with their better dancing, international attendees and relaxed atmosphere being more of a draw,  but the absence of these milongas would be a loss. 

Something most of these milongas had in common was, when I went, was that:

- they were low-key, there was nothing showy or overly dramatic about them or the people dancing there

- there was plenty of good music

- good or good enough floors 

- most of them had hosts I liked. 

The majority of these struck a balance between being relaxed enough (something that comes from the host) and still a little formal in the sense that there was nothing wildly alternative in the way of dance and invitation was by look.   

Two others which were far more alternative in e.g. dancing and observance of traditional codes but where I particularly enjoyed dancing were the Sheffield queer tango marathon because the organisers are lovely and there was such good dancing and the recent Totally in Tango dual role weekend in Toulouse because of the relaxed atmosphere, the social activities and the many nice people I met there.  At both of these, participants could eat together which contributed in no small part to that good atmosphere.

While in Toulouse I was reflecting one evening that the Totally in Tango event was in fact very alternative in some of the dance styles but it is a particularly diverse event and I had many lovely dances there.  The very next day at lunch a participant remarked that we need both:  these sorts of events and the traditional ones.  The previous week I had fallen into interesting conversation with an astute non-dancer attending the Edinburgh queer milonga.  He had expressed some mild outrage at the fact that the traditional Buenos Aires milongas with their strict codes and exclusion of same-sex dancing still existed.  I had said that I liked being able to attend the more alternative queer/dual roles events and the ultra-traditional events.  Long may they both live.

Akrasia?

Many women rarely, if ever, turn down dances at all, still less dances with friends.  Usually it is a sign of an inclination towards mechanical movement rather than a dance made of other things but maybe their curiosity just does a number on their judgement.  Sometimes we accept a guy when we have simply make a mistake about him. Or we accept them for the 'British reason':  many British women would rather have their fingernails plucked out than do anything so rude as turn down an invitation to dance, no matter how indiscreetly it is made.  To these women, the irrational British notion that prefers self-flagellation over potentially giving offence trumps the milonga code about discretion - if they are even aware of it.  The idea that the inviter may not have behaved in accordance with milonga codes in his method of invitation does not occur to them. 

I sat in a milonga with a girl friend recently.   She is a fun-loving, experienced and well-travelled dancer who looks for heart and soul in dance.  A group of foreign visitors walked in.
- Definitely, not him, I murmured, looking with my eyes.  God.  He's chewing gum, practically with his mouth open. 
- No, she agreed, with the shocked, persuasive tone of :  Of course not!

A traditional milonga is a civilized space.  How does someone who chews gum, anywhere, fit in a milonga?  But he wasn't a traditional man and our milonga is fairly casual too. Tradition aside, chomping gum in someone's ear while you dance with them - in what way could that ever be respectful?
I took my eyes off her for a minute.  When I looked round, there she was up partnered with the same guy.  She, the jaguar, he the used-car salesman.  He's going to treat her like some kitchen appliance, I thought.  

- So how was it? I asked, afterwards when he had thrown her about the floor as casually as he chewed his gum while she, impossibly, tried, with her still concentration, to find his soul.

- Too dramatic, she said, the scorn matching that with which he treated the women with whom he danced.

- Honestly, and you are Latin!  I thought you were supposed to be tough with guys! 

She didn't say it but I could just see her saying "But I like guys", winningly, batting her mascaraed eyelashes.  

- Yes, but not those guys! I had often said, in reality.

- No, she would agree, seriously, and soon after, dance with them.

- Remember that guy that walked up to us and stuck his hand out [to her] after you and I had just agreed to dance?  I had been so outraged I had stood up, towering over him and told him, frostily, to back off.  He was a crass man and an horrific dancer but she still accepted him afterwards.

I was puzzled. She talked like a Latin woman.  She had standards, was discriminate, had a sense of self-worth.  Or talked as if she had standards. But many women of all ages in Buenos Aires I had noticed just want some fun.  They are on a night out, they want to be up and dancing and why not?  Who is it that judges where another find their pleasure?  The odd thing was though, she often didn't enjoy the dances with guys she accepted and that we warned one another about; it is the akratic paradox:  acting against our better judgement. 

My friend grew up in a famously fun-loving country.  Her family, who was not from there, always told her to remember her upbringing and her standards. She however, hankered to sneak out and join the locals, hear the scary stories, do what wasn't allowed.  I remembered a lesson, long ago, from an older Italian girl friend, on how to to be, with men.  Was this idea of Latin women, tough on guys, a myth or wasn't it?  I decided to ask my milonga friend.  
- Why do you say you don't appreciate the types who walk up, who behave in those ways, but then accept them? 

- Because this is not my country, she said simply, surprisingly.  I am not at home, she said, meaning, she did not have the same self-assurance as she might in her own country.
- You were just telling me how you refuse more guys nowadays!  I did say.

- I know, she said, contritely.  She refused more of them now, because, she said, she felt more at home.

I was about to reply but she was already sitting, eyes averted, in the upright stance of a woman with a mission.  It was the same again.  She accepted guys who weren't great. But not, now, bottom feeders, just middle of the road guys.   They were, for her, new, so it was exciting, I guess, a discovery.

"Can't really say "no" to a "friend", can you?"

This question appears on a recent post on Irene and Man Yung's blog, a fun site I keep up with about dancing traditional tango.  I love how she (we think) writes the posts but Man Yung gets half the credit. 

Whether to accept a dance one doesn't want from a friend is a dilemma I am sure most of us have come up against.

In her post Irene does eventually turn down the friend because she felt he was disrespectful in practising his new moves on her instead of dancing with her.  Perhaps less of a friend now then?  Or temporarily less of a friend maybe.  

I feel these things depend on the elasticity of the friendship.  When a friendship reaches a point where two people can or no longer want to adjust, adapt to, accommodate one another, when it just becomes more effort than the friendship is worth, it will necessarily come to an end.  It is just how it is.

I turned down a friend recently.  I just didn't want to dance much anyway and I prefer this friend, who I hadn't seen for a long time, as they took up new interests, as a friend more than as a dancer.  They make me laugh and who doesn't want a friend who can do that? Perhaps they were a bit hurt, especially as I danced a tanda with a friend who had made me laugh a lot that night and who is the person I have danced with for longest in one of the local milongas.  I'd like to stay friends but not at the price of dancing when I don't feel like it.  A friend who would expect you to dance when you don't want to would be a contradiction of the term.  So we'll see.

Sometimes, of course, you just forget what someone is like to dance with and much time can go by without dancing together.  That can seem like a snub but often it not.  In Buenos Aires I was struck more than once when local women said:  Oh he didn't dance with me for years but then one day, he did again.  The scale of everything was bigger there.

I have discovered that when my desire to dance with someone I used to like dancing with is no longer there it is either because I like them less as a dancer or less as a person; or I perhaps trust them less, which may or may not be temporary, depending on what happens next.   If you like them as a dancer then you have at least, not lost a friend.  If you like them less as a friend then the friend was probably already lost and the lack of desire to dance with them is at least a pointer to this fact, if not a confirmation of it.  I met a simply lovely guy at the queer milonga yesterday afternoon.  We chatted about all sorts of things.  It was a relief in a way, that he doesn't dance.  It removes that complication.  We didn't exchange contact details.  It was just an enjoyable afternoon encounter which probably won't happen again, but how nice if it does.  

Friends are people you meet and keep regardless of whether or not you dance.

85 decibels

85 decibels - did you know that is the point at which your ears can get damaged?  I saw an audiologist last week and she told me.   Apparently, the eardrum is just 3 thin layers of skin. Was I was sensitive to noise?  asked the audiologist?  I assumed she meant in comparison to other people. Probably, I said. I seek out cafes without music, traffic noise seems to disturbs me more than most and in the milonga I wince at certain volumes or certain frequencies (for want of knowing a better term). I see that others don't although when I ask people if they find the music particularly loud, they often agree.

How loud is 85 decibels?  Not as loud as you might think.  85 to 89db is the sound of heavy traffic, a noisy restaurant, or a power lawn mower

The same site gives some warning signs:

A sound may be harmful if:

- You have difficulty talking or hearing others talk over the sound.
- The sound makes your ears hurt.
- Your ears are ringing after hearing the sound.
- Other sounds seem muffled after you leave an area where there is loud sound.

When does hearing get damaged through noise?
Most cases of noise-induced hearing loss are caused by repeated exposure to moderate levels of noise over many years, not by a few cases of very loud noise.

So, hanging out for hours in milongas where DJs are playing too loudly?  I should think so!

If the music is too loud for you, the obvious course of action is to tell the host you (and others, if you know it) find the music too loud. If there is no obvious host and the DJ seems to be in charge, you can try asking the DJ. Or, you can leave which is frustrating, especially if you have travelled a long way. DJs who play loud often play dramatic music with a singer who enters earlier than usual, or where the track gives obvious emphasis to the singer. Or, a DJ who plays loudly might tend to play an imbalanced set favouring rhythmic tracks; so if you stay you could end up feeling harassed and disturbed as well as deafened. Clearly, in these circumstances dancing for you is perhaps no longer the priority it might have been when you entered.

My own experience is that if I ask a DJ (or even if I or a friend asks the host to ask a DJ) to turn the music down it makes practically no difference. This was the case again only recently. Although the previous week the music had been practically all classics hardly anyone had been there. But the following week, on Easter Sunday the volume was overloud, the music overdramatic and the place was packed as I haven’t seen it in years. 

You might think DJs would be grateful for the free feedback but so convinced are most that they are right and the dancers wrong, that they only pretend to fiddle with the volume control or adjust it so fractionally that you can't hear the difference. And yet I have seen countless DJs sitting behind the speakers, where the sound is nothing like as strong as it is in front of the speakers; or they are not on the dance floor where the sound is played to, or they only cursorily visit the dance floor (perhaps to be seen to be taking their job seriously). Or they are going deaf.  So not only are they making a token gesture to adjust the volume, they are not even in the right place to hear what the volume is like for dancers helpfully telling them what is wrong. This is a DJ who thinks of themselves as superior to the dancers, probably an educator, and definitely not at their service, whatever they might say in their marketing blurb. A DJ genuinely at the service of dancers will take feedback seriously and gratefully.

I checked the price of a decibel measurer. Affordable! Well under £20. Next time I hear an overloud DJ play, should I measure the volume and show them or the host how close it is to 85? Would it make a difference? Then I remembered that such DJs do not tend to be worth hearing anyway.  Besides, I would only be branded (more of a) troublemaker, someone who just won't toe the line of the people in charge.

That is one of the reasons why I travel to dance - for more variety of DJs and for anonymity. You won't be there next week so no need to 'make a suggestion'. You tell yourself the pleasure of the novelty balances out the disadvantages although I find the real pleasure now tends to be in the daytime tourism or catching up with friends.

The funny thing is, in a sea-change from only twenty years ago, most businesses these days beg you, almost pay you for your feedback. Why is it that many milonga hosts and DJs, don't feel that way? Is it something to do with the particular themes associated with tango music and the milonga?

Yo soy el tango

I spoke to Geraldo the following week about an article on the Córdoban piropeador Don Jardín Florido. Then weeks passed, maybe months before I returned to that milonga and only because I was in the city that day. I seldom go to dance now, though I still like to listen and watch.  In any case there was almost no-one there.  The music was superb - classic track after classic track. It is often the way early on, before DJs start to get ideas.  I looked up the lyrics as the tracks turned over. Tango after tango mentioned ansia, or las ansias or related ideas - yearning, longing, craving, anxiety. 

Seeing my new habit, a friend remarked on some parallel between life and what often happens in tango lyrics: tritely summarised as 'guy cannot get girl' or 'guy has lost girl'. It is mostly about what he does, not she.  The friend elaborated "....and so [because of whatever happened] he wants to kill her".  

"Only," I said "It is often not like that. Isn't the protagonist often stuck in some stasis, like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner trapped in some "life in death" or rather "death in life"?  So many tangos are about ansia, desengaño, rabia, or loss and death or a sort of living death as the (inevitably male) protagonist cannot reach the woman of their dreams or of their past. They speak to the woman as through a glass, darkly. Often he sees her but she does not see or even hear him. 

Sometimes, as in Enrique Rodriguez' La Gayola, he does come to her, in this case apparently literally, in his rags, after prison and the soup queue not to pledge his undying love because how could he be worthy of her love his present condition.  But of course that is all past.  What he still has is his pride and his anger at how he was treated.  How can he transform himself from sap into someone with power?  By forgiving her! 

solamente vine a verte 

pa' dejarte mi perdón. 

And of course it wasn't his fault that he killed someone, it was hers!  "Pero me jugaste sucio" (you played me dirty) - the betrayal which drove him to murder.

As I sat listening in the milonga, reading the lyrics on El Recodo there, suddenly, it was, in a tango that was all about tango - the genre personified in song: Yo soy el tango'.  We know it best from the 1941 Troilo / Fiorentino version although I think I heard it in the Caló version, recorded in the same year with the inestimable Alberto Podestá. Where better to find out the essence of tango?

The compás drives on the track, as is typical of so many tracks with the Troilo / Fiorentitno combination and even more so in the in strumentals.  And there it all there, right down to the dagger, the murky suburbs, the recurring motifs of pride and betrayal. In this song, here are the tropes so common they have become cliches. I shivered to read, in this song all Geraldo had described: 

Hoy,

que tengo que callar,

que sufro el desengaño,

la moda y los años.

Voy, costumbre de gotán,

mordiendo en mis adentros

la rabia que siento.

I could see him again, pulling that downward fist turned towards him, the set of his jaw that no Brit could pull off, as he described the pride and suppressed anger, suffering and desire from long ago.

And then those last lines:

Pa' qué creer,

pa' qué mentir

que estoy muriendo,

si yo jamás moriré.

Why believe, why lie that I am dying if I will never die? 

And that is as hopeful as many tangos get...

Translation of Yo soy el tango.

Translation of La gayola by Tango Decoder.

Machismo

Italian immigrants: Archivo General de la Nación Argentina, via Wikimedia Commons

In the milonga I chatted to a guy from another Latin American country; we'll call him Geraldo. I had seen him for years but we had never danced.  I think neither of us had particularly wanted to but I could imagine the reason might be that our respective prides might be of such size as to never admit the possibility of an unequal desire to dance - in which case, the question of whether to risk it or not would not arise.

So it was with caution that I approached him one evening and asked if I could join him for a moment. This is not something you do to Latin guys in a milonga & would be unthinkable in an Argentinian milonga. Presumption of that sort is seen as a very British thing.  I recalled a British girl who'd earned the humiliating nickname "Toast" in a Buenos Aires milonga.  She jumped up too early from her seat when she thought a guy had invited her.   But this was an informal milonga in Britain and he more than knew our ways.  

He looked a little surprised, curious, amused. He is often in the milongas and those types don't give much away. He gestured towards the seats. I wanted to ask about piropos and chamulleros and discovered in him a lively intelligence.  He had an interest in and knowledge of culture and history, a depth of thought and perception, a willingness to discuss subjects not necessarily straightforward and a somewhat detached amusement. It was a great pleasure talking to him. I wished I had not left it so long.  

He said: 

G:  Tango can't be understood without understanding the history of immigration to Buenos Aires. It informs the music, the way it is danced. The immigrants who came, largely from the south of Italy were male, poor and proud. Brothels aside, their one chance in the week for intimacy with women was to dance. So the music that developed was about longing, sadness, fear, loneliness, anger and social criticism. 

F:  But what do you mean this story "informs the way tango is danced"? 

G:  Those men couldn't show how much they needed and wanted that intimacy. It would damage their pride, their self-respect. 

F:  I see that and the few girls who danced in milongas would have been protected by the male relations of the families and, in the less salubrious venues, by pimps. It was dangerous to try anything on. 

G:  Absolutely! So, tango became a very close, intimate but restrained dance. 

He made his hand into a fist, turned it towards him and pulled down, turning, at the same time his expression into a very Latin expression of machismo, and of strong feeling, repressed. He continued,

G:  It was about intense feeling but none of that could be visible to onlookers. 

F:  There are a lot of lonely people, lonely men today, I said. Over the years I have heard some men say they have no-one. Ever. "You have your children to hug" they say, "I never touch anyone." They have no affection in their lives. It is sad and a bit scary in a way. What does that do to someone?

G:  Are they dancers?

F:  No. Just ordinary people.

He speculated:

G:  That's why there is such a resurgence of tango today
.... perhaps meaning, it filled that chasm of loneliness, of lack of affection.

F:  But where did the link to 'chamulleros' come from? 

G:  The Italians are like that, great 'chamulleros'. 

F:  To survive as a very poor immigrant, I suppose it helped too, to have the gift of the gab. 

G:  But it is an arrogant thing, he cautioned.

He was echoing a New York times piece which early on claims not just that Argentines are arrogant: "Argentines have long taken pride in their arrogance" [my emphasis].  My new acquaintance said the same things: 

G: They think they can talk better than everyone else, they can get what they want. Argentininas think they are better than everyone else. There is a joke in Latin America: "How do you kill an Argetinian? Drop his ego from a great height." 

But he looked faintly conflicted or at least a little exasperated with these Argentinians.

I have lots of Argentines friends, he stated, not quite defensively. But Argentinians are known as the 'chamulleros' of Latin America. When you meet them you have this - he made a gesture with his chest, that machista attitude, a kind of physical fronting up, of being about to lock horns. It was an entirely male, primal gesture. You have to show them that they are no better than you.

But something in the gesture told me that if other Latins felt that need to prove themselves they had in some way, already lost. I thought of some of the nicer Argentine men I knew and said I had a soft spot for them. They are easy to talk to, often sweet, I said. He shook his head in "I told you so" fashion. He meant: You can't trust them.

I realised that perhaps this might go towards explaining some of the lack of trust that Juan spoke of and that I noticed is so evident even on the street in Buenos Aires. You will not find names on the buzzers of apartment block doors in central Buenos Aires. In the centre, ordinary streets like Chile and those around with bakers and small shops will have bars across the windows from which you are served.  Locals I chatted to on guided walks said the same thing, always with sadness:  No, there was no trust.  Yes, people were superficially very friendly but it meant nothing.  Soledad had also said just that.

Geraldo ran through a list of Latin American countries, saying how lovely their people were, finishing with the Colombians who he said were particularly special. And then he remembered the Mexicans who he said were the most hospitable. Argentinians were almost exclusively not on this list. 

Argentine-bashing, however, is according to that New York Times piece, a popular pastime in Latin American countries. It may not be entirely unjustified:

"The Argentine daily, 'La Nacion', recently published a series of axioms that are commonly believed by most Argentines: ''Buenos Aires is the only city in the world that has libraries open all night. Argentina has the best-looking women in the world. In Argentina, you just throw some seeds on the ground and they'll grow. Argentina has the best beef in the world. An Argentine can solve any problem with great genius.''

Geraldo had told me, earlier, that piropos were compliments and as I had already learned, that they could also be a form of street aggression. But, I said again, caving easily, It can be lovely to chat with Argentinians. They give compliments, which might just be ends in themselves, which might not turn into chamuyo. The chat isn't of any consequence but somehow it makes you feel feminine; it ignites that male - female energy. Dancing with some Argentines, some of these dangerous, Latin, chamullero types could be a sublime experience where the entire world drops away for the time that you dance together; where nothing else matters besides moving to this music with this man whose name you probably don't know and don't need to know. When Isabella talked about the milonga being her fantasy world, this is what she meant. When I observed that "possibly disreputable guys can be very nice to dance with", it was the same thing. 

I asked Geraldo, Isn't there a contradiction: the way women feel so wonderful dancing with some of these men and yet they are so machista? 
- No, he said immediately, shrugging his shoulders. We treat women well and with respect, with much more respect than the British treat them. Faint scorn twitched in his face.  I wondered if he was aware of it. Look at the dance, he said. It isn't equal. The man guides the woman. The roles are different. We respect women and treat them well, as long as they...obey us.

I stared at him open-mouthed.  Did he squirm ever so slightly?  The pause before he then said he was speaking about Latin men in general caused me to wonder if this was a deliberate provocation but it was impossible to tell.   The idea those men have of women isn't real, I objected. The women they are thinking of are on a pedestal, they are inventions. I switched to Italian, for examples: La mama, la fidanzata. These are idealised, easily stereotyped women.  I thought too of the women in Money by the great prose stylist Martin Amis in whose work, particularly the later work, the themes of freedom and control never seem distant.  Throughout his career he has been called misogynist in work and in life though he describes himself as a gynocrat.  But if you use stereotyped female characters to set off the unpleasant traits in men for comic effect, how different is it?

These women have no true equality, I said. They don't have the range of emotions, capabilities and limitations of real women. He looked both amused and uncomfortable.  That's a big subject for another time, he said.