Contrasts

On the way home from Wilderness Tango I stopped off at another milonga and felt almost ill with the contrast. I knew and liked the host but wild horses would not drag me back there or to the milongas along the M4 corridor that I have seen the same people frequent. The Devon and Cornwall dancers or those I met at Wilderness are very different. At this other milonga I spoke to another visitor almost in tears from the strain and who felt the same. Neither of us would return. It is not a place for unknown visitors: a tense atmosphere, a lot of hierarchy, ego, everyone for him or herself. Individualistic is the word. There was a tango king who reminded me of Henry VIII sitting in splendid isolation at one end with his queen and a loose entourage, some of whom I danced with and yet it was no consolation.

No-one I didn't know said hello. I felt transparent, people looking through me, as they do in London, notorious for its bad manners. Thank goodness I went there after Wilderness and not before as it might have been the end of me. Luckily, I knew a few of the dancers and am fortunate that I find initiating chat with strangers easy. But even so it was a deeply uncomfortable experience. I think it was only fatigue and a sort of appalled fascination that kept me there so long. The attendees created an atmosphere that felt hard, selfish, unkind and unwelcoming. The people were brittle, unreal almost. I had the distinct sense of watching androids and wouldn't have been in the least surprised if someone had told me it was so. You could not have had that thought watching nearly all of the dancers at Wilderness.

The next day my "stress response" statistics for the previous day were predictably abysmal. It wasn't just the bank holiday traffic. The experience reminded me of a milonga that no longer exists in an even nicer village hall in the Dorset area that I had been to ten years previously. I had arrived (after checking with the amiable and accommodating host) with my young children, known no-one, been less experienced, less confident, more unhappy, danced almost not at all and only with a visitor. There had been many of the same people present as in this nearby location ten years later. They came from across the south. Someone had even forsaken the bank holiday milonga in Cambridge to come here instead.

I felt as though in the company of beautiful, shiny, beetles, protected from everything and each other by a hard carapace, twirling together but unable to feel or only in some beetle way that I was grateful not to understand.

Considering how much there was to do: the loos, the showers, the kitchen, the food, the milongas, the sound system, the classes, the extras, the bedrooms, the volunteers, the regular work of the farm, presumably meals for some of the VIP visitors and I don't know what else, Wilderness was well organised and had a lovely atmosphere. The kitchen, I think to the regular despair of the owner, was always fairly messy and in need of a good clean. No-one seemed to want to do the drying up, probably because the tea towels always looked a bit mucky. The bins regularly overflowed, you might have to go on the hunt for bread or milk but things always did eventually get tidied up. Some things - the milonga venue, the views, the sunny garden were wonderful and quite a lot of the practical things were just about OK.

Most of all, the important stuff was there, by which I mean very little in the way of affectation and I was aware of no unkindness. The place felt real, warm, human, compassionate. There were people who would probably help you if you needed it. I was there five minutes and my neighbour helped me repitch my tent. Campers invited each other for meals. All of this was perhaps a little less important if you were there as a couple, but as a solo dancer who didn't know many people, it was invaluable.

It was friendly and while that can often be a euphemism for bad dancing, the dancing was good, some of it great. There were many dual role dancers and a number of men beginning to try the other role, which always improves dance quality.

There was very little "tango hierarchy" and if I had any slight sense of this it was only from some of those I knew to be tango teachers, who have a vested commercial interest in maintaining a professional distance because of the desire and want and perceived need it creates.

One of the main ways this general ease with people happened was because there was time and there were spaces for conversation and for people to get to know one another: in the kitchen, in the garden, in the camping field. I didn't expect to miss it quite so soon.

If I travel to tango events again, I will likely be looking for those offering something similar.