Berlin - Sunday: 'Café Domínguez' and 'Max & Moritz'

Max & Moritz

The two main events for Sunday that were recommended by pretty much everyone I spoke to locally were Café Domínguez in the afternoon and  Max & Moritz in the evening.  I had already heard about them in the UK from friends.  They were described - Max & Moritz in particular - as the places where teachers and the best dancers went to dance.  Everyone had said that it was very hard to get dances there.  I was curious to see how they compared to the places I had already been.

For Café Domínguez (Mala Junta [dance school] Kolonnenstr. 29 Berlin 10829) look for the access road on the left, just past the bus stop (coming from Platz der Luftbrücke). It is also signed Mala Junta. 

Towards Café Domínguez 

Entrance to Café Domínguez 

The door on the right has a buzzer for Mala Junta.  The milonga was on the 4th floor.  It is not a particularly large space for the numbers that were there so it was especially good that there was an area for coats outside the main room. I think it's one of the signs of a civilized milonga when there's space to leave your coats and shoes and larger bags outside.

The DJ was Raimund. I bought tea at the bar.  There was delicious-looking cake which everyone said goes fast. I arrived around 1600 and stayed until about 2030. Video. 

I think it was here (rather than at Max & Moritz later) that I arrived to Verdemar (this is the earlier 1943 version with Rufino).  The music was good though there were three or four Di Sarli tandas in the time I was there.  

Age varied here.  There were still mostly younger women but quite a number in their forties.  Most invitation happens to the left of the bar area and near there along the window.  There are a few tables and chairs near the DJ but you would probably only sit there if you were in couples or maybe with a group of friends.

See the notes on floorcraft at this milonga.  Despite this there was good dancing here, though if you are sitting along the window side, right on the floor, you may need to watch out if this sort of thing is going on.  But it is many peoples favourite milonga and it is busy.  I chatted a lot and was not as consciously listening for the orchestras but it was a relief to hear some of the gentler, softer music, in fact a broader mix compared to some of the other traditional milongas I had been to.  It was not all strong and dramatic and of course it was the afternoon and early evening. 

The eponymous song by d'Agostino/Vargas reflected the atmosphere of the place - of good dancers out to dance and to relax.  It was true that it was by no means easy to get dances here. I danced with women and then a Demare tanda with an Italian visitor who really felt the music and then with two guys, one of whom I already knew and one I had corresponded with a little.  Both these men were good, established and popular dancers, but even this did not persuade any of the other Berlin men.  One tries to avoid having a crisis of confidence but I remembered Alma when I did not even get on the floor and let it go.  I got chatting to the ladies I danced with and stayed an hour longer than I had intended. 

Around 2300 I arrived at Max & Moritz (Oranienstr.162 Berlin 10969) when the milonga was well under way.   Leandro was the DJ. 

This milonga is in the back of a typical German restaurant. I liked the room for dancing. It reminded me a little of the Counting House in Edinburgh.  I  arrived about 11pm and left at about 0115. 

The music was good trad but, especially at the start, was almost painfully loud from the wall-mounted speakers.  There is a slight division in the room between the main dance area and the (unused) rear bar which is the DJ spot.  Perhaps because of that the DJ just didn't always realise how loud it was, although since he was not always at his spot he might have been dancing so maybe he just liked it loud.  I sat in front of the bar along the wall, across from where the photo at the top is taken. 

There was a very good Donato tanda that started with El huracán and finished with Elegante papirusa. There was also a good vals tanda and a milonga with Milonga de los fortines, and Cacareando both by Orquesta Típica Víctor (OTV). Cacareando is  the other "bird" piece I forgot.  It is great for private drunken parties or the beach in summer - but it is often played with the other track and they are not the easiest milongas to place.  Overall I liked the music and the cortinas but was in conversation  for a good part of the time I was there and don't remember it all.

After what I had heard back in the UK I was surprised that the dance standard at Max & Moritz was not as high as at Café Domínguez though a few people had come on from there.  There was a big mix of people, of dancing, of age, of style, of everything.  There were at least a couple of groups who looked as though they might be visiting from out of town. Not seeing any guys with whom I particularly wanted to dance.  I was happy to watch and listen and see what transpired.  There were two or three couples of wild and crazy young dancers  I did not remember seeing elsewhere.  They were dancing trad tango music more in the way you sometimes see at nuevo dances but also at a strange speed that was too fast.  They were doing the most dangerously high, uncontrolled voleos I saw in Berlin.  

It was at this milonga that I found the kind of dance I had been looking for in Berlin. I felt quiet, relaxed and happy in that embrace.  I left soon after, wanting that to be my last dance in Berlin.

Today I discovered another perspective on dancing tango in Berlin.  It was written last summer and updated last month.  The writer refers to scene 1 dancers (trad) and scene 2 (alt) and describes scene 2 dancers pitching up at scene 1 venues and "making it their own"  - not an idea I have much sympathy with.  On this site you can even buy for $5 a guide to surviving your own first milonga. Or you could just turn up, watch and get chatting.

Berlin - Saturday: The Werkloft with Michael Rühl, cabeceo and lighting

This milonga usually takes place in the Balhausballhaus Walzerlinksgestrickt or occasionally the Balhaus Rixdorf, but the day before it was moved to the Werkloft, a smaller but still large room for dancing above Tango Loft.   Michael Rühl was DJing.  Had I remembered that another milonga was on - Bailongo - I might have gone there to see another venue as I had already been to Tango Loft twice.  I was curious in any case to find out where, besides Roter Salon and Villa Kreuzberg, there might be some dancers aged over 35 (women, not just men).  I thought this might be the place.

On Saturdays in Tango Loft there is a milonga with a mix of traditional and alternative music.  This coincidence of two dances in the same building is apparently uncommon.  I went downstairs two or three times to have a look and every time it was alternative music.  I heard a trad vals played on one occasion but it was so slow I didn't really see the point.

I arrived early at the milonga, about 2130 and there were only two or three couples there.  There are lockers near the entrance for coats etc.  The Werkloft has its own bar.  I ordered wine and water.  There is a, I think single bathroom on that floor or there are the separate facilities downstairs in Tango Loft. 

Michael is a very experienced DJ and we chatted for a while about music. He was helpful, knowledgeable, patient and very open to my questions about music and dancing in Berlin. We danced a very strong, late D'Arienzo tanda that I don't think I knew.  Two of the tracks were by D'Arienzo cover bands. I asked Michael why he used cover bands. He said because the songs were very good but had not been recorded by d'Arienzo himself so if we wanted to hear them in the D'Arienzo style then we needed to hear them through a cover band. I preferred one of the cover band's songs in the Caló version though it's easy to prefer the things you know.

The room itself has seating on four sides. It is too long for invitation by look to work easily.  Characteristic of many Berlin milongas it is also very dark. I asked Michael about the lighting with regard to cabeceo.  My understanding was that he thought it was acceptable for men to ask directly for dances and for women to refuse. I thought this a very direct view and suggested that many "walk-up" invitations turn into poor dances since the men who do this often cannot get dances by or are not experienced in invitation by look.   Though it may sound psychologically counter-intuitive, I think good lighting and cabeceo actually makes it clearer who really does want to dance with who.  He did respond to this and I think the general idea was that invitation and acceptance by look is not an art that is universally practised in Berlin.

At first I sat in the area outside the dance floor, again to see where people would sit as they arrived.  Later I wanted a table before they were all taken so I took a corner seat by a light in the bottom right hand corner of the photo where I had a good view of the floor.  My first partner walked up to invite me. Partly because I still sometimes find it awkward managing these situations and also because it was the last track of a Fresedo tanda, I agreed.  If you accept this kind of invitation, you might think the last track of a tanda is the best possible time to accept.  At the end of the track he stayed on the floor which I took to mean he wanted to continue.  I dislike staying on the floor during a cortina.  Not especially wanting to dance more, I moved, indecisively off the floor to the side, hoping he would too.  This is the stage at which things become even less clear.  I find it difficult - a "thank-you" after one dance, even at the end of a tanda is still a clear snub.  So unless you are not troubled by these pangs or unless you want to risk dancing five tracks you may not want to dance it may be better not to accept the last track of  tanda from someone who walks up! The next tanda was a milonga I didn’t like and I found it easier to say so and return to my seat.   

There were a lot of good tracks, also quite a few that I didn't know or don't hear that often.  There was a Demare/Berón I know and quite like but haven't played, Que Solo Estoy and a Demare I think that is less well-known: Corazón No Le Digas A Nadie with Horacio Quintana in extravagant form.  There were some good, well-known  Caló vals, there was a Canaro tanda, a bit later there was Pugliese-Maciel with I think Y Todavia Te Quiero and Cascabelito neither of which are much my thing for social dancing. There was a D'Arienzo milonga I liked and a Di Sarli that didn't do much for me though it was well known -  something like El ciruja and A la gran muñeca.  I remember dancing a great tanda shortly before I left.  I think it was a Tanturi instrumental with maybe El buey solo (the intro is my ringtone!), Una noche de garufa, Argañaraz - those sorts of friends. 

Another guy walked up to invite me. I did not look up but realised that, as with the previous guy, since I was the only woman in that area I could not easily look away without causing him worse embarrassment than a straightforward refusal. Tango Therapist in a recent post mentions addressing this problem as a sort moral responsibility (my term) or as "attitudinally intelligent behaviour" if you prefer.  So, regretting my earlier decision to accept a walk-up invitation,  I did look at him, in some confusion, which of course then leaves you with little option.  It is particularly difficult to refuse someone who has walked around a room to where you are the only person because a refusal could hardly be more public - but then I feel that by walking up they make things difficult for you.  None of it works this way.  Still, of the half dozen or so walk-up invitations that I accepted during my week in Berlin this turned out to be one of two that I did not regret. 

In complete opposition to his chosen style of invitation, the whole focus of this man, who was considerably smaller than me, was a particular and lovely kind of care of the woman. It's very hard to describe the feeling he created.  I've only ever felt it, perhaps less than a half dozen times. This is sadly rare in dancing tango. If guys are taught, why isn't the focus more on protection, care, respect?  Perhaps it's because - how could you sell these things?  And frankly I have no idea how you might teach what he conveyed.  His style of dancing was not quite mine but it was fine and in any case it did not matter at all, this feeling was enough.  I did not encounter the same feeling in quite the same way again in Berlin. We danced one tanda.

Most people in this milonga came and stayed in couples. I noticed two younger girls but overwhelmingly the dancers were over thirty-five or forty, many considerably older. Later on I saw a couple of guys I would've liked to dance with but they were in couples and not or barely changing. The dancing was mixed, but got better as the evening progressed and more people arrived.  I thought there was quite a lot of nice dancing.  There seemed to be a degree of fluidity - people came and went more than is usual in a milonga.  I think the dancing downstairs contributed to this.

Later on a French group of teachers and friends arrived.  They were from Nacer tango.  I had seen and spoken to them briefly in Roter Salon and in Nou.  They always seemed relaxed, light-hearted, laughing and happy.  Somewhere, perhaps in Nou, very late when they would not cause disruption on the floor, I saw three of them dancing in the middle, one behind the other, like a train, all facing the same way, all synchronised.  They were fun.  Nacer introduced me to Katarina and Ulrich who teach in Berlin and run Tango Safari a child-friendly tango holiday in Rome in May and Poland in July. They both have young children like me.  We all danced; it was a nice end to the evening.  I left not long after 1AM.

Berlin - Friday: "ART. 13", "Panoramico" and "Nou"

Panoramico, towards the "alt" room

The ART. 13 milonga (Dresdener Strasse 11, HH, 3. OG, 10999 Berlin- Kreuzberg,) had been recommended by a friend but did not seem to be on the radar of people I spoke to locally.  I decided to have a look. It was in what I thought at first was a residential block.  ART. 13 must have been on the buzzer.  Behind that was a courtyard.  The entrance to the milonga was on the other side of this, on the right, and up some stairs. There is an explanation here about how parts of these hinterhausen are often converted into rooms for dancing.  Perhaps that is what the "HH" refers to in the address.  There may have been an area by the door to leave coats.  There was a single bathroom, shared by men and women.   It had no light and had been like this for as long as the next person in line could remember.

ART. 13, practica

There was a very busy practica in progress with mostly young, new dancers.  I think a guided practica is one where teachers help people individually or as couples.  I think a taught practica (basically a class) is where the teacher demonstrates something to the group and they practice it. What I saw was the taught version.  The session ran over into the milonga by twenty minutes.  Perhaps Berliners don't mind this as many do not come out until after 2200 anyway.  I got chatting to a guy who was waiting for his friend who was doing the class.  He was very courteous. I also spoke to the polite and candid DJ, (Joerg - sp?) who played a good Donato tanda, a good D'Agostino, a mixed vals and then something alternative/nuevo. His plan was for a 60/40 split of trad/alt music. I danced with my new acquaintance and with his friend for the two trad tandas. The beginner was very tall, a nice guy who trod accidentally but excruciatingly on my toe.  His friend had mentioned earlier that the Panoramico milonga might have better dancing.  I was happy to forego ART.13.  In any case the alternative tanda was about to begin and they had turned the lights right down once the milonga had started.  I saw only one couple dancing anything like musically (to the alternative track).  They were also the only couple in the embrace.  The people from the practica were doing class-style movements more or less independently of the music and in open hold.  The more experienced dancer said as we left that ART. 13 is becoming a unique scene with some good dancers arriving later from the local area who only dance here. If they dance with the new dancers this will bring on the beginners no end.  That is the advantage of a practica followed by a milonga.  Apparently we passed some of these dancers on the stairs and they were also young.

Panoramico, at the top

I had heard about Panoramico  (Tanzsuite im Haus Berlin, Strausberger Platz 1) previously only by word of mouth. I was glad I was accompanied because I am not sure I would have found it otherwise. It is about thirteen floors up. There was a good area to to change shoes and leave coats.

The bar was busy and in the strange, coloured glow of the place there was a good vibe.  I ordered wine.  Here you pay the barman the entrance fee. Age was mixed, mostly heading towards middle-aged. We bumped into the very charming and sociable DJ for the alternative/nuevo room and chatted briefly.  His larger room was packed with dancers.  There is a much smaller, thin room for trad music.  Shortly after arriving I headed here.  It has glass sides and lacked atmosphere or at least it felt a bit like being in a goldfish bowl.  The DJ was friendly and accommodating when I asked about the music.  The space was poorly attended but picked up a bit in the forty minutes or so that I stayed.  In that time there were two great instrumental tracks: Unión Cívica ('38) and Retintín ('36).  The latter I find so good it is like feeling music in the blood, but they were squashed in bizarrely with the 1958 Nada más with Jorge Valdéz.  If it had been 1938 version with Alberto Echagüe I wouldn't have minded the mix of instrumental with songs, although there is an embarrassment of great d'Arienzo instrumentals from 1935-39.  It was an interesting venue but I can't see that I would go back.  I thanked my new friend, and said I wanted to go on to Nou.  He was going to stay so we parted.  I wanted good trad music and good dancing and I knew from conversation that the "in" crowd followed those things and that they would be at Nou.  It was after midnight, starting to rain and the street was large and empty, dominated by buildings of intimidating architecture. The U-bahn, if I ever found it, would take 40 minutes. I hailed a cab to get there quickly. 

Entrance to Nou, on the right

Nou (Chausseestraße 102 2. Obergeschoß, vorderer Eingang, 10115 Berlin, U6 Naturkundemuseum).  It was with relief that I heard Pensalo Bien playing as I arrived.   There is an area to leave coats outside the salon.  By the time I walked in, I heard playing the great De Angelis vals, No vuelvas María. It felt like a balm.  The DJ was Francesco who I had heard the night before at Loca. The music was just distractingly good.  In my relief and desire to dance the music, it was not until after I left the place I realised that with no one and no honesty box on the door (both of these I find often in the UK) I had not paid the barman the entrance fee!  When I return I will pay my  forgotten dues.  I recognised people there from Milonga Popular and Alma.  The venue had lighting you could see by and was of a good size for invitation by look though there was little in the way of tables.  If you want to have somewhere to put your drink I guess you stand by the bar.  Many guys did.  

I danced that tanda and then the lady I had met at Roter Salon came to say hello and we danced one or two tandas.  I thought she was brave coming to this place with the cool crowd, mostly young, but I saw her dancing. I danced with a visitor I had danced with the night before at Loca and it was nice.  None of the local guys I could see were inviting but I didn't mind because the music was good and it was nice to watch couples who I did not know.

I remember talking to Francesco about a d'Agostino tanda and that he played the popular Palais de Glace.  There was the good d'Arienzo vals Amor y celos.   I was glad to hear the 1941 Rodriguez milonga  Chunga que si, Chunga que no.  I had come across this a few weeks before, randomly on Spotify and put it on my "review" list but could not remember hearing it in a milonga.  I give tracks I have not heard or not heard often in the milongas a very long incubation, months at least, before considering playing them.  Most, over time, fall by my mental wayside as being of not sufficiently good quality for dancing. I am curious to know if this track is played elsewhere.

The guy I had danced with at Roter Salon and Loca arrived very late and we danced for a while.  Then there was some Varela including Qué tarde que has venido  which isn't me at all and a very strong late D'Arienzo including the 1967 version of Canaro en Paris.  I think that is a good piece but I don't generally like dancing that kind of music.  Some tandas can be so contrasting that the cortina just isn't enough to change the mood.  I was happy to end with the great Laurenz  tanda that he played penultimately.  There was  Recién, Todo, Garúa and I forget the other.  These are all lovely, lovely tracks, some of my favourites.   Overall, I liked the music.

Berlin - Thursday: Villa Kreuzberg, "Loca" at Tango Loft and....birds.

Graffiti-art, Spree-side gallery

I was really looking forward to Villa Kreuzberg (Kreuzbergstr.62, Restaurant Tomasa VillaKreuzberg).  Several people had recommended it. The host and DJ was Felix Hahme

The setting is lovely - a beautifully lit house, which is a restaurant, beside a park.   There is a small area outside the main dance room to hang your coat and a chair to change your shoes unless you prefer the decent facilities attached to the restaurant.  Given the often restricted choice, many in Berlin changed shoes in the dance salon.  The room is a lovely space though a little dark for invitation by look.

I was approached and invited directly by  five guys, probably as a result of the lighting.  Direct invitation was more common in Berlin than I had expected though not in the venues with more traditional music and better dancing: Milonga Popular, Alma, Nou, Cafe Dominguez and Max & Moritz. There was a mixture of invitation at Loca.

At Villa Kreuzberg the room is quite long.  Although you can see straight across on the short sides you cannot easily see diagonally even if the floor had cleared during the cortinas. This is a common problem with rectangular rooms where men and women are not seated opposite one another on the long sides.  Felix has a new milonga forthcoming and the lighting in the picture here reminds me of how it was in Villa Kreuzberg.  Video.

There was a practica going on to - almost inevitably - lush Di Sarli before the milonga, the kind so repeated in classes it has put me of that music.  I have the same problem with Canaro's Poema, but seeing Ricardo Vidort dance it, more than anything, is helping me get over this prejudice. That, and not hearing it too often.
  

The majority of the dancers at Villla Kreuzberg that evening were over 35 with a scattering of younger dancers. I noticed more good dancers arriving after 2200.  Before this was some of the most execrable dancing I've seen in a while, wholly and obviously based on class-moves. This is what performance-style moves that are widely taught in class look like when danced by those not destined for  performance. The music is the modern band, Color Tango's version of Gallo ciego. You can see this kind of thing any day of the week in Europe.   That needn't be the case if people dance from the music, rather than starting from "moves". 

Musically, though, things looked promising.  There were two great tandas to start, then a middle-of-the-road vals tanda,  There was a poor Rodriguez.  There was a (best) forgotten Canaro including duck quacks and a mixed (in terms of merit) milonga, tanda.  I began to feel depressed.  It is particularly depressing when good dancers dance to this sort of thing.  The floor did not clear during the cortinas indicating indiscriminate dancers who did not really care what they danced to, nor with whom, nor that they were blocking the line of sight of others who might want to invite by look.

When it comes to animals in tango I can tolerate (but not much more) Donato’s Gato. It's danced here in cayengue style.  It's danced here in the popular, modern way of young people dancing tango all over the world, stylized very differently to the first clip, with ganchos, leg wraps and volcadas.  It is closer to the popular image of tango from touring shows and TV.  Each to his own but they strike me as different dances and I don't just mean the canyengue style. I prefer the first couple - the way they dance is more suited to the music. If the older couple were to dance to say, De Angelis' La vida me engañó I imagine the way they would dance would wholly change, yet I imagine the younger couple making little distinction.  What seems clear to me is that there is a certain "Look at us" about the young couple. The other show is also a show - but it's different. If they are concerned about the look of things, and I'm not sure that they are, then it's a different look quite apart from the canyengue.   It knows it's a show in a different way.  It's droll, a bit vaudeville but the dancing is still good. For me, they are more attuned generally.

I like the musical birds best: Di Sarli's violin-birds in El amanecer. It's danced here, musically, but it's about the movements, the tricks, about technical mastery.  Should technical mastery be the aim of social dancers?  In a show perhaps, or if your aim is to show-off your skills, but that's just not very...social.  Social dancing is about embrace, connection and musical feeling.  The difference between social and performance dancing reminds me a bit of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  There are the goats on one side of the river and the lush meadow on the other.  They are two different worlds.  The goats are ambitious and have to prove themselves by crossing the bridge. But you know what they say about the grass being always greener on the other side.

Canaro's El pollito (1931) has the unmistakeable idea of birds cheeping, and doing that for which I find no equally evocative English words: "frétiller du croupion".  "Croupion" is the back end of a bird. "Frétiller" is waggling.  You can hear how much the track developed, musically from 1927.

The D'Arienzo El Pollito, does have something of the bird about it but if so, it has to be the boss-bird. It's a strong track. D'Arienzo's Lorenzo is more bird-like for me.  In fact, its friends remind me of a group of slightly mad fowls:  Ataniche,  is danced here in a social style, connectedly, the dancing coming from the music. This dance to Rawson is relaxed and light-hearted and I'm delighted pretty much any time I see guys swapping roles.  Here's Jueves danced the way I probably most dislike.

Gallo ciego (there are good versions by D'Arienzo and Tanturi) means, and the music sounds like, being off your face, though it still reminds me of its literal meaning - a rather desperate, blind cockerel somewhere between crazy, comical and pitiful I can never quite decide.  I find the Tanturi more light-hearted than the D'Arienzo.  There's also a famous Pugliese version. 

At Villa Kreuzberg there was another Di Sarli within an hour, starting with Marianito and I'd had enough - not the worst track, but very far from the best and more than enough Di Sarli for me. It was barely half past ten.  It was perhaps premature on my part but I'd had some difficult dances to the two good tandas at the start; I was demoralised by what came after and the extent to which people didn't seem to care about what was played.  Although people can change, unless there is some catalyst, past behaviour is nevertheless the best predictor of future behaviour.  I couldn't see things improving.  As I was putting my coat on outside I heard Lo pasao pasó and hesitated a moment, but only a moment  Still, that is a good opening track and had it been first I might have stayed.  I felt so frustrated I forgot to take a photo and went on to ...

...Loca, a monthly milonga held at Tango Loft with DJ duo Gaia Pisarou and Francesco Cieschi. 

I didn’t arrive until nearly 2330. A great Rodriguez track was just ending as I arrived. It is a wonderful thing to arrive to good music.  Ricardo Oria, writing about Nortena recently, said "You hear tango music; you climb the stairs; breathe it in; you feel at home." Arriving to good music is exactly like that.  I remember whatever came next was good too and my spirits lifted. The music generally was good. There were a few tracks I wouldn't have played but it was mostly great tandas.

The dancing was mixed.  I met my friend again from Roter Salon and danced a lotthat evening and, for a change, only with guys. 

At about 0130 after sitting out a tanda there was a poor milonga track to start the next one.  I always think a poor opening track is a bad sign - something's changed or someone has taken their eye off the ball. I would rather there was a strong opening track, but worse even than a weak opening track is a weak middle track in an otherwise good tanda.  I thought the music might be going downhill and prepared to leave.  

The second milonga was great so I stayed and danced it. For the next hour or so the music was good though very strong.  I danced it all with my friend:  D'Arienzo, Pugliese,  Tanturi, Biagi, Troilo, one after the other but all or nearly all classics.  There was a late and dramatic Di Sarli that I never dance, tracks like the 1958 Bahia Blanca and Una fija. I did dance them and the place closed around 0300.

Berlin - Wednesday: El Ocaso, Roter Salon and about dancing away.

Roter Salon

I lost my points of reference in Roter Salon.

After what (didn't) happen in Alma, while I balked at being indiscriminate about accepting dances I suppose I thought it would be better to be more...open to experience.  Dancing away, alone you can adopt different strategies: I had tried "very cautious, dance with no-one you haven't seen dance"; now I was going to try "discriminate - but be open to the unexpected".

By this stage, it seemed obvious to reconsider what it means to dance away, as a woman in her forties, alone and unknown.  I  went to Berlin feeling sad and confused.  Instead of going there in February when the Tiergarten feels sparse, grey and desolate and the wind bites, perhaps I ought to have gone with a good book in search of sunshine and sea or got stuck in to some early spring cleaning in Scotland.  Instead I found myself going to milongas where I would be anonymous.  The milonga will have its own problems, or there your character's flaws are magnified in ways you might prefer not to recognise.  Still, it is a good place for forgetting the issues at hand, for forgetting generally.

I should have known from past experience that dancing away in these circumstances can be hard.  In the summer of 2014 I went to a couple of places I didn't know in London and then to some milongas across the south of England for the first time.  Afterwards, I wrote to a friend:

...I'm off dancing as in, no more going off to find strangers to dance with. I feel so battered and bruised after this summer. I seldom seem to be at ease, at least when away.

The sensible reply:

Away is inherently difficult. Many porteños dance only in their neighbourhood and would find as much discomfort as you dancing elsewhere.

I appreciated that and felt better.

If you are dancing away, alone, you will go to many strange places, be treated as fresh meat by piranhas or be ignored or knocked back. It's easy to become too sensitive to small things, tactless remarks you might otherwise shrug off. In that environment, as with all change and uncertainty it is good and necessary to have something familiar. I had the music in the unknown streets and in the milongas.  I walked around Berlin playing Rodriguez and Donato and later, D'Arienzo and Fresedo, mentally making up tandas and learning to tell how the tracks would go from the titles. Doing this with the first two was more than enough.

It had occurred to me in Alma that perhaps there is a sweet spot for catching dances. Wait too long and you miss it. "Why isn't she dancing" can turn all too quickly into "No one wants to dance with her" or "She doesn't want to dance with anyone" and whether that's in your mind or is real is equally fatal.

But I don't like to rush on to an unknown floor.  There is pleasure and much understanding to be gained in sitting for three, four tandas or longer. Eventually, I find those few or, more likely, that one who is musical, tall, who dances unpretentiously and in the embrace.  But the chances of his being unpartnered and willing to dance with a stranger he hasn't seen dance, are small.

I had tried to get in to El Ocaso, (Frannz ClubSchönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin Prenzlauer Berg)  which later I heard recommended several times.  It took me a long time to find since there was a queue of teenagers down the street.  Thinking it must be elsewhere, I wandered into the Kulturbrauerei, an easy mistake.  This is a walled enclosure, a former brewery with cinema and clubs.  In fact the venue is not hard to find.  Frannz Club, dominates the corner of  Schönhauser allee and Sredzkistrasse.   Just inside one entrance to the Kulturbrauerei two men directed me for tango to the other end of the enclosure.  From there I was twice more redirected  and hustled along the way by a guy bombed out of his mind on drugs.  Back at the club, I jostled my way up the steps to speak to the harassed doorman.  "Round the back!" he indicated with his thumb. I went to the back door of the club from where I had first been directed away.  There was a different man there now who was adamant there was no tango that night due to the pop concert.  Puzzled, I dropped a note to Frank Seifart who replied promptly to say they were in the restaurant inside but by then I was nearly at Roter Salon.

Roter Salon (Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, 10178 Berlin) was very...red! You can easily see it on an upper level, from the street.  The DJ was Michael Rühl who is well-known for his decades of  experience as a DJ and dancer.  I had heard the music described as trad and there were plenty of lovely tracks in tandas with cortinas but it wasn't traditional in quite the way I think of traditional tango.

I was early and would have felt too conspicuous alone in one of the seats so chose a sofa near the bar in the top left hand corner, which in fact is so inconspicuous it's out of sight in the photo.  There is nowhere to change shoes besides in the ladies on the next floor up.  Everyone changed their shoes in the main room. It was all very matter-of-fact.  A woman was brushing her hair in the entrance to the salon and an older man combed his on the sofa next to me. I shivered and had no interest in dancing with him even before he stood up.  I ordered a glass of wine at the bar but wondered if I should stay. I watched a man patronise a woman, excruciatingly.  I don't speak much German, but it wasn't necessary. She kept dancing with him, seeming to put up with it.  Many do.

A guy walked up to invite either me or the woman next to me, he didn't seem to mind which.  I assumed, deliberately, he hadn't meant me and felt needlessly guilty for lumbering the other woman because of course she could have done the same.  Later he invited me by look.  I accepted, hesitantly though whether because, now on my third day I just wanted to dance with a second guy or know that I still could, or whether I just wanted to be seen as competent on the floor I'm not sure.  None of these are good reasons and the latter, if nothing else, is very disrespectful to a partner.  We danced in open hold.  Usually, I don't see the point of that although I dance this way sometimes with smaller, musical guys.  I danced with the woman sitting on the sofa.  We had chatted and danced again later.  Every milonga I had been to so far was attracting a different crowd although in Alma I had noticed a small crossover of the clientele (of men, mostly) from Milonga Popular.

A guy I hadn't seen dance invited me by look from a distance. Again, I hesitated and accepted. He was full of music and humour. We felt the same music, danced and parted, danced and parted until the early hours and sometimes didn't part, but sat down for a few minutes and danced again. He persuaded me more or less willingly into volcadas and legwraps. I wondered when I had become so inhibited and distrustful, found myself dancing to extravagant music I probably wouldn't, ordinarly, was surprised and nearly didn't care and thought I was having a great time and perhaps I was. With reservations. Even so, I sat out Remembranza by Los Auténticos Reyes, a modern D'Arienzo cover band, and a Di Sarli tanda with A La Luz Del Candil, Por Quererla Asi and Nubes De Humo, both of the latter with Jorge Duran.

On home ground, I think we apply more stricture. We are more careful. The adventure and fear of striking out on your own is thrilling, it shakes things up a bit, makes us challenge and test our ideas, even if we return to them. In this unusual evening I found myself dancing to Domingo Federico's Leyenda Gaucha, having mentally sworn I would not play or dance to that orchestra. I turns out I am open to persuasion to Federico until the early 50s and perhaps to other music I have rejected til now.  Mid-evening I danced a tanda or two with the guy I'd seen at Clärchens then accepted another dance from my new friend. Some think it questionable to dance so often with a stranger but I didn't care. It is rare I find so much music and fun in another.  In any case, what happens on the floor is on the floor. Outside the milonga it is a different world.

Still, I was puzzled - here was an experienced dancer who didn't fit in Roter Salon among the older crowd though age-wise he was in that group and who didn't fit with the young, cool crowd either. But I guess I felt a bit like that too.

Berlin - Tuesday: Clärchens Ballhaus and "Alma" in Tango Loft

Entrance to Clärchens Ballhaus

Clärchens ballhaus  (Auguststraße 24, 10117 Berlin) I heard referred to as a student milonga (it's free), a tourist milonga and as sometimes great, sometimes terrible. But  for the cool crowd, regular Tuesday an Thursdays are not the most popular day for dancing in Berlin.  I imagine Clärchens brings in a mixed group which changes from week to week.

I wasn't at all sure what sort of set-up I'd walked in to when I arrived.  I got a drink at the bar off to the right and wandered around the restaurant at the back of the room.  I had to get changed.  There was an adequate ladies room but I do not remember a cloakroom for coats and shoes. There were no free tables around the floor so I went to join a couple of women who were sitting by the stage (and DJ station).  This is the first problem at Clärchens.  There is no obvious single seating and no-one to seat you with other women, say.  Unless you go to sit on the stage with other women then you could have a lonely night. The trouble with sitting, displayed on a stage, while others are at civilized tables, is that I can't help but think of Amsterdam street windows in the red light district.

Pre-milonga practica, Clärchens Ballhaus

I had expected a much older style room. But in fact the room has silver streamers hanging from the walls so I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in an old room that was decorated in the seventies. It certainly had a sense of history.  That picture is fairly realistic if less flattering to the place. Here is another, taken from the entrance. The restaurant extends into the room at the back.

The lighting was "functional" which is to say if it wasn't exactly atmospheric it's certainly bright enough for invitation by look.  It needs to be because the room is quite large.  This was the next problem.  All the women I danced with I chatted to, around the stage first.  I found the room big for cabeceo across it and no way in that setting could you go and stand nearer the woman you have in mind without being horribly conspicuous and potentially too indiscreet.  So I didn't and I didn't see guys doing it either.  I know guys so good at cabeceo that they can make discreet invitation clear at long distance but I cannot.  A guy did try insistently to invite me from a bare metre away where he sat at his table but it just felt uncomfortably close and odd.  Many people were there I think to eat not to dance and the seating did not clarify who was there for what. It is not such a fun or easy place to go alone whether or not there are free tables.

There were two or three couples on the floor when I arrived.  I realised it was a lesson, run by Felix, the DJ from the night before and his partner.   The milonga began at 2115.  I was astonished how different the music was from the previous night. It was all great classics but much softer, slower music.  My musical memory from here is not good, but there was certainly Canaro, I think some excellent Laurenz, perhaps Donato. It was all good though there were no cortinas initially.  Felix said he played them from 10pm.  I asked him which music (of the two different nights) was the "real Felix".  He said both of them which was nice to hear.

The ages of the dancers were completely mixed. I danced with three women two of them visitors from abroad like me, and one recently returned to tango.  Of the visitors one was brand new that night to dancing and one was experienced.  While I was in Berlin several people made the point that there are always many visitors dancing tango in Berlin.  There was only one guy I wanted to dance with and I could see he would be in demand.  I danced with him the next night and he was also a frequent visitor from elsewhere in Germany.   My impression  at Clärchens was of a crowd of new dancers, holidaymakers and visitors on business.  It got a bit busier and it was very mixed social dancing.  I liked the music but I had a sense it was going to stay soft and I wanted more variety - a mix of the music from Clärchens and Milonga Popular would have been nice.  I also wanted better dancing with guys so after an hour I went on to...

..."Alma" in Tango Loft 

This is a monthly milonga held in Tango Loft (Gerichtstraße 23, 13347 Berlin). This is another I found out about by word of mouth.  Its events are published on Facebook.  I found out later that this particular milonga apparently has a reputation as one of the top places for dancing. It was not particularly busy.

Street marker for Tango Loft

Tango Loft is a bizarre place, or rather the contrast between how you arrive there and what is inside is marked. See the notes on safety

about getting there. Look for the neon green symbol on Gerichtstraße. Tango Loft is down the alley underneath that sign.

Alley down to Tango Loft.  

Much less worrying by day! 

The bottom of the stairs seemed also to be the back of a kitchen for a restaurant on the ground floor. The walls inside the entrance was covered in graffiti. It was a dingy place. The photo of the stairs makes it look better than it is. I squeezed past people in overalls loading plates, hectically, and made my way up the staircase, wondering how on earth this could be the way into the venue everyone I'd talked to in the UK had mentioned.

Up to Tango Loft.  But the interior is nothing like this...

Inside, the facilities are good.  There is a place to leave coats and change shoes and a good ladies room.  I have not shown any pictures of the surprising interior because it is a lovely space and worth finding out for yourself....

Into tango loft...

I arrived at about 2315.  There was great music from Ismael, perhaps the best I heard that week but in the way of the younger DJs I remember most of what I heard to have been fairly high energy.  All though, or nearly all  were great classics and not as dramatic as the  music at Milonga Popular the night before.

I found the seating difficult.  There are tables and chairs along the large window on one side. I watched a surprising number of dancers watch themselves in the reflection of this window! There are bar stools and tables around the bar and more relaxed lounge style seating in the other seating area (not easily visible from the bar).  Invitation in Tango Loft happens mostly in those two areas.   As there were far fewer people on Tuesday than on Thursday when I next went, the lounge area was not really used much.  I sat by the window which was a mistake. I was too hasty in my choice of seat but I wanted to move away from the area where most people seemed to know one another. The better idea might have been to meet them.

The dancing was good.  Just about everybody knew each other.  No one was taking any risks with the unknown. There was a surfeit of good, young, known women dancers.

A few guys hovered but I hadn't seen them dance and no one I had my eye on invited me. I didn’t get on the floor and left about 0030 when I had started to feel conspicuously part of the furniture. Despite the lovely music I don't know that I would go back to Alma either unless I was going with friends.

Berlin - Monday: Milonga Popular

Graffiti art, Spree-side gallery

Milonga Popular at Freudenzimmer, Mehringdamm 61, 10961 Berlin (in Kreuzberg) is not well-advertised publicly though it is well-known.  I found out about it through word-of-mouth though its events are on Facebook. Perhaps because of this semi-underground vibe I heard it described as the home of the tango hipsters of Berlin.  At one time there were more of these in Berlin.

I didn't know any of this when I arrived. Like many milongas in Berlin it was not especially easy to find. There is no photo because since it lies down a dark alleyI was thinking more about whether to proceed.  As I hesitated someone exiting told me to go to a door in the bottom right-hand corner and up some stairs until I saw the red candle.  There were no signs but I heard the music as I went up.

A class or practica was in session as I arrived around 9pm. In Berlin this common.  The four practicas I saw in Berlin were all indistinguishable from a class in Britain with active teaching, demonstration and repetition. In London, classes unfortunately precede many milongas.  Some admit they go to these as ice-breakers, just to meet people easily, with whom they might then dance in the milonga.  I think that is perfectly possible - and cheaper - in the milonga itself.  

The difference in Berlin is that I had a sense that people go to class and practicas with a view to going to milongas whereas in Britain some people go to class in preference to a milonga.  Going to class is a sort of end in itself, like going to pottery.  Unlike having the pot as the goal of the class, social dancing is not always the goal of people who go to Argentine tango class.  That is a valid choice.   Sometimes the goal is just to move up to the next class.  This view of technical progress in social dancing dominates among people learning to dance tango this way.  A couple of years ago as a visitor to a class in London I met a woman who, in the two years she had been learning, had never been to a milonga.  

In the past dancint tango was learned socially for enjoyment, for pleasure.  You can still find this today.  Of any milonga I have been to Milonga Popular stands out as the milonga where new dancers learned from experienced dancers, not by being taught, simply by dancing.  

Milonga Popular had a cool and happy vibe with a mix of dance experience, mostly young, new and inexperienced women dancing with mostly young to middle aged, experienced guys.  A gentle young guy I chatted to said it was characteristic of this milonga, less so of others.  In the event I found this skew common in the more trendy Berlin milongas, though never more so than in Milonga Popular. Learning to dance from more experienced dancers is a great principle but age-wise, this is often the way things pan out.  A woman I partnered had only been dancing a few months though if it hadn't come up, I wouldn't have known - she was lovely to dance with. I realised this was probably the case with many of the young women here learning to dance mainly by dancing with experienced guys.

Three of the four people I spoke with there all mentioned the feeling of the music.  I have rarely heard that from new dancers in the UK.  There is nothing nicer.

The main seating area, a relaxed open-plan area on one side of the room, was dark.  Another side of the room is dominated by the entrance, a stage and DJ box and next to that, a bench, which takes perhaps six people.  From here you are next to, virtually on the floor.  The bar is on a third side of the floor, opposite the DJ.  Some guys stood there.  Because of the location and the light guys who want to invite girls by look need to come over and stand very near the bench, making something of a mockery of the concept of discretion in that custom. I was tired from travel and not planning to dance but the view of the floor from here was excellent so I chose to sit on the bench despite the lurkers.  The floor seemed to be a kind of smooth plywood but I found it fine. 

There was a very large room for coats and shoes behind the main room. Going by the latest Facebook event for Milonga Popular I think this may now be a second dance room.   Off this was a fairly small and poky ladies room.

Felix Naschke was the DJ. The traditional tandas that there were, were good. There were great Biagi vals and milonga tandas which I danced; a d'Arienzo milonga and Caló, d'Arienzo, Biagi and De Angelis tangos. But it was mostly tanda after tanda of high energy and drama with little respite.  There was though, an enjoyable D'Agostino/Vargas. Of the softer music, D'Agostino seemed to be the most "on trend" in Berlin.  The music is light, distinctive and I find it very relaxing.  It is not as quirky as some of the other soft, but still classic music, which I also like but heard less of.  Other tandas which I did not recognise or enjoy were a strident Salamanca and one of Domingo Federico - again high energy.

I was dancing one of the fevered Biagi milongas, Flor de Montserrat, I think with a young woman.  Being new in the other role this milonga perhaps wasn't my wisest choice but when the music pulls you up you sometimes only realise this later.  The venue was noisy and I could not understand why the music was so quiet.  I was desperate to signal the DJ for more volume but couldn't see him through the crowd and pillars. When finally in view I saw him, head down, pre-listening on headphones to potential future tracks.  Eventually he saw me and to his credit the volume immediately went up - but the track was almost over.

I danced with the charming and gentle young man I had been talking to, the only guy I danced with that evening.   He invited me to a difficult De Angelis. Later we danced another wild Biagi track.  He danced softly and I felt that he preferred softer music, guessing Demare - does anyone dislike Demare?  This turned out to be true. He said he had occasionally taken over from a DJ who wanted to leave. 

I asked what music he liked.  Canaro, he said, which, in view of the atmosphere in Milonga Popular, was surprising.  I liked him more.  Few DJs would be so honest as to cite Canaro as the first orchestra they mention liking.  If you want to dance easily with a beginner, choose a  Canaro tango.  Many are steady and calm.  God knows why so many teachers choose extravagant Di Sarli in class.  But Canaro's music has its complexities.  The nuance is less in the rhythm, more the tone which, across his tangos is extraordinarily varied.  Neither is Canaro one-sided, rhythmically.  Tangos by Quinteto don Pancho (also Canaro) are much livelier and Canaro milongas are frenzied. 

I asked the young man he liked Fresedo and was taken aback when he said "Who?" and asked me to spell the name.  This was before I realised how little Fresedo seems to be rated in Berlin.  

There was one other guy I would have liked to dance with. He was slightly older and danced a milonga very quietly and musically, with containment and none of the smooth, solemn or aggressive confidence you see in some of the most sought-after guys in European cities, events or good milongas.

Somehow, between chatting and watching, I managed to stay about three and a half or four hours. Someone told me that at about 1AM there are free cocktails, but I left around that time and may have this wrong...

Berlin milongas: people & dancing

People

Berlin has very different crowds attending the various trad milongas. It is good to have milongas that cater for different tastes. Leaving aside the non-trad milongas that I did not go to, I found that in Berlin people separate largely or at least most obviously by age. The young crowd dance in a fashionable, traditional way which is probably the aim of most people dancing in Europe today.

The younger set also have some particularly good DJs.  One local teacher said that these days in Berlin almost no DJ bills themselves as non-trad which was interesting though from the milonga listings and the one, packed, alternative milonga I saw this does not seem to be the case even if it is indicative of the way things are going and perhaps have been for some years. 

Milonga Popular, Alma (hosted at Tango Loft), Nou on Fridays and Cafe Dominguez were where I saw Berlin's "in" crowd, in as much as an outsider can tell. They were also at Loca (hosted at Tango Loft) along with a mix of other dancers too and there were a few at Max and Moritz though fewer than I had expected from hearsay. When I talked about these milongas with local dancers who did not go to these places, they shied away and would not consider going. It is the same in London though. Some who might go to Tango on the Thames or La Mariposa will avoid Tango Etnia or Corrientes. The  music, atmosphere and dancing is different. As in London, these Berlin milongas clearly have quite a reputation. The women at these milongas are almost exclusively young, in their twenties, maybe their early thirties, with the odd exception. At Café Dominguez there was a mix of ages with the skew still towards young women.  There were also one or two children. I'm not sure why Café Dominguez attracts this different crowd. Possibly during the week older dancers with families and careers might not tend not to go out to Alma and Loca and Milonga Popular. Perhaps these people,  like me prefer a weekend afternoon milonga.  Two (young) women I met there from Hamburg told me the scene is older in that city but better in Berlin.

There were older couples at Roter Salon and Villa Kreuzberg and at the Werkloft with Michael Rühl.  At the latter two venues older dancers tended to arrive in couples and for the most part to stay dancing together.  I would say the dancing is different to the trad tango I saw younger couples dancing and dancing to a broader definition of traditional music.  Some of the dancing was very nice.  I remember couples at Villa Kreuzberg and the Werkloft who were lovely to watch.

Among the older dancers, where these were less experienced, I was surprised how many (although not the majority) danced in open hold, even when dancing with the people who would seem to be their life partners. In contrast at Milonga Popular where there seemed to be quite a few new women dancers, most were in the embrace. 

Dancing

I found getting the dances I wanted generally quite hard in Berlin. But at places with good music and dancing there were the youngest dancers, many very accomplished. I found Berliners looked through me but this is often the case when you are a stranger in a local tango scene. There is a pool of young, good, attractive women dancers there, known to the local men and I have seen everywhere I have been in the UK and abroad that most people prefer first to dance with those they know. It is not surprising then that these women are the ones the men choose rather than a very tall, middle-aged visitor of middling dance ability with no interest in making her dance look elegant at the expense of distraction from good feel with the current partner.  I had some very nice dances but I did not accept some dances I perhaps should have done, I am glad I did not accept a few other dances and I accepted a few dances I wish I had not.

That is probably par for the course. On a first trip you expect to take the rough with the smooth. I expected to make dance and social gaffes and hoped to be forgiven them. The milonga is not known to be a forgiving environment or even for giving chances, but some people are understanding of the challenges faced by visiting dancers and more tolerant of the mistakes people make. It is true that I did not really find this to be the case in Berlin, but then it is often not the case anywhere else either. I mean only to report this but not to condone it.

A charming young guy I met in Milonga Popular told me that Germans dance with people they know. I heard this time and time again from locals while I was there and from friends and good dancers who had visited Berlin before me and found it "unfriendly" or hard to get dances. But I talked to men and women, locals and visitors and found them just as pleasant as you find anywhere else. I can't say that I found being "looked through" something peculiar to Berlin. It is perhaps marginally more the case in Berlin. While I was there someone told me they experienced exactly the same in Paris and in other cities.  I have seen the same in Amsterdam, Zurich, London and across the south of England.  Once you get to know people there tend to be more invitations.

If you go alone to the Berlin milongas with good music and you go primarily to dance  then as is probably true in most other big cities I suggest you need to be an excellent dancer, or willing to accept  most dances that come your way, or be young or already well known there or have friends there. Alternatively, go, as I did, with a variety of objectives  in mind other than just dancing.