What happens when there are no cortinas

Despite the title, this piece was as much about practicas as it was about cortinas. Here's a summary then of the points about cortinas:

• Cortinas signify to a partner a natural end point, making parting clear and easy 
• Places that don't have cortinas or play silent cortinas I find tend to play poor to abysmal music
• They tend to put off good dancers
• They remove choice from those who like to dance in tandas.
• DJs/Organisers who propose no/silent cortinas often mistakenly think that people will dance more without cortinas because they won’t have to wait for the end of a tanda. Yet tandas do not in any way prevent people from dancing one, two or three of the tracks which can be positively useful - though also insulting if not handled carefully.
• They can cause a two-speed community, where the better dancers avoid the milongas that don’t have cortinas.
• No cortinas result in a stop-start disjointed experience.
• Practicas without cortinas are no practice for the real conditions of a milonga.

I have also heard “no cortinas” used as an excuse by a teacher-organiser who wanted to give private lessons in the middle of the room during a practica as “disruptive” to people who wanted to work on dance - and to the not-so-private lesson no doubt.

Those who might say they do care about the music but who stay on the floor expecting to dance it must just trust the DJ implicitly. Blind faith though is usually misplaced and I have never met a DJ I trust quite that much.

No/silent cortinas suit DJs who try to use it as a trick to make people stay up. These are the same sorts who tend to play loudly from the patronising stance and in the crass and mistaken belief that loud = ”makes people dance”.  When I was brand new to DJing an organiser once told me to play loudly because: "it will make people dance more".  Last time that happened in a milonga, I left, deafened. 

. In addition, I have found no cortinas or silent cortinas cause people to:

• hop off and on the floor, making finding a partner at a tanda start or when you want one, difficult 
• stay on the floor, even at tanda end, blocking the line of sight of seated dancers wanting to invite by look
• not really care much or listen much to the music, which almost never makes for good dancers

Without cortinas, a milonga is at a stroke a limping, broken, frustrating disaster, except of course for those perpetuating the no cortina idea. I suspect - from where I have seen individuals controlling things - they are strong individualists who believe more in “me and my partner” and apparently less in respecting “all of us and the music”.

Cortinaless

Today, I came across a discussion in an online group about practicas - there was a query about why women were not attending which although I don't know this practica I tend to find is because the guys aren't nice to dance with. There was a worry from an organiser that perhaps events may not run without sufficient support. There were some calls for "no cortinas" from women not getting dances and for men to be more generous with themselves. There were cries to the contrary too - about dance being a pleasure, not a chore. I said I would rather die than accept or give something as patronising and demeaning as a charity dance. But there's nothing "charity" about dancing with beginners for me - it's often a great pleasure.

Increasingly I avoid practicas without cortinas. The music tends to be poor and attracts people who care about moves more than music. 

I feel music in tandas and find it uncomfortable when a partner I'm dancing with hasn't heard the change of orchestra. They may expect to keep on dancing but for me a change of orchestra is a natural end point, signifying a change of partner or a pause. Cortinas make thing clear and easy without anything being said - just like invitation by look. 

There is nothing about tandas with cortinas that prevents anyone from dancing the last one or two tracks whereas to take away the advantages of tandas with cortinas from those who enjoy them will increase the likelihood of such dancers escaping this discomfort by going elsewhere. Some choose who they invite or accept and when. Others try to make them dance with more people through such tactics as "no cortinas" or gimmicks like "move on one partner" which luckily is increasingly less common. 

Cortinaless practicas detract in several ways but how do cortinas detract except by some thinking others are having more fun than they? It isn't logical to think having no cortinas mean people will dance with you more. If someone doesn't want to dance with someone else, what difference do cortinas make? The only thing no cortinas does is cave in to the demands of people who can't get dances for a single "pity" dance which is so embarrassing as to be almost unanswerable. No cortinas doesn't make it more likely that someone will dance with you except by making the indignity obvious that they may grant you one track but couldn't bear to do three.

I really feel for women who can't get dances or the dances they want - because very often that person has been me!   I don't know what to say to that except that in my experience things get worked out in the milongas, one way or another. You find out eventually what it is to be nice to dance with, you find out who you trust to find those things out with and who you don't because trust in dance as in conversation is all there is really.  And these things just can't be forced, least of all "encouraged" by well meaning people with the wrong end of a very delicate stick.

If I want to dance one or two tracks with a woman or I think that's all I might get from her on a first shot, I'll invite her at the end of a tanda - or I might be so invited. It makes things clear with nothing having to be said: "I'm not sure enough about you to dance a whole tanda, but do you want to give a couple of tracks a try?" Even that can be a fairly unsubtle, patronising and insulting thing to do. It can imply "I don't know if you're good enough for me" though it could also mean "You may be out of my league". Either way, such a risk might not be worth taking. 

Usually - though not always - I dance tandas. Surely the only time you might tend to dance one or two tracks is if you don't know someone or the music is poor for part of the tanda. Dancing a single track or even two there is no time to get to know someone, to get over nerves, or perhaps one of the tracks wasn't the best so you didn't dance well. With the traditional four tango tracks to a tanda there is time to get a good idea about somebody, particularly a nervous somebody, time to adjust and accommodate or lose your own nerves in the pleasure of the music and the new partner.

Places that lose cortinas are likely to also end up losing the dancers who have no trouble getting partners and who enjoy the natural rhythm of tandas with cortinas. The dancers who demand no cortinas of hosts may wish for that but ultimately it results in a two-speed community where, in general, the better dancers will dance in a different local milonga with people who can dance and who prefer tandas and cortinas and those who can't get dances won't go. They will go to the cortinaless practicas they wanted, to dance with...others who can't get dances or who like the off-on, stop-start emptiness of single track dancing and where, really, is the fun in that?  Or, those who can dance will and do travel away from such places or stop dancing if their circumstances prevent travel. 

In contrast, a healthy milonga has good music, tandas and cortinas; good physical milonga conditions like seats, tables and good lighting for invitation by look; a naturally pleasant host who helps create the kind of floorcraft that attracts good dancers and an atmosphere without overt rules which is as relaxing as the music such that good dancers will naturally dance with new dancers. All this happens in the real conditions of a real milonga.  I think it is in these kinds of places that new dancers grow, experienced dancers develop and everyone has a good time not in some cortinaless false kindergarten-like simulacrum of a milonga.

   .

I am not against practicas at all though I notice better dancers will usually prefer a milonga if they have one so the trouble with practicas can be insufficient experienced dancers to dance with newer dancers.  For me, good practicas are just less formal milongas where people can try things out in the middle without getting in the way of others, or dance with a smaller group of more known people, where they feel safer.

A good practica might be a little different to a milonga.  But to be a real practice, a practice for a milonga it would, obviously, be very close to it which is another reason it would have cortinas.  But maybe in a practica it would be OK to stop and start and try things out, to talk (but oh, please, still not lecture new dancers) on the floor. Men can learn how to dance by dancing in the traditional woman's role with experienced partners of either sex. Men would feel less self conscious about this than in a milonga - until it becomes more common and therefore more natural for men to learn this way, rather than by learning set moves in class.  That makes most of them  unpleasant to dance with and worse makes them treat women as little better than performing dogs to jump through hoops. If your practicas are full of men like this, little wonder when women do not go. 

Most women are nicer to dance with than most men. But when men can dance, even more women become nicer to dance with, just like that.  

Yet it is perfectly possible for brand new women to learn to dance with good partners in milongas.  It happens all the time.  Such women are easily the nicest I dance with and the most unspoilt by class contrivance.  So if women can learn this natural way, why can't guys swap roles and learn that same way too? Because guys who know what dancing like a woman feels like are so much nicer to dance with.  I'm not saying there's no place for a practica, just that everyone, everyone can learn and enjoy an awful lot implicitly in a good milonga - and often hardly even notice the learning.

Edinburgh tango festival: Sunday, including La Juan D'Arienzo

Greyfriars kirk

I usually avoid live music and cover orchestras but this orchestra has a world class reputation and I bought a ticket in advance.  I had already heard recordings of their great instrumental tracks.  Initially I had intended to go to the EITF only for this orchestra.  Music and dancing in Edinburgh as it is means so far this year I had danced there just twice (at La Redonda).  

It was not, therefore for the local music and dancing but curiosity, the chance to dance with visitors, to see my visiting friends and to catch up with people I had not seen for a long time that persuaded me to go back to the Sunday afternoon cafe.  

Afternoon cafe

Someone outside said he had come for the milonga but that the class was still going on.  A class overrunning 45 minutes after the start? I queried.  He had been outside for fifteen or twenty minutes so perhaps not quite that long he said.

I chatted to the box office staff for a while and by the time I went in to the salon the milonga was underway.  The DJ was Antonella Cosi, head DJ at the Edinburgh Tango Society (ETS) and organiser of El Tango Club milongas.  I arrived to a cracking D’Arienzo tanda, type e.g. El cencerro, El caburé, Ataniche which immediately improved my expectant mood.

 Unlike the previous day I was wearing girl clothes and heels. People gave compliments for which I was grateful.  I was to need them later. 

Cortinas
Though the cortinas were longer than the previous afternoon during one of them I counted twenty on the floor. 

Forgive the diversion:  In the ETS regular milongas in the Counting House the confusing,  frustrating and absurd notion of the "silent cortina" used to be the norm until a year or two ago - the excuse being that it was less disruptive.  Less disruptive no doubt for those who want to stay on the floor - as if these are the only people who matter.  Tolerance of, in fact support for that habit remains and was apparent at the festival among some of the ETS head honchos, despite the extraordinary rules. Once started, the practice snowballed as it often does with such things.  It reminds me of feet on seats in railway carriages.  Some years back some rail companies, sensing much public distaste took a tougher line on that practice and it seems to me to have dropped off.

You see people not clearing the floor generally in ETS milongas and notably among those who are anti-cabeceo. The Counting House milongas were my nursery and it is because the floor at the time so seldom cleared that it was a year or two before I learnt the that the cortina is not only an opportunity to swap partners, but more importantly, it lets everyone see to invite by look so that all may have an opportunity to invite efficiently and discreetly, not merely those already on the floor and with no plans to leave.  Now those who remain on the floor usefully demonstrate their disrespect for others who, seated, are trying to see across it.  It is curious that those not clearing the floor included some of the ETS committee which apparently does exist though its members are still, as far as I know not elected or officially named. Even the student tango society holds elections. What with half the committee sticklers for rules and somewhat more traditional music and some quite clearly not, ETS looks under some strain these days. 

Dancing

I spotted about five guys I would have liked to dance with - four of them from out of Scotland.  I had had a good seat but was blocked by the odd couple in front and I did not want to move.  There were younger girls and good dancers in better positions.  I decided to call it quits before mid afternoon. 

Atmosphere

A complaint I heard more than once over the weekend was that the atmosphere was flat.  The same adjective was used by different people. Nonetheless, I heard that at least one of the evenings, I think it was the Saturday night sold out.

***

After I had changed my shoes I spotted my friends, popular dancers, arriving as I left. How had the Saturday night been? Their expressions registered dissatisfaction again. More hand-offering? No, just people who know each other dancing together and sticking together and not great dancing. Had the floor cleared in the cortina? No. That had been the other problem. 

A good milonga started and I danced it with a female friend in my chunky, sparkly pink flip flops - repeating almost exactly the same circumstances from three months previously when I had danced like that to amusement in La Viruta with a porteña I had met in the more traditional milongas. We had been about to leave when a great milonga started and she had asked to dance it.

I left more upbeat again. What’s wrong with me?  I half-thought at my inability to get the dancing I wanted. I wondered at the thoughts of the other women I had seen leaving or who would leave.    I had not realised at that point that the largest single influx of visiting dancers was probably from London, which explained much.  Twenty-five in number I heard from one of them, though they did not all arrive together.  There is a distinctive London style in the milongas because I can sometimes recognise such dancers when I see them on the outer side of the London orbital.  

As I walked along outside at the pavement cafes guys looked, caught my eye and held it.  I started to feel better.  A tall, good-looking guy standing on the pavement about to make a phone call grinned at me from behind his sun-glasses and complimented my pink shoes. I answered my own concern: Nothing, in real life! I thought, pleased. It only seems like it in the world of that milonga. I felt relieved I’d left and spent a tranquil couple of hours in the sun.

Curious to see how things had worked out I went back for the last hour and chatted with friends.   The atmosphere and conditions felt unstable. I did not feel like taking any chances and danced with women I knew though even then not well but also with one or two guy friends.  One gentle dancer always understands the conditions of the woman: "But it took me a long time to realise that" he said.  He said lovely things about my dance as though he realised I needed the boost.  I had been relaxed outside the milonga and still was, in the fun chat with my friends, but realised that inside the milonga I was not relaxed enough to dance as I wanted in the other role.  Besides, the music had deteriorated by the time it reached that last hour. 

***

Music

The volume was significantly better than the previous day.

I heard tracks that did not sound anything like D’Agostino then two D'Agostino, I think Así era el tango and Ahora no me conoces.  The mix of those two with something else was so odd I assumed it was an error.

Then there was:

• great rhythmic instrumental Di Sarli of type e.g. Retirao, Catamarca, Shusheta
• Demare songs with singer Horacio Quintana of type e.g. Torrente, Solamente ella, Corazón no le digas a nadie (nice, but not the best for dancing for me), Igual que un bandoneon.
• Canaro vals of type e.g Sueño de muñeca, En voz baja, Ronda del querer  
• Great Troilo with singer Fiorentino of type e.g. Total pa' qué sirvo, Toda mi vida, Tinta roja, Cachirulo
• Infallible Caló songs with singer Raúl Berón, of type e. g. Jamas Retornaras, Corazon no le hagos caso, Trasnochando, 

I remember less clearly the music in the last hour although there was Canaro, possibly with Melodia Oriental. I don’t think it was the Zerillo version. There was a dire tanda, very poor Lomuto I think, typical of what I remember from the ETS regular milongas type e.g. Cuando llora la milonga  I want to say there was Violin Gitano but I can hardly believe it could be that bad and yet I know it can.  I am pretty sure there was Quiero verte una vez más probably in the Lomuto tanda though it might have been the Canaro, I forget. Both are nice for me.

Sunday night

The main milonga of the weekend was in Greyfriars Kirk, situated within the tranquil setting of its kirkyard.

The DJ was Ewa Zbrzeska with performance from the live orchestra.

Sound from the DJd part of the night was extremely loud and inescapable from speakers all round the floor. I had heard poor reports about this DJ and would be unlikely to attend a milonga with her DJing again. Much of the music was very “tango passion”, not what I enjoy. As an example I believe there was De Angelis/Larocca of type Volvamos a empezar  and Como nos cambia la vida and early on at that, or something similar which felt even more odd at that time. I think I heard Troilo-Marino too or much in that vein.

In the past the Greyfriars' floor had been notoriously slippy but was about perfect now. 

Seating and lighting was quite good. You cannot see everyone for invitation because of the size of the venue but guys could move around to invite from different spots without too much bunching and loss of discretion.

The ronda does not look too bad in the top photo, which was taken at about midnight but you can see the right hand side is not as well defined as the left.

The orchestra was great. I danced four tracks with a woman friend and enjoyed it. I would have danced more with others but felt you particularly need the right partner and better conditions for that strong music. I could feel it coursing through me. It was like being in, being part of the music as with the best recorded music only more so. At least two people who did the orchestra’s musicality workshop said it was the best part of the weekend for them. One who went said: a live orchestra for a dozen couples and his expression spoke his enjoyment. I half-wished I had attended but don’t think I could have borne any required partner rotation which is usually the risk in class.