Dancing after Christmas: other options

The logistics of going away at this time are for me - even if like last year it involves a round trip of over a thousand miles by car and multiple accommodation bookings - relatively straightforward. Even with three years experience it is plucking up courage to ask for the time which accounts for 95% of my delay. 

With school events more or less over and now at least a plan in place to get us to 25th I decided that for booking a trip it was well into the red section of now or never. I did not even consider marathons, hearing that they nearly always require registration and are more for a younger set happy to sleep on a floor. 

After writing off Tenerife and still desperate for sun, I looked at the Sol de Invierno tango meeting near Málaga. Twenty degrees in December, sun, sea, and an opportunity to practise my Spanish. I sent off an enquiry and in an afterthought asked how many people were going. 

No sooner had I done so I found myself thinking, inexplicably about Tango Train 3 in Amsterdam. It is a series of afternoon and evening milongas run in Amsterdam from 24th December - 1 January even while other (non-participating) milongas run also in the city and nearby. The event is a collaboration among existing milonga organisers. There is no need to register or pre-book. You can just turn up.

Why consider this when sun is the main reason I wanted to go away? Yet within hours of sending off my enquiry to Spain I almost knew if I was going anywhere it would be Amsterdam. Nearly as cold as Scotland, knowing I would find myself negotiating a hired bike on possibly icy, certainly dark streets without a helmet, not knowing where I was going and to milongas where I knew it could be famously difficult to get dances - Amsterdam having a quite dreadful reputation as a “closed” dance scene. 

That is perhaps why there is an alternative option at the same time - the Taboe camp in Austerlitz organised by Tango Atelier. It is a very different culture, offering 50 workshops over 6 days, a forest setting, “gatherings”, massage, yoga and dancing in a lake (presumably summer version only). You have to sign up for the six days of the camp and participate in the housekeeping. On the other hand it is child-friendly and serves vegetarian food. It is a totally different concept.

Whereas accommodation in the camp is provided, I know from experience that finding accommodation, never mind affordable accommodation in Amsterdam is fraught. Airbnb rooms after Christmas were well over £100/night. I would have to stay further out in somewhere like Utrecht (which I’d loved in September), but that was a pain. So why go to all this trouble instead of relaxing in the sun?: The answer: milonga culture. 

Sol de Invierno brands itself as a Tango Meeting, not an encuentro (even in the Spanish version). Its website has a “Registration” section but it is more about prices and packages than “tell us who you are and if we think you're suitable we'll make enquiries”. It doesn’t give off the controlling “You will be vetted and there is a closing date” vibe of encuentro and marathon sites. It mentions, dates, times, has good accommodation & dance pass deals and optional excursions. It sounded relaxing and non-prescriptive. Perhaps that is because these organisers say they have between them twenty years experience of event organisation. Or perhaps it is just because they are more relaxed in Spain. There is not a whiff of do’s, don’ts and rules that dog many other European encuentro or marathon style events - I don't call them milongas because a milonga to me is something else. 

At Gran Canaria’s first tango festival in 2014 I had liked the grave, inscrutable formality and the sudden, surprising smiles of the Spanish men of which I was all reminded a couple of years later in Buenos Aires, although Argentinian men I found decidedly more wolfish. I had liked the Spanish embraces, very different from the nordic version.  Sol de Invierno anticipates 60% Spanish, 40% international visitors.  But I knew I would be seeing the same mostly unvarying group of people at the same milongas for several days. I think this is not really a problem for a few days but in a small village I did not want to risk being a solo among couples which to some extent had been the case in the (much larger) Las Palmas. Occasionally I had felt uncharacteristically lonely over the five days I was there. I missed my children badly and wasn’t sure I wanted to risk that again.

The meeting in Nerja is something created in that place for that time. I can see why many people would like that - the sun, the relaxation, the dancing, especially if you are in a couple or with friends. Tango Train is also an artificial creation to an extent - the juxtaposition of so many milongas does not happen quite like this normally in Amsterdam, but its organisers do run milongas in Amsterdam which already has a thriving milonga scene. Within the anonymity of a city and with so much to explore a giraffe I felt could blend in with other giraffes. Another factor was that the Sol de Invierno milongas are in the village of Maro, near Nerja but they have now sold out of accommodation there so the nearest accommodation would be 2.5 km away, requiring 2-4 taxis/day at 10-15 euros each. That sounded like a bore. Still, in response to my enquiry I received a very courteous reply from the organisers who are expecting I think around 200 people.  Could I but secure accommodation within walking distance and especially if I went accompanied I would look into it again for next year.

"Amsterdam..." said the insistent, internal voice and suddenly everything fell into place. Yesterday morning my husband who with yearly, deeper shakes of the head, calls me a teenager though I’ve known him close on twenty years said: cheerily “Yes, of course you can go”, though I am not altogether sure he knew whether I meant Nerja or the Netherlands. November in Scotland hadn't been fun: dark mornings well below zero and everyone ill and for ages. Mull of Kintyre in the supermarkets and Christmas songs on a loop which must drive their sainted employees up the wall. How much wiser to ask early, book early and have something to look forward to. I tell myself this each time I eventually do make a travel booking.

I found flights easily and instead of traipsing about looking for affordable spare rooms in people’s houses, a local dancer in the Tango Train - where to stay facebook group had a room for rent at a fraction of the Airbnb prices. But my patient husband offered me the hotel points he racks up but never uses. 

Wonderfully, the Oranjerie salon in Arnhem on 2nd January is selling tickets online (for reasons of space). It is not hand-picking people though and while it wants a role balance, at least it is not a gender balance, which makes some of us who don't see life that way go whoosh! with indignation. So I am going to that too. You had to pick a role. I was confused and said 'Follower' though I seldom do dance that role and loathe both the term and the stricture since I never do know which role I’ll dance til I get to a milonga, usually deciding only upon who's there and even upon the track.  I think I picked 'Follower' in the hope of better guy dancing than I usually see.  But, things never being straightforward in the milongas, just because there probably will be better guy dancing in no way means I'll get any, certainly not if Amsterdam's apparently top flight but quite soul-destroying milonga La Bruja was anything to go by.

I have a feeling of dread in case Tango Train all goes wrong for me - and excitement, in case it’s wonderful.  It's that feeling of both at the same time, like the feeling you get before journeys.

Cambridge Spring Festivalito: Romsey Mill

Over the May Bank holiday weekend I decided to combine another trip to Cambridge, to visit Nottingham for the first time and go to five milongas in those cities. To my knowledge, no hosts yet in Britain are combining their milongas into, say, a Bank Holiday weekend of local dancing to make it worthwhile for dancers from outside the area to visit. Given that lacuna, this was my personal, ad-hoc take on the Tango Train idea.  A propos, Berlin’s Embrace festival looks similar - I think it is a kind of festival of local milongas. Best of all “PS: To participate in EMBRACE registration is not required! Registration only for workshops and classes.” Archived here.

I had loved Cambridge, wanted to see more of the city and to dance with people I knew and had not seen or managed to dance with last time. Camtango was running a Spring Festivalito so I expected good numbers. I was a bit worried because the weekend was workshop-heavy which tends to attract the type of dancer I don’t prefer. Still, it has the advantage of being only two hours from Nottingham.  With Radio 4 for company and my own thoughts I arrived relaxed but road-blitzed and giddy after an eight and a half hour drive on Bank Holiday Friday. I decided to take things easily. 

Access

I stayed in an Airbnb nearby and walked to the venue.  The area is in any case residential and outside the city so parking should not be an issue.

Welcome

I think you walk straight into the hall which surprised me slightly, or at least finding the desk on the edge of the salon surprised me a little.  I really like the separation they have in Buenos Aires where you are greeted and pay and then the curtain (often) separates arrival from entry to the salon. But I had a simply lovely welcome from Juana, whom I didn’t know; really one of the nicest welcomes I can remember in the UK. She strikes me as born to host.

Salon

The salon was nicely presented. There were plenty of tables and chairs though no obvious solo seating that I recall. There were fairy lights, uplighters, standard lamps and adorable pink hanging Chinese lanterns. The photos really don’t do it justice but you can see below how well the uplighters illuminate without blinding. On the other hand, the room especially when looking towards the further end felt darker than it appears here.

Cloakroom

I asked where I could leave my things and was directed to a spacious room for larger bags, coats and with seating to change shoes.

Refreshments

The kitchen, also strung with fairy lights, looked warm and atmospheric. I was delighted to see wine was for sale - £2.50 a glass. A condition of the hire was that drinks had to stay in the kitchen. There was nice cake, fruit, pretzels. 

Seating

I asked a couple if I could join the end of one the (large) tables and we fell into chat.  Once I got up I lost my chair - twice. The first time I moved to the other end of the table and when I lost that too I went to another part of the room with a spare chair between tables. With tables now appropriated one does not like to crash another group or couple’s table. In practical terms it did not matter too much as the drinks were in the kitchen. When I went back to my handbag for things - still attached to the original chair - people were very nice - Oh, sorry, was this my chair? etc. One says "No" of course, "not at all", but that’s just what the British do. Some cultures find this confusing, even duplicitous.

Lighting

The lighting was a bit dark for unambiguous invitation by look and harder when you don’t know the people. Someone who went to the same venue on the Saturday night (I didn’t) said they found it hard to see for invitation by look. The uplighters were very good but the standard lamps at eye level are blinding when the bulb is visible and facing you making invitation/acceptance impossible. Even without the bulb showing, because of their level they put the person you are looking at in silhouette. 

Because it was dim, I wasn’t sure if my local friend with whom I love dancing was inviting me from the far end of the hall, or whether it was the woman next to me. One doesn’t like to presume in these circumstances. I had already danced with him, the girl next to me was popular for dance and I wasn’t sure if they had already danced. I looked away so they could make the arrangements without confusion. Oscar Casas incidentally is interesting on this. 

She said to me later she wasn’t sure if we were in a good spot for invitation. She was considering moving. I generally find it doesn’t really matter where you sit. I notice if a guy wants to dance with you enough he will find you. With that view, seat-hopping becomes unhelpful.

Floor

The markings showed  the floor was used for sports. It was not great but not terrible. It was harder for me to tell because my shoes were not very worn in. I danced little but mostly with very nice dancers and find I have less trouble with floors when these are the guys I dance with. 

Invitation

Nobody walked up to invite me verbally, which was lovely.  

Dancing

As it was Friday night and people were coming and going at different times depending on when they had arrived and how far they had travelled, there was a sense of fluidity in the crowd that I liked. It reminded me of Buenos Aires where none of the best DJs that I noticed did any “mood” or “arc” DJing. They simply play a spread and variety of music for those who are there at the time.  At one point I counted 22 people down two sides, plus roughly similar numbers down the other two sides, a few in the middle, a few seated and a few who’d already left.

The dancing was mixed.  There was enough space so the ronda was fine.  The DJs from out of town, their friends and partners danced for the most part noticeably amongst themselves.  That is common when people dance away - they want to see friends and also get the best dancing they can.  They were visibly enjoying themselves - girls with girls as well as guys with girls. There seemed to be an apparent split in good (guy) dancing between this group and most other dancing. It can be hard to tell when you are not local but I saw some exceptions: the friend I danced with, a visually striking visiting guy - but quiet dancer - that someone told me was a nomad with a blog and a very quiet local dancer apparently from Mexico. The scientist from Mexico danced mostly in the inner ronda and was lovely to watch. I liked that he danced with new girls as well as with girls with more experience. I was not feeling up to dancing with girls that night. It is harder besides to do so when you are not known. I did dance a couple of tracks - badly - with a favourite I already knew from there. Then a very pretty girl sent me a look to dance (milonga). I was flattered and danced but not on form.

Music

The DJ was Ricardo Peixoto. I liked a lot of the music. It was the best set I heard that weekend. I have found in the past that he plays many great tracks and great tandas but often with a lot of energy. On a packed floor on the main night of an event it can encourage wild dancing even among usually social dancers and becomes stressful. I have quit the floor more than once under those circumstances. This time there was more balance in the set and it was no coincidence that even though I was new to the place, the evening felt more relaxed than other times I have heard him play. That said, of the three tandas with guys I most enjoyed they were all fast - Tanturi, D’Arienzo and a fast vals; but then these would all get me up so I don’t know that one can extrapolate much from that. In Buenos Aires the guys I liked dancing with and the DJs who spoke about the older bailarins often said that they liked music más picada. I think this means spicier or in musical terms with rhythm and energy. D’Arienzo was the obvious choice but also some Troilo, some Tanturi, things like that. Música picada is in many other orchestras too but the energy is different. 

Unless you talk to the DJ or have some fail-safe way to know the music such as a friend with whom to check facts you may get some facts about what the music was wrong. Of course, any DJ who cares can counter this by posting the music online afterwards. A recent example is on the new Barrio de tango website. I did talk to Ricardo though more by chance and found him courteous and knowledgeable about music. I am sure he knows far more than I about dates and developments in music. He said in 1942 the orchestras became more sombre in tone and that some say it was because of D’Agostino, some say it was a track of Caló’s. It had been thought to be unsaleable though it is popular now. I still think of D’Agostino as light and relaxed more than sombre but I know what he means. It is not D’Arienzo in the 30s. So he knows about these sorts of interesting things. 

Not all the music was to my taste: the Di Sarli with Florio, the Pugliese with Chanel but some people like that. 

The Rodriguez began with Qué lento corre el tren which is lovely then Iré which I know but not well enough to know if it makes me want to dance. Then there were two more famous tracks. The Fresedo was one of the lovely, soft, sweet selections with e.g. Cordobesita and friends. The whole tanda was great as was the D’Arienzo, the Troilo and the Donato. The vals were nice and the the milongas slightly more unusual. The rhythmic Tanturi was fabulous save the opening track which I can’t remember and probably didn't know. I was puzzled by its use as an opener and asked about it. He said it was the best Tanturi track. I was invited to it by a lovely dancer which is why I accepted.

Legacy

When I left Juana gave me a warm embrace. I read something last year about memory. It was along the lines that researchers had discovered the way we experience something and the way we remember it are not the same. Apparently the things we remember are the things that gave us most pleasure or pain in the experience (so the most intense moment) - together with, crucially, how the experience ended. It is called the Peak End rule. By that Juana was the key person there. Had some guy dumped me mid tanda and with a look of contempt left me standing on the floor but that at the end Juana had still hugged me, by the Peak End rule, looking back, your mind kind of averages out the experience so perhaps I might have left thinking things had been OK overall. Luckily that didn’t happen. Although I didn’t dance much through choice, I liked the dances I had.  I chatted, watched, listened and had a nice time - and the ending was great.

Why you don't treat the local milonga as a "testing ground"

Frank Seifart, one of those behind the Berlin renaissance, shared a post today by Ivica Anteski about DJing which made me feel pleased and relieved.

I joined Antti Suniala's new Tango DJ Forum last year keen to hear the views of DJs beyond the Scottish locale.  I was disappointed to find on that international forum views about playing either the kind of 50s vocal drama that makes me want to walk out of a milonga or, worse, the kind of poor music from the late 1920s and early thirties.  The music from that era sounds so samey to me it can be hard to tell which orchestra it is.  The views I heard on that forum were congruent with some of those with which I was already familiar from hearing similar music in Scotland.  My views on the forum were similar to those mentioned in the Pocas Palabras post - about not being a “me-jay” (a marvellous term and not mine), about less air time for the “hidden gems” of tango and other things.  Unfortunately I found so much opposition to these ideas that my time there was brief. 

I was then delighted to see this post - but I think it contains a serious mistake: “This is why international DJs should have their local experience, where they test their tandas." It is true that when dancers travel a long way at great expense it is a terrible thing to give them a bad experience. It is miserable enough to go to a local milonga for bad music, but - here I think I am in accord with Ivica - it is ten times worse to travel abroad for it. 

I dislike the cheap and easy shot, the appeal to "the ordinary person".  But I'm going to do it because I think it is wrong to say a DJ should "test music out" locally.  Local dancers are most dancers. Local dancers are also the people for whom a DJ should be their best.  They come out for you regularly, they danced to your music until you were invited abroad. Most people do not have lives with the time, resources and freedom from commitments to disappear to an international dance event every month. The basest of my critics will say “Oh, they just didn’t want it enough”, Or you’ll hear the “work” response: “They just didn’t work hard enough (at work/dance/life) to be there”. These don’t deserve a response. You try out tandas at home, not in your home milonga.  I don’t think a DJ should do anything but their best for dancers whoever or wherever they are. 

If you say that you play “the best” music for “the best” dancers at international events how does that make your local dancers feel? To be a mere testing ground for the DJ who might be feted internationally?  Can the spoils of that glory be shared back home? Does it really reflect back on the provincial town or city from where the DJ came? Would the “ordinary” dancer feel beatified if it did or grateful they are lucky to have an international superDJ who isn't actually home very much but who might play for them occasionally, at say local special events at double the usual price?

Clearly, I am not necessarily saying play the same music for different groups.  And certainly, there is no need to patronise newer dancers with "easy" (I say "deadening") Guardia Vieja and a leaden compás.   But why not play the best for them from the beginning of their lives in the milonga?  Do not treat the local milonga shabbily nor as subservient to the elite events.  If it is good enough to play in, why not play your best in it?  Perhaps then new dancers will stay and experienced dancers will come back instead of travelling away.

Why not be honest with dancers, fair with them?  Why not allow them to see what you play and who for?  This is why I believe that DJs, especially DJs who claim they are not trying to be different or special have no reason not to publish their sets.  Example.  This is after all, music so well known that secrecy about it merely feeds absurd posturing of the me-jay variety and an inflated sense of one’s own special importance - as special as those “rare gems” such DJs play.  At the very least I think DJs who claim to be against all this might have a sample set, even a sample set available upon request so that dancers who care understand the sort of music they are going to.  E.g.  they might think "yes" to this but not this - depending on their taste.  

Perhaps the latter is the sort of thing Ivika had in mind when he referred to "slow and passionless music" as a “mood killer”.  I know - though fail to understand - there are people who like it.   Make a sample set!  Let each type of dancer understand where they can find the Guardia Vieja, the mainstream set, the sets laden with "hidden gems", the funky alternative stuff.  Then they can congregate together.  Most of all it lets those who still feel they have to travel to find what they like be sure they are going to find it.  If a DJ is confident and unafraid, why keep the music a secret? 

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 - practical information for travelling tango dancers

I went to Berlin in large part to explore the tango dance scene there and to find out where you can dance to good traditional tango music. This is part guide, part travelog.

Getting there: I found a flight through Skyscanner as I had a last minute opportunity to go away. I booked accommodation for seven nights through Airbnb which I've used for solo travel successfully several times before in Britain and abroad. That combination gave me the most flexibility on flights and where I wanted to stay and was about £100 cheaper than the cheapest package deal for those dates where there would have been less flexibility on accommodation type and location. I know from previous travel for tango dancing that getting back easily to your accommodation late at night is an important consideration!

You can get a shuttle train into the city from Schönefeld airport train station which is five minutes away outside the airport under a covered walkway.  You need to stamp your ticket on small, discreet machines for this purpose on the platform before travel.

Where to stay
I stayed in a  lovely warm, quiet apartment in the area called Mitte and found it an ideal base.  It was shared with two women I barely saw. As a poor sleeper arriving back late I valued the electric black-out shutters that are common in apartments on the Continent.  I was within a few blocks of Nou and Clärchens Ballhaus and within half an hour's walk of Roter Salon and El Ocaso, all milonga venues. The U6 and U8 Ubahn were nearby.  Both of these bisect the city north-south, making it easy to get to Tango Loft to the north (two stops on the U6) and to the other trad milongas, south, mostly in Kreuzberg. 

Mitte felt safe.  So did the little I saw of the area around Mehringdamm (Milonga Popular, Villa Kreuzberg and Walzerlinksgestricht). The area immediately around Kottbusser Tor subway (for Max and Moritz, Tangotanzen macht schön and Art 13) was  different in character but I really saw very little of it. It reminded me a bit of a mini Elephant and Castle near where I used to live in Southwark, London. I don't think it would be worth staying in that area for those milongas.  This map of Berlin (click to enlarge) is marked (by stars) with the trad milongas I went to or that I missed and would explore next time. It may help you decide where to stay.

Bikes: You might hire a bike if the forecast is good.   "Call a bike" was the system in operation on my street.  It works using your phone and unlock codes for the bike.  The terminal on the street had instructions in English. 

Berlin is flat but cold and can be quite windy in February.  Some people will cycle on pavements and not a hoodie on a stunt bike as I often see in the UK.  In Germany, where I have found the sense of civic coherence to be strong, this surprised me.  A very courteous Austrian dancer living in Berlin told me the city had fared badly in a recent survey of bike-friendly cities. I said I had not seen the separate cycle pavements I remembered from my childhood in northern Germany. "That's because we are in the east side of Berlin", he said. Here they didn't plan for bike paths during rebuilding as they did in the west and so they have been incorporating them into the road system only in the last few years. When I arrived I didn’t have a sense of the size of city and the forecast was mixed so I decided to use public transport but a bike is handy to get back from milongas reasonably safely & quickly.

Public transport  - Berlin has a fantastic, fast, efficient, regular and ubiquitous public transport system.  There are also overland trains (S-Bahn).  Midweek and on Sunday I couldn’t get a U-bahn (underground train) after around 0030 so was reliant on nightbuses. But on Friday and Saturday the subway and the metropolitan S-Bahn run through the night.  Berlin has trams, too, the M version of which also runs all night including during the week.  I liked that the subway is not anything like as vertiginously or suffocatingly deep as in London.

You can get multi-day, multi transport-tickets at the airport and at self service machines on platforms. The multi-day tickets can cover all kinds of transport.  I recommend it for hassle free travel. You can also get individual travel tickets for  E2.70 for inner Berlin.  I could not pay for a single journey using debit card in the ticket machines so you may need change.  You can get a combined museum & transport ticket for I think not much more than the multi transport ticket. I know you can get them at the airport. Note, the ticket tells you to validate (stamp with platform machine) before travel.

I got around very well using Google maps public transport system for Berlin. Some Berliners use a public transport app but I didn't need it.

On my first night after the milonga at about 0045 I realised I'd missed the U-bahn but simply could not find a bus stop by Milonga Popular. Bus stops do not always have shelters. Eventually I found it  Sometimes they just look like this (H for Haltestelle - bus stop):

Cashpoints - In the confusion of leaving Villa Kreuzberg on Thursday I forgot to go to a cashpoint before reaching Wedding, one of the transport stops for Tango Loft. There is a Commerzbank and a Sparkasse near Wedding. I had had no problem using the exteral ATMs in Mitte but the machines at the first bank now didn't like my card & I couldn't get inside the door to the machines in the other bank. I understand now that some ATMs inside bank foyers in Germany are closed from 10pm till morning.  In my case though I had just seen a man leave so it was very possibly user error! I had just enough cash to get in but make sure you have enough with you when you leave the centre.

General

Berliners dont jaywalk with anything like London insouciance. Right of way rules here.  Each has his proper turn and his alloted slot. For a people I don't remember being great queuers I find this puzzling. But if you watch film footage of early Berlin in the Story of Berlin museum, law-abiding pedestrians aren't at all in evidence!

I liked that it is built into the traffic system that vehicles turning the corner coincide with the signal for pedestrians to cross the road. It establishes the right balance between vehicles and pedestrians which I think is falling away in Britain.

On the other hand, you will find few zebra crossings in Berlin and from the time when I learned to drive in Germany I remember almost no roundabouts.  Perhaps these  traffic features, reliant on human judgment, are unsuited to the cultural temperament here which seems to prefer the more unambiguous electro-mechanical systems.

Do not stand on the yellow line by the doors on a crowded bus, even though the doors don't open inwards.  The bus won't go,  the driver will say something stern over the loudspeaker & everyone will stare!  On the other hand when I thought I'd missed the subway train there was a platform announcement which I belatedly realised said something like "Does the lady on the platform want to get on?" In which case everyone will laugh... :)

Take a phone charger & adapter in your bag for when you stay out later than planned and run out of charge at 3AM when you're figuring out how to get home...

Expect bars (but not restaurants or milongas) to be smoky.

Ladies - it is stating the obvious but bears reiterating - pack very comfortable daytime shoes if you want to stay the course.

Safety

This is mainly intended for women like me who are visiting alone. Berlin generally did feel, and I was told is, a fairly safe city.  I did not really have problems walking late at night which is to say between 0100 and 0400. In fact the first two days I reluctantly asked at least four random guys on the street for information or directions at 0100 or later & they couldn't have been more helpful. But I was also hustled and bumped by a random, obviously crazy guy in the fairly busy, very public Kulturbrauerai area around 2030 and kerb-crawled by a crowd of guys in a car at 0330 a few hundred meters from where I was staying which was surprising - you just never know.  It isn't that fun walking alone at that time but there were cars and people around on the streets though I don't think I saw another solo female about at that time. A bike might at least feel safer.

On the way to Tango Loft I walked down Lindowerstr from Wedding public transport station.  It is dark with guys hanging about and I did not choose to do so again.  Instead I got off at Reinickendorfe Strasse instead and walked down the street of the same name, bigger, busier & more brightly lit, until Gerichtstrasse (for Tango Loft).  Going home you can get a night bus into Mitte and beyond by Reinickendorfer Strasse subway. I was accompanied twice to public transport in the early hours, once very late/early from Tango Loft, for which I was grateful.

Milonga Popular & Tango Loft are both down dark alleys. If I hadn't met people coming the other way to ask I would've hesitated to go down them alone especially as I wasn't sure I was in the right place. If going alone and for the first time see the photos on my individual milonga reviews (forthcoming) to help you identify them.

I saw quite a lot of random drinking in the street right across the city - mostly young people with beer bottles but nothing that was particularly out of hand and nothing compared to what you will see any weekend night in many British city centres.

Many thanks to Sven Froese for clarifications about transport and banks.