Listening

Paul Downey

We were returning from a milonga where the the music, floor and food had been good but the sound quality and dancing not.  Being much newer, she hadn't known the guys.  I had tried them all years before.  Not even the women had tempted me and I had been bored.  I asked her how she had found the guys. 

Two of the guys "danced for both of us" she said but at least one of them was kind of fun. I knew the guys and knew what she meant but "fun" doesn't counter "dancing for both of us", for me.  Then she made that genius turn of phrase, the carpet remark:  she had felt like a carpet dancing with them.  Another guy had not exactly tested her (there are those types) but observed her as though she was under a microscope. 

- God, I don't "dance for two" do I? I asked, fearfully.  Women often have so much less self-belief than guys.

She laughed.  

- No, you're the opposite. 

I felt a surge of relief, followed by worry.

- What does that mean?

- Well, you're there, waiting. 

- What do you mean?

It's as though you're saying.  I'm here. I'm listening. What do you want to say?

I laughed, because she doesn't move on her own.  In fact, she stands there, waiting, eyes closed, alert, her head slightly to one side, clear to any observer that she is listening, body and soul. And I always wonder semi-subconsciously I suppose, if today she might want to "say" something. So I wait.  And she waits.  So two people wait, listening, to see what the other wants to say. Then I move, and wait, just to see if...but no, she's still waiting.   And it's nice and we find the dance between us. 

But there are some women who want to say things and so we go with that and that's nice too.  Or we take it in turns, or something simultaneous happens, which is what I like best.  

Slim pickings

Slim Pickings by _Veit_

The comments on the last post were really interesting & thought-provoking and I hope to come back to them.  Today I'm going to pick up on one that quoted 

"I see the quality of dancing within 100 miles of me and I see a problem."

...and deal with the second line of the comment in another post.

Yes, most of the dancing is problematic (for me).  More accurately I could say, most of the male dancing. I still dance with women. There are plenty of women who dance mechanistically in a typical, traditional dance class style and I avoid them. But it is the men who are the real issue. Or rather, actually, I am the issue. They find lots of women willing to dance with them. I just don't find guys I want to dance with. Apart from the automated, predictable steps, the forcefulness, the lack of appreciation of the music, they are a world away from what the famous social dancer, Ricardo Vidort describes:

"To be a milonguero, first, you have the feeling of the music, rhythm, cadence and your own style to dance; and when you do it, the music invades your body and mind and it begins the chemistry that makes you transmit to your partner"

There is no cadence in the dancing of nearly all the men I see locally. There are only two men in Scotland, one really, with whom I deeply enjoy dancing and never see or dance with, partly thanks to that harm then and later. There are another few with whom I occasionally dance mostly from some combination of friendship, longevity and because it's fun. But there is rarely that sense of the music invading them. When I say to a partner, usually a woman, and usually when I am guiding, that I cannot dance this track because I don't know it, or like it, that it is though a motor or fire or power source has been turned off, women can be surprised but are almost always understanding. Most men seem to have no idea what this is but then most men learned in class focused on dance steps. But I know what it is for music to invade you because without that I can't dance and I have no desire to dance. I have said before, it is like an on/off switch.

A guy came to class who had already danced for a few years.  It felt awkward but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so I suggested we dance again in the practica.  Apart from the fact that I could hear him thinking dance moves, it was mostly fine, nice embrace etc.  But where is the music in you? But where is your passion for the music? Do you know this next piece? He didn't.  So dance the pieces you know and love and then you will feel the music move you.  When you have that feeling, let's dance again.

The other way is you lead them, and transmit your music to them but I didn't suggest it because I didn't like the track that had started.  Sometimes the music is shared both ways and that is wonderful, though I can't think of men with whom I have been able to fully do this.  It needs a sense of equality I more often find with women. 

A salsa teacher I remet recently, permeated with the culture, history and tradition of the country of her particular dance had the same issues regarding guys.  She too nearly always guides now, for the same reasons. It's fun, but it isn't the same, she said.  You could sense a deep disappointment.

So, socially we dance with women and beginners. But actually, I think I am stopping, and not for the first time, going to the milongas.  Despite good music at the last two milongas I went to, and one of them having over eighty people, I left early, barely danced. The wannabes hanging around the DJ and the VIP table of the current visiting "star" is also offputting. So there is rarely joy in the milongas for me there now, because of this lack and it is a long way to go just for the chat. Besides which, that unquiet ghoul is back in the milongas, needy, simpering, cosying up to men, monopolising them, like beads counted off on a string, even stealing the guys I am in conversation with, with an audacity, lack of tact and courtesy that is so disgraceful as to make one snort with the appalling hilarity of it. Most men are ultimately led by the cock and of course cannot resist the charms of a girl thirty or fourty years younger who looks practically a child. They are pushovers. She has nothing if not the ambition of a Lady Macbeth. 

But this aside there just aren't the people with whom one enters that deep sense of fun and flow and joy.  One could leaves the milongas depressed, frustrated and with a sense of time wasted if one did not know better how to counter these things. So I am exploring other dances, and not on the doorstep where that ghost haunts those local scenes too.  

- I really like dancing with the beginners. I mentioned to another woman who also dances various styles and who guides.

Really?

Yes, because at least you feel there's some hope. You can shape them.

Yes, she said, laughing. Exactly that!

She guessed immediately who the good dancer was. It might have been odd that she could home in like that, no preamble, but then she seems that kind of dancer.

- I love dancing with the beginners, I said to a nice man who already dances tango.

- Well, but it's nice to dance with old friends, he said.

- The beginners are my thing, really, have been for years.

It seemed like a different twist on something I remember my tango guide saying years ago, along the lines of, in his experience women start guiding when there isn't enough good guy dancing around. This is true, although I would never now give up dancing both roles. Perhaps I've been focused on the beginners for a long time because there isn't enough good dancing around full stop. One hopes they will become the good dancing, like Colin but with more longevity.

- Oh, I don't know, said the nice man.

- What do you mean?

- Well, beginners are all very well, but I prefer dancing with the people who can already dance.

- I was shocked.  And confused, because I remembered later that this man does dance with beginners.

- But if we don't dance with them, how will they learn?

- Well, youngsters are flighty, he said. If they stay it's a different thing.

- But if we don't dance with them, why should they stay?

He smiled and shrugged.

Dance magic

 Pollen-covered bee with mallow flower in my garden.

The best visual analogy I can find for magic, at least those for which I have photos, are instances of the fragile, natural ecosystem at work.   

The last entry suggested that some of the best stories and most interesting behaviours in the milonga are around invitation, acceptance and refusal, more than the dancing itself.

But isn't the milonga more about the dancing?  Yes, for many, although there is a difference between Argentina and Britain in this respect and between more and less experienced dancers within Europe.  In both countries many people go primarily to dance but there can be a dance freneticism in British milongas that is less apparent among Argentines.  

That rare dance magic has been given a vile  name in some quarters, a word that debases it, that I cannot bring myself to repeat. What does happen is as difficult to describe, as music itself. It is not the same between each couple. It is composed of feelings that arise from music and connection and movement with another person with whom one discovers a mysterious compatibility that can transcend many of  the boundaries commonly are said to divide humans - race, sex, age and more. In any case, being private, it is publicly irrelevant.  

Girl on girl

When I started dancing in 2012 I can only think of one woman in Scotland, a teacher, who danced in the man's role and she wasn't Scottish. At any rate, women dancing together was rare. I was even taken to task in a different class, when bored with waiting, I started dancing with a woman.

I started dancing the "guy's" role a year or two later, picked an unkind woman, gave up for a year as a result and started again a year or so later. St Andrews university, where I think this photo was taken in 2016, were running classes and prácticas from at least the year before. There, people of both sexes danced both roles.

Now, it is very common to see women in both roles in e.g. Edinburgh. Women generally dance better than most men. It should make guys up their game, dance better if they want to dance at all.

Dancing for themselves

My son, aged 7 at the end of dancing to a milonga, solo. 

I have a much-loved video of my young son dancing solo to the milonga Ella es así by Edgardo Donato, complete with bum waggles and twirls. 

Solo dancing is wonderful in whatever genre.  I see, in salsa, people possessed of a confidence I can only marvel at dancing both together and apart in the same song. That must be something you figure out together when you have experience or a natural confidence in dance. 

A guy dancing for himself when he has an inexperienced partner is something to recoil from. 

Early in my tango dance life women would complain about guys who "danced for themselves". I remember lots of bad dances, avoiding guys in classes, but maybe everything was too new, or maybe all guys danced like that so I thought it was normal.  I vaguely recall wondering what exactly these women meant.  It was perhaps not until a year or two later that I corralled these experiences into a concept.  Few seem to reflect and extrapolate thus far upon their experience.   

I went to a salsa event and danced with a guy who has danced for twenty five years - the dance was small, subtle, competent and connected.  Then I accepted a dance with a guy with whom I had been chatting.  He had danced for just a few years but could not only recognise rhythms I could not but apparently dance them.  "OK, but don't let me go.  I don't do that dancing on your own thing".  He laughed. He seemed very comfortable dancing but I was getting lost, staring fixedly at his feet (never a good sign) in an effort to keep up with him. Perhaps the track was too unfamiliar and too fast for me but for years I hadn't experienced the feeling that I was at fault in dance. I was shown that, dancing tango, there are no mistakes, there is just what happens and the unexpected is usually an opportunity for something fun. When I dance in the guy's role, which is most of the time, if she (or he) can't keep up with me, dancing say, a rapid milonga, I dance half time or less, I adapt to whatever they can do. I didn't know the music, or this guy and I am fairly new to salsa.  I was in his city, which I barely know, a venue I didn't know and he did, dancing a dance he knew and I don't.  I was in his hands, all those things plus the simple fact of dancing the guy's role implies a responsiblity. Guys tend to know this instinctively.  They are used to it and it's what they like.  It's part of why very often, they balk at dancing in the other role. 

"You just have to feel the beat" he laughed at me. I can't remember when I last felt so disconnected  with a partner.  I floundered, felt lost, a blunderer. With my twelve plus years of dance experience why did I feel so un co-ordinated?  I understood he was joking, yet still meaning that I was the problem, that I could barely dance.  My lasting memory is of the confusion, shame, embarrassment of feeling terribly uncomfortable; yet you have to act as though everything is fine and you're just an incompetent, una tonta.  The worst of it is that everyone else  - your potential dance partners - then think you can't dance.

I am sure he didn’t want me to feel like that but he danced for himself rather than with me.

The flip side of this fortunately brief experience was that I appreciated even more the men who have put me at ease dancing salsa, dancing with me, guys with whom I felt relaxed. Virtually all of them have been experienced. On the two or three occasions when I have been inveigled in to to dancing with inexperienced men, it has been predictably disastrous. When it works well it is nothing to do with what moves they have.  The less I realise they are doing moves, the more in fact I have liked it.  It is because they are experienced, because we stay connected, because, as a new dancer in this genre, I feel safe with them. I was lucky that my first dances in this genre were with a guy I already knew and trusted from tango who was also an experienced salsa dancer. From that you can relax and trust them and then the fun can start.

A couple of weeks later I received a message:  Ya sé que no bailo bien, pero tampoco es para que me dejes de hablar.  

Hmmm.... I thought, but replied, although with more of the misgivings I had had before that dance. 

Dancing to be social / Bailar para ser sociable

This post is a follow-up to Indiscriminada.

A woman who dances salsa told me: When I was younger and a man approached me, too full of himself, thinking himself god's gift, well, sometimes I would become a bit distant with him, but if he wasn't arrogant, acted normally, I would respond in kind, I would be respectful. I don't want to discriminate, I don't want to be rude to people who are not rude to me.

She behaved thus, empathetically. She said, "You have to put yourself in the other person's shoes"

But this is salsa, where most songs last between three and five minutes. Dancing tango is a dance in an embrace that lasts about twelve minutes with three pauses of a few seconds. It's about being relaxed with the other person, wanting to take care of them or trust them during that time, seeking a symbiotic, creative, intimate moment. I don't seek or offer dances to be polite. I don't try to soothe or calm anyone's ego. I seek a shared moment with someone who likes what I like, or where we can find some common ground. I dance in different ways depending on my partner, so my definition of common ground is quite broad.

*

Este texto es un seguimiento de Indiscriminada.

Una mujer que baila salsa me contó: Cuando era más joven y me entraba un hombre que se las daba, dándoselas, pues, yo, a veces me ponía un poco borde con él, pero si el hombre se actuaba de forma normal, sin ser prepotente, yo hablaba con el normal, lo respetaba. No quiero discriminar, no quiero ser grosera con la gente que no es grosera conmigo.

Se comportó así por empatía. Dijo "Hay que ponerse en la piel del otro".

Pero esto es salsa, donde la mayoría de los temas duran entre tres y cinco minutos. Bailar tango es un baile en un abrazo que dura unos doce minutos con tres pausas de unos segundos. Se trata de estar relajado con la otra persona, de querer cuidarla o confiar en él durante ese tiempo, de buscar un momento simbiótico, creativo, íntimo. No busco ni ofrezco bailes para ser cortés. No intento calmar el ego de nadie, ni curarlo. Busco un momento compartido con alguien a quien le guste lo que a mí, o donde podamos encontrar algún punto en común. Bailo de formas diferentes según mi pareja, así que mi definición de terreno común es bastante amplia.

Estoy muy agradecida a Amelia y a los miembros del foro Wordreference por su ayuda con la traducción. Cualquier error restante es sólo mío.

Notes on translation:

The Spanish term "entrar de alguien" means something like to break the ice, but often with a sexual motive.

"Se las daba, dándoselas - usually these phrases are completed by "de" plus whatever you are passing yourself off as. Se las daba de listo, se las daba de chulo, se las daba de millonario… i.e. they passed themselves off as smart, as a pimp, as a millionaire etc. The terms seem not to be well understood in Latin American but are generally understood in Spain, even in the shortened form.

Individuality (revisited)

 

dicklyon CC BY-SA 4.0

 

This piece was drafted in January, for some reason was never published but via the recent piece on Authenticity has come round again.

I was reminded recently, through conversation, of a piece seven years old now: Standardisation and Individuality It contrasted individuality, uniqueness, creativity and the personal against the store bought, the fabricated, the mass produced.

 

Even more recently I came across the eerie, mocking French version of the famous Malvina Reynolds' protest song "Little Boxes" (1962), which is an amplification of that concern about standardisation.  What happens when we start standardising not just products and food, but education, work, human lives and expectations at a societal level? 

So why, 50 years on from Reynolds' song, with an eye on the future and a glance to the past, are we, as a society still fixated on standardisation and homogeneity and if, so, why?  Because it's predictable? Because it's reliable? Because it's safe? And if so, what then is the trade-off? What do we lose?

Pete Seeger also covered Reynolds' song. It's just a guy with a banjo singing  a very simple song. George Brassens - for decades, my favourite French singer - takes the same, unadorned approach to performance.  He is clearly not a well man in this video singing 'La Mauvaise Reputation', a song about going your own way, despite the disapproval of others. That's the flip side of individuality - not everyone likes it.  Most of society is built around the idea of conforming and some are more that way inclined than others. 

Brassens' songs are inimitable:  ostensibly simple but layered, simultaneously dirty, funny, savage, smart, controversially ambiguous - and literary.  He often used the past historic tense - usually reserved for literary texts. They are deeply personal, entirely unique.  While his songs have, hopelessly, been copied, as far as I know, he did not himself copy other songs in the way that, say, 'Le premier bonheur du jour' (Francoise Hardy, 1963) has been redone again and again - including a bizarre psychedelic version by Brazilian group Os Mutantes and as a disturbing, unsettling version by Francoiz Breut a counterpoint to this rather saccharine and sentimental song that trades mostly upon its 7 note, catchy scale.  

Chez Brassens, the guitar is usually distinctively rhythmic and the music could hardly be more spare, but it amplifies, and enlivens that poetry.  There is something vulnerable, courageous, appealing about one human, their own voice accompanied only by the instrument they play. There is no fanfare, no backing, no reverb and, best of all, no affectation. 

I think of my favourite dancers and they are guys who feel and interpret the music in wholly individual ways. They are the guys who like to dance the rhythmic music with the energy it needs and guys or who embrace the silence as much as the music, it's in the way they embrace me or simply the way they interpret the music. If they all came in standardised bodies and I was blindfolded I would still know who they are because of that individuality. 

* 

Este artículo se redactó en enero, por alguna razón nunca se publicó, pero vuelve a ser relevante tras el reciente artículo sobre la Autenticidad.

Hace poco, a través de una conversación, me acordé de un artículo que ya tiene siete años: En él se contraponía la individualidad, la singularidad, la creatividad y lo personal a lo comprado, lo fabricado y lo producido en serie.

Más recientemente aún, me encontré con la inquietante y burlona versión francesa de la famosa canción de protesta de Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes" (1962), que es una amplificación de esa preocupación por la estandarización.  ¿Qué ocurre cuando empezamos a estandarizar no sólo los productos y los alimentos, sino la educación, el trabajo, las vidas humanas y las expectativas a nivel social? 

Entonces, ¿por qué, 50 años después de la canción de Reynolds, con la vista puesta en el futuro y una mirada al pasado, seguimos obsesionados como sociedad con la estandarización y la homogeneidad y, si es así, por qué?  ¿Porque es predecible? ¿Porque es fiable? ¿Porque es seguro? Y si es así, ¿cuál es la compensación? ¿Qué perdemos?

Pete Seeger también versionó la canción de Reynolds. Es sólo un tipo con un banjo cantando una canción muy sencilla. George Brassens -desde hace décadas, mi cantante francés favorito- adopta el mismo enfoque de interpretación, sin adornos.  Está claro que no es un hombre en buen salud en este vídeo cantando "La Mauvaise Reputation", una canción sobre seguir tu propio camino, a pesar de la desaprobación de los demás. Esa es la otra cara de la individualidad: no a todo el mundo le gusta.  La mayor parte de la sociedad está construida en torno a la idea de conformarse, y algunos son más proclives a ello que otros. 

Las canciones de Brassens son inimitables: ostensiblemente sencillas pero estratificadas, simultáneamente sucias, divertidas, salvajes, inteligentes, polémicamente ambiguas... y literarias.  A menudo utilizaba el tiempo histórico pasado, normalmente reservado a los textos literarios. Son profundamente personales, totalmente únicas.  Aunque sus canciones han sido irremediablemente copiadas, que yo sepa, él mismo no copió otras canciones del modo en que, por ejemplo, "Le premier bonheur du jour" (Françoise Hardy, 1963) ha sido rehecha una y otra vez, incluida una extraña versión psicodélica del grupo brasileño Os Mutantes y una versión inquietante y perturbadora de Françoiz Breut. Es un contrapunto a esta canción más bien sacarina y sentimental que se basa principalmente en su pegadiza escala de 7 notas.  

Chez Brassens, la guitarra suele ser marcadamente rítmica y la música difícilmente podría ser más parca, pero amplifica y aviva esa poesía.  Hay algo vulnerable, valiente, atractivo en un ser humano, en su propia voz acompañada únicamente por el instrumento que toca. No hay fanfarria, ni acompañamiento, ni reverberación y, lo mejor de todo, ninguna afectación. 

Pienso en mis bailarines favoritos y son hombres que sienten e interpretan la música de formas totalmente individuales. Son tipos a los que les gusta bailar la música rítmica con la energía que necesita y tipos o que abrazan el silencio tanto como la música, ya sea en la forma en que me abrazan o simplemente en la forma en que interpretan la música. Si todos vinieran con cuerpos estandarizados y me vendaran los ojos, seguiría sabiendo quiénes son gracias a esa individualidad. 

Authenticity

When I looked up "authentic" in my photos, this is what came back.  The embrace, the expressions are all authentic.  The branding on the shorts decidedly isn't; quite the opposite, it's a form of standardisation.

I have been trying all manner of things to understand why I have continued chest and muscle pain on my left side, from the neck, down the shoulder and arm and to seek relief.  

Self-guided stretching and breathwork seemed to help. Meditation has also been useful. The old adage says time can be a great healer and I was getting better, ridiculously slowly.  Chest pain became palpitations, the palpitations became fewer, the muscle pain is less, at least while I keep up the exercises.  

Six weeks after ending up in hospital, which is now almost  two weeks ago, I went to a double milonga and sat with a younger friend during the first one.  We went out for dinner and then to the next milonga.  It was a lovely, social evening - nice dances, connections, compliments chat, especially with my dinner companion.  It was perhaps towards the end of the first milonga and certainly during dinner that the chest pain came back with a vengeance for no good reason at all that I could discern. I hadn't been dancing excessively. I decided I needed to sit on my own during the second milonga and told my friend they would get more dancing not sitting apart with me, but among the people, which was true  This brought little relief though.  I tried to ignore the pain and discomfort, eventually driving home, wondering if that was wise.  That relapse has continued though I now have a toolkit to address it. 

An Argentinian I chatted with recently said he was interested in trying meditation.  

- But you seem a very calm guy.

- I am, generally but I had panic attacks some years ago.  

He had done 'bioenergetics' to help with that, which seems to be physical movement, grounding and breathwork to unblock emotional or psychologically induced stress or tension that is causing pain in the body. It sounded just the ticket. 

I mentioned the mystery of my recent relapse.  

- You were afraid, he said.  Maybe you thought the same thing would happen with this other younger person.   

- I didn't feel afraid, I said.  That person is a different character from the one implicated in that harm and obviously I am very careful now. I was having a lovely time in the milongas apart from those symptoms.  

- Something in you was scared, he repeated.   

If the doctor is right that my heart is OK, then so far it seems the only explanation. 

His exercises suggestion was to stand with the knees flexed, arms above the head, eyes and mouth open The idea is you connect with the physical feeling and the emotion that is causing the pain.  I felt I had worked through those emotions enough already and didn't know what I was looking for.  Maybe that was the issue but the stance felt weird and I looked for another.

The one I found was to simply bounce gently on flexed knees and gradually shake out your shoulders and arms.  This felt good.  My Fitbit buzzed, saying I was earning "Active Minutes" when your heart rate is elevated and earning what are in essence exercise points.  To my horror, my heart rate had tripled to 190 with very little exertion, a number I never achieved even when put on a treadmill at the cardiologists.  Either that or the Fitbit wasn't accurate.  I wasn't tired or out of breath and I felt good.  I sat down in a hurry and my heartrate immediately returned to normal.

I was in no hurry to repeat that exercise but there seemed to be something in that "shake it out into the ground" idea.  There was an obvious similarity with some dance so I decided to try solo dance instead, guided by video.  The first video indeed was all about shaking it out, only more fun and with music. 

I am not (?yet) a solo dancer.  I have the same fear of solo dancing that I have had all my life.  I love tango because it's a shared endeavour.  I love salsa, because with the right person it can be really fun but a wave of panic comes over me if the guy lets go for more than a second.

The video was regular people led by a teacher proposing simple moves.  The overwhelming message in this video and others was to dance your own way:  not to copy or follow anyone else, that dance is about being individual and authentic.  

That individuality, originality, uniqueness that is particularly evident in the way guys dance in tango, is also the kind of tango dancing I love, the only kind, in fact. It is about an individual interpretation of the music, a wholly unique relationship with the partner.  It has nothing to do with steps. 

It is odd that on the one hand some of us, or some of the time, we seem to want the reliability and security of standardisation in life generally, in our cars, in the products we buy, certainly, I am sure in the healthcare we receive, but when we have that standardisation all the time, the lack of individuality deadens our souls.

Authenticity is from the word "authentes", one acting on one's own authority," from autos "self" + hentes "doer, being" "to accomplish, achieve". 

Being authentic then, would seem to be about being guided by oneself, being yourself, which requires confidence.  Where does confidence come from? Some combination of instinct, experience and good models and mentors, perhaps. 

Knowing people

Gordon Johnson

On Sunday, I danced in Milonga La Garua (free entry), in Bilbao's casco viejo.  About a year ago, for a few months I had enjoyed Spanish/English conversation exchange online with a woman from that city who happens to dance tango. I sent her a message on Sunday lunchtime when we arrived in Bilbao to say I was planning to go to the milonga that evening and it would be a lovely opportunity to meet her if she was going.  She spotted me when I arrived, we danced.  She was a wonderful dancer.

The barman was great with my thirteen year old son, feeding him peanuts and keeping half an eye on him.   

We all know one another here, one of the habitués said.  It was a nice atmosphere. The vice-president of the tango association that organised the milonga kindly and chattily collected me from the end of that bar by the entrance where the non-dancers sit and brought me to the far end where the dancers congregated.  She introduced me and some Spanish visitors to the milonga at large.

Someone who travels told me this part of Spain: Bilbao, a small village near San Sebastian and the Basque country in to France is one of the best areas for dancing. 

- Why is that - because the music is better?   

- The music, the dancing, the organisation.

My friend and her friends gave me tips about the good guy dancers, the men recommended women, which became a small number of couples and individuals.  By quiet words and looking and in the mysterious way of the milonga, connections rippled through the air.  I had a great evening.  

It can really help to know people.

Irreverence / Irreverencia

Bruce Mars

She is irreverent, wild.  I wasn’t sure if she was messing around to get my attention or his. What do I have to do, she said, Lie down along the stage? I still wasn't sure which of us she wanted but took a risk and walked towards her while she stood up. Did you mean me?, I asked as we went to the floor. Yes! she said, I wouldn't dance with him. What a compliment, when a woman chooses a woman over a guy for dance. 

Heightwise, we are poorly compatible. She chats through the dancing and worse - gets me to do it too. She laughs like a she-devil and everyone looks but she is outrageous, endless fun. My cheeks hurt with smiling & laughing through that tanda. Stop! I hissed. Even without my specs I can tell that everyone at that table is looking! 

What? she said, characteristically insouciant.  They don’t like that we’re having fun while they’re sitting? 

*

Ella es irreverente, alocada. No estaba segura de si estaba bromeando para llamar mi atención o la de un hombre cercano.

Dijo ella: ¿Qué tengo que hacer, tumbarme en el suelo?  Quiso decir: "para llamar tu atención".  Aún no estaba segura de con quién de los dos quería para bailar - si conmigo (que bailo los dos papeles) o con el hombre de al lado.  Me arriesgué y me dirigí hacia ella mientras se levantaba. ¿Te referías a mi? pregunté mientras íbamos a la pista. Sí, dijo. No bailaría con él. Qué cumplido, cuando una mujer elige a una mujer en vez de a un hombre para bailar.  Una mujer que hace de hombre en la salsa mencionó hace poco que las mujeres suelen bailar mejor que los hombres, y a mí me ocurre lo mismo en el tango. 

En cuanto a la altura, somos poco compatibles, el “espiritu libre” y yo. Charla durante el baile y, lo que es peor, consigue que yo también lo haga. Se ríe como una diablesa y todo el mundo la mira, pero es escandalosamente divertida. Me dolían las mejillas de tanto reír y reír durante aquella tanda. ¡Para! siseé. ¡Incluso sin mis gafas puedo decir que todo el mundo en esa mesa está mirando! 

¿Qué? dijo, característicamente despreocupada. ¿No les gusta que nos divirtamos mientras ellos están sentados? 

Estoy muy agradecida a Amelia por su ayuda con la traducción. Cualquier error restante es sólo mío.

Dual role dancing

I find dual role dancers tend to be better dancers. Sometimes it is called open role dancing.  These days, I notice I dance with very few men unless they are dual role dancers.  I just don’t tend to fancy them for dance.  Now I often seem to be able to guess, even without seeing them dance, which guys are the dual role dancers, or who might be open to it.  It's a bit like how, in Sheffield, I started to be able to guess the kinds of guys that were more likely to prefer me to guide them.   Outside the queer tango community, many dual role dancing men are in their twenties, under 35, but by no means always. I love too to meet older men who dance both roles. It says a lot about how liberal-minded they are.

If you can find a dual role dancer to learn with, so much the better.  Most queer tango dancers I have met dance both roles and most dance much better than most straight dancers. The reason queer tango dancers (who may be straight) dance well is nothing to do with their sexual preferences, which are entirely their own affair. It is because they dance both roles. The Queer Tango Edinburgh subtitle is: Queer can be who you are, what you do or how you dance. I rather like that. It also says Tango for everyone, which I really like. 

The current acronym, if you are interested is LGBTQIA: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual or allied. I particularly like allied because it welcomes even people not in that community.  That sounds open and welcoming without in any way labouring the point.  A place that welcomes curious people sounds good to me.  That inclusiveness reminds me of the Paris milonga Le Cygne (I haven't been yet), which Olivier runs. I think I asked him if it started as a queer milonga. And I think what he said was that it started as a milonga or perhaps as a practica for everyone in the city centre. And now, he said, wonderfully, and with much understatement, and not least, in his charming accent, it is hetero-friendly. 

During the last couple of years there has been a rise, in Europe, of events for dual role dancers. I will go to my first one in Toulouse in May, with Totally in Tango.  This seems to be the main organisation in Europe that runs events for dual role dancers.  So far the events all seem to have filled up and sold out very quickly. My enquiry in September last year for the Eindhoven event in Feb 2019 was fruitless - it was already full. I had a very polite email from Ludo who told me TiT don’t run waiting lists. I couldn’t have agreed more that they are stressful for all involved. 

I like the line on their website: It can be so amazing when you do not know anymore who is leading and who is following. It all becomes one dance.

The website says Dancers that enjoy both roles are welcome. Even better is that on the events that are not already full it says Is your friend/partner (still) a single role dancer? You are both welcome.  So if you wanted to learn both roles, there's an 'in'. 

At the moment, their events attract more women than men. A participant at an event last year told me the ratio was 70:30 and I heard that confirmed about Eindhoven too. Overall though, I find women better dancers in the ordinary milongas so that is no issue for me. If there were any guys who danced both roles, or wanted to learn, that would be a good thing. Given how many queer tango dancers I met in Sheffield, UK, in December, who were from Germany I was not surprised to hear that the Netherlands and Germany are open-role-tolerant communities. 

The dance events I am most interested in now are the dual role events. They are growing in number. Most recently I saw an announcement in the Open Role Tango facebook group that Amsterdam apparently now has regular queer and open role milongas: 

I missed Niño Bien Maraton in Halle, Germany in February when it was my son’s birthday. I noticed that, wonderfully, as in the Dutch Salon de Oranjerie, you could buy tickets online.  That means there is none of that selectiveness on the quiet by organisers that puts me off many weekend events requiring registration.  There were a few places left in January, but according to the Facebook post most tickets sold out in the first week after registration opened. 

There was TangoCrosswise in the Harz mountains of Germany this weekend just past.  I had heard about it from someone who went last year and said it was nice.  None of the German queer tango dancers I spoke to knew of it but they tend to travel on the queer tango weekend circuit.  It was in Veckenstedt, a small village far from...everywhere.  I struggled to work out how to get there, enquired about that, had no reply and eventually gave up trying. By the time I discovered travel info on the other website it was too late to make arrangements.  If you are travelling from abroad it is probably at least a plane, a train and a bus. Or be braver than I was (despite learning to drive in Germany) and hire a car.

There is not much else that I know of in terms of weekend social dancing for open role dancers or any city that has enough open role + queer tango dancing to make a weekend of it.  Dresden seems to be big on open role classes and runs a social weekend which mentions dual role tango but it is called 'Iron Tango', and it is run very evidently by a dance ‘academy’ and both those things put me off.

The only other event I know of is the open role weekend in Bonn, Tango oRó in mid September. I rather fancy celebrating my birthday there! The floor looks good in the pictures. The music is 80/20 traditional/alternative music which is good to know in advance. It is organised by teachers but there is just one discreet link to their dance school on the About Us page. The main effect is the fun, casual, colourful photo of four smiley people. Registration starts Sunday 2nd June, 5pm. There are 100 places and apparently, it sold out quickly last year. It is €125, for the milongas, food, yoga and footbath sessions.

Non-dancers

A: ...It is difficult and dangerous to generalise.

B: Indeed. These things can just be labels stuck on doors.

A: I think it’s a general issue we have, lacking nuance, using lazy binary (or ternary or...) terminology for something that is nuanced, dynamic. This applies to relationships, and politics ('Leave', 'Remain', blah blah)

B: It's what humans are - nuanced I mean - but I feel we live in a world where that's in short supply. In a way it's good because it means it's rare, which ought to mean it should become more valued.

A: It should be valued more, but only by a few who realise we are nuanced, our systems and conventions do not identify them, politics (in the UK) is becoming super binary as is the media (the two are highly correlated). And there are no alternative systems to compensate...

Sorry, it’s one of my pet peeves, how bloody black and white everything is these days and so few people slow down to think about what we are doing, where are we heading...

B: I couldn't agree more. Almost by definition nuance sits outside of systems. Except perhaps nature where we find that when a delicate, complex eco-system is disturbed even in an apparently small way, the effects can be devastating.

Where do you find nuance? In good books, films, art - things that interpret or inform meaningful human experience. And it's in meaningful human relationships. I think nuance is correlated with meaning and understanding. It's sensitive and easily crushed. The things that are popular in the world are the crushing things: politics and the media, agreed, but also systems like education, healthcare systems, business, money, status, power, control, advertising (which includes all social media), conventions...

I think as long as you enjoy the low-hanging fruit of an unreflective life, nuance doesn't matter to a lot of people but I think the people who miss it feel it badly. If you need that it can be hard to fit into modern life.

A:  Dancing the Argentine tango must be exhilarating?

B: Yeah, dancing tango, if you find the right people, can be a marvellous antidote. It's all about that really - a real and nuanced connection with another person and all while moving to this amazing music. 

A: I need to get out more and talk with adults about things other than work.

Shame I don’t dance ;-)

B: :) Well, let me know how many you come across that're into nuance and shade :)

"Shame i don't dance". 

Yet... :)

A: I really don’t dance... but I like to watch

B: Tango's no panacea, sensual drug that it is. Most people don't dance that way. And when you find someone who does, more than likely you've found them somewhere halfway across Europe after several fruitless trips. They're never round the corner. When you find someone you dance well with, it's indescribably wonderful for the 12 minutes you spend with them and that might be it. It will be the highlight of the trip but ultimately, where does that leave you?

And, inevitably it has politics too, between groups and individuals. A lot of communication in the milongas is nonverbal, including the invitation to dance so when you mix that with the fact that everyone is watching and pride and machismo you can imagine how many misunderstandings that leads to...

A: I will certainly give the tango a wide berth :-)

I guess the high you get from the dance, the connection, you want more of it?

B: It can be addictive, especially at the start. It's a good thing to do if you travel solo, it's also sociable, international, because there's less talking the nuance factor is high, as is the intensity of the feeling. And then, of course, you're free at the end of it. It's quite a primal feeling and it's all legal.

A: You are selling it... if only my coordination skills were up for it.

B: One of my favourite dancers is a guy, thorny, like me, in character, smaller than me, older than me, bald I think, by no means slim; we dance in an open hold, whereas I always ordinarily dance in the embrace, but I love dancing with him. He is just so fun.

That's one of the things I love about the milonga. You see people of all types, all ages, all forms and they all find someone to match with. People are reminded they are embraceable. And when two people dance and something unexpected happens they are so anxious to say, "Sorry, my mistake" and the other person will say - "What mistake?" People are good to one another. I think dancing tango brings out the best in people. There are some awful characters but I never come close to them so I kind of forget they exist.

A: Sounds idyllic. Like great sex without any of the mess or complications

B: Yeah. Exactly. One of the loveliest moment I had in the milonga was in Rotterdam, dancing out of doors next to the river on the deck of a hotel. The sky was huge, the day was sunny with the Erasmus Bridge as a dramatic architectural backdrop. I was enjoying dancing with a woman who did surprising, sensual things. As sometimes happens, either I accidentally bumped into another couple or they bumped into me. I automatically raised a hand in that general direction, in apology, which is just what one does regardless really of whether it's your fault or not. Somebody that I couldn't see, either because my partner was in front of me or because it happened to the side of me I don't remember, somebody I couldn't see on the dance floor took my hand and stroked it meaning: don't worry it's fine. It was the loveliest moment.

A: Blissful. Those moments are rare, if we ever experience them

B: Thinking about it, I have had a lot of amazing moments in dance. You should try it. I never danced til I was nearly 40. I mean absolutely never.

A: I have terrible coordination, no sense of rhythm

B: That's what I thought 'til I tried it. You get that intimacy with lots of different people - legitimately, safely, in public even, yet with strangers. And as you said no mess, no complications and you can still come back for more if you like.

A: It does sound nice, the sense of community... and I would love to watch, 

B: Watching is the main thing anyway. You can learn an awful lot from sitting, listening, watching, chatting.

A: It’s the kind of thing I would love, if it didn’t involve dancing

B: I don't really think of it as dancing. Argentine tango is an improvised, walking dance after all, despite what's shown on the TV.  Ballroom tango is a completely different dance.  But Argentine tango is a way of connecting with people. A kind of deep, fast way. I met this guy once who had a poly girlfriend who used sex as a way of getting to know people. I wouldn't say I used tango that way but sometimes I wonder if that is why I dance. I mean you have a very good idea about what someone is like, as a person, when you dance with them.

A: It’s all about intimacy... sex or tango or kissing, we crave it. We crave it, when it’s missing in our lives

B: You have a facility to put into words things that I could not bring myself to say. It's a kind of courage. But I think there are lots of people who do have it and still want...more!

It has been said, famously, that dancing tango is about what happens in the pauses when you are not moving. Some of my best moments have been then - in the embrace, but not moving, at least not visibly moving.

A: I can see the attraction, to the tango

B: You get to have the intimacy with lots of different people - legally, safely, in public even, yet with strangers. And as you said no mess, no complications 

A: You make it sound perfect...

Except for the dancing.

Elbow-whacking automata

Mechanical Pinocchio

That's enough of the Flash Harry(et) posts.  I am waiting for a few things to fall into place before getting back to the main thread.   So, by way of an interlude:

2014

A: PS - What do you think of this?

B: A show better than most shows. 

But if they dance like that in the milonga... :(

Actually I should say a show less bad than most shows.

I would not want to dance with her. Too much "playing with herself". Or near "him". Too much aggression in that stuck-out elbow.

Some three years ago the topic of 'aggressive elbows' was discussed in an online forum and re-surfaced recently.    Curiously,  some of those condemning it are some of the offenders.  One hopes this is guilt and the awakening of self-knowledge though, recall, many can change their minds on a topic and yet maintain that they have always held they have actually come to.  Being so rare, hearing someone admit to a change of heart is a marvel, one of the great pleasures of existence.  I have the sense, sometimes, of a gate opening, or of recognition, because it means it is a person with whom one might be friends.

At that time, internet forums had, for the most part, passed me by.  I was curious.  But it is surely late now to say that the kind of chat one finds on the internet, even the middle-class internet of British dancers discussing Argentine tango - actually, the internet of mainly middle-class southerners discussing Argentine tango  - is a bit like stumbling into one of the noisiest, most random rondas one could find.  

I mentioned that it was useful to see elbow-whackers at play because it was an expression of character and it helps one know before meeting them, whether one wants to know them better - or indeed at all.  To this, there was - at least - scepticism.  How could something as insignificant as an arm posture have "any reflection on them as people"?  But it says a lot about them.  There are at least two types of dancer who use the aggressive elbow:

Type A: "I am special.  I deserve lots of space because of my 'level'. I have earned it.  Let me be seen.  Give way you minions!"

These might be happier with a career in performance rather than in the social ronda.  Or in some job with status, power and control of others.  Since they are usually past the age for performance or lack the ability, or, more likely, they already have some more important job, they express their dynamic dance style for the 'benefit' of social dancers.  

There was a pleasant chap in this forum with the admirable quality of assuming the best in people. He thought that the stuck out elbow was not hostile because no-one deliberately danced aggressively.  If you have ever experienced the shock of a malevolent couple using the woman's heels or their combined elbows as a weapon, you will know this not to be the case.  Fortunately, encountering this evil on the dance floor is rare.  I have only experienced it, to my knowledge, once.  I heard that the protagonists are now in Antwerp, centre of the unhappy diamond industry, and also of exploitation, money, status and power.  The destination is fitting.  It was also where I had some of the most depressing practica, milonga, and tourism experiences of my travels.

Many though do perceive the stuck-out elbow as aggressive.  I notice the culprits tend to be teachers in places like London.  Such was the case reported here.  On that occasion, it was a teacher, one of the main organisers and DJs in central London.  He was dancing at the time, appropriately, with an oblivious ice queen of a teacher from the north.  They were one of the most arrogantly dancing couples I have ever seen - worse in fact than most real performers who, especially among the Argentinians, can be pleasant people.

Some of the offenders, interestingly, are DJs. That is unlikely to be a coincidence.  In Europe the DJ is often put on the stage, exalted.  DJ blurbs differentiate them from others, advertising their specialness.  DJs are applauded in Europe.  That doesn't happen in a traditional Buenos Aires milonga.  The DJ is important.  People know his or her name but, in a hidden booth or behind a curtain, they are rarely seen.  There, the DJ is at the service of the dancers.  He is not an ego, a 'personality' but a facilitator, like spoons. No surprise then when DJs in the UK and mainland Europe stick their elbows out.  It goes together with believing yourself to be a big shot.

No matter who they are, I think of Type A's as elbow-whacking automata because they don't tend to give a shit about anyone else. 

Type B elbow-whacker is the one who is silently conveying:  "Get back and give me some room, you arse."  This type sticks out the elbow in response to a, usually repetitive, dangerous, infringement of their probably compressed dancing space. The message is sent to the automaton, a tailgater or to some random, passing weaver.

Melanistic jaguar

I would like to call type B the panther because while I don't condone this behaviour and occasionally, in defence, have done it myself, I have a soft spot for the ordinarily discreet dancer, especially those bullied by automata. 'Panther' is perhaps optimistic but let us at least hope that they are quiet, that they move well, taking up little space. Besides, it is the quiet ones I notice who can really go for the jugular.

Most of us could do with less lurching, with being rather more panther-like in our movements, more silk-like in our dancing. I was fortunate to meet some rare exceptions recently from the Paris queer tango scene, currently at my number one spot of where to go looking for good dancing; there or at the other queer tango watering holes in Europe where those dancers congregate. The people I danced with moved so smoothly it was hard to imagine it bettered.  During seven milongas I recall not one of the eighty or so attendees standing out as being an elbow-whacker.  Many people knew one another.  

No matter who does, unfortunately, stick out their elbow, that ugly protuberance is a statement to those watching or dancing nearby.   The focus is lost from the partner.  Once that happens you are not dancing entirely with and for the partner and with a courteous, but much less focused awareness of the people around.  

So what to do? If the panther reacts with a warning elbow to the random weaver that can be enough to get them to bugger off. But I am unconvinced the weaver even consciously notices and the dance, at least for that track, is often already screwed.  The focus on the partner has gone and the weaver will likely have been being irritating well before the elbow warning. But, if the automaton is dancing next to the panther, the elbow warning is pointless.  The former never changes. The only thing the panther can do without dancing with that loss of focus is to stop dancing or circle elsewhere in the ronda.   Once the focus is gone though, the interruption is so disturbing it is difficult to regain it.  Experience says that even if you manage to regain some composure and focus, the tanda is ruined.  To constantly invade a couple's privacy in that way is much graver to my mind than accidentally bumping into them and raising a quick apologetic hand.  

With luck, automaton and panther are unlikely to meet often. It is fair to say that the automaton will probably not notice the panther. Once set, he just keeps going, whirling obliviously in his little kingdom.  This sort of dancer tends to be wrapped up in how they look to themselves or to others who only exist as a sort of mirror. The panther will be at pains to stay out of automata milongas, for obvious reasons.

Sense of a woman

In 1960, before Dodge motorhomes were mass produced, John Steinbeck had a vehicle built made for a road trip around America. He had eight years left to live. At the start of the resulting book, Travels with Charley he wrote:  "I wanted a three-quarter-ton pick-up truck, capable of going anywhere under possibly rigorous conditions, and on this truck I wanted a little house built like the cabin of a small boat." He named it Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse. Thinking he might do some writing, he filled it with the requisite paraphernalia. He writes:

I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless. I knew very well that I rarely make notes, and if I do I either lose them or can't read them. I also knew from thirty years of my profession that I cannot write hot on an event. It has to ferment. I must do what a friend calls 'mule it over' for a time before it goes down. And in spite of this self-knowledge I equipped Rocinante with enough writing material to take care of ten volumes

Likewise, after a trip I can never find the right notebook or finding it, cannot read it. On largely that basis proceeds the story of meeting a man I will call José though it is not his real name.  

DescriptJosé 

DescriptioJosé .

On that third night in Buenos Aires, José was also at the Obelisco club.  I was glad I had finally got my dance virginity in that city out of the way before we danced.  It is nice when, for various reasons, people set up dances with someone you have noticed but how much better it is when you do it for yourself.  These things can take time and they need the right conditions: the right mood, the right music, the right moment.  But there is nothing better than to dance when the desire to do so is mutually discovered, desired and agreed silently, by look and at a distance.

He did not, I thought initially, look Argentinian. When, later, between tracks, I glanced briefly into his face, his eyes were very Argentinian.  How strange that we can dance so close, feel every movement of the partner's body, know that there is nowhere to hide and, when embracing the partner, embrace that too and yet it can be so hard to simply look into their face.  It is not like that in the man's role though, or at least it is so different as to bear little comparison.

Dancing with him was better than I had hoped.  We were compatible.  But being so out of practice in the woman's role, and now also so keyed up, as before my hips were tight and would not respond easily to the tiny swivels he proposed. At the prospect that my dancing days in Argentina, so soon begun must be over almost as quickly, my heart sank.  But he was gentle and from that trust grows.  Then he proposed the same small movement again.  What - had I misjudged, been too hasty?  Was this yet another man deaf to what the woman likes and can do?  Yet to my great surprise he moved his hand to support my lower back and hips and somehow eased me through the movement.  Curiously, it was not now unpleasant.  In fact I was relieved to know that those movements peculiar to the woman's role were still possible and I was grateful.  Mostly, I was surprised because there are guys who are accommodating, which is lovely, but to find a dancer so competent that he can help you in a way unanticipated, that is vanishingly rare.  Those tiny, hip-swivelling movements were nice with him and discreet, the way I feel they are supposed to be with guys, not those grotesque gate-opening pivots taught in class, which, were they not so noticeable in some guys as to be easily avoidable, I might otherwise dread.  This happened a few times until I got used to and relaxed with the movement again.  It was lovely when he sensed I could respond without help.  It all happened not by language but by sense.  Among the thousands who dance the good dancers seem extraordinarily few and José was the rarest of these. He had a deep sensitivity to,  understanding of and responsiveness to women that I have not found present in most other men who dance.

I like dancing tango in many different ways, with men, with women, in both roles, just as I like the many different styles of the different orchestras. But José elicited femininity in women,  not by provoking some false exhibition of it, he simply elicited the feeling.  A very few men can do this in ways that don't really lend themselves to description.  That ability in turn enhances that male-female charge which powers the ineffable something that is at the heart of the kind of dancing I most enjoy.  

We danced twice that evening. Thereafter, we danced at least once in many of the milongas where we met.  Even among the sceptics in Buenos Aires he was regarded as a good dancer.  The sceptics seemed to be more among some of the ex-pats.  Perhaps that has to do with the Anglo-American analytic tradition of thought.  The Latin countries put more emphasis on feeling.  Dancing with him was like being rocked to sleep in a boat under stars were it not so simultaneously enlivening.  It was a kind of surrender, to what I am not sure - to the man, to the universe, to the universe through the man, I still don't know.  You don't think about these things at the time and afterwards, looking back it feels rather dream-like.

It was not all straightforward. After our first dance, he held on to my hands and said those flattering, attentive things, that some Argentinean men do say between dances and that so many Argentine women - dancers and non dancers - stranded in Europe, seem to miss.  That, I can understand as a cultural difference but this hand-holding I didn't think was normal.  I wanted my hands back.  Yet, perhaps it was normal in Buenos Aires where everything is so different.  I was dubious but, with all that novelty, not so clear thinking to see that, being dubious, I should perhaps do something.  After the second or third track I did and we seemed to reach an understanding.

More than anyone else it was José I saw, or noticed in the milongas I went to especially in Gricel on Tuesdays and Thursdays or at Milonga de los Consagrados on Saturday in Salon Leonesa. One evening we were exchanging a few words between tracks before the ronda got moving.  In Buenos Aires this can easily take up a whole minute of your  - roughly - three minute track   I don't recall exactly what I asked, perhaps whether he preferred dancing with local women or tourists but I remember his oblique answer.  He said:  women who dance well give you their heart. Some dance well but don’t give their heart and that means nothing. 

I even saw José way out of town at the Caricias milonga. That night he only danced with the same two or three women. He did not acknowledge me which was strange because the venue is small. I put it down to his characteristic absorption in the dance but there seemed more to it than that.  I didn't consider he had 'dumped' me in dance because we seemed to dance too well and because in the busy, central milongas he continued to invite me.  Once, I left Gricel early, not liking the music.  It wasn't the night for Daniel's milonga in that venue, where the music was better.  At the next milonga at which we met, he came over and asked why I had left.  He had missed me there and had wanted to dance.

One day during my last week we met at Milonga de Los Consagrados. It was mid-evening, the end of that afternoon milonga;  It was probably around 11pm, mid-evening if you are running on milonga-time, which for me meant finishing increasingly often at 3AM.  I was thinking of going on to watch the scene at Cachirulo, a milonga for the jet set of the tango scene which at that time was in nearby Obelisco club on the brightly lit main drag of Avenida Entre Rios. But I had to walk three and a half blocks down Humberto Primo to get there. I had walked between milongas all over the centre of Buenos Aires and well after midnight, often alone, but those few blocks and the people who hung out on them felt distinctly menacing and I was scared. But in Buenos Aires you cannot leave certain milongas - and that included nearly all the milongas I went to - with a man you did not arrive with. Or if you do, it sends a clear message to him and to everyone watching about your subsequent plans. In the language (so they say) of the codes you have 'accepted going for a coffee' a 'coffee' you are going to have at one of the telos, the albergues transitorios or love hotels.  In conversation with José I mentioned I was going on to Cachirulo. So am I, he said. My heart leapt. Perhaps, I thought but didn't say, I could meet him outside and he would walk me down the street with all face saved.  But I'll be working he continued, casually. Sorry? I said. I couldn't imagine José as a waiter or the guy who seats people.  Seeing my puzzlement, he explained:  he would be taxi dancing.  I was dumbfounded.  My disbelief must have been evident because he showed me his card not at all in the way of 'come and do classes with me' but simply to prove it.  But we've just danced here I gasped, my mind unable to accommodate the idea that I had been dancing with a taxi dancer - and not known it.  I have seen you dancing socially in lots of places.  José was always quite inscrutable. Yes, he said.  calmly, possibly amused. I don't always work.  I was too shocked to register, properly, the compliment.  Things fell into place. The nights where I had seen him with women, tourists, when he did not acknowledge me, he was working. The nights he was alone when he danced socially and when we danced, he was not.

One night I saw him in a milonga in the centre, again with the two or three American women I had seen him with in Caricias.  I never saw him teach her but the young girl learnt fast with him. It was clear she was in heaven and it was a pleasure to see that enjoyment. When José was absent, I said hello to them and exchanged a few pleasantries. Before this family trio left the milonga with him I saw him introduce them to  Flaco Dany, the famous milonguero - part of the experience I guessed. 

Still, I mentioned my surprise a day or two later to an older, cynical ex-pat who, I realised later, scared me. Ha! she said, harshly.  They just see you as a big dollar sign she added, scornfully, suggesting I was naive, that he was only dancing with me because he had been trying me for a sop.  

I never contacted José after I left.  I don't know what happened to him or if he is still dancing.  Once or twice I enquired after him. Janis told me last year that he was 67. I couldn't believe it. He danced so smoothly. I have never knowingly danced with a man that age and had such a feeling of a much younger man. Janis said that they all had that, that dancing keeps them young. 

His card said Profesor:  José. I didn't understand. How could you 'teach' someone to dance the way he does?  How could you teach that attitude towards women?  But I am not sure that he teaches men.  The card says :

Renta de departamentos temporarios. 

 Pista de baile - Clases de tango en [a building which seems to be closed now]

Profesor:  José  - Prácticas el el lugar 

acompañante para bailar en las milongas

So, what it mostly says about José himself is that he will practice with you and take you to dance in the milongas. In short, he will dance with you.  When women dance with more experienced men, that is how they really learn.

I am happy that my dances with him were social.  I am grateful that I met him and that he never so much as hinted that I should do a private, paying milonga tour with him which would have ruined everything.  The other taxi dancers I saw in Buenos Aires danced exceptionally well.  It was not always easy to tell who they were.  Even the regulars and the hosts did not always know.  I can't think of a time when anyone I asked was entirely sure if a guy I asked about was a taxi dancer.  I saw some in Confiteria Ideal.  That gorgeous tourist trap was the ideal venue for it.  I asked the waiter / DJ if those young men were taxi dancers.  But he too was hesitant:  "I'm not sure, I think so, probably'.  For all that I imagine taxi dancing is the mere simulation of a feeling, that was hard to tell too.

Even with Janis there, my initiation in to the milongas in Buenos Aires was not quite stratightforward, in as much as walking into a venue, sitting down, ordering a drink and waiting for an invitation to dance can be thought tricky.  Still, I am not altogether sure that I would have swapped exploring the milongas alone, when later I did that, to be taken round by a taxi dancer for a few days.  But that is a personal choice made with hindsight which can never be trusted.  Dancing with José was so good, perhaps I would have.  Had anyone I did trust suggested it I might well have tried it.   Yet, despite the reservations I have about taxi dancing, seeing those dancers in Buenos Aires improved my view of it.  And if you were alone in Buenos Aires and nervous or new to that city's milongas or new to dance, I wouldn't hesitate to say, get in touch with José and ask him to introduce you to the milongas.  I have his details.