Catharsis

A guy came to sit on a chair to my left. Like me he was visiting for a few days from I think Wroclaw. While we watched he cracked jokes. I had been feeling the strain the last couple of days, his humour was cathartic and I was grateful for the easy banter.  

He had seen my friend was new in the milongas.  In a stage whisper he said Ask your friend to ask that girl to dance with me. He indicated the girl to the right of my friend.  He leaned across me - Ask her for me he hissed again. I knew my friend was safe but looked at the visitor askance at this attempt to play a newbie joke and we all laughed.  He didn’t get the dance he was hoping for. You dance with me again! he said. 

No! I said in mock outrage. Besides, I will dance the rest of the tanda with my friend in a moment. 

Ah, he said feigning injury. What do you call it when a girl says you know, no, to a man? I gave him a “Don’t come that” look and was annoyed to feel my heartstrings tugged even though I knew he had contrived the situation and just for fun.  But I could not bring myself to tell him the word I was sure he knew.

I wouldn’t be a second choice anyway, I said, avoiding it.

Third, actually, he said evenly in his apparently artless English that I knew to be anything but without guile, yet the very brazenness was part of a game. I looked at him, predictably speechless at the affront yet knowing it was in jest.  He looked.  The tension sung in the air a moment then we broke down into laughter that continued quite a while. 

Eventually, he said: You will change, you will come back and dance with me.

Really? 

Ah yes, he said.  Women always do. I gave him another look between scepticism and pretence at being impressed.  At least, my last resort, I can tell myself this he said and again we laughed. 

I met a local girl in the Ladies. We both wore pink dresses.  She had long blonde hair that reminded me of another woman from Stuttgart with whom I had danced at the 2015 Edinburgh International Tango Festival, though that women had been as tall as me.  I had seen her in the regular milonga that week and though she had looked I had not been brave enough to invite her. At the festival she was sitting at the end of a row with no chairs at right angles and no bar or obvious place from which to invite anyone sitting there.  Because of the seating that year in the South side venue she was in a very difficult position for invitation. She did not appear to have danced much yet I knew she could dance. I wished now I had invited her in the milonga instead. The only way to invite was to prowl round and loiter by the entrance. I hated the idea that I would try to invite, she might refuse and in that exposed position I would suffer.  This was before I for the most part stopped moving from my seat to invite women because I feel that indiscretion too much.  I persuaded a guy friend to come and pretend to chat to me by the entrance and to tell me if she was looking.  Do guys do this?  Do guys suffer such anxiety for us? I wondered thinking the situation absurd but finding no other way.  She did look, we danced and she was a dream to dance with.  I have been wanting to dance with you she said to my relief.  I looked for her when I travelled but did not see her.

The girl with similarly long blonde hair wore a dress that was very pretty and I said so.  She returned the compliment.  She wore specs.  Later I saw her dancing and thought her beautiful, happy, slim and a good dancer. Later still, shortly before I left we fell into chat. She said she had been at Tango Loft on Friday then to a milonga in Darmstadt on the Saturday which she said was lovely. It turned out to be Sascha Weinberger’s milonga  though he was away that weekend. I have wanted to hear Sascha DJ for a long time along with other German DJs Thorsten Zoerner of the Dusseldorf TangoAtelier  and Christian Walker of Freiburg (does anyone know if he has a regular DJ slot?). Her weekend - Friday at Tango Loft, Saturday in Darmstadt, Sunday at El Amateur seemed like a good idea. Before I left she embraced me.  Because I had liked her straightaway I was only half-surprised at her warmth and openness.  I felt happy too.  With the relaxed chat that evening I started to feel myself again in the milongas and for the first time that weekend.  I was sorry it was just before leaving.

Disruptive?

When we arrived at El Amateur there were few people. Before we knew there was food there we had decided to dance while it was quiet then go and find something to eat. But we hadn’t factored in the music and by the time we had had our tasty soup next door and the music had changed enough that I wanted to dance it, the place was already filling up. 

I am not unfamiliar with dancing with brand new guys in places I do not know well.  I had done so in January in Letchworth, though only I think one tanda, the music being unsuitable for beginners. In mid-February I took a friend new to dance to a new milonga, La Redonda in Edinburgh.  I had done the same with another friend, also a beginner guy in La Catedral in Buenos Aires in March. We danced all evening.  You never know how it is going to go with each guy.  There are similarities dancing with beginner men in swapped roles but equally they are all different.

But in Stuttgart as time went on I felt a bit awkward.  I felt this milonga was traditional in that perhaps they did not expect or appreciate people dancing in swapped roles or more that they did not appreciate complete beginners even in the middle. Later I found my friend, a local, thought more that they were tolerant as long as we did not bump into anyone. Astonishingly, we did not.  With my eyes open I was less sure but did not encounter any apparent hostility, more perhaps surprise. I continued because this was the only chance to dance with my friend, we did not appear to risk harm to or disrupt anyone and we stayed in the middle. Besides, I cannot help but feel it is no bad thing to share, wordlessly, in public the insufficiently well known view that beginner men can - in my opinion should - dance first as women with a more experienced partner, though ideally I think they would do so with another man.

I am not sure I would do the same there again mostly because I felt in those particular circumstances it would have been better and I might have felt less disruptive to the ambience - if indeed it was felt disruptive - in a practica. Or I would wait until I knew the milonga better. The experience also taught me something about how to dance better in swapped roles with beginner men, something I have since tried in another milonga. Still, another man - also a visitor - commented that what we did was a good thing to do for my friend and for me for which I was very grateful. While seated and after I think my friend and I had danced our last tanda of the evening, the visitor gave him a useful tip.  I never would have but it was not his partner and it was from a man to a man, so it was different.   He leaned across me: "Women automatically close their legs" he said to him in his forthright English. They just do. We don’t. But when we dance as the woman we must! Then it will be easier for her, he said, indicating me. 

Certainly, there is nothing more testing than dancing with a beginner guy, especially taller than oneself in swapped roles and in an unfamiliar environment. My friend said it was his best experience dancing tango. Given three failed attempts in class it could hardly have been worse.  Besides, there is no reason to think the real - as opposed to class - conditions would not be better and his remark made it more than reason enough for me.

Stuttgart Milonga Weekend, personally: Saturday and Sunday

I had had a lovely morning and was a little reluctant to run the gauntlet of the milonga. I arrived at the start to find it very quiet and considered perhaps I ought to have stayed out in the city and the sun, but remembered when a milonga is quieter you can often have a better time.  Deciding to see about dancing with women I wore flats yet accepted, inexplicably, a couple of guys I had avoided the day before, mostly I guess because they invited very respectfully, yet still too near for the quiet conditions.  The downside of a quiet milonga you don't know is it can be harder to refuse  invitations you do not really want.  I accepted a couple more in conditions that were nigh on impossible to get out of but were my own fault. Then I accepted someone who looked good yet I suspected was too forceful which was true. 

The effect of dancing one does not like is tension and stress, visible both on and off the floor. I had been manhandled, the floor was becoming and my knee hurt. 

But my luck changed. I was on the stools watching the floor while there was no wall of women. I had not seen him dance but from the quiet, fun way he invited at a distance just knew he would dance well.  Humour is often a shortcut.  

Later, I sought a dance by mirada across the tabled area and got a nice, traditional Buenos Aires type dance with a guy older than me. He did a double take perhaps because I had not seemed to want to dance for so long. Look. If he keeps looking, smile. (Maybe) an invitation.  I think that's how it works.  

On Saturday night, fuelled by the type of music, the atmosphere felt busier and pumped. I had had a nice, relaxing evening in the park prior to arriving quite late perhaps 2330. The milonga had started at 2200. I soon felt uncomfortable and could not settle. I did not find partners nor expect to and quit after two hours. I saw others also leaving before me especially after 0030. I think I danced once through direct invitation I had found hard to get out of but again that was my own choice and the dance was fine.

On Sunday afternoon the weather was gorgeous again. I figured the way things had been I was probably going to have a better time out of the milonga than in. I stayed out in the good weather and did not go to the dance until the last 90 minutes, around 1730. I sat near the front of the little used seating with tables to watch the dancing with only the floor in front of me, inexplicably well out of reach of all most invitation. Under pressure the gaze can narrow.  I had seen the desperate covert and less covert gazes of women who are not dancing.  Unwilling to be anything like then, I found my head physically would not turn towards where the guys were. Don’t be perverse I scolded myself, moving to the quieter side of the bar where I fell into easy conversation with Kenneth.  I was surprised then to be invited by one of the good dancers and the only guy in fact with whom I'd chatted hitherto.  So those theories I mentioned I suppose were borne out - knowing people and becoming relaxed/distracted seemed to work.  

The dance was the swooping, elegant and athletic European style. Being my first dance since the previous afternoon I was not warmed up and felt as stiff and awkward as the Tin Man. That style tends to make fewer concessions to the conditions of the woman than others.  In similar circumstances I often have a sense that I must try to keep up.  But it was one of my best dances of the weekend.

So I had three good tandas over the four milongas at the Tango Loft milonga weekend which, proportioned against travel speaks for itself. The conditions regarding seating, lighting and invitation were not right for me personally and during the weekend I felt stuck between the guys who wanted to dance with me but with whom I did not want to dance and the guys I wanted to dance with who did not want to dance with me. Even so although there were plenty of good dancers I did not have much sense that I wanted to dance with many of them - or perhaps that is just what happens when you feel guys do not want to dance with you. Who after all would want to dance with someone when, apparently invisible to them, the feeling is clearly not mutual? 

I am glad I went to Stuttgart.  Tango Loft is an attractive venue, Kenneth is a warm host and there was plenty of good dancing and from the milongas the weekend offered much for reflection. As in Cambridge, in Nottingham and this weekend at Dumbarton Castle rather than at the new milonga in Glasgow with which I combined that trip, my best time was outside the milongas, exploring and being shown the city.  As so often in life friendship makes all the difference.

Stuttgart, Friday: a personal experience

After what happened in Berlin I was wary about seating and chose cautiously a very quiet place to sit. It was true I knew no one.

In Buenos Aires this year on suggestion:  if you don't start dancing you'll have come all this way for nothing, I had for a few days accepted guys not far off randomly and wished I had stayed true to my first instincts.  The trouble is in the first few days you don't know the guys, the whole culture shock takes a while to get used to and I couldn't distinguish the men so well.  I'd track one I liked as he escorted the woman off the floor, I'd track him back to the guys section in the crowd - and suddenly I'd lost him.  You scan a sea of men roughly the same age, same height, same grey hair, same pale shirt, same specs and either you don't accept until things start to fall into place (my initial and regular approach), or you accept randomly and regret it.

But I was soon back to my normal self and planned to be as careful in Stuttgart. I sat - and stayed - at the back of the bar on the seating side. I had a glass of wine and a prosecco on an empty stomach. With so many new faces I found it difficult to keep track of who danced how and where they were sitting. Few had any base and moved from spot to spot to invite but mostly on the mobbed side of the bar. 

The physical conditions regarding seating/lighting/proximate invitation were some of the most difficult I can remember and at night, with lower lighting, about the worst imaginable for me personally.  Most people did not seem to need this though or feel the same about the conditions. There was none of the culture shock of Argentina but I found the conditions for dancing far harder in Tango Loft. I had not, however, found separate seating or at least, as in Gricel, same sex tables difficult in Buenos Aires. I found them in fact often a welcome relief from the European way. 

All in all once in the milonga besides tired I felt overwhelmed, ill at ease, defensive.  I simply wanted a quiet place to relax, listen, watch and take it all in. I wanted time to try to adjust to or at least understand conditions I shied away from.  Yet many guys expect you to want to dance very soon and are puzzled when you do not. I saw one or two other girls in the area with tables and chairs near me who looked as though they felt the same.  It was clear like me  they wanted a table, but apparently felt ill at ease, alone at it.  I would have too which is why I chose the bar.  The others not in groups or couples were around on the other side of the bar in the wash of guys and girls coming and going from the floor, some girls staying beached on the stools.  So until things became clearer I did not seek and actively avoided some invitation I sensed from guys coming too near or who I had not seen dance or who I did not want to dance with, or when the music was not what I prefer. Unsurprisingly, I was left alone and did not dance. 

But in Tango Loft, although usually happy in my own company I did not feel peaceful. Knowing I was observed not to accept guys added to the pressure.  Was I sealing my fate for the weekend? In some cases I think it proved so. Guys I thought had hovered on Friday were not interested the next day, or perhaps they never did hover. I knew it was right not to mind or care about such guys but it still bothered me. 

Indeed, the next day a guy from whom I foolishly accepted a too proximate invitation said he had seen me the night before not dancing, only watching - all night. What had I been doing? I felt obliged to explain myself but did not want to even if, like him, I had been inclined to chat while dancing.

After changing my shoes to leave I stood near the entrance and felt the wave of heat, expectation and atmosphere hit me as dancers left the floor at the end of the tanda to drift in that partnerbörse in the hope of catching a ride out to the dance floor.  It was powerful stuff, but it isn't how I like invitation to happen and so I hadn't had the inclination to join it.

Doubt and kindness

It was two flights and over eight hours of travel from Perth to my hotel in Stuttgart for the milonga weekend in Tango Loft. I had slept poorly and arrived tired with a growling headache that had developed during the afternoon. With little opportunity to rest before the dance the worries surfaced easily as I got ready to go out: What was I doing here?

Was I going to be too unknown? I thought of Cambridge where on the Friday night my best dances had been with three guys I already knew. 

Was I too old ? I thought of Berlin where the good scene was mostly young, where I found out later a friend had been told by a regular dancer there that it is hard to break in there. Then I thought of the vivacious women bailarines I had seen in Buenos Aires, older than me by thirty years or more, popular for dance, looking fantastic.

Was I experienced enough? The advert had said the event was suitable for “experienced dancers”. Four years is not that experienced. But I had seen often that time can mean little in dance. What did this particular place mean by experience anyway? Taking classes? Doing as you are told? Practising “women’s technique” in a way I once heard described unforgettably as playing with herself? No particular slur intended to this woman.  I could have picked any of the splurge of these on YouTube. Did they mean experienced in looking the part, playing the games? Or experienced simply in response to different partners on the floor, to tango music you both know and love? 

Was my dance too poor? I remembered many lovely things men and women have said over time and recently and an evening of marvellous tanda after tanda at a milonga with a friend visiting from France not long ago - dance as it can be. I might feel stiff and out of practice but even so I did not think my dance so catastrophically awful that I would not dance at all.

The doubting self muscled in again insistently: but was I going to be too tall, were my clothes too unpresentable, was I too personally unembraceable?  Despite the misgivings I  did not think it wholly so.  I remembered a young guy and great dancer I had recently danced with several times and who had complimented the very dress I was going to wear that night. Another guy was to make another compliment on a different dress that weekend. 

In the milongas and in life I see time and again it is the kindnesses of people which can be the things of real value that shore us up when we need it.

Stuttgart - El Amateur milonga

Teehaus im Weißenburgpark

I loved the name, El Amateur, long before I saw the place.  That alone is a call to those who prefer traditional social dancing to events centered around the professional tango dance industry with workshops and shows.

Access

The location of El Amateur is wonderful with great views over the city.  It is not in the city centre but it felt to me like a place doing its own thing and unapologetic.  I was told there is no public transport to get there, that taxi was best. I see that public transport will only take you so far.  You would have to walk at least 25 minutes on foot and it is uphill. 

Adventure
I had left the Sunday afternoon milonga in Tango Loft less than an hour before.  By the time  I had returned to the hotel, showered and changed it was nearing 8pm and the milonga would start in half an hour.

As things turned out my friend - a local - decided to come to this milonga.  Though we had never danced he had had three failed attempts to learn to dance tango in class and was now very into the contact improvisation dance scene.  He suggested given the hour he pick me up and we go by motorbike.  I agreed after much hesitation and only after establishing his last crash had been several decades previously.  He promised “bicycle speeds”.  In childhood or teenage years my father had said I would be disinherited if I ever got or perhaps even rode on a motorbike.  The force of that statement more than any genuine threat had stuck through life.  I have had friends affected by serious and fatal motorbike accidents and seen them on the roads so have had every inclination not to get involved.  In the circumstances though it did seem like the best way - so I thought until, rigid with fear, I had to get on the thing.  He told me my skirt could not catch but I nevertheless hitched up my dress beyond I felt - once astride the machine - what decency required. Though it can hardly have been further than 3km distant and we apparently never topped 40km/hour I think it was thrilling but terror, especially on bumps, curves and acceleration overpowered most other sense. Trying to take my mind off things I wondered if I had control issues and decided if not on the salon floor then certainly as regards personal injury.

The setting 

...of the venue is casual.  You can sit outside with a drink before the milonga but I just sat down to get over things, revive feeling to my tense limbs and to remember about breathing. 

Bar

Inside there is a bar for which at that stage I was extremely grateful.  Apparently the restaurant is closed just now but there was nevertheless good value African food in the adjoining room served by a lady from the Congo to whom we spoke in a mixture of English, French and German as she spoke them all. This room also serves as the bar.

Host

Though we did not really speak I understand the host was Otto. Johannes, who I believe is the regular host, was on holiday. Entrada was by donation. We gave 10 euros apiece. 

Conditions

My quick photo makes the room look less nice than it is. It is true it is not as jazzy or as stylish as Tango Loft but the conditions for me were superb. Seating, lighting, floor, room shape and size were all ideal.  You could see all potential partners from wherever you were in the room without moving, though some guys did.   As in many Buenos Aires venues you need only move your eyes.  I feel  especially in unfamiliar places or where I am less at ease the more you have to turn your head, still less crane your neck, you start to leak discretion and the milongas for me are all about that.  We got a table and were able to keep it. I already knew this milongas has existed for twenty years. Seeing it I was not surprised. 

I had been to a cafe in a beautiful park above the city that day.  It had had the same relaxed feeling as the El Amateur milonga.

Attendance

I am poor at estimating and did not count but there was enough for a good evening. The lower end of thirty to forty perhaps. It seemed to be mostly locals who sat for the most part down the left hand side from the door with the better dancers toward the further end towards the DJ spot.  There was a handful of dancers from the milonga weekend: a group who came together including DJ Stephan, his wife with I guess their friends and one other. 

Atmosphere

It was just...quiet and focused on dancing. One or two of the Tango Loft group did not seem to dance much so perhaps they did not like it or were just tired. It was a very different atmosphere to Tango Loft.  Despite that it was all new to me and I was dancing for the most part with a brand new beginner guy and in swapped roles I felt much more relaxed here. Otherwise I found the atmosphere hard to judge partly I did not know the place, second because my friend and I were so unusual in that setting dancing the way we were. 

Music

The music was probably - eventually - the best I heard all weekend. The DJ was Mohamed of Sydney, possibly this guy, friend of DJ Stephan Resch. When I walked in though I thought I had made a terrible mistake. The music was simply awful: heavy, plodding Guardia Vieja.  I was shocked and disappointed.  It went on for at a guess two, perhaps three tandas. I went to change my shoes in the Ladies, we paid the entrada and the music was still terrible.  At this stage I had not realised the DJ was a dancer from the milonga weekend. To escape it we went to see about food and drinks next door. I started to feel euphoric but I think that was more happiness at survival than the sekt. 

I considered leaving in the time we were eating next door except that I could not just then face getting back on the bike.  I heard two or three bearable tracks, heading towards good. Had it lasted any longer I might have left or gone outside for drinks and to watch the sun go down. 

Suddenly the music changed, became and stayed wholly good, which is to say, mainstream, until near the end of the milonga. I asked the DJ about the start and he said he often started that way and that some people like it.  Some do but not I think the same people who stay for most of the rest of what he played. It is, in my view, a common DJ error.  De Angelis came up in the conversation and he said he rarely played that orchestra, I don’t know why. I think many people find De Angelis hard or hardest to “get”. It was the last orchestra for me. Not everyone likes it perhaps because some DJs can play such terrible tracks by him. I remember hearing only one (good) De Angelis track played the whole time I was at the Stuttgart milonga weekend but heard it often in Berlin. 

There was another change at about 2340 to I think possibly Varela/Ledesma Qué tarde que has venido which I did not want to dance. I felt it a shame.  I know some like this but it was so different from everything that had gone before and to which everyone had happily danced.  Many had left already I guessed because it was a school night.  I waited to see what was going to happen. It turned to I think Pugliese which was OK but I do not dance that in swapped roles and decided to call it quits.  I noticed someone else doing the same.  It was nearly midnight in any case.

Dancing

The outer ronda seemed fine. Inside the ronda were the beginners, weaker dancers, people who overtook and one or two wilder dancers though in fact we were not so many. If I had not been dancing with a complete beginner I would not have wanted to be in the middle there. 

I danced with three guys besides my friend and enjoyed them all.  Two appeared to be visitors.  “Viel sonne” remarked one, wryly, of my British, sunburned back.  I agreed in English and squirmed, still Britishly.  It was clear I had been outside incautiously that afternoon.  Then, in German: Did I not speak German? Again, I squirmed. Not enough to converse.  Like many tolerant, accomplished Europeans he repeated what he had said this time in English and agreed to my remark that his accent his was not German, telling me his country.

The women nearest me were not looking my way and given the spectacle my beginner friend and I must have made I can’t say I was surprised.

Three other guys, locals I think, I would have danced with but they did not seem to want to dance with me either. I felt rather shunned. I considered they found our dancing so awful in swapped roles that they couldn’t face me as the girl, or to an objection to women dancing in the other role, or simply an objection to a beginner guy dancing at their milonga. But with so many variables and plenty others besides it is not worth guessing. So there were some OK to good guy dancers there I had not seen at the Tango Loft weekend and the same in girl dancers.   There were also the kind of average dancers you find everywhere at local milongas in Europe.  Some local dancers stayed only for a couple of hours, arriving and leaving early or arriving later and leaving later - another reason to DJ buffet style - which the middle part was - as opposed to as an arc or mood DJ.

Second Stuttgart milonga weekend

Tango Loft from the entrance side

I am recently returned from the second milonga weekend in Stuttgart. It comprised evening dances on Friday and Saturday and afternoon dances on Saturday and Sunday.  

I went for these reasons:

• It was milongas only and had been recommended as having no workshops, classes or shows
• It did not, in theory require registration.  This was still true for the second weekend but the emphasis had changed slightly.  Since the venue is limited by capacity though it made sense to reserve a place.   
• There was no list of rules. I find while I like events that adhere to traditional milonga etiquette I do not tend to enjoy the hosting or atmosphere of events that are explicitly rule-bound, either on websites or I have even seen rules on cards or posters in venues.  That implies the people coming need that kind of instruction so it is likely I won’t enjoy that kind of event.  On the description of this event it said simply that the event was for experienced dancers.  Given the other features and traditional music I expected dancing in the embrace to be the norm, people to clear the floor during the cortinas and invitation only by look and that is what I found.
• There was an opportunity to go to El Amateur milonga (different venue and host) on Sunday night
• I hoped to see something of the city.

Practicalities

Registration

I tried - late - to register for the first event last autumn.  However, I discovered in correspondence with the organiser that they were balancing gender.  I dislike waiting lists especially when I dance both roles and this tends to keep me away from events.  Also I did not hear back twice when I expected to and ultimately there was no space for me. I also heard reports of poor DJing e.g. DJ La Rubia - not for the first time in her case.  I had not therefore intended to register again.

I changed my mind especially as the advertising seemed to imply there may not be gender balancing.  I see now though the same statement was also made on the advertising for the first weekend when there was indeed gender balancing. I registered earlier and this time there was a place.

Entrance

Payment/registration was outside the salon, which I prefer. The welcome from the host, Kenneth was both warm and professional - that of an experienced host.

Garderobe

There was space to leave shoes and large bags.  One young liberal European guy used it to get changed… There were chairs to change shoes.  There are useful hooks under the bar for handbags.

Salon

When I saw the salon I thought it was lovely, a real dance club, with a bar, tables and chairs.  I was less keen on the mirrored wall - but you can close your eyes.  The salon reminded me in aesthetics a bit of Tango Loft in Berlin though that had for me a slightly more exotic/louche feel.   I am sure if I were a regular here who knew people, with its bar, its seating with tables for a quiet evening with a partner or friend, its gossip stools, I would discover this to be a much loved place.  

Floor

The floor was good but heated up and became sticky meaning dancing earlier on is easier.

Lighting

The salon has windows down one side which means it is light in the afternoon and much easier to see for invitation by look.  However, if you invite/accept with your back to the windows  (even when by the bar) it can be difficult to see because of silhouette.  I nearly missed a dance because of this.

The lighting at night was low.  Since most people crowded into one area for invitation lighting seemed not to be an issue for the majority.  Also I think many people knew one another which means low light is less of an issue than it is for strangers.  I asked if the low lighting was deliberately to create atmosphere.  I was told no, but that because the lights are stage lights they overheat the room and quickly.   LED lights which do not have this problem are being installed gradually.  

Refreshments

There is a bar selling alcohol, soft drinks and cocktails. Throughout the weekend there were snacks of pizza and cake which looked very nice and I understood ice cream on the Sunday afternoon but I did not attend until the end. There was also fruit, crudités nuts, olives.  Water was free.

Seating

There were tables  and chairs  under the windows next to the floor but this was used little or not at all because I think it is thought invitation by look is hard against the light there or simply that it is too far to invite across the room, though the distance would have been normal in Buenos Aires.

On one side of the bar there is a small stage with three or four tables and chairs and more similar seating in front of that in an area two or three tables deep.   This had a good view of the floor in front.   This main seating area was mostly used by friends, couples, a few single guys and a (very) few single girls who, like I suppose me, appeared noticeably uneasy.  I guessed this was because they did not know people or disliked the girl crush, or the seating arrangements or the proximate invitation on the other side of the bar.  Opposite is the mirrored wall you can see in the top photo.  Video showing the bar and seating area from the mirrored end.  Unlike at the milonga weekend the tables under the windows (left) are being used in the video.

Nearly all other single girls were on the other side of the bar or around the bar and most good guy dancers seemed to invite there.  

Between the entrance and the loos was a long wall of untabled seating on stools.  This had  mostly limited or very limited view of the floor because of the bar and people standing.  It was also used mostly by girls waiting to dance.  A few guys sometimes sat here but generally they stood or danced. This is the area where most girls spent most time when not dancing but unfortunately I find no photos online to show it.  The photo I have taken was a single quick snap taken from the stools at that end of the bar with best visibility of the floor.  It was taken at the beginning of the Saturday afternoon which is why it is quiet.  There was a photographer taking many photos on at least two days though from very discreet distance.  Photos from the first event here.

Invitation

...was usually by look.  Only the least popular guys invited too overtly and even then it was more often that they just came too close more than they walked right up and asked.  

Still, most invitation even by good dancers happened at very close quarters at the exit to the floor and around the bar on the entrance side.  It is the space directly in front of the camera (i.e. to the left of the barstool)  in the photo.   Most guys did not invite - perhaps did not need to invite - at any distance e.g. across the room.  Couples would come off the floor, then many of both sexes who had just danced simply waited in that floor exit/entrance area to pick up their next dance. I heard it described as “one large partnerbörse”.   It did not seem to bother most people there, who often invited and accepted with a nod or a word to the person next to them. Conditions one may find problematic are also minimised I find if you know people and I think many did.

If you understand what invitation/acceptance can be like at the busy end of the hall at Eton milongas during the cortinas on a multi-day event then it reminded me of that.

Attendance

The place felt busy most of the time I was there except noticeably the start of Saturday afternoon when the weather was very good.  Saturday night was extremely busy. There were some who attended all or most milongas and many who attended one or two.

A local girl I met at El Amateur on Sunday had been to Tango Loft on Friday night but said since she knew most people it was less interesting for her so she went elsewhere at the weekend. Contradictorily I heard at the bar that there were many strangers.   Kenneth read out a list of the different countries represented. He also announced many local dancers had come out on Saturday but who had not registered for the full weekend itself.  

There were more women I think generally and on Friday there was a clear female majority.  

Dancing

There seemed to be many good guy dancers, some less good and not ones I enjoy but even these got plenty of dances.  There were plenty of very good women dancers of various ages.  More women seemed able to dance well than guys but I find this the norm everywhere.   Look though is not feel and I base what I say mostly from watching as I danced little.

Some women did dance together but not many or often.  I did so only once and early when there were few people there but sensed no disapprobation for others who did so in the ronda.

I think younger women had the majority of the dances but many older women danced often.  Age seemed only one factor of many in guys choosing partners and not necessarily the main one.   I liked that there was and think it healthy for milongas when there is a broad mix of ages.

The ronda seemed mostly good.  One guy bashed me into people (but repeatedly)  yet he always found partners.  I think that was unusual among the guys.

The floor cleared virtually always during the cortina.

Atmosphere

It is hard for me as a stranger to say, also because I personally did not find the weekend relaxing. Unusually I spoke little with people.  Equally no one initiated conversation with me except a couple of guys whose tables I sat at accidentally while they were dancing.  Maybe the better thing to do in those circumstances is in fact to chat to people but I was not in the mood.  I think generally for most people the atmosphere was nice and relaxed.  I sat little and not for long among the women on the bar stools and we did not chat but smiled on arrival etc. In contrast, in Buenos Aires where I felt secure at my table and relaxed I often spoke with women I did not know. I think some women in Tango Loft sometimes may have been unhappy with the gender imbalance.  All that said if this were my local milonga I am sure it would be very nice.  If I were to try to register again I would definitely go in company.  I think this might be less necessary for good guy dancers or anyone generally unaffected by milonga conditions.