Dancing at Canning

Christmas doesn't last long here. The party starts at midnight on the 24th, you sleep it off the night of the 25th and go back to work on the 26th. It's hard work getting by here, but there's a level of friendliness, openness and cheerfulness.

Oscar's last class, my last class with Oscar, that is. It's been useful, but I won't make a bee-line for them when I come back. I'll probably go, but I've learned of other possibilities that seem more useful. Oscar's created a tango world that appeals to visitors: he teaches in English and most of his students are English speakers, but I don't see many of them dancing in milongas. & I've realised there are good classes before milongas at El Beso, that Ricardo Vidort's ex-partner Myriam Pincen teaches at Canning on Wednesday afternoon, and of course Ana Maria Schapira is always great. What is taught in these is more likely to be useful in milongas than much of Oscar's teaching. Still, his insistence on basic things like the lifting and lowering of the follower, differing the length of steps, and different styles for different orchestras, has been useful. These other classes aren't in English, but I can get by.



Something that works against dancing all night: your partner is almost certainly for the tanda only, which means that every ten minutes or so you have to find a new partner if you want to continue dancing, unlike in London where you might dance a whole evening with 4 or 5 partners. But at least you're never going to bore anyone by repeating the same steps.

Canning, Friday night, Ana Maria's class. I enjoy these more and more, in particular the dances I get with Argentinian women, some beginners, some very practiced. Predictably, it's a version of ocho cortado. One partner tells me I'm not exactly on the beat, and to my surprise I notice she's right: her idea of 'on the beat' is incredibly precise. Another that she can't quite get my lead. All this in castellano, so I assume this is what they say to each other. Tete turns up, as usual, halfway through the class, makes a few joking comments from his table, tries to help a struggling couple, grabs a woman standing without a partner and leads her through a powerful performance in the middle of the class. 'Muscular' is the word that comes to mind when thinking of his leading: it would be forceful if it wasn't so clear. This is another side of Tete: rather different from the total involvement with the music you see when dancing with Silvia. Tango and the milonga seem to be his whole world. Sylvie isn't there: she has a life outside the milonga.

Some excellent dances after the class and before the floor got crowded, and then one when it was busy, which feels good when you manage to make good use of the available space and the music. I tell my partner I can't speak much castellano, but she's lived in London, tells me she's danced tango for six years, and danced flamenco for ten years before that. The problem with 'the system' is that that's all there's time for on the floor, and it's not the done thing to sit down together and continue talking. "The done thing", defined by the codigo is protective.

I'll really miss Canning, and Porteno y Bailarin also. Canning gets crowded and too busy, and there's some clumsy dancing there, but I always liked the room, and feel very at home there. It's also big enough to wander round in (unlike El Beso and Maipu 444), which is how you go looking for dances, and meeting partners with whole stories to tell. This is the real thing and it could easily become a way of life, if I spoke castellano with any fluency.