Centro Cultural Borges & Maipu 444

A milonga called Mi Milonga at the Ideal Wednesday night. MCd in English and Castellano, which gives away the game. A tourist evening: a tanda of dance, then a bit of show, another dance tanda, more show... But I hadn't been back since dancing there last Friday, so it was good to sit and think over the past week, and remember being on the floor there, very much on my best behaviour. The floor is more than three times as big as at Porteno y Bailarin, and not much more crowded. But Wednesday night is obviously an eating and watching night, not a dancing night.

Thursday evening: visiting Centro Cultural Borges and by chance it's the private view of Expo Artistas 2008. Lots of paint, lots of colour, and some print including etchings I'd love to have in a LOOP show. Artists from Argentina and Uruguay. A lot of very prominent public space given to local artists, very good to see. I had a good look, then as it got more crowded went around making photos of the people and the work. I find faces very interesting here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionstills/

Later there's a class at Maipu 444 taught by two young guys, Martin Maldonado and Maurizio Ghella. There are a few English speakers, including some first-timers, and they teach in Spanish and quite clear English, first emphasising principles, like connection, lifting and lowering movements, and then turning, and extending all these into more complex movements. Too bad I missed last Friday night here: according to the listings it was Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse.

Maipu 444 (Maipu is the street) is the best kept premises to date, very neat and clean, and with an excellent unpolished parquet floor. (El Beso is polished like a skating rink, and the other floors are tile, which is also quite slippery.) After the class on Thursday night is a milonga called Mano a Mano, which I think is run by La Vikinga, an Icelandic dancer, teacher, anthropologist, poet and journalist who now lives in the city. I stayed on after the class, trying to make conversation with an Argentinian woman I'd danced with in the class. She tells me she's been working all day, writing a book on Victorian England. She also says that Maipu 444 is different on other evenings, and that Thursday is rather a tourist evening. We have a bit of a dance, and I leave around midnight. A couple of tourists arrive as I leave, otherwise the place is deserted.