Tuesday night is Porteno y Bailarin. Ana Maria Schapira's class has been taught by Silvia, a friend of hers, while she was teaching in Italy. Ana Maria also teaches at Canning on Friday night. I find her an excellent teacher of the best basic tango, someone I'll go straight back to next time I'm here. She speaks enough English, and she's friendly, welcoming, observant and very helpful. I think she's taught all over the continent, but sadly not yet in England. The class was yet another variant on the ocho cortado... But I find all this useful. It's technically not so demanding, and leaves space for good, simple dances where I can think of things like posture and axis. An added bonus was that several of her Italian students had arrived with her, so for a change there were plenty of women at the class who also stayed on for the milonga, and who were great to dance with.
You can tell it's nearly Christmas: the milongas are noisy. More alcohol than usual, people turn up just to eat and drink, lots of hugging and kissing and laughter. You could hardly hear the music.
Returning at 2am, it's a football night outside. Lots of flag waving, yoofs waving their shirts around, dancing in the late-night eateries. A huge noisy party around the Obelisk, flag-waving, fire crackers, chanting. But there doesn't seem to be crazy drinking going on. Lots of police dozing off in cars, chatting on their radios.
1 comment:
I agree with you that the milongas are noisy. That doesn't only happen on holidays--it has become the normal state of the milongas during the last few years. It wasn't always that way. I would like to take a microphone in hand and make an announcement. People don't get it. Foreigners outnumber the locals in the milongas. They have the idea that a milonga is a big party where you can do all the talking you want to and try to dance at the same time. And they wonder why the best dancers are no longer interested. Hearing the music is almost impossible.
I ran out of Centro Region Leonesa yesterday when the salsa tanda played and Carlos Rey pumped up the volume so high that one needed ear plugs.
Tango is taking a back seat to conversation and being seen.
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