Cachirulo

Since YouTube began just over five years ago video has become an incredibly valuable resource, thanks to everyone who's made and uploaded videos of the dancers and milongas of BsAs. Videos bye-pass the filter of 'teaching'; not that teaching is necessarily inferior, but video gives an immediate feel of the dance and its environment, the milongas of BsAs. Tangoandchaos was among the first, and over the last year or two Jantango has uploaded videos from the milongas of the city centre, while Irene and Man Yung have recently uploaded a number of videos from the 'Barrio milongas': watch their recent videos of Roberto Segarra. (More in their previous post.) We can now see a wide range of BsAs tango, just in time to acquaint us with that generation of older dancers and the kind of environment they learned and grew up in.

& now Argentines themselves are beginning to upload their own videos of their own milongas. Hector and Norma Cachirulo run the marvelous Cachirulo milonga on Saturday nights at Maipu 444, and also at El Beso on Tuesday nights. Hector's probably the first person you'll meet after you've climbed the stairs, paid at the booth and pushed through the curtain into the milonga itself: you're welcomed with a kiss or a handshake like a long-lost friend, whether you're local or a visitor, and then he'll bustle off to find you somewhere to sit, carrying a spare chair or two over the heads of the dancers if need be.

& I've just discovered that since March they've had their own YouTube channel to which they are uploading their own 'home videos' of the Cachirulo milongas. It's almost too good to be true. There's tango from the best, both on the floor and in 'demonstrations', there's rock, chacarera, and birthday dances from the great and the good, and it all continues to be uploaded regularly. Camera quality isn't great, but the spirit comes over so strongly you can ignore that. Cachirulo is one of the great institutions of BsAs tango today, attracting some of the best dancers, and there's plenty here to dip into and enjoy on these cold dark evenings!

(& watching these videos might just oblige you to try and learn Spanish, spend all your spare time and more in tango, and everything you have on interminable flights south of the equator. & why not? If you like tango it's worth a great deal to step as a guest onto that velvet-smooth floor and join in all night with the music.)

So here's Norma's birthday dance with Hector last June. Eso!