Troilo and the arrangers

(Please check out this later post.)

I received a comment on my earlier post telling me that an 82-minute film about Troilo, called simply Pichuco, was released last year.

I checked it out. It tells how a teacher of the School of Popular Music in Avellaneda, together with his students, is digitizing around 500 original handwritten arrangements from the Troilo orchesta that have come to light, an astonishing trove of scores. It immediately occurs to me that handwriting can be recognised: it should be easy to work out who was responsible for each tango arrangement. I'd also expect the scores will throw light on the creative process. I hope that one day arrangers will get some credit for their work in the development of tango.

I found the website for the film, which has the trailer. (You have to switch on subtitles.) People who knew and worked with Troilo talk about him, and these include Leopoldo Federico, Horacio Ferer and Raúl Garello. (Very sadly, Federico and Ferer both died last December.) Their recollections are going to be fascinating. There's also a calendar of showings: it will be seen at events in Europe this year, although there are no planned viewings yet in the UK. I await with great interest!

I wrote that arrangers don't get much credit, but I guess that's because the development of a tango was usually a group effort. A classical composer could expect his music to be performed much as he wrote it, but a tango arranger was less sure of such respect. In fact there's a great story told by Garello: he says Troilo didn't write much music, but he erased a great deal. Arrangers would present their work and he'd go through it, cutting out whole chunks, to the arrangers' despair, although when they heard the recordings they knew he was right. (I can imagine Piazzolla turning up with a new score and Troilo pulling it apart, and augmenting it with feedback from the band, after which they'd all go out to lunch, leaving their 22-year old arranger to pick up the pieces and put the new version together, so they could finish their rehearsal.)

The same comment also informs me that 'His arrangers were Argentino Galvan, Julian Plaza, Ismael Spitalnik, Raul Garello, Alberto Caracioli and Astor Piazzolla.' 

I've checked them out on Todotango. However, Garello was born in 1936, and Julián Plaza in 1928, so they would have been 8 and 16 respectively in 1944, the year when Troilo and Piazzolla parted company, and any contribution by them to the 108 Troilo recordings between 1941 and 1944 can be ruled out.

Galván was much older, and according to Todotango, he was the arranger who created the sound of the Caló orquesta, writing virtuoso solos for the strings. (His favourite composer was Debussy.) He was associated with Troilo in 1940, in particular with Troilo's version of Pimienta, but if Troilo recorded it it doesn't seem to have survived. Troilo regarded his 1946 recording of Recuerdos de Bohemia in a Galván arrangement as his most important. (At 5:22 it must be one of the longest for the time. It's a marvelous piece of music, but it's hardly danceable: it looks forward rather to the late 50s and 1960s. It's on YouTube.) So Galván was certainly around in the period. 

Ismael Spitalnik was born in 1919, so he was a close contemporary of Piazzolla. Between the late 1930s and 1943 he was with the D'Agostino orquesta, while beginning to study composition seriously, and completing his studies in industrial chemistry! He seems to have worked with Troilo somewhat later. Alberto Caraccioli was born in 1918, and also seems to have started studying composition in the mid-1940s.

Between 1941 and 1944, the period in which the 108 tangos were recorded, Piazzolla was Troilo's in-house and in-orquesta arranger, and it seems likely that most of the recordings were arrangements he had a big part in. But perhaps the manuscripts of the arrangements will make possible a more complete history of Troilo and his arrangers. 

(I've not mentioned who sent the comment, as the same person emailed me a few days later complaining rather bitterly that I hadn't posted the information as a post! Well! For a start, I decide where a comment is published, indeed, if it is published! & as it happens I do other things, apart from blogging and going out dancing, and I can't always find time to check things out carefully and follow up on what interests me. I don't think we need to know the names of people who can't be courteous on the internet.)

Tango foxtrot

There seems to be something missing in the tango world, something I can't find anywhere, and it's foxtrot. We have it from older dancers, especially from Osvaldo and Coca (in the MP interview I think - I don't have time to check it out) that foxtrot was one of the dances that defined Argentine social dancing in the 20s and 30s and 40s. I think Osvaldo said that any 'milonguero' who claims to have danced tango in the Golden Age and can't foxtrot just wasn't really there. & yet... where's the video of Osvaldo and Coca dancing foxtrot? I've never seen a couple dancing anything that seemed to me remotely like foxtrot during a jazz or rock tanda in Buenos Aires, and I've never come across it in films of milongas either. If there is a video of Buenos Aires foxtrot please let me know! I've looked but can't find it.

It was big! It's not just Osvaldo talking. Francisco Canaro recorded a lot of foxtrots like this, and also a charming foxtrot Chá para dos, better known in English as Tea for Two: sadly, the audio quality isn't great. It's curious that Canaro's syncopation in foxtrot is really lively, but he doesn't use it much in the tangos he recorded around that time, as if he felt it out of place. His jazz band recordings started around 1923, and there are plenty of them over the following years, although tango remained his main output.

I came across this video of Oscar Casas and Ana Miguel. The title calls it 'La colegiala (fox trot)' . La colegiala seems to be a popular song from a Columbian band, recorded in 1983, but I'm not sure it's really foxtrot music*. As to the dance, Oscar would be in a position to have learned foxtrot from the older dancers, but I think his dance resembles tango as much as anything. But perhaps the two dances are similar? 

Foxtrot was one of the dances of the American jazz scene in the early 1920s, but it was taken over and popularised as a ballroom dance at some stage, with the characteristic open embrace. There are a few old Pathe clips of foxtrot on YouTube which suggest the original dance. To me, this, danced in close embrace, remains the best: others are more flamboyant and showy. It also seems to show patterns that aren't that far from stuff that's danced in tango and I get the feel of a relaxed musicality, although the bouncy tip-toe style is very far from salon tango. These Pathe videos are early all right, but that means from the silent era, so the music was added later. & there's a foxtrot lesson here, taught by 'Santos Casani, the well-known Teacher of Dancing', using an novel 'special glass floor', from 1931. Maybe something of the old version survived: the great photographer Don McCullin talks in a documentary about dancing foxtrot, 'the naughty kind, not the ballroom version' when he was growing up in the UK in the late 1940s.

But the Buenos Aires version? I'd be very interested to see it. 

* See comments! 

Troilo's arranger

(Please check out this later post.)

'TodoTroilo', the available recorded works, consists of 464 tracks out of the 480-odd that were released: a few seem to have have gone missing, but it's great that so many are still around. I've been listening a lot recently to the recordings made between 1939 and 1944. & then, late one evening, a question hit me: who wrote all this music?

After all, tango is written music. Tangos are often composed as piano scores, simple basic music on two staves, or as a chord sequence for guitar. Anyone with good basic music skills can compose a piano piece and write it down for someone else to play. But what we hear on a recording is quite different, it's an arrangement. To write an arrangement, a tango score, requires much more advanced skills, skills of composing, of orchestration: it involves imagining and creating the drama of a three-minute track, deciding how it begins and ends, how the sounds of the different instruments are used, the speed and mood of the whole; it involves writing the lines for each instrument. Tango, the music we hear, is the art of the arranger, and sadly the arranger is rarely mentioned. We know the orquesta, the composer of the original, the author of the words – but very rarely the person who wrote the music we actually hear! Or if we know it, their name is hardly mentioned, which seems extraordinary. The arranger really is a composer. Baroque composers like Bach and Handel would take a melody from music written by another composer and re-arrange it, and it then became their own composition. Sadly, not in tango.

The general view is that Troilo's best music was made between 1939 and 1944. Most of the great tracks, the high-energy Troilo, powerfully rhythmic with wonderfully tender passages, the music we dance to at milongas, are from the 110 tracks released in these years. The Orquesta Típica Aníbal Troilo formed in 1937 and in the following year released just one 78, two tracks, on the Odeon label. Nothing in 1939, nothing in 1940. Then in 1941 the orquesta was with Victor, and suddenly in that year a dozen 78s were released, 24 tracks. Two tracks a month, all year! & they kept coming: altogether, 108 tracks were released between 1941 and 1944. So who was writing this music? Who was Troilo's arranger? & yes, his name is known: Astor Piazzolla. 

Piazzolla's family had emigrated to New York, where he picked up the bandoneon and learned to play Bach with a student of Rachmaninov. When he was 15 his family returned to Mar del Plata, where he began to play in local orquestas. In 1938 he moved to Buenos Aires to continue his musical career, and he was still just 19 in 1939 when Troilo auditioned him to fill in temporarily for his third bandoneon, who was ill. The legend is that Troilo asked him what he could play, and he replied that he could play the bandoneon parts of all Troilo's music. 'So play something else' said Troilo. Piazolla played Rhapsody in Blue, and got the job. When the third bandoneon returned, Troilo kept Piazzolla on as fourth bandoneon, as a fill-in pianist (his band pianist was apparently a bit unreliable) – and as an arranger. As Troilo's arranger, Piazzolla wrote the music we hear and dance to, although for sure Troilo and the musicians had control, and no doubt made changes during rehearsal. Which isn't to say that Troilo played exactly the same phrases in exactly the same way every time, but a group of eight or ten musicians can't change direction on the spot. Jazz allows space for improvised solos, but tango has a much tighter structure.

Piazzolla certainly didn't create the 'Troilo sound', which is already there in the two 1938 Odeon recordings. Listen to Troilo's 1938 recording of Comme il Faut. It's sharp, percussive, lively, with tender lines, recognisably Troilo. Troilo doesn't seem to have recorded this track again, but compare it with Yo Soy el Tango from three years later: the sound is similar, but much more assured and compact, and the syncopation more daring. But I think the sheer volume of music from those years is the sign of an arranger. Someone spent a lot of time planning each tango and composing the music in the orquesta's style. 

By 1941 Piazzolla was earning enough with Troilo to pay for music lessons with the eminent Argentine classical composer Alberto Ginastera, with whom he studied the scores of Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel. He got up early to hear the Teatro Colón opera orchestra rehearse, and he performed with Troilo in the tango clubs at night: a 21 year-old passionate about music. He stayed with the orquesta until 1944, when it's said that Troilo began to feel he was trying to develop tango too far from the popular music people wanted to dance to, and their partnership dissolved: I think this shows how strong his influence was.

I didn't used to think well of Piazzolla: I was never that keen on his music, which developed away from the music we dance to. & it's kind of irritating that his music has also come to displace public awareness of tango: classical musicians have fallen over themselves to record 'tango', which always means the later music of Piazzolla, the concert-hall music of his main career. & he devised the description 'tango nuevo'! Of course, making danceable music wasn't a priority or even financially viable at a time when few people were dancing tango. In any case he seems to have wanted to be remembered as a 'serious composer', not as someone who wrote dance music; composers and arrangers of dance music hardly got remembered anyway. But I think I should remember him with huge gratitude and affection for his legacy with Troilo: that flood of over 100 great recordings, any one of which will get me onto the floor with minimum delay, music that's astonishingly consistent in sound and quality. To me that's his great legacy. I'm not a DJ, but I'd imagine you could make a good Troilo tanda pretty much at random out of the 1938-44 recordings. I'm not sure you could do that with any other orquesta.

Fresh off the boat!

A friend got back from Buenos Aires recently and emailed me. It's such an enthusiastic, warm email that I couldn't help asking if I could put it in the blog. This is what she wrote:

'Fresh off the boat from Buenos Aires, had the best time ever in the 8 years I've been going. I pretty much only danced with people I knew, old friends and people I dance with each year. Met some fantastic new people. & a mirada from last year finally paid off, got to dance with someone I'd admired from the other end of the dance floor for ages. No classes except the group class at Canning on Saturday with Rino Biondi and Mirielle. My friends had private lessons with Adela Galeazzi and her son Gaston. I'm too scared to dance with Roberto (94 year-old) Segarra at Lo de Celia: he's too quick for me!  

'The big impression I've come away with this time is that, on the one hand tango is not about 'the dance' but about friends, networks of connections, relationships, everything seems to depend on who you've got to know, how you connect. On the other hand it is about the dance, in that if you are serious about the 'sacrament of tango' (as a friend calls it), if you have waited all night to dance to Jose Garcia, you don't want to waste that tanda on just anybody, you NEED to dance it with somebody you can really share the music with.

'There's a whole load of tango tourists who are desperate to 'get dances', and there are a lot of locals who enjoy dancing with the fresh meat. The locals may go out 3 to 5 nights a week to see their friends & dance, but they are still seeking that perfect tanda after all these years, and they may find it with an old friend... or a new one. If you can show, through your dance and respect for the codigos, that you know what you're on about, you may be able to dance and share that moment with someone special. The old milongueros are very generous with their time. Now that my castellano is a bit better, I've enjoyed chatting with the ladies in the milongas - they can tell you a thing or two! Also with the men, some of whom love the music so much. Perhaps it's been part of their life for 40 to 60 years: imagine dancing to the same music for that long. & it's a new experience every time!  

'I have returned feeling very moved because in this world, which can be very lonely and difficult at times, I have met through tango such wonderful people who will be friends for life, people you can share something so intimate & personal with that you can't really put into words.'

Many thanks for that!

Ricardo Vidort: Jantango's comment

Jantango sent a comment on my post Did Ricardo Vidort Teach? She knew him to dance with so I didn't want to hide her comment in the 'Comments', where it might not get read. Here it is:

'Ricardo danced the same way whether he was on a milonga floor or an empty one -- he used the space. His dance was his. He never performed for the audience, he danced for his partner and himself. There is no choreography in his tango, it's pure feeling from the music.

'Work began four years ago on a blog: Ricardo Vidort -- the unforgettable milonguero of Buenos Aires, which included his notes for his classes, a series of eight. Then Ricardo told his students to go and practice and discover their own tango. I helped create the Wordpress site, but I don't believe the owner will publish it. There were interviews with Ricardo's dance partners, photos, videos, personal letters, and his philosophy of tango.

'Ricardo Vidort once told me that he taught everything he knew in eight classes. Then he told his students he had no more to teach them. They had to go practice on their own and develop their own style. They didn’t need more classes. He was right. Those who stay in classes for years want approval from the teacher and won’t practice on their own.

'I have a DVD of an interview of Ricardo that was part of a film by a hospice in New Mexico. I viewed it again yesterday and share it with visitors in BsAs who are interested in learning from Ricardo. I posted a transcript of the interview on Tango Chamuyo.

'Ricardo lived in New York City for several years, but he wasn't appreciated for what he had to share. Perhaps his tango was considered too simple, too basic, for those who were interested in the flash they saw on stage.'

It's too bad that the Ricardo Vidort blog hasn't been published. I know he said that you needed only eight classes with him to learn to dance tango and it's great that he left notes on them: I had just one class, so I've always wondered about the other seven! I wonder if these notes can be published independently of the blog? I think I've met the 'owner of the site', and I wonder if there's any way we can get all this material put up on the web. It really should be available for us all. I know that he talked to the camera and was filmed for the hospice where he passed away, and I believe there's a copyright issue with that film, but the rest of the material shouldn't be restricted.

Jantango doesn't give a link to her transcript. I found three short 'talks' by Ricardo on Tango Chamuyo, all reprints from Paul and Michiko's excellent, but no longer published magazine, El Once Tango News; Ricardo Vidort in his own Words, Is Dance a Therapy? and His Last Interview.

As to 'interviews with Ricardo's dance partners' fortunately there is one on YouTube.

'Did Ricardo Vidort teach?'

-- I'm asked. Yes, he was the best ever! He taught people to stand, to walk, to embrace, to move. He taught people to dance, to enjoy moving with a partner to the music. His cheerful energy and laughter made you feel you too could dance and enjoy it! He showed us in class with his own example, he encouraged. He'd teach a basic 'figura' for us to practice with, nothing difficult. He wasn't one of those teachers who make you feel useless because you can't manage a backwards sacada with a leg-wrap. Teaching a lot of dance steps isn't the same as getting people to dance.

Of course he taught what he danced. Here's a great example: sadly it's short and fragmentary, but it's still a great example. I can watch it over and over.

(Thanks for asking, uwe-tango.)

PS. The Lladro video: not sure which it was now. He's a marvelous dancer, and he learned in a very traditional way, but you can't dance in milongas the way he dances in demos. There just isn't room, is there?

To gently rock

I didn't intend to write more about Normarin1's videos but then I watched this one and I wanted to link to it so I can find it again. It reminds me so much of the tango of Buenos Aires. A young couple appears between 00:10 and 00:16 and I notice how he seems to gently rock with her, little movements of the torso. They are followed by an older couple, with a turn that floats, effortless and gentle as if they are suspended in mid-air; turns like this struck me immediately I first walked into a milonga in Buenos Aires. Very few London dancers, probably very few non-Argentine dancers move like that; we look stiffer, less alive in the torso, even less gentle. These videos are full of details like these: here a precise, elegant stepping, there a laid-back move to the beat, or just an amazing, whole-hearted embrace.

It also occurs to me that it just doesn't concern these dancers whether they are dancing in broad daylight, under fluorescent or mercury vapour lamps, or in the darkest milonga: they are dancing! -- and that's what matters. I've heard European milongas described as 'playing at tango'; a bit harsh, perhaps, but after sitting at milongas like these in Norma's videos it's not hard to see the reason for the description. Perhaps the dancing in her milongas isn't always technically flawless, but it's always for real, it always has real heart: tango isn't something they play with. It's 'about' human contact, there's a passion for it, it's a necessity. The dance and the music are still new to us: we love it but it's not our family background, not our history, not yet.

One other thing: I hate photographers at milongas! Photographers and people filming. It seems completely contrary to the private experience of the dance. But it's fairly obvious from Normarin1's videos that she's among friends who welcome her filming. & if her camera makes anyone uncomfortable, she's quick to turn away from faces to another couple, or the floor. I don't think her videos mean that anyone and everyone can turn up and start filming. In any case, it's been done for us! Thanks again!

Milonga problems

I wrote here about the kind of control organisers of Buenos Aires milonga have, which is rarely visible since the rules are by general agreement. Nevertheless, organisers can and do ask visitors to leave if the guidelines are breached, if they feel a guy has been disrespectful to a woman, if a couple dances without due care for other dancers, if a couple or an individual are upsetting people in other ways. London's 'secret milonga' has recreated the order this brings to a milonga by using the structure of a members' club. Only people who are generally courteous can join, and the result is a regular afternoon of relaxed dance. (Sorry to call it the 'secret milonga': of course it has a name, but I wouldn't want people turning up hoping to get in as they'd be disappointed, and the organiser would be obliged to turn them away.)

The 'encuentro movement' is the background to this. Encuentros must have started seven or eight years ago on long holiday weekends in Europe, promising five or six separate milongas on a good floor with good DJs. New events rapidly sprang up all over, events that are role-balanced, with advance booking, where there's agreement about codigos, with the use of mirada and cabeceo, and respect for the floor and the line of dance. Websites like tangofestivals list events: next month, November, seven events are listed, in Istanbul, Italy, Switzerland, Germany (two events), Slovenia, and Lebanon. Of course there's a local base, but there are people from all over, the 'encuentro set', who can afford the time and cost of travel and accommodation to spend regular weekends dancing in a variety of destinations. London's 'secret milonga' offers a similar experience in terms of quality of environment, but monthly and always in the same hall.

One reason why the 'encuentro movement' and the 'secret milonga' have been so successful is that they are highly organised events. You know you will enjoy excellent music and uniformly courteous behaviour. Some of our regular milongas have made a point of presenting good music, and they are agreeably lively events, but the floor can still be confused and difficult, despite suggestions from some of the organisers. From a Buenos Aires perspective our milongas might be poorly organised, as the organisers have little control over what happens in them, and sometimes even little interest in controlling what happens in them, but they are regular sociable events, they really are 'encuentros', meeting places open to all.

Organisers here won't object much to how you behave and how you dance, even if they aren't happy, because they need the admission money, and in any case they don't have the traditional authority of the 'organisador'. The number of tango events seems to increase faster than interest in the dance, and hiring spaces in London is expensive. You might not notice that milongas can struggle to make ends meet. The number of events across Europe has increased the competition, and it's noticeable how quiet weekend milongas (even the 'secret milonga') can be if there's a popular event elsewhere. Of course, every quiet milonga means a reduction in takings, which is probably going to hurt the organisers. This is beginning to create a real problem for London milongas, and there's no easy solution.

So, a highly organised encuentro, or an encuentro that's open to all-comers? Or both? I enjoy the organisation at least once a month although I wouldn't want it all the time. & I look at Normarin1's videos and really hope that London milongas will look like this in a not-too-distant future, busy, cheerful, affectionate, orderly, and with good dancing. Her videos are an invaluable guide to social tango. There's much to learn from them, whether you prefer your 'encuentros' highly or lightly organised.

But if I were asked to choose I'd say: reduce your carbon footprint! Support your local milongas! It might take time, but they will change if enough of us want change.

Normarin1

Norma Marin has a YouTube channel, Normarin1, to which she uploads films of Buenos Aires milongas. Most evenings she goes out dancing and takes her little camera with her. Often she records complete tandas. Performances of live music and dance get uploaded too, although mostly she films social dancing, the social dancing of her friends to judge by the number of people who wave and smile at the camera. In the past week alone she has uploaded 30 videos, 30 tangos. The channel has been there since July 2011 so now it's an archive of thousands of tangos.

The milongas she goes to aren't the big beasts of the Buenos Aires tango world, the ones we've seen over and over in clips, Lujos, Cachirulo, Lo de Celia and the like, where the 'old masters' enjoy themselves night after night. The fascinating thing about her films is that the milongas she films seem to be attended by 'ordinary' people, and I get a sense of a cross-section of society from her films. These really are social events people attend to enjoy themselves, meet, chat and dance. The atmosphere seems a lot less formal than the better-known milongas, and I find the milongas she films very likeable, milongas like Aló Lola y La Yumba de Dorita (Sunday nights at El Obelisco), Milonga de Los Gomias, Febril y Amante held in Gricel on Wednesdays, Matiné de Lunes Tango, Rivadavia Club Tango and so on. Likeable to watch, but perhaps not to visit to dance unless you speak good Spanish, as these milongas seem to be social events as much as dance events. Some perhaps more so than others.

I only discovered all this recently and I was instantly hooked. I find it easy to sit and relax and watch a few tandas, as if I was sitting there on the edge of the floor. So many stories! That young couple, perhaps at their first milonga, her shoes borrowed maybe from an older sister. That older guy who dances so smoothly and leads with such easy grace. The couple who've obviously practised their intricate footwork together. Occasionally a couple who look as if they're practicing for the 'campeonato'. Ladies (and guys) whose feet seem to move precisely and neatly, others who are a lot less tidy. The experienced and the inexperienced of all ages. I came across one extraordinary clip in which a woman starts to laugh loudly at the beginning of a tango and dances through it, whoops of audible laughter throughout, and is still laughing at the end! What did he say to her? Unrestrained laughter: you don't often hear it. & nobody seemed bothered: amused perhaps, but not disapproving. It seems to be a very tolerant, relaxed crowd. I get a sense of real society: these are people who know each other, or at least know who the others are. Perhaps not a barrio milonga in the old sense, but a sense of shared identity. A lot more shared identity than you'd expect in London, I think. People who have probably lived through a lot of difficulty together, supported each other through the years of the 'dictadura' and the aftermath, as well as, most likely, the disappearance of their savings in 2002.

I enjoy watching the dancing. It's easy, relaxed, uncomplicated. I've never noticed anyone rushing through the beat in these clips, no stepping early, which is common enough in London. Nothing complicated – but it's generally done well, good basics, which is always a pleasure to watch. A slower dance, perhaps the sensuality is more overt, there's no straining for effect, nothing forced, just people relaxed and enjoying the dancing. The floors are mostly crowded – and the lighting is excellent! It makes leading a lot easier when you can get an idea of who is around you from a quick glance.

As to the variety of people, I remember a friend who's visited many times and stayed for months telling me: you get to dance with all kinds of people in the milongas there. In London it's more limited. You certainly meet interesting people in London milongas, but it's very far from being a cross-section of London society. Up till now, anyway! But then in Buenos Aires everyone shares the background of the music; even if they don't dance they know the music.

Normarin1 has a sort of mission statement on her channel: 'The aim is to show milongas from the inside, to see tango in its full expression, the dancers in the milongas, the professionals, the orquestas, the singers, and much more, and all for free'.

Thank you, Norma Marin!

PS: I suggested rashly that the better-known dancers aren't at these milongas, then opened a very recent clip from the Matiné de Lunes Tango with Roberto Segarra who has just turned 94 in the foreground. (The link is to a birthday vals with Adela Galeazzi.) & there must be others I wouldn't recognise.

Between tangos: shaving

Someone told me this story recently:

'I hadn't met her before; we made eye contact, and agreed to dance. As we embraced, I noticed that her cheeks were naturally well-coloured, but in particular the right. We danced: at first we made contact cheek-to-cheek, and then she shifted her head awkwardly, and couldn't quite find a place she found comfortable.

'I'm sorry about that' she said between tangos, 'but I've just danced with two guys who hadn't shaved, and I dance close, and it's really made my skin sore.' She pointed to her right cheek: not only was it redder than the left, but also it was slightly swollen. She touched my cheek. 'You're fairly smooth' she said. 'Normally that wouldn't bother me, but my cheek is really sore.' I was astonished: to my knowledge I've never danced with anyone whose skin is that sensitive. Anyway, she settled on a position with her ear close to mine, and we enjoyed the rest of the tanda. Perhaps the position wasn't ideal, but it gave us a stable head contact.'

There you go, guys. Not everyone will appreciate that designer stubble when you go dancing.

London milongas

Jantango left a comment on my post At Last:

'Are you keeping the venue a secret so those who prefer verbal invitations won't attend? By all means, publish the name, place, and the organizers who deserve the credit.'

It's not that I'm keeping anything secret, and I didn't intend to give that impression: it's just that as I said, this particular milonga is for members only so I've avoided names. Since only members are admitted, it might waste people's time and money if I publicised it, and told everyone how bookings are made; non-members won't be admitted even if they've bought tickets. My aim is to suggest that there is another way milongas can be organised here, and as places for women in particular tend to sell out within minutes of booking opening it's clear that this model is successful. I should have made the general idea clearer. In any case, if tickets sell out that fast, it doesn't need publicity.

'Tickets? You mean you have to book in advance?' I don't know why that's so extraordinary, but it does shock some people. You have to make a commitment in advance to go there? Yes, just like going to a concert or a theatre. Why not?

This isn't a model that makes much sense from a BsAs perspective, not at first anyway. But when you think about it, the 'organizador' there isn't just the person who books the hall and a DJ, and does some advertising. There's also a strong social connection between the organizador and the people who come to dance. They expect the organizador to guarantee and maintain standards of behaviour, on and off the dance floor: the organizador has a responsibility to the people who pay to come to the milonga to maintain standards of behaviour, and consequently has the authority to enforce standards. Here, if you pay to enter a milonga, you have the right to do more or less as you please. But if you transfer the whole transaction to a club level, with membership, then the organiser has authority. The fact that reminding people of codes of behaviour can be done via emails makes it easier.

So, if you are fed up with poor standards of dance and behaviour in your local milongas, it's worth looking at this possibility. It's an informal club, and membership is by recommendation by two existing members. Members agree that dancing is close embrace, with courtesy to your partner and to the rest of the floor. There's a limited number of places, which ensures that the floor doesn't become unreasonably crowded, and that lead and follow numbers are approximately equal. The rules recommend a certain degree of good dressing. It certainly works in terms of guaranteeing a calm, enjoyable afternoon of dance, and I think it's sent a message to London tango, that there needs to be a certain level of agreement on general behaviour. For instance, it's more likely now in other milongas that if you enter the line of dance with a partner you check that the lead approaching in the line of dance is aware that you are there. Before, it was normal that couples simply blundered into the line of dance regardless. (When people danced 'open' they could be aware of newcomers to the line of dance, but if you dance close the lead's view to the right is usually blocked by his/her partner's head, so this has become a problem.)

The limitation of this club arrangement is that there's only a small variation in the people who are there, and I think we all enjoy the random nature of the regular, 'open' milonga, where you dance with and meet new people, as well as old friends. But for any social event to be enjoyable to everyone there needs to be a certain level of acceptable practice. Perhaps we need to work out just how what is acceptable is made known and how it is 'enforced'. (That word is too strong, but I can't think of another one.) One of our regular 'open' milongas has now drawn up a code of behaviour, and the organiser draws attention to it. Since it is all quite basic stuff, perhaps if all London milongas adopted it, even using exactly the same wording, it could very quickly become normal.

It is happening here now

Well, well, well.

A comment posted yesterday by P&O:

'Since two weeks ago Giraldo and Mina are teaching Tango Technique, Tuesdays 7.30 - 9.30, Acland Burghley School, Burghley Road, London NW5 1UJ. (Opposite The Dome.)

'Covering the basic elements of tango: walking, the embrace, connection with your partner etc. More experienced dancers will find it will help strengthen techniques that they need at a higher level. I recommend this class.'

I didn't know about it until I read this comment, and it is recent. I'm usually wary of 'technique' classes, which rarely seem to have concentrated on basics, but if this functions as described it could be very useful. My only experience of these teachers was about seven years ago: I felt despair at the complexity of what they taught, and the seemingly cold feeling of the class, but times have changed. Perhaps I should add that P&O has visited Buenos Aires for dancing a number of times, and has some experience.

It can't happen here?

Since 'It can't happen here' turns out to be such a good predictor of what is actually going to happen I can't resist putting forward an 'It can't happen here' of my own.

'A regular workshop/guided practica concentrating on posture, walking and embrace. No way! It can't happen here!'

When I started we were taught something called 'the tango basic'. Later we were told, well, it's not really the tango basic, it just combines all the possibilities of stepping, and anyway it gets you on the floor right away. (It did that: I remember getting onto the floor right away after my first class, with a brave partner, trying to practice our 'tango basic'. & we're still on speaking and dancing terms!)

Later we were told: there's absolutely no such thing as any 'tango basic'! Well, I'd like to contradict that: there is. It's called 'walking' or 'THE WALK'. The tango walk isn't quite the same as the everyday walk. Slightly unusual, but absolutely fundamental. It should be taught from the first lesson, taught repeatedly thereafter, and practiced until it is second nature.

It's always said that the older dancers are completely individual, since they learned by dancing rather than by going to tango classes. That may be true, but only up to a point. You could never mistake Ricardo Vidort's dance for that of Osvaldo Cartery, even if they were identical in stature: it's said they grew up together and learned together, but their choice of 'steps', the way they use their energy, the way they dance, is different. But when you look at them closely you find that in many respects their dance is identical. The way they and their partners stand, walk and embrace is the same. Minor differences arise because people are slightly different in size, but basically the posture, the walk, the embrace are the same. If you want to dance like them, memorising the 'steps' they use is secondary: the priority is to learn to stand and walk like them.

I don't think this similarity has anything to do with some abstract concept of 'style'. The reason for the similarity is that when two people hold each other close and start to move around in a crowd and with music there's going to be an optimum posture and way of walking. (This doesn't apply if you dance Nuevo, since there's no continuous contact: walk and posture hardly matter in Nuevo.) People who teach 'milonguero style' are missing the point: Ricardo and Osvaldo, and many, many others, dance the way they do because it works so well that way. Close embrace tango will still work if you don't practice the optimum, but it doesn't work so well. For instance, if a lead is round-shouldered and stoops, that lead can still dance tango. However, it means that his/her contact with the partner is going to be relatively high up. If you stand straight, like the older dancers, then your lead is from the sternum, and most likely from the belly too, so it is much more effective and comfortable, partly because the centre of gravity is lower. It's more stable, so it's more comfortable.

It seems incredible that this 'tango basic', the walk, hasn't been taught here much, particularly now that close embrace is widely practiced. As a result we see, for instance, people dancing with constantly bent knees. This is particularly a problem with follows: if a follow doesn't reach back, his/her knees will be too far forwards and will be in the way of the lead. If a follow doesn't reach back, there's also no forwards pressure from his/her torso, and the dance lacks energy. It lacks energy and it just doesn't look good. The 'tango basic', the walk, looks elegant, and it has energy. It's efficient in terms of communication and energy, and it looks elegant too. Too many dancers slouch round the floor together, knees bent, which looks feeble and uncomfortable. It looks feeble and it feels feeble, so there's the temptation to spice it up with wild moves, to make it into a performance rather than an intimate dance between two people.

Trouble is, not many people are really qualified take a workshop in posture, walk and embrace, and almost all of them live in Buenos Aires. The trouble is, too, that when you start talking to someone about their posture and walk, it starts to sound personal, whereas little that might sound personal needs to be said in getting someone to perform mechanically a step or choreographic sequence. Moreover, old habits die hard. It's not difficult to change posture: many techniques, including Pilates, Yoga and Alexander are helpful. But it takes time, although it's beneficial not only to tango. Even in Buenos Aires, not many teachers will deal with posture and walk. Two I remember are Cacho Dante and Myriam Pincen. I danced whole tangos in private class, with Myriam continually glancing at me in the mirror: no! you must straighten the leg you step on to; do that turn again, and make sure you step onto a straight leg! Cacho pointed out the same problem but casually, as if it was something quite simple and basic, like pointing out that your shoelace is loose. But things like this can be part of a lifelong habit of posture, and not easy to change.

Jorge Dispari, another great teacher of 'the walk', has been here recently. See him here a few days ago with Claire Lowe. Of course, milongas rarely give us the luxury of simply walking, but at least we can watch this walk. It's easy and relaxed, but full of energy.

So I'd love to see Cacho or Myriam or anyone else as well qualified holding regular posture, walking and embrace workshop/guided practicas in London, something you could go to regularly, or pop into for a quick checkup. But it can't happen here!

At last

So at last London has a regular 'cabeceo milonga'. It started late in August with an afternoon and evening session, and it was a big success. There were tables for men and tables for ladies, and also tables for people who wanted to sit together. Perhaps almost as important... everyone actually had a chair! (That exclamation mark explains what it's usually like here.)

Why is it a good idea for organisers to take this step? Well, think about it. These days, most men and women expect to agree at a distance on a dance, so we're almost there already except for the seating arrangements; it seems a simple step to organise the seating to optimise this new (to us) custom. And it's surprisingly good fun: you sit opposite partners most of whom you know at least by sight waiting for that magic moment when the cortina dies away and a new tanda starts. There are a few moments, a buzz of excitement and anticipation as eyes dart back and forth, then leads start to stand stand up and cross the floor to greet another partner, and the ronda begins again. Generally you wait for the music: ah! it's a vals, and I know who I'd like to dance a vals with right now! It's more or less what we already do, but it is so much clearer when it's organised like this. Of course it's helpful to have some kind of common space – a refreshments area or a bar – where conversations can be continued, or started. But the difference the cabeceo in good light makes is that the dance to the music becomes the real focus, the dance with different partners is what we focus on and enjoy, and the result is we enjoy a much better evening or afternoon.

'It can't happen here...' It's what people were saying about dancing in close embrace six years ago in London: how wrong they were! Suddenly we find there's nothing extraordinary about dancing close, even with partners we've never met before. I always hoped a 'cabeceo milonga' could happen here but I think I wrote that it seemed unlikely that it would ever happen. Of course, it now happens just within the context of recent 'tango clubs', rather than in the context of public milongas, but it's a great achievement, and thanks and congratulations to the organisers. Tango has moved on fast in London, and we have to thank the people who've created the foundation for this, and those who have made it happen.

Between tangos

'I really like the twiddly bits...'

Hmm. Well, I've written about why I don't, but perhaps in negative terms. To try and say something positive for a change: a little earlier I'd been watching a couple dance, marveling at the smooth energy of two people moving, totally  involved with the energy of the music, two individuals totally absorbed like one with the music. There's something really heart-felt in that. Nothing elaborate, nothing to disrupt the energy and flow of it, even in the confined space of the dance floor. It was entirely personal, without the slightest element of display. I try to dance tango because when that connection happens it leaves me really fulfilled, like almost nothing else.

Of course it's not what you do, it's the way you do it. Learning to dance like that takes time and devotion, but spending time learning to walk well and to stand well is time well spent. Dance like that shows how seriously people have taken it; if you put that much into it, you get so much out of it. Dance like that is really beautiful to watch -- and there are a few dancers in London who can dance like that, mostly people who've been to Buenos Aires, listened to what they've been told, watched, and managed to bring it back with them. But only a few.

That simple elegance of doing something really well, with energy and without the slightest ostentation, took my breath away. Needless to say, it was pretty much a twiddly bit-free zone. At worst, twiddly bits are vanity and a distraction, a displacement activity, perhaps a way of doing something other than opening your heart to your partner and the music. It's hard to dance like that if you have to carry vanity with you. 

(PS: Tango Addiction's musings on Legwrap Land, also published today.)