Dancing in Cambridge: St Paul’s

Senate House, University of Cambridge

Originally published 7.5.16

On New Year's Day I went to dance in Cambridge for the first time. I was on my way home after dancing further south in Brighton (Kijutango), Eton (Thames Valley Tango), Letchworth (Oscar and Sofia) and London (Pavadita).  It was organised by Camtango. Over the previous couple of years I had danced with several lovely dancers from Cambridge in other places and hoped to do so again on their home turf.  I was also curious enough after some online chat to hear a new DJ in the UK, Solveig.  I wanted besides to see something of the city.  I had been only once or twice and briefly years before and knew the town to be attractive and full of history and learning.  I forgot to take a photo of the milonga but went for a walk into town late on the afternoon I arrived and the next morning. This is a photo from that afternoon.

The milonga venue was in St Paul’s church on Hills road.  I stayed conveniently round the corner on Coronation road in serviced accommodation I can recommend. You might get a better rate contacting them this way than via the listing they have on Airbnb.

Hits

• The centre has a good Ladies room for changing if need be and make up.  

• The milonga venue inside the church was dramatic and looked attractively set up.

• I was greeted at the door and given a glass of wine or champagne which was very nice.    

• The lighting in my mind’s eye is quite dark but that could have been an impression from the darker recesses of the church.  The lighting for me caused no problems with invitation by look but then for the first two hours I was not looking for invitation, much.  

• There were tables and chairs.  

• I was able to keep my seat. 

• Music by DJ Solveig (Bergen) was great from start to finish - just about every track was good for me. Of the tangos there was D'Agostino, Lomuto and Calo, OTV with mixed singers, Fresedo, Biagi, D'Arienzo and Malerba. There were two Canaros, Troilo with Fiorentino and Di Sarli.  There were Laurenz and Tanturi vals. The Cumparsita was the Troilo 43, a track I think is way ahead of its time.  Much strong applause for the DJ at the end.

• The sound seemed fine to me.  

• The milonga was busy with the floor full all the time.  

• The floorcraft seemed to be for the most part pretty good, especially for such a busy double ronda.  

• The atmosphere was focused on dancing but relaxed.  

• The floor itself was good.  

• Invitation: By look seemed to be rule. No guy walked up to me to invite. 

• There was a table of food conveniently in a recessed area which would have facilitated socialising within that space.  But I stayed in the main room where I found chat enough.  Though one might think kitchens are good places for meeting people in fact I usually meet more people and generally have better conversation in the salon itself.

The dancing - hard to say as it was my first time there and when everything is new I have a more impressionistic view of a place.  I chatted for quite a long time with women while absorbing how things were. There was a guy I particularly wanted to dance with and did.  He turned out to be the friend and dance partner of one of my favourite girl partners from Cambridge.

In the last hour I danced with women and with the music so great and enough women who were lovely to dance with I wished I’d started that sooner.  But I hate for milongas to be rushed and to feel pressured in time as in much else.  

Misses

• I did not see anywhere to sit and change shoes outside the room except on some chairs outside the door which is almost as bad as inside the room.  

• Seating and invitation were difficult.  Most of the tables and chairs were between the pillars in the church making invitation by look difficult.  I sat at one of the short ends which was one of the few places you could see everything.

• There were candles in stands right by the floor. They were atmospheric but also dangerous.  I nearly caught my sleeve in one.  I saw a woman nearly catch her hair on fire and whom knows how many others narrowly avoided the same. But the fact remains nothing untoward did happen.

• It was too short. At only three hours, there was an hour to settle in, an hour to dance with guys and an hour to dance with girls. 

• Invitation: I was pinioned by looks that were too close twice - by two different women. And since they were too close no surprise then that they were also invitations as opposed to "invitations to being invited" . It happened as a consequence of problems related to seating. The reason is as follows: by the third hour I wanted to dance with the women.  By then most people had moved to the food area apparently to get round the problem of the pillars hindering a clear line of sight for invitation in the main room.  But in that area everyone was too close.  Eventually I decided during a cortina to squeeze into that very busy space, pressed against the wall.  I didn’t get a chance to find the women I was looking for because I was then staked not by verbal invitation but by these close stares which were not far off the effect of a direct verbal invitation.  And it's much harder to turn down a woman who does that than a guy.

It was a good experience overall.  It was interesting, the music was easily one of the best sets, possibly the best set of musical choices for me, that I heard that week.  There was some good chat.  As I find common now, my best dances (with men and women) were few in number but were exactly the ones I had been looking for, which is to say they were the ones which were mutually and I felt actively desired on both sides and still enough space given for a refusal to be discreet if necessary.