I went to this milonga today from 3pm-5pm. Details. I would have gone earlier but it was Father’s Day and we were doing family things.
This is the group which started off as a practica and then ran classes. I have been I think twice before, taking my son and his friend the last time when I danced with the children. The organising group is Dundee Tango Society which is a legacy name from when events were run in Dundee itself. Currently events happen in the village of Padanaram twenty minutes to the north.
Entrance and seating
There is easy parking at the venue which is a village hall. There is a separate room for bags and coats with plenty of seating to change shoes and it was nice to see it being used for that. I knew Catharine on the door and was welcomed. People often say how nice the atmosphere is here. Someone I spoke to said what a pleasure it was just to be there.
Since I arrived late and all the tables looked taken I wasn’t sure where to sit but people I knew beckoned me and made space. I felt fortunate and joined them. Seating is with tables and along one long and one short side of the room. The photo was taken hastily. You can see more photos taken from the other end of the hall on the Dundee Tango Society Facebook group.
Venue and floor
I like the venue very much and I think most who go do. The shape of the ceiling and the space is attractive, light and airy. The hosts (who at short notice were unable to attend) had put a huge amount of effort into the presentation of the hall and even in the Ladies. It is probably the most attractively presented Ladies room I have been to for a milonga that was not a one-off event. Catharine stood in as host but I believe this milonga is also a group effort from that area. I did not dance in womens' shoes which is when I really feel how a floor is but the floor seemed fine to me.
Food is magnificent and plentiful. Just for food and tea alone, never mind the afternoon’s dancing at £6 (£3 concessions) it is exceptionally good value. Some tea dances in England are about double that. It is more than worth it just to take your non-dancing friends out for the afternoon, simply to have tea and cake or savouries and watch.
Numbers and dancing
Numbers were about 35 which in very rural Scotland on Father’s Day with next to no established dance groups locally I thought very creditable. I saw dancers from at least Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth. The ronda was for the most part pretty good. A few people including me occasionally danced in the middle. I wouldn’t say I felt connected to the other dancers within the ronda because there are so many different styles of dancing there but then this is a fledgling group with dancers not used to dancing very regularly in a ronda together. Most of us managed to keep in our own space most of the time (sorry for knocking you D!). I confess also to being mortified at overtaking a dancer who had been in front of me in the middle. Where has he gone? I thought only to find I had passed him - and apologised probably more than he wanted both then and later.
Music
The DJ was John Newton of Aberdeen. I found the music difficult. It is just that my personal preferences did not on this occasion match the DJs but the world would be a dull place if there were no diversity in our preferences.
I am not sure that I found a whole tanda that I could comfortably dance. I was chatting a lot through the music I did not dance but there were tracks of type La guitarrita and El penado catorce both by Caló/Iriarte. The latter I cannot find online to show you but I have found that demonstrates how generally unpopular this music is for dancing. There were so many tracks I do not hear in the kinds of milongas I tend to go to that I just could not say with much confidence what they were. I struggle to remember any really classic tracks. I remember hearing d:Agostino's Palais de Glace while getting ready at the start, there was well known Di Sarli which I danced with a man I know who invited directly though it isn't the type of Di Sarli I would ordinarily dance. I danced a vals tanda right through though I was dubious about the first track but danced it because of circumstances and even then the vals were unmatched. The tangos I sat down to that started well might have been De Angelis, I forget. The last tanda I danced started with Calla bandoneón which I've mentioned before, (it might even have been the García version) but the girl I wanted to dance with was free and I hoped things might improve. Then there was another track I didn't know then a Cumparsita I rarely hear and couldn't say who it was by but it was very different from what had preceded.
So if you mind about the music the way I do then you are not going to have a relaxing time in dance no matter how easy the general atmosphere. It is fair to say though that since people did dance to everything most people did not seem to mind that way yet I think that had there been more mainstream, classic tracks during that time the floor would have been fuller.
I danced I think five tandas in all with two women and a man, and one other track. I sat down at least twice (dancing in the other role) mid tanda - once in the ?De Angelis and once to the second track of an unmatched milonga tanda. I know this isn't really on but in my defence I just cannot dance without...music I can dance to. Not having it is like a power cut. My partner was new and despite dancing only a year she was a joy to dance with. I felt on thin ice. As I was apologising after we had sat down for the second time she said “I’ll give you one more chance”. I completely understood but oh, the pressure! I felt stuck between on the one hand trying to dance to music I just can’t dance, an experience I know to be so utterly misery-making and stressful for both parties that I just don’t do it any more - and on the other hand screwing up my partner’s dancing opportunities. Luckily the last milonga track was good music and we got up again. Can we dance again later? she said, to my utter relief.
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