Originally published 5.6.16
I had had a lovely morning and was a little reluctant to run the gauntlet of the milonga. I arrived at the start to find it very quiet and considered perhaps I ought to have stayed out in the city and the sun, but remembered I often have a better time when a milonga is quieter. Deciding to see about dancing with women I wore flats. Yet I found myself accepting - inexplicably - a couple of guys I had avoided the day before, mostly I guess because they invited very respectfully, yet still too near for the quiet conditions. The downside of a quiet milonga you don't know is it can be harder I find to refuse invitations you do not really want. I accepted a couple more in conditions that were nigh on impossible to get out of but were my own fault. Then I accepted someone who looked good yet I suspected was too forceful which was true. After this I felt tense and stressed from dancing I did not like and knew it looked that way both on and off the floor. My knee hurt from the floor becoming sticky and from being manhandled into pivots I did not want to do, in flats, by dancers with whom I had no good connection, nor one that was truly mutually desired.
I had had a lovely morning and was a little reluctant to run the gauntlet of the milonga. I arrived at the start to find it very quiet and considered perhaps I ought to have stayed out in the city and the sun, but remembered I often have a better time when a milonga is quieter. Deciding to see about dancing with women I wore flats. Yet I found myself accepting - inexplicably - a couple of guys I had avoided the day before, mostly I guess because they invited very respectfully, yet still too near for the quiet conditions. The downside of a quiet milonga you don't know is it can be harder I find to refuse invitations you do not really want. I accepted a couple more in conditions that were nigh on impossible to get out of but were my own fault. Then I accepted someone who looked good yet I suspected was too forceful which was true. After this I felt tense and stressed from dancing I did not like and knew it looked that way both on and off the floor. My knee hurt from the floor becoming sticky and from being manhandled into pivots I did not want to do, in flats, by dancers with whom I had no good connection, nor one that was truly mutually desired.
However, I had sought by mirada across the tabled area and got a nice, traditional Buenos Aires type dance with a guy older than me. He did a double take perhaps because I had not seemed to want to dance for so long. Look. If he keeps looking, smile. (Maybe) an invitation. I think it's how it works. And I had a simply lovely dance early on. I was on the stools watching the floor while there was no wall of women. Exceptionally, I had not seen him dance but at the time this did not even register because from the quiet, fun way he invited at a distance I just knew he would dance well. It happens like that sometimes.
On Saturday night, fuelled by the type of music, the atmosphere felt busier and pumped. I had had a nice, relaxing evening in the park prior to arriving quite late perhaps 2330. The milonga had started at 2200. I soon felt uncomfortable and could not settle in any place I chose to sit. I did not find partners nor expect to and quit after two hours. I saw others also leaving before me especially after 0030. I think I danced once through direct invitation I had found hard to get out of but again that was my own choice and the dance was fine.
On Sunday afternoon the weather was lovely again. I figured the way things had been I was probably going to have a better time out of the milonga than in. I stayed out in the good weather and did not go to the dance until the last 90 minutes, around 1730. I sat near the front of the little used seating with tables to watch the dancing with only the floor in front of me, inexplicably well out of reach of all invitation which would happen to the left. Under pressure my gaze narrows. Absurd pride and much experience of seeing the desperate covert and less covert gazes of women who are not dancing ensures I will not turn my head to the side to seek invitation. Don’t be perverse I scolded myself, moving to the quieter side of the bar where I fell into easy conversation with Kenneth. I was surprised then to be invited by one of the good dancers and the only guy in fact with whom I'd chatted hitherto. So those theories I mentioned I suppose were borne out - knowing people and becoming relaxed/distracted seemed to work. It was the swooping, elegant and athletic European style. It was my first dance since the previous afternoon and I was not warmed up. I felt as stiff and awkward as the Tin Man. I have found that style tends to make fewer concessions to the conditions of the woman than other styles. In similar circumstances I often have a sense that I must, I must, I must try to keep up. But it was one of my best dances of the weekend.
So I had three good tandas over the four milongas at the Tango Loft milonga weekend which, proportioned against travel speaks for itself. The conditions surrounding seating, lighting and invitation just were not right for me personally and during the weekend I felt stuck between the guys who wanted to dance with me but with whom I did not want to dance and the guys I wanted to dance with who did not want to dance with me. Even so although there were plenty of good dancers I did not have much sense that I wanted to dance with many of them - or perhaps that is just what happens when you feel guys do not want to dance with you. Who after all would want to dance with someone when, apparently invisible to them, the feeling is clearly not mutual?
I am glad I went to Stuttgart. Tango Loft is an attractive venue, Kenneth is a warm host and there was plenty of good dancing and from the milongas the weekend offered much for reflection. As in Cambridge, in Nottingham and this weekend at Dumbarton Castle rather than at the new milonga in Glasgow with which I combined that trip my best time was outside the milongas, exploring and being shown the city. As so often in life friendship makes all the difference.
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