Glasgow Round up: 1: The Last Crypt milonga

To its great detriment I feel Edinburgh doesn’t have a weekly Friday or Saturday night milonga.   It means  it cannot attract weekend visitors for dancing. Powers in the Edinburgh Tango Society have to my knowledge discouraged  such events outside their auspices worried presumably it would detract from its own Sunday night event or last year's new non-ETS monthly Saturday night milonga - but owned by current ETS headmen.

So one Saturday in May I planned to check out swing dancing in the city. I've been to a (very) few of the socials in the last couple of years and done a (very) few classes in swing and balboa but the problems with that are much the same as with tango dance class.  I doubt I'd do a group class in swing again for similar reasons that I tend to avoid those in tango.  I much prefer the socials.  I like the music and the light hearted atmosphere and go just to watch. Still, I have danced nearly every time I've been though, as in the milonga, the best, experienced dancers tend to like to dance with other good, experienced dancers.  The novice listens, watches and looks for an invitation from someone halfway decent. As in the milonga people watch to see if you can dance and invite often by look.  But the music and culture is different, the dance less intimate and people are correspondingly perhaps more upbeat and less wary than in the milonga where the tone of the music is famously about loss, tragedy and regret.  I was all set to go to the swing dance when a Scottish friend who lives in Paris got in touch the day before to ask if I was going to The Crypt milonga in Glasgow. 

John had taken over this milonga from Bryan but I hadn't been going because I remember much alternative music from a milonga he used to run at the lovely but very large venue at Maryhill, in Glasgow.  I learned recently that Maryill Burgh Halls was in fact renovated by Hunter, an architect and local dancer who has interesting stories about the housing in which people used to live in Glasgow in decades past.

My friend from Paris is a lovely dancer in both roles. I decided to change my plans and we agreed to meet at the Crypt.

That afternoon then I went to the Glasgow afternoon practica.  I go for the chat there and in Smile Cafe that some of us often go to afterwards and to dance mostly with Bryan and sometimes some of the women or new dancers.  But I haven't been going much this year.  There are no cortinas for one thing and I often struggle with the music.  Then I wanted some time by myself and went here for dinner:

It is nearby the practica and the Crypt, affordable, quiet, the food is nice and their waiting staff have always been pleasant. It is bring your own bottle but in the past I’ve had nice wine at Stravaigin across the road.

The milonga is on the ground floor of Wellington Church designed by Thomas Lennox Watson not Alexander “Greek” Thomson as most of us supposed.

It is a beautiful if austere building - but it was spring.

It overlooks the Hunterian museum and the variously striking buildings of the University of Glasgow:

One of the difficulties of the Crypt had been that visitors were never going to hear the music and wander in. You always had to ring for entry which made things tricky for the host/DJ, especially if they were dancing  and did not have someone to manage the door.

The floor was like this. Quite hard but OK:

There was an honesty box. Entry was £5/£3. There were tables and chairs. The tables are large and if alone you share them with others. I was just about able to keep my seat. There were simple refreshments as usual, chocolatey snacks, popcorn, crisps, biscuits, cheese and grapes, juice and water.

During the Fresedo, pre-video. You can see the speaker above the floor.

Lighting and invitation

The main problem for me was that the Crypt was dark, darker than usual especially as the evening closed in - you can see the progressive darkness in the photos below. It was certainly darker than when Bryan was doing it, as he had brought extra lights and even then it was still far from bright. The other issue was that there was a large projection of show dancer video on one wall. I could ignore it except for when it made me giddy (in the other role). I can understand this more in an alternative or nueveo milonga but the music and dancing was traditional.

I had walk-up invitations from two guys. This has become much rarer in the Crypt, rarer for me at any rate, but I think in Glasgow generally since I started dancing here three or four years ago. The guys had to invite from close by because of the darkness and I guess they wanted to make sure I had seen them. I felt them closing in but was in the middle of invitation /acceptance by look with others and apologised as I moved past them to dance with my intended partners.

During the D’Arienzo

Music

The music felt a bit unbalanced. There were three? Rodriguez tandas - but I like Rodriguez and have danced to at least as much Rodriguez at La Catedral one night in Buenos Aires. There were some misses, especially the D'Arienzo (how possible?!) and late Fresedo but overall the set was better than I'd expected with much of the kind of music I like for dancing and nothing alternative or non-tango. Some of the music as I recall was:
- Canaro
- big Fresedo miss with Héctor Pacheco E.g. Solo de bandoneó and Fugitiva
- Di Sarli hit
- Milonga
-  D’Arienzo/Bustos e.g. Papá which I don't mind - until Bustos arrives and then I lose interest for dancing. Then there was Mandría with Bustos and I feel the same. Besides, though the instrumental section is good, the '39 version with Echagüe I think incomparably better for dancing. 

- Rodriguez hit
- Pugliese Puente Alsina which I think was with Vidal, 1949. Like the Bustos I don't think is good dance music. There was the instrumental La Yumba 1952, Fuimos with Chanel, 1946; Pasional with Morán 1951
- Di Sarli again
- Rodriguez
- Milonga tanda
- Tanda of Caló hits. 

I know there was vals but I have not noted it.  I have a note that there was no Troilo, Tanturi, Donato, De Angelis or D’Agostino.

This makes the music sounds worse than it was but I danced a lot and to good music so I may not have noted it all nor necessarily in order. 

During the Pugliese

Dancing

Besides the usual Glasgow contingent there were several there from Edinburgh and it was busy. There was a very small group of nuevo style dancers from elsewhere in Scotland - I'd better not say where as I've been clearly warned off.  They seemed to stick together. Of these, one young couple dominated the floor at the start with big moves but at least the floor was mostly clear then. Everyone else danced small with the traditional embraces and movements of social dancing. It was nice.

I danced in both roles in heels and flats with my friend who is taller than me and glorious to dance with.  He said he knows lots of guys who dance well in both roles.  This surprised me.  Were I to dance with most guys in the UK I would struggle to find them not a torment in just one role. Happily there are notable exceptions. But my friend dances a lot in the queer tango community.  I have long thought that guys who can or who have danced both roles are in general much better dancers than guys who don't - particularly in the (traditional) men's part so in search of these I am now curious about the queer tango community abroad.

That was the last Crypt milonga. The Glasgow Tango Collective has set up a new milonga in a different venue: 

The group’s Facebook description (August 2016)