Milonga in Pant, Shropshire

I had several second thoughts about leaving my children for a few days. They had remembered because that day there were extended morning cuddles. My elder son popped corn for me for the journey. The little one put some apples in a paper bag and they both pressed on me some of their precious sweets acquired on a morning supermarket run with daddy. Under this deluge I felt loved and guilty about leaving.  Love swirls always between us yet I knew without a parting there would not have been quite the same outpouring of affection.  As I drove away I turned on the radio and found it tuned to Classic FM. On school mornings my organised and conscientious elder son puts it on while he waits for the rest of us to get in the car.  I was leaving my family to drive five hours in pouring rain to a milonga about which I already had  reservations.

The rain cleared though and about four-thirty I stopped in Chester for a look around.

The milonga had seemed to have no Facebook event. I mentioned to some people there how surprised I had been that I knew of only one person who had been to this milonga and few even in the north who had even heard of it. It is because it isn’t advertised they said. I wasn’t sure about that. It was, after all, on TangoTimetable. 

I arrived to find a typical British village hall - they are great for dances - with parking.  There were coat pegs outside but no one was using them. I left my shoes there but was the only one to do so.  People changed their shoes in the hall.

I went to get ready and heard as I did so what was part of probably the first or second tanda: Troilo/Fiorentino - Cada vez que me recuerdes (1943) and Pa que seguir (1942), then Cada vez que me recuerdes (for sure) a second time. If I was mistaken about the first one I can’t think what else it could have been unless those lyrics are repeated elsewhere.  I thought these tracks an odd choice for this time of the evening.

Welcome, venue and hosting

The room was good sized, of pleasant dimensions with perhaps six or eight people already there. More people arrived gradually.  The furnishings seemed spare but the place had a warm glow. The DJ table was to the left of the door set back a bit from the floor, surrounded by fairy lights. Entrada is £7. I was warmly welcomed and oriented to the tea and coffee by host Sharon Koch who was also DJing. 

Sharon accompanied me across the floor to the seating area set up well, I thought, with tables and chairs cafe-style at the far end.  These were sufficient for the numbers who arrived though not perhaps if as a couple you wanted to keep to yourselves.  Most people though I find come out to dance with and meet others at least in part.  Sharon introduced me to several people.  

The kitchen behind the seating area had tea, coffee, some biscuits and pears on the table. A few more bits and pieces arrived over the course of the evening. Apparently people make contributions.  I was glad of the tea as I was cold when I arrived and wore a wrap sometimes but as to the what the hall temperature was like, it's hard to say as I don't think I was very representative that day.

 I felt welcomed and looked after:  I sat alone but Sharon came to sit and chat then invited me to dance and said nice things. Later on a chatty, friendly couple joined my table while I was away from it.  After they left early as I was sitting out a lot and she came to see if I was OK.  I was but it was nice to chat a bit more.

Then, part way through the evening there was first one and then another announcement:  “Would whoever does not normally dance here please remove whatever is on their shoes that is making the floor too slippy and wipe their feet.”  I think I was perhaps the only person who didn't normally dance there.  These days I am so worried about wrecking my knee from the single man-handled pivot by a poor dancer who invites me in a way that makes it socially difficult to refuse, or about whom I have made a mistake, that my shoes often have stuff on them to protect against that risk if I discover I have not managed to avoid it.  Also few floors are top notch and again cause injury.  That day, experience causing me to be cautious of all the unknowns perhaps they had too much; for sure I hadn't realised it was affecting others. Perhaps if milonga organisers impressed upon men the effects of asking women directly, this might be less necessary.  Usually I would own up and apologise but being almost named in public was pretty alarming in itself.   

The hall was done up prettily yet with so few props, I thought it quite an art and wanted to remember it. There was some dark red material with a shine to it, pinned behind the DJ wall.  There were tea lights and fairy lights around the seating area.  When there were only three couples on the floor, most out of shot or unrecognisable I went outside the salon doorway to take a quick and distant snap of the room, to get just a general sense of the decor.  Sharon had been dancing but she sees everything and was on to me immediately.  She just said: “No one likes to be filmed” but it was so final I didn’t bother to explain.  While there I asked someone about what, later driving home I thought of as defensiveness.  The dancer said it was part of making people "feel safe".  So perhaps it was protectiveness.  Perhaps not.

The floor though, I think I can fairly safely show you was like this.  I think most people probably found it ordinarily OK.

Mid evening I asked Sharon if there were about forty people. "No", she said, honestly, "probably thirty", though apparently they have had fifty. 

- "Oh, it feels busier", I said.

- "People come here to dance" she replied. "They don't sit around much".  
I was sitting around quite a lot and, being solo, noticeably so. I decided whilst it might be wise not to forget this remark, to try not to take it as too pointed, though that was becoming harder.   I looked about.  People were in fact sitting around quite happily and chatting. I remarked on this. It was impossible not to see it as just social and very relaxed. She agreed but I had a slight sense that“Yes, that’s all very well but you can do that anywhere - here we come to dance”.  

Sharon is straightforward. I found her frank, funny, a bit outrageous, probably fearless and fairly scary. Still there is something refreshing about some of that directness. She tells you what she thinks and how it is and I appreciate that more than any snake in the grass. She has strong opinions which I felt would brook little opposition still less change which is why I put forward no contradictory opinions.  She struck me as someone who goes about things in a businesslike way.  

Music

My main concern about this milonga had been the silent cortinas I had seen advertised on the website.   I have mentioned the problems as I see them of silent cortinas in Edinburgh several times previously and about being cortinaless - which is nearly the same thing.

The set was indeed with silent cortinas that were so short the tandas effectively ran together.  I had some conversations about this while there.

The music was mostly from the Golden Era. There were some good tandas for me but I found a lot of the tracks and therefore the tandas problematic which is why I felt I did not dance that much.  Still in retrospect I had perhaps seven or eight partners which is probably record-breaking for me lately.

Potential DJs within this group are able to try playing their own selection of the music for I think it is an hour, from 8pm. It was Sam, the trial DJs first time. If I recall well there was one good track for me in the Lomuto but most people danced all those tracks.  I was impressed by three good OTV tangos together, which I find is more than many DJs manage.  I think at least three out of four of the Donato tangos were good for me. Then three good Donato milonga. 

Here follows exactly an example of some of the problems you encounter with dodgy music and no cortinas:  A guy had earlier by half walking up invited me to the third track of what, up to that point had been good Laurenz.  At the end of that tanda I started to leave the floor. He asked: did I want to continue? I liked dancing with him very much. I marvelled how someone who lived ninety minutes from his nearest (and I think only) milonga could dance so well. “Sharon” he said, modestly. In reply I said "Lets see what music comes next."  Being then I think some sort of Guardia Vieja I declined saying I would love to dance to something else.

Much later we were chatting when suddenly there was Cafe Dominguez the last track I think of an otherwise indifferent De Angelis tanda.  I asked him if he wanted to dance it. I had a lot of doubts about the vals which followed  (a different tanda).  Because I so liked dancing  with him I was about to give in and dance it but decided it would be a mistake.  Though I regretted leaving him, I realised as I walked away  hearing the development of the music that it had been the right thing to do.  He was extraordinarily patient and understanding, but since he was the kind of person I like to dance with it was so not surprising.  

Regarding other music:  Sharon said that she usually plays D'Agostino tangos from the 40s but that night it was from the 50s.   I remember a very good Rodriguez tanda later on, then, near the end a wholly lovely tanda of four Fresedo, which I danced feeling much gratitude to both the current DJ and the partner with whom I danced it. I heard three good Caló tracks as I was preparing to leave (I didn’t hear the last one). 

Most of the music was rhythmic. There was some of the romantic type Di Sarli. Surprisingly, the last track of that tanda changed to more rhythmic music so I danced it. I asked Sharon why there was so little of the more softer, more lyrical music generally. She was characteristically forthright: she doesn’t like it. She plays a bit to keep the peace but that’s it. "There are other places people can go if they want to rub each other’s legs", she said with such scorn that take aback by the image and the tone I couldn’t help laughing . There is also that expectation I felt that people get up and dance.  I felt the idea there is that rhythmic music gets you dancing.  It does, but so does softer music. Again though I didn’t feel there was anything to be gained and probably much to be lost by saying differently.

Nothing was said explicitly but I came away with the impression that dancing Argentine tango here is not really about connection with another personality, that that might be too slushy a notion; that is was more about movement and "thinking about things to do" (I heard this said) and an upright posture and a sort of required dynamism to the “more suitable” rhythmic music.  

Ronda and dancing

Admittedly, it was not cramped or overcrowded but the ronda here was very nice.

Just about everyone seemed to dance in the embrace. There were a number of nice dancers, especially among the women, a surprising number of whom danced both roles, usually with each other. Of the men I enjoyed two of the three guys I danced with.  I saw another over whom I hesitated but by the time, later on, I had decided “yes” he seemed to have lost interest and left early. 

I find it pretty much impossible to turn down any guy sitting at the same table as me who invites me and accepted the man of the couple who had joined my table. They also left early.  When I asked why it was because he had a cold but they had “made the effort" to come out she said. I knew what Janis would say about that.  They had a special event the next day so wanted to be fit for tit. I hoped I would be too and would not infect the baby nieces I had come to visit and not have to miss the Manchester pop up milonga for which I had driven so far.

Atmosphere

I did start to wonder if I was "sitting too much" but the absurdity of that notion didn't trouble me in any seriousness.  "For who"? I have learned is a good response to this sort of query.   I wondered if my shoes were OK, if between my attempted photo and who knows what else I had done this or that wrong.  I realised these slight worries came less from me and more from the tone of the milonga but this sense I had was not coming from the dancers.  The tone of a milonga is generally I find set by a host.  I felt there was much personal preference dictating things here and wondered what the difference is between inflicting your own personal preferences on people and creating an environment of shared preferences.  Unquestionably, though there were thirty people who chose to share these preferences that night, even if, by 2230 many had left.

One of the lovely things about this milonga was that I was not "blanked". People acknowledged I existed. Even though I was far from accepting all guy invitations by look and might have been considered snobbish I did not feel judged, or hassled, or ignored. I did though dance with more women in both roles. 

Later on a guy walked up to invite me but when I said “Not just now thank you” he accepted it immediately and in an understanding way. In general I felt a sort of tolerant benevolence from the group. Some people did talk about about classes and teachers and “we believe”. I always find that a bit alarming in a group, preferring independent opinion. I had a sense of a place run very much from the top, but I didn't talk or dance with enough people to say so with conviction. A strong host in some ways is useful though: when it comes to floorcraft.

This milonga left me feeling conflicted.  I was unquestionably welcomed here by  Sharon and was far from ignored by the dancers here.  But there was also, unspoken - and not from the dancers - a sense, a kind of warning about conforming, fitting in, toeing all the lines, knowing and respecting who is top-dog. You can drop-in but it is not really a drop-in milonga. It seemed more a milonga for Sharon’s established teaching group.  I am curious about whether I would find much attendee overlap at the other local milongas.

I left quietly during the second track of the last tanda towards 11pm.  Sharon made a point of waving goodbye from the floor as did my partners from that evening. It was a nice way to end. 

The roads north to Manchester were excellent and I was back about 0015.