Tea dances in Padanaram and Dundee

Boozing at Chris's in Glasgow on Saturday night and a long rail-replacement bus ride home meant that the next day I was not feeling quite up to taking my children walking around Dunkeld in the glorious Sunday sunshine.  I expect boozing is how it seemed if you'd been looking my way but not to misrepresent things Chris's wine-tastings are highly organised, civilized affairs with such good cheese (I used to live round the corner) that on those days I feel I could never be vegan.

Daddy was back to work in Manchester that afternoon so I took the boys  - protesting heavily - to the tango tea at Padanaram near Forfar for a couple of hours.  The drive on the back roads through Perthshire which Visit Scotland advertises as "Big tree country" was breathtakingly beautiful and I thought  - as regularly - how fortunate in many ways we are to live here. I also lament it at least twice weekly.  But that day the trees and hedgerows were afire, contrasting with the fields bleached to beige from the stubble of the crops recently cut. There were stick figures in some of the darker fields, perhaps tattie picking but I didn't know they still do that. Mostly though the ground has not yet been ploughed to dark or rather the sort of burnt red you see as you travel north of here.  I start to notice that red in the stone once we get to around the village of Kirriemuir, famous for its folk festival, for being the birthplace of JM Barrie and for having one of the four camera obscuras in Scotland.  If you have never seen one of these I particularly enjoyed the one in Dumfries museum - but then I was the only attendee that day.  It is only about half an hour from three points on the M74 if you are driving north or south.  Sorry to digress but there are so many marvellous places here and I find it hard not to recommend them.  

As you can see, the venue at Padanaram is still attractive and nicely presented. 

The excellent refreshments cheered both children immeasurably.  I thought the concession price too cheap for two hungry boys, tried to pay full price for all of us but was not allowed and we settled for £15.   My younger son, not usually shy, asked me to introduce him to a little girl who was there and to invite her to play with him; thereafter they played happily outside the hall.  Today he said he enjoyed it so much he wants me to take him next time. 

Things were very similar to the last time I went with numbers up to perhaps 40-odd,  including the organisers, helpers and DJ - very creditable, especially in Angus.  People had travelled from (at least) around Dundee, Aberdeen and even Edinburgh.

Space was tight at the tables and as we arrived an hour after it had started I wasn't at all sure where we could squeeze in.  I went to see about extra chairs just as the organisers were doing the same.

The DJ was again John Newton. There were cortinas and people used them, clearing the floor.  There was a clearly discernible ronda.

I danced the last track of a Rodriguez tanda. 

Example tracks (to the best of my knowledge):

Etincelles, F Canaro (vals) 1936

Plata Vieja, Juan Carlos Cobián - (1923). I remember being surprised, but still this may be a mistake because I can hardly remember hearing a tango this early played in a milonga

Sur Troilo/Rivero (1948),

Mentira Carabelli /Lafuento (1931)

A mi madre, Carlos Garcia

Olga, De Angelis, (1954) 

Canaro, Florindo Sassone (1956)

Mi noche triste, Sassone (1949)

I saw a woman I didn't know and wanted to dance with but after the Sassone, when Milonga negra, by Mercedes Simone struck up, decided to call it a day.

For comparison, we went on to a swing tea-dance held by Dundee university in the Bonar Hall. This was part of their annual Riverside Stomp, a big weekend with visiting teachers and several social dances. I have seen the hall done up for the couple of ceroc dances I once went to but for the swing it just looked a bit like a gymnasium. The contrast with Padanaram in decor could not have been more apparent. Here it was just about people, music and dance.  There was a temporary floor taped to the wooden floor, similar to the one I saw at Rotterdam.

Heavenly setting under the sun, and a huge sky, Wilhelminapier beside the river Maas, Rotterdam, August.

At the Bonar hall there was no seating, beside the stage that I recall, and the floor.

Numbers were probably forty and rising while we were there, with swing and lindy dancers from all over Scotland and possibly beyond.  Most people were in jeans and t-shirts with one or two dressed for the scene. I like the music, the clothes and the atmosphere I find at swing socials.  Most people were probably in their twenties though there were a very few probably in their thirties and forties. Of refreshments I saw water and a plate of biscuits.

I said we had just come to watch for a short while and who should we pay but they didn’t charge us and even said if we wanted to join in, we could. We sat on the stage for maybe twenty minutes.  It was casual and easygoing, with much of the quirky creativity and self-expression that I have seen at other swing dance socials. I asked the boys which music and dancing they preferred and both said the swing though couldn't say why.  I think it was because it looked younger, more fun and relaxed.