Salon De Oranjerie, Arnhem: New Year edition

On 2 January 2017 I went to the Salon de Oranjerie in Arnhem organised by Franc (and possibly others) of Amor de tango.  

Booking

You have to buy your tickets for this event online and state your role. The ticket was "€ 29,50 (excl. booking costs). This includes salon entry, a good meal and 3 drinks.... Extra drinks will be sold for € 2,50. Wine will be € 3" [from the website]. Personally I thought that deal was fine - about £26 if you consider it less than £9 for entry and the same again for a meal and for three drinks.  That is much cheaper than for example wine would be in the UK. It was also a long milonga - a wonderful seven hours: 3-10pm. 

This event seems to be infrequent.  The next salon is in June.  There is a good deal on at the hotel and smiling Jo Switten who I heard in Antwerp will play the music.  I think it should be very nice. 

[Update: Sadly, the salons stopped running soon after.] 

Franc

I met Franc in De Duif at TangoMagia in 2013.  I had been dancing about eighteen months. He was a memorable and quiet dancer - the best of that festival for me - and a reassuringly nice guy. You’re a teacher! I remember gasping very likely in enquiry as the penny dropped during the few words we exchanged over two tandas.  I was still awed by many teachers at that time and thought "Of course he is, dancing like this". I know now that some teachers are marvellous social dancers while many are not.  He mentioned, quietly, people he knew in the places I had already travelled to in the UK, like the Mango in Devon. I realised he had been dancing long before I had even had children and that he had met more callow women dancers than I could imagine. Modestly he shrugged, “Half the people here are teachers” as if in reality that meant nothing, which I now know to be true.  At the time I hid from that worrying thought in his embrace. He was nothing so much as gentle in manner.  I had since heard of his Oranjerie salon, thought it looked nice and it stayed in the mind's backburner for several years.

Getting there

  At the last minute Rian decided to go.  She proposed we meet at the station, travel to the venue together and perhaps go for a walk before the milonga.  I was delighted because it is never easy to catch up properly in the milonga.  We met in a coffee shop in the station with a marvellous lichen-like living wall. Like me, some children there could not quite get over how wonderful that was. I seem to recall the staff saying the plant absorbs moisture from the air so does not need watering.

The bus-station could hardly have been more conveniently accessible from the station. The venue is on the edge of town and you get off at the stop shown in the photo. We walked up the long drive to the Groot Warnsborn hotel where a polite and pleasant man on reception agreed to let me leave my things while we went for a walk. I should think with such courteous staff it is probably a very nice place to stay.

The drive up to the hotel (left) and where to get off the bus!

My experience of afternoon winter walks in two Dutch woods has left me a little underwhelmed but I live in Perthshire, one of the most wonderful areas for woods in the UK.  It does not matter though for there is almost nothing nicer than walk and talk  in good company.

Map of the walks around the hotel

Venue, welcome, seating

The milonga is in the Orangery near, not in, the main hotel building.  When we went in it was well underway.  There was a predictably busy ladies room off the foyer and a coat rack by the booking table where I left my luggage.  They scan your booking code and give you tokens for food and drink.

You walk then straight in to the salon on to a red carpeted walkway down the side of the dance floor to your right.  This was a good idea as it keeps the dancers and pedestrians separate.  Picture.  Straight ahead was the DJ spot.  The carpet petered out there so people walked on that corner of the dance floor to get to and from the central gangway that ran through the tabled seating area (between the red and white tables in the pic) to the floor.  At the back of the seating area, to the right was the bar. There was also table-less seating opposite the walkway.  I did not find a good spot from where to take a photo discreetly.  When I arrived I was not keen to take a photo until I had absorbed the atmosphere for a while.  Later I was too absorbed in it and forgot.

The room itself was beautiful.  Rian and Wil, whom I had met in the ladies, had gone ahead.  I was greeted first by Franc who was welcoming people on the carpet and then suddenly by the Northern Mischief looking svelte, her naughty grin and sparkling eyes positively bubbling over with fun and pleasure.  I guessed that El Corte for New Year had been good.  It was lovely to be welcomed by her.  She invited me to chat at her table where I was introduced to a quiet, unassuming Norwegian guy who turned out to be one of my nicest dances of the week.  I introduced my friends, more dance-focused than I, who had already found spots on the edge of the floor.  I was delighted to be at a table with drinks and chat, chatting with many.  It is also a useful barrier to invitation while you are not ready and want to take things in.  

There was nothing like enough tables for all. Groups of friends grabbed them and held on to them.  We kept ours with my wrap and bag there while dancing until it was firmly appropriated in our absence by a crowd of older, solid and determined-looking Dutch.  They looked conniving and resolute and did not apparently move again.  It would be nice if you could reserve tables.  I tugged my wrap, crossly, from under one their bottoms then when everyone started playing musical chairs I ended up on one of the temporary seats, forgetting that my bag was still under what was no longer our table.  I had to go back and was forced to scrabble for it between the unmoving legs.  

Besides being much more relaxing, keeping a seat means staying with your belongings and your partners always know where to find you. Maybe that was never an issue for Franc, who stands well over six feet tall.

Music

The music, by DJ Nico Loco of Dresden was mostly good. Most tandas were reliable enough for me to dance and many were great.  Even so, there was for example, this patch:

Suddenly I found myself with two nearly simultaneous invitations both of which I had wanted.  But they were to Rodriguez vals.   They are fine now and then but not where great dancing is to be found.  For great dancing you want great tracks! Next though was a tanda of Guardia Vieja.  This, bizarrely I danced upon invitation again from one of the guys I had turned down, but was frustrated with the DJ for lining up one not-great and one poor tanda.   Then, maddeningly, after the GV were Rodriguez foxtrots!  Neither the second guy nor I wanted to dance those foxtrots. I had hoped to dance with him for a long time - months perhaps and so, when finally he invited, never did because of three less than impressive tandas in a row and two of them Rodriguez.  That is how important the DJ is - he makes opportunities for dancers, he doesn't close them down.  

I didn't feel too bad about it though because later I heard, horrified, that the guy I hadn't managed to dance with had at another milonga dumped a Dutch woman I knew after two tracks rather than completing the customary three or four.  I was outraged for her at the indignity of it but she shrugged:  He didn't feel like it.  I could see she had let it go and held no animosity.  I couldn't forgive that the same way.

Floor, dancing, ronda
I had heard previously mixed things about the floor quality.  I heard the discreet nudge at the booking table about "a place to leave outdoor shoes outside the salon".  Very likely this was at least as much about not bringing in mud to the salon as about etiquette and it was subtly done.

The floor was in fact excellent.  The dancing was mixed.  I heard from someone who goes often that:  For some people it was quite expensive. So they stayed at home. Others had to work on a Monday. So they did as well. Of course it was fully booked, but not with the best dancers as it usually was. The ronda was  busy and so-so. It was just sometimes a bit messy as you might well expect given that there were people from all over and the event was (happily) not selective.  I saw people from at least the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, several Brits who had been to El Corte for New Year. Quite a few women switched roles reminding me of Eton milongas in the UK.

Food
The food was good. The token system was not altogether clear to all of us.  You chose two or perhaps three things with your token.  The menu was in Dutch but people in line helped with that.  Apparently a room behind this is usually available to eat in but this was not the case that day.  With ageless, engaging boyish charm, Franc, glass casually in hand, apologised at least twice publicly though nobody seemed to really mind.  The food servings was staggered into two to reduce the line and at mealtime tables were set up in the foyer to ease the crush in the salon.  I imagine things are much easier on good days in the summer when it looks as though there is access to the terrace for drinks and chat.

Impressions

I asked one of the attendees who travels a lot what they had thought in general.:

The location and the music were perfect and I had many good dances, so I enjoyed myself.

Someone else said:
"Well the venue was beautiful and I liked the slidey floor. Music was excellent, had some fabulous tandas, hated being asked by men (it was very well lit for cabeceo) and the beginning was incredibly hot but they did then open doors to cool it down. Tap water in jugs would have been appreciated as it wasn't exactly a cheap gig. Loved it in general. Good wine. Good coffee."  

She meant she didn't like the guys who walked up to invite and it was true there was some of that.  

I liked best the atmosphere, the variety of people though it made things a little haphazard.

I would love to go back especially in the summer especially if the DJ was Jo Switten.  

It would be great if there were more and smaller tables. I felt because of the venue and the atmosphere that this might be a great place to try separate seating for men and women but there is something cautious I sense about the Dutch socially, despite all that openness and liberalism. 

It was my favourite milonga of the week, probably my favourite in the Netherlands so far.

El Porteño at Beekman and Beekman in Deurne

Hetty (left) and Rian (right)

On Sun 1 January I went to a milonga in Deurne, Noord-Brabant near Eindhoven because I was staying nearby. It was run by Hetty and Paul of El Porteño. 

The milonga is held in the lovely setting  of Beekman & Beekman - a bar and restaurant. The building itself was on a little square that glowed festively with lights decorating the surrounding trees and buildings. 

I cannot say how much I liked the venue downstairs.  The bar here was a beautiful, long, curving affair.

The wood was warm and dark, there were cafe-style tables in various sections where people were eating quietly with friends and family. I did not like to photograph that area. This is another section:

If I ever went again with friends I might go here for a drink or some food beforehand.  On this occasion I went with Pieter who had invited me to stay with his family for New Year.  In the salon we met, as arranged, a girl friend of mine who had travelled across the Netherlands as she has before for TipoTango's Sylvester (New Year) dinner and milonga in Scala, Eindhoven.   She said it had been great.  I guessed she knew what she was about because she had fosaken several other New Year celebrations in much closer milongas. 

Illuminated panel on the landing

The milonga in Deurne is in an upstairs room.  The welcome was just wonderful. Hetty greeted me with the warmth you might reserve for a long-lost friend. I liked her instantly.  It was a "Come in, come in" kind of welcome where you are clasped by the hand and brought so to speak in to the body of the kirk. I cannot remember when I last found such a lovely welcome.  She reminded me of how I felt when Daniel welcomed me in Gricel in Buenos Aires or of the way Iain hosts his - hitherto free - occasional milongas in Edinburgh. In all of these your presence seems to be genuinely valued.  The sense is not of indifference to a passing stranger, still less the veiled hostility I have sensed in a few milongas where I am known and possibly might be thought difficult or too choosy but of being genuinely wanted.

The ladies room is very small upstairs so if one needed to change or make up downstairs would be better.

The El Porteño milonga also has a staffed bar upstairs The room is an odd triangular shape with a curved wall on which the blue frieze is painted which  I imagine is the other side of the illuminated panel shown above.

Looking towards the entrance.  What appears to be  a wall at the far end is in fact doors to make a larger room 

From the narrow end of the room towards the bar.  Entrance off to the left.

At the end of the milonga Hetty told me that when it is busier the doors at the shallow end of the room can be opened making one longer room, belted by the doors in the middle. She showed me.  It was lovely:

The "extension" room - the doors between the two rooms can be opened up

The floor was old but OK. There were tables and chairs around the room.

Music
In September last year I had contacted Paul because I heard the setting of a summer milonga he runs Tango in `t Groen was so nice as to make me consider the trip across the Netherlands to Venlo. It is apparently in the grounds of a hospital or retirement home but I heard is not easy to get to without a car though apparently train and bike might be possible. I wanted to know about the music so I wrote to ask him if the music was mainstream traditional. 

He seemed to play a mix and on request gave a few exmpales. He said he played "old staccato tango's" (his examples: El Pollo Ricardo by Di Sarli and No me lo digas (1940) by Rodriguez/Moreno [not great sound]. I suppose he meant the 1940 El Pollo Ricardo though he recorded it three times - they get progressively slower.  Here, by the way, is Ricardo Vidort (grey jacket, white hair with the girl in the black dress) dancing I think the 1940 version.  I watch this and what I notice is that here is a man whose body was not only  suffused with music but that the one body, four legs thing is not happening with them moving on the same legs.  His legs are doing something different to her legs but he is so attuned to her, and where she is that it is still as though they are one.

Paul said he also played Golden Age tangos then something he called "colt [old?] Nuevo".  His examples were Farolito de mi Barrio and Negracha of Pugliese which in my view  are tracks for:

a) people who love to dance a show
b) teachers - usually a  subset of a)
c) people to dance in the privacy of home
d) 3AM in the milonga when just about everyone has gone home
d) those who don't know any better.

He also plays, he said, "Orrillero" (his examples: the marvellous, wholly irresistible tracks by D'Arienzo El Flete and Felicia)to.  He said he just played one tanda of neo in the afternoon. He also said he played "Calo [sic], Tanturi, Malerba, Troilo, Di Sarli, D'Agostina [sic] Biagi and many more". Clarifying what he meant by these nuevo tracks of Pugliese and his distinction with neo tango he said "The Nuevo were then an new sound,( 70 jears ago) because of the change in ritme, Neo tango is in fact no tango, but sometimes its nice to here it, you can play all kinds of music in the Milonga, but it does'nt mean it is tango."

I was still pretty confused so I asked someone who knows about these things but they were not much the wiser.  Then I said:

F: That same day I wrote back to that DJ: "I have to ask though, "orillero" means from the suburbs, no? So what makes El flete and Felicia orillero for you?"  But never did hear back.

A: Good question. A good answer is: nothing does.
Orillero refers to a kind of dancing, not a kind of music.

I decided against going to the milonga in Venlo that weekend.

Here in Deurne strangely, tangos were in threes. Vals and milonga in fours though that said I seem to remember a Caló tanda of four tracks.  The music was a hodge-podge.  There were some classic tracks, a lot of tracks unknown to me, some electro-tango, some non-tango and some of these were mixed together.

Pieter danced the alternative tracks with Hetty in a non-tango way which made sense.  It was like seeing people dance the tropical tanda in Buenos Aires.  There they don't tend to dance movements you see in tango to rock and roll or jazz.  Seeing people dancing typically tango movements to music that is not tango reminds me of adulterating one thing with another, to the disadvantage of both,  like putting coke in your rum without any of the finesse of a cocktail which makes adulteration into a new art.

At the end I danced a great Donato track with a local guy thinking it would be a tanda. It turned into two nuevo tracks so I sat down. He tried to persuade me from the floor for the second time that night to dance electrotango.  I knew the guy from a previous trip and he did it all by look and gesture and,  knowing what I think of this kind of music in the milonga, an "I'll take care of it" expression.  Conveying so much silently he made me laugh which is what a guy who once gave me sound dating advice would have called the mistake of "leaving a chink" meaning "a chink of hope to a guy you are trying to say no to, politely".  But although I have, exceptionally, danced that kind of music with him before I did not want to now and said no again firmly but in silent disappointment and frustration at the unexpected change in the music.  He left the salon and I did not see him again.

From what Paul said about music in that correspondence it sounds as though at Tango in `t Groen he might play more traditional music than at Beekman & Beekman.

Attendance and dancing

The numbers were fair there.  We arrived probably after 7pm.  The milonga had been going since five.  By 8pm there were about thirty-five, which for a small rural place on New Year's day I found surprising.  All the tables were taken, the place did not look sparsely attended and felt intimate. People had been leaving from 9pm and at the end we were only six which is when some of my photos were taken.

Yet no-one I spoke to in other places had heard of this milonga, never mind been. Where? said a young class-going couple I spoke to at Arnhem. They lived in Nijmegen only forty-five minutes away.  I was puzzled because Hetty is such a warm and welcoming host I could not understand why people did not seem to know about the milonga. Asking about I heard that  "Arnhem people merely dance in Arnhem and Nijmegen and especially or exclusively with people who regularly visit their milongas. It is a bit of a clique.  "I wondered if Hetty ever got in other DJs because a milonga hosted by her with a DJ who plays more mainstream ought to be a winner.

The dancing was poor as you can probably tell from the website's cover photo.  The imbalance of women seemed to incline the extra women to accept a lot of what was there, which does nothing to improve the standard of guy dancing. Among the men there was a self-aggrandising showy, guy who reminded me of a teacher who can't dance, there was a lot of class-style dancing and "There was a quite gross ageing Casanova type in braces who leched at the women, held up the ronda, and did anything he could to be noticed which only made me determined not to see him. He stamped a sort of paso doble twice during the music." It was embarrassing. I said to my friend later  "How come he isn't banned?" "I said the same elsewhere" she said, "...but it isn't the way people do things around here."

This guy made the ronda an absolute pain because, especially at the point in the room with the shallow angle, the ronda has to keep moving but he did just what he felt like. He also taught in the middle of the floor. I'm not sure he ever acknowledged the existence of a ronda it being irrelevant compared to the centre of the world which was himself.  He was an degenerate, pitiable, disruptive sight. I could not believe it when women accepted his proferred hand and lascivious grin. I have never so much wanted to try to save women but realised anyone accepting that was probably past saving.

The ronda looked worse than it was.  Even so I quit on a track I did not like at the point where one of the best dancers there needlessly overtook me.  Between the room shape and the dancing my recollection of being in the ronda (in guide role) was that in general it wasn't great.

There was one older, quiet dancer whose dancing I liked and I danced with him.

I would have tried inviting some of the ladies there and I would have tried to see about an invitation from another guy but I was dancing with my friends and there wasn't time or good musical opportunity. 

Return?

I had a nice time here because the warmth of that welcome lingered, because I was with friends with whom I danced and just because of that lovely bar and the novelty of the place and the people.  But I would only go with friends on a spare evening for social reasons and with the expectation of jumping off and on the floor because of the music.

El Porteño also run, in the summer, that milonga I mentioned Salon Tango in `t Groen in the grounds of a hospital or retirement home in Venlo. I heard the setting is quite beautiful but that it is not easy to get to without a car though apparently train and bike might be possible.  From what he said about music it sounds as though there Paul plays more traditional, mainstream music than at Beekman & Beekman.

TangoTerras aan ‘t IJ - Tango Train Edition

Salon of TangoTerras aan ‘t IJ

The milonga TangoTerras is held in the Muziekgebouw aan t’IJ in Amsterdam.  I remember thinking what a complicated word that was when I first saw it, but it just means Concert hall on the IJ (water).  It is a modern building a short walk or cycle from the central station. I believe the milonga is usually held on the fourth Sunday of the month and is ordinarily in that location. There seemed to be more direct access from ground floor level but when I came here a few years ago I had crossed the bridge to get to a room on the upper level.  The TangoTerras milonga is not on bridge level but I spotted dancers I recognised and found the way easily enough.

Crossing the bridge to the Muziekgebouw (top) and exterior from the city side (below)

Wil and I must have arrived around the same time because she introduced me to Walter on the "door", which was just a table beside the dance floor.  This was the same Walter apparently who had the restaurant operating at El Cielo. I understood that is his name but I see on the website it might be "Wouter".  He is in any case “the dancing cook”, a lovely, warm, open-hearted guy. Perhaps Wil mentioned that I had wanted to meet Bennie Bartels because the conversation turned to him. Bennie is a dancer and teacher well known in the Netherlands and beyond. Before leaving for Amsterdam I had on recommendation  tried to arrange to meet Bennie, but he was away. I don’t know why I was amazed to hear that apparently he works sometimes in Walter’s kitchen. Walter said Bennie was the only guy he can truly embrace. My impression from that was that his dancing is that good. 

The salon was an open area inside the building. It was a lovely setting and there was a good view of the dark IJ and the Amsterdam lights.  It also had a bar but I did not think the place ideal for a milonga. Like the Manchester Pop Up milonga it is probably a great place to go and meet dancers.

There was very little seating. For me the floor was too rough and uneven and the DJ Toufik Cherifi from Brussels - who seemed to be friends with that guy - though he did play some lovely tracks also played music so unlike what I like that I had to quit dancing (switched) first with one friend, then with another. I danced with Wim again too but in those conditions did not feel up for new adventures with people I did not know beyond the one I have already recounted.  Have some of my wine offered Albert, perhaps thinking I could have done with it, but I declined. 

The dancing was again very mixed. I could sense that as much as I was left alone I also had dancing options but I was not sure of the lie of the dancing land and flitted round the room from bench to perch, a word with a friend here, an acquaintance there, a stranger in a third place but I was unable to settle and therefore unable to relax and wait for things to become clear. I find it easy to chat to people and should have used the cocktail party type atmosphere to meet the Dutch just for the pleasure of that.

The danger is, I was told and saw, many Dutch seem to invite people they don't know for dance, after conversation.  That is not always contrived and can be fairly natural and fine I think as long as one is prepared for it.  It would not do to feel ambushed.  But one can easily enough get out of a dance one does not want and that has arisen in conversation.  It just requires a non-committal, gentle "Perhaps later" which might be a polite way of saying "No, thank you" for the more squeamish among us but which might also be code for "Give me a while please.  I am not in the mood just now / don't like the music / haven't seen you dance yet / am just not sure ".  Something I like about the milongas is how much they show up sensitivity or lack of it to one another's feelings and the skill with which one sees the experienced dealing with the heavy-handed approach. 

One highlight for me was catching up with a friend again. We sat on the quiet side, away from the crowd. What’s he like? I whispered, indicating with my eyes a confident looking guy who could dance, and was passing by. He seemed to me not atypical of a type of dancer there. Likes to look at himself in the reflection of the window she whispered back. I had noticed that attitude generally among a swathe of Amsterdam dancers (and sometimes in Berlin). On cue, that is just what happened. I wrestled with a laugh that was easy to turn in to slack-jawed amazement.  The guy glanced at us though not a jot I felt in embarrassment that we had caught him at it, but rather as if he was checking to see if we had indeed seen his dancing - not that we I think were at all his type. 

Another highlight of this milonga was the jolt from the unmistakeable half-smile and narrowed eyes that I saw once or twice from a quiet girl.  She was from Rotterdam I heard.  She looked quirky and out to play.  That is another great thing about travel - you take people just as you find them, without preconception or gossip or any influence. Later in the ronda I saw her looking trapped and uncomfortable in the arms of some guy. Her eyes caught mine for a moment, and she looked, despite her predicament, nothing so much as amused.

Another highlight was nearly accepting a well built guy whose interest was as plain as his lack of presumption, zany clothes and quiet, mischievous grin. But although I had seen him before and was to see him in Arnhem, I had not seen him dance enough and the conditions were not good. I wasn’t ready then and later we did not find a moment that suited us mutually  It is all about that. 

I saw both of them at two different milongas but neither invited the one nor got to the point of acceptance with the other.  Even so, it is just for split second moments like these that I love the milongas.

Months later, another guy would tease me in mock disbelief: "So it has to be right guy, right music, right floor?" "Yes", I shrugged. And actually, the right moment. But the hit from that is what makes it worth the often long wait for those circumstances to alchemically combine. 

TangoTrain: Friday in El Cielo

The DJing on this day was shared between hosts Age and Sebastian.

I was warmly welcomed.  Not wanting this time to be stuck without a table and dazzled by lights on the back row I was there early. 

A: At the start, there was a sort of double Di Sarli tanda that just kept going.

B: I know some DJs do this kind of think deliberately. They think they should be free to delay the 'proper' start until e.g. a certain number of dancers have arrived.  

A: It was quiet. But they seemed to be still in the middle of getting things organised and the DJ station was manned only some of the time. 

The tracks started with the kind of Di Sarli that many like but I can skip.  Then the tanda moved towards the more rhythmic kind I do like.  There was a quiet, composed looking girl across from me who looked as though she might dance but, not knowing what the music was going to do I did not invite just then. 

The guy from Brussels was there too. After a while he walked over to the piano in a corner of the salon. He started to play his own tunes against the Di Sarli that was playing to the people who, while not numerous were nonetheless present.  I guess the people who counted for him hadn't arrived yet. For a while I sat in disbelief first that this was happening and then that it was being allowed to continue.  I left this mangled noise to sit the cafe and await some change.  After a while I saw Age ask the guy to stop, the tanda changed to Caló and I invited the girl sitting on the other side of the room. 

The middle of the Caló tanda turned out to be dodgy. When we got to what felt like possibly a fifth track, the girl and I looked at one another in some confusion.  We decided the tanda had gone past what was normal but decided to dance one more so I suppose the tracks must have improved by then.

Most of the tracks in that set were good for me but still, I have a note that there was dramatic Maderna though I don't associate Maderna with drama, and that there was Francini-Pontier.  Even in the more maintsream tandas I couldn’t shake the worry about what B or C-side might be about to ambush me mid-tanda. This double DJing was easily the weakest day of the three I attended at this milonga.

I also have a note that there was Mintieron tus labios which I had not heard before.  Tango.info tells me it could only have been the Canaro with Famá of 1941, but if I do not hear more than one per tanda I have a high tolerance for even those rhythmic Canaro of that era that I do not know.  Apologies for the poor sound of that link.  

I know I am one of those people who in conversation are rather like someone who pulls you off the main route to explore some side-street and then goes further in and forgets where they were heading.  My mother is the same.  I think it is a product more likely of genes than upbringing.  Excuses down, I like Canaro with Famá.  Many of these tangos are upbeat and happy and can reliably change one's mood.  There are many:  Toda mi vida, No me pregunten por qué, the wonderful Algún día te diré.   Here's a young couple having fun with that last one.  It is very typical of what I think of as "young European" dancing.  This sleek, self-conscious, athletic dancing is what you can see in many milongas with younger dancers right across Europe though in more toned down fashion for social dancing. I feel it is more about movement than embrace and connection, or rather the connection strikes me - who has felt both and recently - as more to facilitate movement than for a deeper connection between two souls.  No judgement is implied. It is just an observation on a type of dancing that one would very likely expect in people in their twenties and thirties. And certainly by no means all or even necessarily most people in their twenties and thirties seem to prefer this, it just depends.

Others of those upbeat Canaro/Famá  tracks are;  Te quiero todavia, Lo pasao pasó, Al subir, al bajar, and there are others which are softer and more romantic.  The one I don't much like from this time is Chirusa, which starts off too manic for me as though someone has had too much coffee though it improves.  My version besides has sound distortion that really spoils the track though I think it is rather better in that link.  

In El Cielo I remember there was that lovely upbeat track by Di Sarli & Rufino Volver a soñar (1940) and Fresedo's 1941 Vamos, corazón with Ruiz, which is for me just this side of okay before Fresedo goes all wrong after that year.  There was an old-fashioned, French-sounding Donato vals I hear rarely and that is probably a good thing:  La shunca (1941) Sweet though it is I imagine it would soon turn saccharine and I would rather watch it than dance.  It was in a tanda with the even more French-sounding Volveras pero cuando also with Horacio Lagos, Romeo Gavioli and Lita Morales.  I have a note too of  the instrumental El vals de los recuerdos (1935) with the unfashionable singer Hugo del Carril but which is worth hearing if only for the bandoneon solo and of - warning, terrible sound -  Luna (1940) with the same three singers but I do not remember that the vals in this set were generally in fours. It was an interesting tanda to hear if not one I would necessarily dance.

Wil arrived and since the atmosphere was very like the day before and because there was plenty of good music to get up to she and I danced a lot together.  Guys seemed to decide to leave us to it.  In fact the guy I was introduced to that evening and to whom I apologised for not acknowledging his cabeceo said not to worry, he had understood we were dancing together. In general I had the disconcerting if not altogether surprising sense that we had been seen as a couple, not that I cared a fig. 

There was a man in the salon dancing very attractively, always waiting for his partner to complete her movement. After gathering my things to leave I went over to him and his partner to ask how he had learned to dance like that. They seemed surprised but laughed.  It turned out they were from southern Germany. Oh! I said surprised, then, impetuously: You dance like a Latin - meaning, though I did not say, that he had an understanding of women which a lot of good guy dancing seems to be about.  They laughed again.

He struck me as very relaxed, shrewd, observant and good-humoured.

Why have you come here? I asked. They liked the Tango Train concept.  They also liked just the general package the Netherlands offered and especially how laid back the people are. They have friends there. They liked it better than Italy, confirming my intuition that the dancing there, not unlike many of my experiences of that culture more generally, was liable to be strongly based on image and show. 

They attended and liked encuentros including the mandatory registration aspect believing that dancers need to be hand-picked for these type of events - presumably because of the many different ways people dance tango socially in Europe. 

But about how he learned to dance the way he did, he said:

Number one: from women. 

Number two: from women

Number three: by dancing.

I learned more by just dancing than in all the years before.

You mean when you did classes? I asked

Yes, he said.  And all the time that I was thinking and dancing.

TANGO11: Tango Train Edition

Entrance is on the left of the bar

After that afternoon I went straight for a proper drink, bitterballen and canapes in the hotel lounge.  If there is an upside to a husband mostly away for work, occasional spousal access to the lounge must count as one of these though the reception usually has to be persuaded in to it.

I did not feel like going out on Thursday evening either but realised this not going out in the evening could become an easy habit.  If nothing else I needed the exercise after those lounge snacks. I reminded myself  that many of these milongas run only once a month and that it is rare to be able to explore so many local milongas in such a short space of time.  Many is the time I have gone out reluctantly knowing it likely I will end up having a good time.  Still, it is at times like this that one feels reason and instinct collide. 

I had been to this salon where the milonga called Tango11 was held before, during TangoMagia.  It is on KNSM island.  The building was the passenger terminal for KNSM: 

The KNSM Island is a man-made islandin the Eastern Docklands of Amsterdam. It is named for the Koninklijke Nederlandse Stoomboot-Maatschappij (KNSM), the Royal Dutch Steamboat Shipping company which used to have its headquarters and its docks on the island.  It is now a large residential area containing modern architecture with a mostly well-off population. (Wikipedia)

I crossed the icy road bridge by bike on to the island. It was dark and there was a beautiful, quiet and misty view of the city lights. 

It came back to me to take a sudden right on to a cycle path through a residential area. Google maps took me around the back of the building.  It was deserted, atmospheric and a straight, dark drop off the slippery edge into the freezing water.  I stayed, rather hypnotised by the loneliness of this place so near the city and thought of 'Young Adam'.  That film's brooding atmosphere plays out against a theme of dark water and an accident. I shivered and hurried round to find the front of the building.

I remembered at TangoMagia that an outgoing, glamorous acquaintance who had also been there seemed to have liked that salon and in fact everywhere.  I had not.  I had found it hard to settle and I felt those misgivings linger.

Building

The building is I think of fifties design and decoration.  I could see why it might be an icon to that style.  As I was leaving later on I exchanged a few words with a woman who was the only other person leaving during the show.  I asked if she had had a nice time.  She said she had and that she liked this building particularly because of the history - many immigrants had left from here to new lives in for example America.

Artwork depicting immigration inside the building.

Salon, seating etc

The dance salon is large.  The bar was nice, water was free and lighting was by no means dark.  There are white lines on the floor which make those bits sticky and I remember a weak spot in the floor.  The chairs on the left of the entrance, where the DJ was, were not used  being too far away from most invitation.

View from entrance (during show).  DJ spot was off to the left

Many people were spread out along the bar side (left hand side below) though much invitation happened around the bar and entrance area.

View towards the bar with entrance to the right of the bar

Some people used the tables at the far end opposite the entrance, shown on the right below but I noticed there were often very few people here:

Invitation

Because the room is so large and people are spread out it is not easy to invite quietly or be so invited from a distance.  There seemed to me to be a culture of some women, peacocking around the bar where the mirada are overt.  Sometimes I might enjoy watching this but that evening I felt it demoralising.

Then I saw my friend Wil who had a table near the bar.  I joined her.  It was a great spot.  I saw interest to the point of invitation from a few guys I did not want or had not seen dance but otherwise was not chosen.  Since I was for a good part of that time enveloped in a long black cosy wrap I was not surprised but had no intention of freezing on the offchance of an invitation I wanted.  Besides, with so many new dancers I was not sure which of those that was and the atmosphere was not conducive to relaxing in to the evening to see who that might be.  I danced though with  my friends Wim and Thierry.  Wim did not look surprised in the slightest to see me.  It was as though we had seen each other only a day or two before but it had been months. He left early as usual.

Dancing

There were good guy dancers and a number of people had told me this, along with La Bruja was a milonga with good quality dancing and an "in" crowd.  On this night I found even more of "a bit of everything" than at La Bruja that Tuesday and some dancing that was frankly awful.  It reminded me of the kind of milongas I had not enjoyed in Buenos Aires - the younger, more chaotic ones, though here there was a mix of ages. Even so, somehow I felt out of place.

Music

The music by DJ Stefan Ok was not what I think of as mainstream, well-known dance tracks. Like La Gata Negra he used headphones to pre-listen to the tracks he was considering playing. I was sad and shocked that a guy who seemed to dance so well would play music like that but plenty of people were both there and dancing it. 

Personally

I realised this frame of mind was not going to be conducive to even wanting dances let alone finding then. I tried to make myself a bit more sociable by asking the guy next to me if he had been to the milonga in de Duif the previous evening and how it had been? He looked reserved. I couldn't help but be reminded of something of the Cheshire cat. I had the distinct sense of a young(ish) guy or of a better dancer, or of a person who can do very easily without conversation indulging a (bit) older woman in one or more of these things. Still, he answered perfectly correctly and without giving anything away that he had enjoyed it. He was from Brussels but when I asked about the milongas there he was again reluctant to be drawn, saying again quite correctly that it depended what one liked. He it transpired liked a bar there on a Wednesday night and a Friday night. Eventually he said Patio de Tango was known as a beginner's milonga and he did not seem to rate Estar bien in Antwerp, which was a milonga I had heard mentioned. I sensed though that I probably would not like what he liked and since he did not seem inclined to conversation, I left it there with much relief. We sat adjacent in a silence that felt anything but companiable until a hot young chick came up and to my relief engaged his attention rather more successfully.

Wil wanted to dance and although ordinarily I would too, given the mismatch between me and this milonga I thought it better I leave. Besides, I did not trust the music and I did not want to give Wil a poor dance. I cannot really dance with any true feeling music I do not, well, feel. I went to ask Stefan what was coming up. He kindly showed me the tracks. I could see it was going to be mostly nice Canaro and then a show and I did not want to stay for that. So Wil and I danced the Canaro in a fairly wild ronda. But she said kind things and I felt the evening salvaged somewhat. 

Hearing the Piazzola which followed I could not understand why there was not a mass walk-out. Then I remembered I had been the one who did not fit in but then I had had a sense all evening that the kind of guy I was looking for was not likely to be here.

Thursday at El Cielo

The salon was less busy on Thursday though the music by DJ Age Akkeraman was the best I heard of this week, despite the Troilo-Marino tanda. 

Arriving mid-afternoon the tables were all taken so I sat on the row behind on the opposite side of the room to the day before. I had had a table previously but now further back found the lights under the gallery dazzling.  Based on yesterday's experience I felt optimistic and open-minded if - alone now - not exactly relaxed. 

There were people on both sides but unlike Bristol where I also knew next to no-one there was no falling in to easy chat with the people around but I realise I generally initiate that - when at ease.

Some people chatted to friends but I had a sense of many individuals out simply for the best dance they could get but then why not? I suppose, because a lot of that, or all the focus on that can create the kind of atmosphere one might not want. The guys in particular seemed very intent. I watched some of them walk up to girls but that was far from the norm and it was not in fact that that made me unable to shake the sense of stationary birds of prey, watching, waiting and selective.

Squinting against the lights it took me a long time to take in the room and get the measure of the guy dancing but I saw and danced with Wil, the woman I had met at La Bruja. A woman leader from Germany pretty much walked up with dance intentions though in which role I was not sure. Because of that and because I find it hard to turn down women and because it was really good D’Arienzo just then, I accepted but I felt and could see this was not a strategy that was making her popular. 

Besides Wil I do not remember inviting other women being too preoccupied with figuring out the guys. There was some good guy dancing but there was something about some of the men there that I could not quite put my finger on. There were slim, older guys, clearly experienced with the lean, reserved, hawk-like look and clothes of the European male habitué of the milongas.  This look is so distinctive this kind of guy is instantly recognisable.  It is almost like a club.  But here as in many other places there was something very self-conscious about the dancing. It was as though some of the dancing had the tango look but not the look of the feel of dancing tango.  Those two things are poles apart.  Some - only some - of the dancing looked experienced but studied, not natural, not primarily about connection and rather too much about how one looks to others watching.  Though this crowd was larger and more mixed I realised later it reminded me of De Plantage and I had a sense this was representative of the Amsterdam scene.

Between the being new there and this atmosphere I tried to shake off the paralysing feeling that was creeping over me by getting a cup of tea in the bar. There I fell into normal conversation with very unusual Rick from California who worked the bar. It felt such a relief.  He told me the Dokzaal was a not-for-profit organisation. Previously it had been a squat and I think a church or connected to one. The renovation included solar panels and apparently a lot of the work had been done by squatters and artists. It seemed to be a kind of alternative social project now with recognition by the town council. Rick said in passing that he would be on the street in three days if he did not find somewhere to live soon. Since this was evidently a topic of some stress I left it there. Kindly he went to see about finding me a Dutch charger since the sockets were not taking my adapter. He asked if I would mind the bar. Looking back, maybe he didn’t actually mean serve but at the time that did not occur to me. I did not know him and nobody knew me but none of the financial or health and safety issues occurred to me at the time. I wonder now what a Dutch reaction would have been. Twenty plus years ago I worked more bars and restaurants than I can remember but though he was gone only a quarter of an hour I seemed to serve a great many coffees, teas, wines and unfamiliar soft drinks with help finding them from the tolerant regulars as I have found is common internationally. The bar was very cheap - coffee and tea a euro, wine €2.50.

Across the gangway a different company to the previous day was preparing food that looked vegan and delicious. I remember roasted vegetables and I think more couscous. 

Back in the salon I seemed to spend a while avoiding meeting the eye of an intent-seeming, inscrutable older guy standing on the short side by the entrance who looked as though he might be from South America. He did not dance and he stayed so long without dancing that I was not sure that he was a dancer. If he was looking my way - and I was not at all sure that was true - I was not taking that chance. Much later - by the time I had realised he seemed a marvellous dancer - if he had been interested he no longer was and I would rather have died than seem too keen. Another dancer who looked great was a tall, casually dressed young guy who I discovered later was that evening’s DJ at the Tango11 milonga in the Kompaszaal but he was clearly dancing with a few select friends and locals.

 There was a blonde woman who danced beautifully in both roles, clearly well known and very popular with men and women. She danced so subtly, softly and quietly she made even the best guy dancers look coarse and all she did most of the time, was walk. It was revelatory. She was one of the best perhaps the best woman I have seen in swapped roles.  Watching her was the highlight of that day.

But my buoyancy from the day before was long gone.  I did not feel relaxed, in the right frame of mind and I knew I did not have on the right face but was yet to hear the Northern Mischief’s straightforward assessment and wise words.

So was it me, or was it the place?  I am not sure.  There were dances I could have had and did not take and too much of that can scare off other guys so perhaps I was too cautious.  Nothing ventured and all that.  There is more to say another time about how I found Amsterdam dancers in general but I think I could have quite a good time in El Cielo with Age DJing and with the girlfriends I like to be with.  Would I go back alone?  Probably not.  Not at any rate until I've worked on that honeytrap look.  Even if I could ever bring myself to do such a thing, still less apply it  and even if believed the kind of guy I like to dance with would be bought by eyelash batting I still don't see that happening alone in a strange place.

I decided to leave. When I did leave around 6pm I had been there only two and a half hours but it seemed a long time. The fresh air felt like relief.  I realised then how tense I had been and that I should have left much earlier.

But almost as I had had my hand on my bag to go I looked up. Unexpectedly a tall, well-set older man with a nice face and a loud Hawaian shirt invited me from just down the row by quiet and pleasant look. I had seen him dancing in the same way.   It was just the thing for that moment.  The embrace was warm; the dance was how it had looked and it reminded me of dancing with the more experienced men in Buenos Aires. Welcome to Amsterdam! he said, kindly. 

El Cielo in Amstedam, Tango train edition

Photo credit:  P.J.L. Cuijpers

This was an afternoon milonga with a bar that ran for several days during Tango Train. There was also a warm, cosy cafe serving food during the later afternoon and early evening. Of the venues I visited this was my favourite and the one that felt most like a good venue for a regular milonga. It also had the best DJing of that I heard at the festival - though some of the others were pretty dreadful. There was some good, unextravagant dancing. 

Downstairs there is a large room where you can change shoes and leave non-valuables. There is also a coat rack near the cafe entrance.

Apart from Tango Train, DJ duo Age and Sebastian run this milonga every first Sunday of the month in the same venue. It has been going for two years. Website. I would say the music and dancing in the video on that site is representative of this milonga.  Notice the display on the video shows Biagi with Duval and also a tanda by De Caro. I think this is a ‘something for everyone’ milonga, rather than a 'music for most people' meaning it does paddle in both sides of the mainstream - in Guardia Vieja and in the later vocal drama typical of Duval and Laborde in the late forties and fifties. The majority of the music though was from the Golden Era. I recall with relief no issues with sound there.

But how nice - a simple website with a picture of the salon, video of the real music and dancing, a map, the essential information.  And how nice too to see no list of rules just “Bring your best cabeceo & mirada”.

The salon was galleried but the gallery is not used.  In the salon there was a front row of tables with chairs and a rear row of just chairs but people on this row tended to share the tables in front for drinks. There was a good floor that had been a basketball court but was renovated or relaid in recent years.  

Every day there were different helpers on the door. I was struck by how friendly and welcoming they were.  Sebastian when I first met him on the door was also courteous and smiley. Age was the same but very quiet.  There was mercifully no sign-in sheet I remember, or at any of the Tango Train milongas I went to except La Bruja.  I had several brief conversations with Argentinian-born Sebastian who I found polite and guarded but then he looked busy; they both did.

Wednesday

Pieter was in Amsterdam for the day so after some foggy sightseeing by (one!) bike we went to the afternoon milonga. 

Host Sebastian was the DJ this day.  I was not keen on the D’Arienzo/Laborde but there was enough good music for me. There were B sides and miss tandas but I danced three tandas with guys without quitting on the music although it would have had to be truly appalling for me to quit on a guy I don’t know. And I danced quite a bit with Pieter so the music must have been mostly OK. I remember wishing I had not got up to the OTV because it was ropey. OTV can be unreliable I find with DJs one doesn’t know, compared to, say Caló . One would have to be a pretty terrible DJ to play a bad Caló tanda but goodness knows it happens.

The ronda was busy with two clear circles of dancers.  Each of the three afternoons I went to this milonga there was a nice mix of ages from students to retired people. Nearly everyone was experienced and the standard seemed good, certainly above UK average. I felt responsible in those conditions and danced with Pieter mostly in swapped roles. I was impressed when we did swap as he stayed in that ronda very well despite this being only his third experience of dancing tango socially though he has danced other things. No one else was that new or dancing swapping but I thought people tolerant and I hope and do not think we were obstructive. With hindsight, another day when it was less busy would have been better with a beginner especially in an unknown milonga.  I have had opportunity to learn this lesson before in  - at least - Letchworth and Stuttgart but I suppose I am still telling myself one cannot always tailor one’s opportunities to the ideal conditions.  

I saw the DJ Jens-Ingo who has taken, with his friends, loud exception to me in an online DJ forum from which I now stay away. He struck me as scarier than I had expected. 

Otherwise the atmosphere was good, upbeat and with energy.  That was the day with the best guy dancing of any day I was in Amsterdam.  

In between dances with my guest I looked to and immediately found a dance with pleasant, young and handsome Niraj currently living in Scandinavia. He had danced something like just a couple of years. It was his first trip away for dance and he was a memorably good dancer, subtle and gentle and I guessed would become more so. He was a nice guy so I took a risk and asked if he would dance a track with Pieter sometime. He did later, very courteously.  I think it was the first time I saw a guy invite a beginner guy successfully by look in a milonga.  They danced a whole tanda which I thought exceptionally nice of him.  It was as useful as I had expected.

Tango train: La Bruja (Tuesday)

It was only about half an hour by bike and ferry from the El Cielo cafe in the Dokzaal on Plantage Doklaan to Casa Antonio on Kamperfoelieweg in North Amsterdam.

Corine, the host of La Bruja, was as smiley as I remembered.

Numbers were about half what they had been in October but it was a Tuesday not the regular slot on the second Sunday of the month.

The DJs were Corine and DJ Hilal, "La Gata Negra".  They shared the DJing between them, swapping back and forth during the evening.

Music

When we arrived the music was deafeningly loud. We felt the high notes through out bodies and both of us flinched.  I was worried about damaging my ear at the start of the festival week.  My friend who builds speaker systems asked at least twice for the volume to go down.  Thereafter "the volume fluctuated a bit but stayed too high, at least coming down from the 'hit a certain note and you duck' level."

Volume by Corine was better though her good Troilo tanda I thought still too loud. 

The music started iffy and got better though there was still drama in La Gata Negra's sections. Despite the Biagi-Duval I preferred Corine’s deejaying which was mostly nice for me. Although La Gata Negra did play a lot of D’Arienzo I had never heard about half of it.

Between some of her music and all of the volume I started hiding in the bar when La Gata Negra played. Despite the nice company I started to feel bored and frustrated with the music and sound and drank a prosecco and a glass of wine in quick succession while Albert was still on his civilized mint tea. I was contemplating another wine when Albert, who was only now turning to his single, modest glass of wine said rightly, two glasses was enough. I'm on holiday!, I protested with sympathetic support from lady at the bar. You can smell my wine!, he said. The bar lady gave me a sorrowful look and we laughed.  I moved on to mint tea.

Dancing

La Gata Negra danced with a guy someone told me was a teacher.  It was noticeable because they were the only ones in the middle, dancing in a flashy, performance type way.   I guessed then that she might be a teacher too.  It was nothing like the way everyone else was dancing. It was distracting and broke the atmosphere.  There is a bit of everything here said a friend I met unexpectedly who lives in Amsterdam now.  That looked accurate to me.  The regular clique isn’t here he said. I took that to be a mercy. They dance like that teacher apparently.

Otherwise, there was a lot of nice, quiet dancing but fewer guys that I wanted to dance with. Indeed, the atmosphere was very different this time.  The dancers were perhaps skewed towards the older demographic on this occasion and the dancing and atmosphere was for the most part quieter.  I still liked the venue very much.

Albert and I danced, changing roles as we do.  Hans joined us and invited me after a while.  What a difference it makes to the time you have, knowing people at a milonga, more so being with people, even if just loosely.  I danced afterwards with people I knew or had been introduced to, being too tired to try for other girls and wanting to watch the guys for a bit.

Two guys walked-up, one so blatantly it was almost like a joke.   “Maybe later” I said but they understood and did not ask again. I saw a young guy in what looked like his first time in swapped roles.  I was curious and went to chat to him.  It turned out to be true.  He was from Antwerp visiting with his teacher. 

Mieka, one of the ladies I danced with last time came up to say hello which was lovely.  I saw the beautiful blonde who dances both roles but she seemed to be with a guy friend that evening. And I met magnetic Wilhelmina, "Wil". She was impossible to miss, taller than me, six one or six two perhaps and striking.  Her voice when I met her was surprisingly gentle. She wore beautiful wide, flowing trousers which were gold or gold and black and her dark hair was up. I wanted to dance with her but she was popular there and I did not like my chances. Yet she accepted and we did dance both in heels first which is one of the biggest challenges I know for balance between girls so tall. I would see her several times that week and we would dance many more tandas.

I watched a gregarious guy to whom Albert had introduced me in the bar. He was also from the north of the Netherlands. He wore a startlingly white shirt and black trousers.  He was well groomed without being one of those “tangueros” with pinstripe trousers and flashy shoes which say most of what you need to know before you even see them dance.  These things and the way he danced drew the eye to him. He looked easily the best guy dancer there, musical, quiet in dance and most of all, sensitive to the partner, waiting for the partner.  I was confirmed again in: If you want to know who the best dancer is, look for the quietest man.  

I did not for a moment think we would dance.  But soon he walked right up to invite.  Or rather it felt more like an assumption that Of course we would dance.  I hesitated only a moment, through surprise.  It was one of those quirks that tell you the world is full of exceptions to the usual way of doing things which is one reason why rules for milongas are so deadening.  It was of course a real dance, meaning memorably good, meaning he was one of those guys who make you feel like you are their whole, deep focus for those moments.   It was 10pm and I felt I could go home.  Afterwards, Hans, said correctly, "That will be your best dance of the night".  "You dance well", I said.   Astute and modest his look this time was as if to say: More's the pity, not like that. Hans is the kind of guy who can say - possibly, if you choose to interpret it that way - more and more safely with an expression than with words.     

At the end of the tanda I asked the guy in the white shirt: How did you learn to dance like that?  He looked surprised.  So calmly, so smoothly, I said.  Like nearly all guys who dance that well, he did not say In class, or With my maestro.  He did say, as an after thought that he had a back injury - though you could not tell - and that he did sport to ensure his back was strong for balance. 

His reply though was about character.  He said if his dancing was calm it was perhaps because his character was like that.  That idea that dance reflects, expresses, transmits character made perfect sense to me, reflecting the compatibility I had felt in dance.  This truth is why people talk about being vulnerable in dance, why you can’t really hide things about yourself, your character, in dance because they are sensed by the partner.

What he also said though, in a way that made it the main point was: I watch people.