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. 

Ramsbottom - music

Ramsbottom milonga review is here.

Saturday afternoon, 1300-1700. DJ Kirsty Bennett

The music was mostly nice for me. Kirsty had apparently been asked to turn the volume down by the organiser who had been asked by the only couple there just before I arrived. The volume while I was there was fine.

Saturday evening 1900-2300. DJ: Ricardo Peixoto.

When I walked in my first thought was “On no!” It was way too loud. 

The DJ was sitting on the stage behind the speakers. However, he danced off and on through the evening so he was aware of the real sound. There were I think roughly three rows of tables furthest away from the speakers. I chose the middle of these, behind everyone else, because of the volume. I still found it too loud and moved right to the back. 

There was good fast vals which might have been D’Arienzo vals: Adios querida (1941) though perhaps that came later. ”Very Ricardo” I thought. Ricardo in my experience likes to keep energy high and I could see why he might want to with potentially challenging DJ conditions of few people. I do not think relentlessly high DJing is wise - trying to whip up the dancers in to a frenzy does not work.  It leads to at best, unpleasant conditions on the dance floor and is patronising in my view. One reason I avoided this DJ for quite a while is after experiencing a packed floor on Saturday night at Eton a few years ago with dancers whipped up in just this way. It was memorably unpleasant. Though I don't have a lot of experience of his DJing, my sense before I went was that he might have changed a bit in this respect.

Indeed it was not like that next. I liked the upbeat Fresedo 1938 tanda with Roberto Ray. There was Telon danced with less show style than is usual in video but better I feel by the woman here. Men can over-egg Fresedo. But not this guy, dancing to Vuelves. Why this is a show though, I'm not sure. You can see nice social dancing like this in any decent milonga. Then there was the sweet and lovely Angustia.

But I was not going to dance at that volume and nearly left for an early night.  I hung on to see what would happen. The good Troilo instrumentals were ludicrously loud and with the relentless speed of those tracks and the volume I was starting to have a not unfamiliar sense of “Come on, come on” of being harried to dance. It was not relaxing. I had my hand on my bag when my friend arrived and said I was not staying at this volume.

Just as I was about to get up the sound seemed to come down slightly after the Tanturi to still too loud but (barely) bearable. More friends arrived. I wavered, stayed. I enjoyed my time with the friends but my ears regretted it later.

I liked both the D’Arienzo tango tandas. First was D’Arienzo/Echagüe, La bruja (1938) and friends, and played early, after the Tanturi which is what got me up. Here's Noelia overdoing things I feel but sometimes these things aren't only show, they're an expression of personality which is more honest. 

There was D’Agostino/Vargas, music I just love to dance:  Tres esquinas (1941) - No aflojés (1940) - Un copetín (1941) - Adiós, arrabal (1941) but I think No aflojés is the weakest track and also fits least well with the others. It is interesting that there is next to no video of a show with Tres Esquinas - because you can't really dance show to this kind of music. It is purely social dance music. I love it. But my heart sank when I saw her feet tap several times at the start. I feel this couple understands completely different things to me in this music.

There was Di Sarli/Rufino - Corazón (1939), En un beso la vida (1940) and friends. I thought this, at the Triangulo Studio in New York started with some promise from him but if you look carefully even at the start you can tell what is soon going to happen. It reminds of when I drove a TVR Tuscan which wanted to leap ahead at the slightest touch on the accelerator. So perhaps that sort of thing is what you can expect at that venue.

There was Laurenz: De puro guapo  (with Juan Carlos Casas in 1940) & friends, stamped and posed out here by Pablo Inza but it would seem there are girls who love that and guys who'll pay to ape it.  It is not for me but, as you can probably tell from the dance, this is not someone you want to argue with.  I liked his DJing though because he plays what dancers like to dance.  More of him another time.

There was Pugliese/Moran: Mentira and El abrojito both 1945, which a friend once suggested, wonderfully, I use as the name of a milonga  - and others. I like this kind of music, I just get worried because it attracts an approach like this.

There was OTV  - Una vez with (Ortega del Cerro in 1943) and possibly slightly dodgy friends

There was indeed dodgy Donato which improved a bit with La melodía del corazón (with Gavioli in 1940) and the last Donato track was good. But I have never been able to take that track seriously since hearing a recorded version by Richard Clayerman as a child. Here's Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes dancing it.  Nothing shows personality like a Donato track. I searched and could not find any couple I wanted to show in contrast. So here are the social dancers dancing it in Lo de Celia. Actually (if you ignore the guy with his arm up) I can't find any greater contrast between what Arce/Montes do and what these real social dancers do. How can anyone think it is the same dance?  Why take lessons to do the things teacher-perfomers teach when you consider the conditions of a real milonga?  You are not taught to dance socially in class. You learn to dance socially by doing small movements to the actual music in the real ronda with other people close by on either side.

There was slow Canaro vals - La noche que me esperes (1935), Sueño de muñeca (1935), Amour et printemps (1935)

There was good Troilo/Fiorentino: Una carta, Pajara Ciego, both 1941 and friends

There was great D’Arienzo: Charamusca (1941), De mi flor (1941), Derecho viejo (1948) and Por que razón (1939). This was a tanda that reminded me of Buenos Aires and was my favourite of the day. I used to hear this sort of tanda rarely in the UK but more now though often with poor sound.  You need the right partner for the right music, never more than for this.  A friend obliged me by dancing the last track which would be torture to sit out.  It is one of my favourites.  I often thank god for giving us D'Arienzo for dance music, just as I thank him for Vivaldi on behalf of those who believe in the transformatory power of music on mood and for those of us who find the mornings difficult.

There was a milonga tanda with Di Sarli's La mulateada (1941).  I say this to try and spare a few women who may suffer this:  see this guy.  Watch him completely ignore the phrasing.  That would be bad enough but see what he does to this woman for a horribly long time.  Really, I think you can just drop the guy if he does this.  Or let him feel what it's like to be put through that   I dunno, maybe some people like that sort of thing.

There was Jamás Retornarás (1942) by Caló- Berón.  See how different the dancing is in that clip.

The biggest misses for me were the Demare B sides and the Donato so all in all that wasn't too serious. I am pretty sure there was good Biagi with Amor and with Saavedra as the last track but I can't remember which because I think I was dancing it. There was definitely good Rodriguez.

So there was plenty of good music but it was just badly spoilt by being overloud. There was also frustratingly poor soundcraft with cortinas especially and some tracks of wildly different volume, meaning the DJ, especially when dancing had to rush back to the DJ spot. 

The milonga and vals were good. But the milongas could be fast and twice I felt the milongas getting faster. With knee problems and my new partner’s style I (as the girl) struggled with Canaro-Famá’s Milongueando (1939). More tellingly I struggled (as the guy) with D’Arienzo’s La Espuela (1946) which I know but don’t hear that often in the milongas. I cannot remember when I last danced a milonga so badly and apologised to my partner. My good, experienced (guy) friend said he had struggled with it too. The music is nice but you can hear how jerky and erratic parts of it are. 

Sunday afternoon 1400-1900 

"I danced with few partners on Saturday, but the same ones. I wasn't going to stay at all on Sunday - no one was there when I arrived. I thought to chat to the DJ a little about music and milongas for a bit & go on to a tea dance in Preston. But in the end some different people arrived and I stayed til 7pm... 

I was talking to the DJ since no one was there and there was no tango music playing.  The DJ had a coffee and Larry kindly brought me one too.  I mellowed, easily.

When the next couple arrived the DJ put on shockingly bad Lomuto c1930 and asked me challengingly if it was rhythmic or lyrical. I tried to avoid the question, not wanting to say 'plodding' but without success. Eventually, I settled for 'steady' but I think it was evident I thought it atrocious. He said, honestly that his style of DJing was high energy. He said he knew some believed one way to DJ was to go from fire to embers but his own feeling was that if you go down to embers one cannot often get the embers aflame again. I laughed and said If this [Lomuto] is what you mean by embers, then I'm not surprised. Anyone would struggle to get going again after this. It was the classically awful stuff played in Edinburgh sometimes and that used to be played more but thankfully less now though I have not been a regular there since probably the first part of 2015.

I said there were better Lomuto tangos, naming some. But [Lomuto's] Catamarca was done so much better by Di Sarli he said (both are 1940). I said there are relatively few tangos where I do not hear the superiority of one over another, but sometimes a few are similar and good and a few are so different as to be good in their own ways which for me is the case with Catamarca. 

I think he also made the point that some people like that sort of thing. On cue, the woman in the couple who had lately arrived came over to say could they please have a repeat of that tanda later on. If I hadn't already seen that style of dancing it would have been useful to hear. But a DJ doesn't play for some people, do they? They play for most people. Otherwise we'd hear that kind of ear-bending awfulness rather more than we do. Ricardo is a much-booked DJ but I could see though why I had heard such controversial reports - and that he could play this sort of thing more than I personally had heard him play.  He was an interesting guy to talk to. 

After the Lomuto there was very nice Fresedo, then good Lomuto vals which we had chatted about. 

Friends arrived complaining straight away about the volume and choosing the table right at the back, furthest from the speakers because of it.

There was standard Malerba, then in a return to the early Lomuto style, OTV including Barillito (1927) which I don't think is good enough for dancing. There were Donato milongas, then Troilo-Marino which I regretted dancing but had accepted an invitation from a guy I don't see often. I danced great Rodriguez with Bill, just the kind of bittersweet sometimes fun music I like us to dance together. In a change from the afternoon there was simply great Donato then good D'Arienzo-Mauré including Ya Lo ves (1941). 

But by now 6 people were unhappy about the volume and there had been at least two complaints to the organiser. From others I had heard two or three bizarre excuses from dancers: e.g. Well, the hall is large, and similarly unrelated notions. 

Eventually, after one person spoke directly to the DJ the volume came down a bit. Apparently the volume was down but the gain was up. How a problem with volume or gain was missed by a DJ who was dancing is beyond me. Still, the volume went back up not long after but the tracks and cortinas were not normalised for an even sound so it is not surprising.

There was Pugliese, good Laurenz with Podestá: Recién (1943) and friends and a great Biagi vals.

In chat about DJing several people have noted that Ricardo's style is very rhythmic.  There were smoother tandas - the Fresedo, the Laurenz so I suppose one could make that point stick. Is rhythmic the same as high energy? Not always but things incline that way I guess.  What is La piba de los Jazmines (with Orlando Medina, 1943), which is standard Malerba? I would say that is more rhythmic, because it has a very clear, steady beat.  There are smooth bits but it is not high energy.

On the Saturday, one could say the Fresedo, D'Agostino, OTV and Demare were smooth not high energy but that is only about one tanda an hour and probably, if you were worried about energy dropping in dances about what you might play to give people a rest but but not too much of one.

This DJ plays rather towards high energy.  Besides the tangos his vals are often fast and his milongas can be very fast.  DJs who play in this style often do play loud apparently "to create mood" and "energy" in the dancers but I just find that harrying. I can't bear that "Come on, come on, get up, get up" when there is too much fast, rhythmic or insistent music  - even if it is all good music.  What I do in that situation actually is not dance at all because it just becomes physically and mentally exhausting to dance to music like that most of the time.  Similarly, there are people who like the "Plod plod plod" of Guardia vieja but they are not most people, I believe. Both ends of this scale will make me sit out.

I would not be keen to hear this DJ again until I hear reliably that the volume is not deafening and ideally that the soundcraft has improved too.  I liked most of the music but I think most people would prefer a set more balanced in energy.

- I took paracetamol for a sore ear on way home.
- I think Ibuprofen is better for that.

Ramsbottom milonga weekend

Photo credit:  Kirsty Bennett

This weekend was held 26-27 November 2016, organised by Larry and Larissa of El tango de mi corazón. The milongas were in the Ramsbottom civic hall. Entrada for each of the milongas was £10.   DJs were Kirsty Bennett and Ricardo Peixoto.

Foreknowledge

In April 2014 I had attended a milonga by these organisers in Bury with visiting teacher Demian Garcia and songs by Adrián Durso.  We had not met before.  I felt the very opposite of welcome.  This was long before any milonga review blog.  It puzzled me and put me off returning at the time but now I do not think it was deliberate.  I think it is just how it is.  I found the workshop unhelpful and pointless and had felt ignored at the milonga - which was poorly attended.  I danced I think once, which was fine, given the dancing and that is before I became as choosy.  Thereafter, I avoided their events.

El tango de mi corazón started running festivals in the north of England which looked workshop-heavy.  Still, I thought at that time about going to the milongas, but the DJs did not tempt me.  The same venue at Ramsbottom was used and also the grand palais ballroom in Swinton.  Numbers were I think 250 said one of the hosts at Ramsbottom. I don't know if that was the main milonga or the whole weekend.  Big numbers, anyway was my impression.

This time I felt that I could not pass up the opportunity of a milonga weekend which, like traditional milongas did not feature classes, nor dancer selection by the organisers and did not require booking.  It was only a few hours drive from me.  From what I had heard from the DJs previously I guessed I would like most of the music. The fact that Kirsty Bennett was DJing was a big draw, being one of my favourite UK DJs.

Welcome

At the door in Ramsbottom there was a sign-in sheet and I was asked for my name for that purpose.

Nothing was said about where to put my things or get changed. I was about to go looking when, saying hello to DJ Kirsty, she told me. She is also an experienced milonga host. 

Venue

The venue was fine. The seating that people used was at the far end with the tables. No one used the table-less solo seating on the right. “The seating was more "social" than good for invitation by look but people got by.  There was a bar. There was an adjoining room for food which seemed shop-bought and though plentiful and nicely presented was somehow not enticing and few seemed to partake.

The floor was slippy but good for me.

Invitation

...was mostly, but not exclusively, by cabeceo.

Numbers 

...at Ramsbottom were astonishingly low on Saturday afternoon.  There was a handful of people - a couple from the Isle of Man, a couple from a town in the north and me. There was initially one other guy, a new local dancer who bailed on the afternoon and came back later, then a local friend arrived mid-afternoon.

At the end of the afternoon the organisers, DJs and the northern couple went off together, the couple from the Isle of Man went somewhere and so my friend and I met up a little later for a happy supper in The Hungry Duck. But if you had known no-one you might have been having a solitary Saturday night dinner. 

On Saturday night numbers were heading up to about 30 by 9pm. Most people stayed until the end. On Sunday afternoon numbers crept up to about twenty, including some local organisers of other milongas.

It was sad to see how the UK seemed to shun a milonga weekend though interesting to consider why.  We all wondered what could make such difference compared to the big numbers at the same organisers' festival. The milonga weekend was a different time of year and there were no classes. One friend said there were a lot of non-tango things going on that weekend in the area, but then there always are other things one could be doing. There were other milongas on too but I find different events (and their hosts) tend to appeal to different kinds of dancers.  That is a good thing.

And yet the Manchester Pop-up Milonga which is also a class-free event attracted when I first went more than double the maximum numbers at Ramsbottom, even though the floor of the Whisky Jar is small. That was in November.  In February at the Pop-up numbers were possibly a bit less.  I can't think that geography would make the difference. Ramsbottom is only 15 miles from central Manchester, with much easier (and free) parking. The most obvious difference between those two events to my mind, was the hosting which at the Pop-up was particularly good. I asked around a bit more.  Someone said they were away.  I asked someone else who travelled for the Pop-up but not for the milonga weekend.  They said they reckoned it would be poorly attended based on the hosting; one problem feeding the other.

Music

Report here.

The ronda

..was mostly good, but there was plenty of space. A teacher tailgated me a bit. So did another man. There was a random sort of guy.  I was never sure if he was in the ronda or not. Someone told me he was also a dance teacher in central Manchester. 

Dancing

“I danced with 5 guys over the weekend which I thought a lot. I was in a bad way with my knee/right side and being so worried about damage from guys I didn't especially want to dance with made me tense.  One guy asked me to lead him and then used it for a swap! But I didn’t mind.   Some of the women were lovely though."

I did chat to one of the organisers briefly towards the end.  I felt sad for them for the disappointing numbers and they must have lost a lot of money.  They put in effort to organise these things and are still doing so.  In March they are running a Spring Milonga with Cream Tea:  DJ Kirsty Bennett.  But someone told me they thought the hosts might have been put off after the Ramsbottom experience because the spring tea had moved - the previous event having been cancelled.

You don't necessarily need big numbers to have a good time.  Baratxuri aside, the best thing about this trip for me was the chat with the irrepressible Kinky Boots, dancing with Bill who is so fun and such a good dancer and who refuses me dances to my delight and temporary consternation.  And dancing with Paris who also gives real dances, who is tall and easygoing and big-hearted and with Paul who is warm and careful and has a great embrace and with Lindsay who is such a gorgeous dancer and just the new people I met, the new women I danced with and the general exchange of milonga chat.  It was the people, the dancers.  That is why I stayed to the end.