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.