Edinburgh Festivalito with the Costas

Friday night

On Friday I went to hear Adrian Costa DJ at the new (for a milonga) venue at Lutton Place, Edinburgh.

This was the Edinburgh festivalito hosted by El Tango Club. This event was run it said for the Edinburgh Tango Society and the hosts, who run (at least) the DJing of the Edinburgh Tango Society are also the hosts of El Tango Club. All detailed information about the weekend was on the latter’s website. There doesn't seem to me to be much difference at the moment between the management of the two outfits.

I was quite tired and happily ensconced on the sofa reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase to my son. I decided to go mostly through curiosity about Adrian Costa's DJing and the hope of a good turnout for dancing, though for Scotland I felt a Friday night - as opposed to say a Sunday afternoon - to be inauspicious. This is partly because the milonga finishing at midnight is past the hour of much public transport to the surrounding area. Also, if only staying over one night I suspect people prefer to stay over on a Saturday than a Friday night. But really I think the classes were supposed to be the main draw here and they were running on Saturday and Sunday.

Venue

The milongas ran between 2000-0000. I arrived about 2020 both days. Entrada was £8, £10 on Saturday.

On Friday, outside the main room I heard cortina-type music which continued to different tracks while I got ready and changed my shoes. I was surprised at what seemed to be the late start. 

There were snacks in the entrance hall: sweets, crisps, olives, and fruit. Water was always available. The following day there were some cakes.

The hall was large and rather spartan. It appears cosier in the photo.  I have danced more festively here many times at ceilidhs. Red tablecloths and on Saturday night, clothes for sale - looking more typically from the swing rather than the tango scene - were displayed on the stage and helped give warmth and to brighten the space. Inside the hall there were sufficient (on Friday) tables and chairs. Lighting was fine for invitation by look even across the relatively big room. The floor was old but I found it fine. One woman said she found it slightly uneven, which, the few times I danced as the girl I found to be the case in only one spot. 

On Friday it was cold.  I danced a lot else I think I would have been cold and it took three tandas for me to warm up. Women seemed to be in excess and many sat without dancing. People were leaving from about 2230, though whether from cold, from not dancing or something else I am not sure. The majority had gone when I left at the start of the penultimate tanda (Gobbi). An announcement had said the last tanda would be Pugliese.  I had felt the direction of the music for a while.

People and dancing

I had wondered to myself if the atmosphere had been a bit flat on Friday.  Someone voiced that thought the next night. On the Friday forty to fifty people rattled around the hall, rather too big for those numbers. There were quite a few I had expected might be there but who were not. Someone told me they had avoided the first night because even in a smaller venue last year it had not been particularly well attended. 

There was a contingent from Aberdeen despite that there was also a milonga in that city on the same Friday. On Saturday there were a few people from St Andrews. Of visitors from outside Scotland I saw few. One  I met was here for work that weekend and one was visiting friends. 

The music was great for half a dozen tandas.  Probably because of that I found myself in a remarkably good mood and somehow stayed that way even after the music started to slide into drama. 

Sometimes a few people stayed on the floor between tandas, a habit in Edinburgh that I rarely see elsewhere but that seems persistent. It was nothing like as bad though as at the Edinburgh International Tango Festiva (EITF). It is the legacy of Counting House DJs who used to play - and some still do play - silent cortinas though happily I believe the current head DJ no longer does this. 

I danced mostly with women and with five guys over two milongas somehow managing on Friday to avoid the tracks I found most troublesome. One guy was clearly an experienced dancer but he didn't embrace, did "stuff" more at me than with me and I felt gripped in my back. As ever, much is about compatibility. 

One of the guys was so quiet and dances with such sensitivity that it was a pleasure for me to stay in the woman’s role. It is not so much what he does as what he doesn’t do. That and just his attitude. Because this dance for me, is a lot to do with that.  I asked if he danced with guys in his town where he has a milonga and was delighted to hear that he does, in both roles. His girlfriend is a lovely dancer too. He is quite new to the dance and - wonderfully - he doesn’t teach, he just dances with people. This is one of the nicest guy dancers in Scotland for me but what is so patent in the milongas is how everyone likes different things.

A Latin man said he was still “trying” with his tango. “Why don’t you just swap?” I said. “I don’t know any way faster or better for guys to learn to dance well.” “It’s my pride”, he said, sheepishly. That way is a very long, slow and hard road and while it may attract sympathy, a guy, especially a guy citing that reason is not likely to want to dance with women who feel that way towards him. A guy who puts his pride first may realise that good dancing is making women feel good but this attitude is pretty much guaranteed to prevent that happening. It is quite a bind.

I watched Amanda Costa dancing with a local teacher. It was astonishing. You simply could not have told this was a well known tango performer. She danced just like a regular social dancer, without a jot of show or affectation like an ordinary woman. It was nice to see but boy did it show up how there is not "one tango (dance)" but that performance and social dancing are two entirely different creatures. I did not see Adrian Costa dance socially.

There were announcements both nights. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention but I remember a sales pitch for women to fill up the classes. I thought it was good that smart women are forsaking the classes where they pay to, at worst, be mere props for guys to learn to “think dance” in terms of steps, where the girls get hang-ups about all the things supposedly “wrong” with their dance that they “should” improve and where they learn things like embellishments and how to be self-conscious and stiff which in my experience only hamper dancing. 

On Friday I left at 2345 when Gobbi and Pugliese were announced as the last tracks. On Saturday I left much earlier mostly because of the sound but also because of the ronda. 

On the second night (DJ Ewa) there more people though quite a number went to either one or other night, not both. Seating ran out at the tables but there was a bench running all the way round the hall. I lost and regained my seat several times. So did the polite and friendly girl and nice dancer sitting next to me who had asked to join us. She was another five-months-new dancer who eventually seemed to give up trying to keep her seat.

Saturday

Invitation

A DJ well known for doing the predatory. walk-up hand-offering thing to women half his age did this to to her.  Knowing no better she accepted him but when you are a beginner many can be so grateful to get any dance. This would change if more guys danced with beginners and invited them by look. Some excuse this behaviour as “friendliness” or “helpfulness” but in some cases there is an undertone that experienced milonga-goers who know the scene feel is sleazy. Another excuse is “beginners don’t know about invitation by look” but they cotton on quick in the real conditions of the milonga, especially when they choose to sit next to women who do know. Such new women are regularly exploited by unscrupulous experienced men who cannot get the dances other guys can. 

As we watched this, the experienced, choosy dancer next to me and I looked at each other and shuddered at the man’s behaviour. We decried the fact that many women will dance with anything. She had been to Istanbul, a city often cited for its good embraces and dancing. She said there and in some Latin countries invitation is by cabeceo and mirada and that the women there are much tougher on guys than the pushover some women are in the UK. They refuse guys if they are not good dancers and they refuse guys who walk up. This means the men have to work much harder to get the women they want and the dance standard of the men is correspondingly higher. There is a much-needed point of learning there I felt for women in the UK. 

Things were helped along for me on Friday in that I met the kind of woman I just love to dance with. I invited her from my seat on the other side of the hall from her, exactly as I like invitation to be. I had not seen her dance but had a good feeling.  She stayed sitting quietly until I arrived to the part of the floor nearest her. It was with her a particularly conscious thing that reminds me of some dancers in the south of England, different, somehow to the more casual way people accept here. There is something lovely about the formality of invitation and acceptance between dancers, the staying seated until the partner who should, comes over. 

There is something nice about the lack of presumption, the “Of course you must have meant me” that a girl can signal when she stands up too early. Like “toast”. That’s the humiliating nickname a girl was given by Argentinians in a Buenos Aires milonga. There is just something nice about that seated poise. 

Ronda

On Saturday I watched some visitors dance in a way quite alien to the local scene. It was fascinating, nothing like the social dance I recognise. I can't remember when I saw so much reach and stretch in a woman’s leg.   I learnt later this is the Villa Urquiza style of dance in action. I am sure they felt us rather hick. It wasn’t that they did not stay in the ronda and I do not remember much danger from dagger-heels (though I didn’t like to watch long) but in that it looked like a show, it was quite the most anti-social dancing I have seen since my partner was kicked in the Counting House on...Sunday.  They did not seem connected to anyone else in the ronda, but then I felt that generally on Saturday night. Early on, the same guy covered several metres of space to come up right behind me with such a blank expression that I thought we had become a sort of blind spot in front of him and that he was going to crash into us; yet there was no blind spot: I could see his eyes, vacant. I am used in the ronda most everywhere to guys giving me a nod or a wink or a smile or just an acknowledgement especially if we happen to come too close and I like it like that.  How they are in the ronda tells me just about everything I need to know about a guy especially for future dance in regular roles.

This couple dance in central London where I think it not coincidence that DJ Ewa teaches and DJs. 

Someone who had been in Negracha recently told me the etiquette had been poor. “In the London scene, surely not?” I thought stifling a choke, but asked,

- “In what way?” 

- “Oh, walking across the floor, that kind of thing.”

- “Walking across the floor when?”

- “While people are dancing.”

As at the EITF I thought. And Things have improved then (!) since I was last in London.

Later I asked where the couple liked to dance in Buenos Aires. They mentioned Sunderland, which I had skipped, not liking the look on video nor the sound of it. They named several barrio milongas I had never heard of. I asked what they thought of the central milongas. They said it wasn’t their style. Why was that? They preferred the Costa's style which they find more in the barrio milongas where there is more space. Things had become much clearer for me.

The trouble is, if as DJ Ewa did, you play that strongly and that loudly when people who dance more by thinking class moves than they just dance the music are in the majority, or for whom a ronda is more a notion than a concrete reality then the results are going to be messy.  The ronda was - less in terms of weaving and more because of this sense of people doing their thing regardless of others. I was tailgated including by experienced dancers more times than I can remember.  The good effect of this is that by reminding one how very unpleasant this is I was confirmed each time it happened in my resolve to try never to do it myself. I remember reading an ordinance this year to the general dancing public I think from on high in ETS/El Tango Club: “Don't you ever tailgate!”. It occurred to me that perhaps this is a particular problem for the scene here.

About dancing moves, I was dancing swapped with a guy who said "Do that again!".  I laughed.  "Do what again?" I never know what I do.

I became aware of how crammed the ronda was on the outside. It became packed nose to tail in one big circle with very few people using the inside space. I sensed the feeling among those trying to be very correct (what a plague that is in the UK just now), that only the poorest dancers leave the edge. It is true, the more erratic dancers were in the middle but I danced there because it struck me as absurd to have so much space and not use it. Between the random dancers inside and the cramped space with tailgating outside the inside won by a margin. Tellingly, I did not see the hosts dancing much or at all.

So it was sad on Saturday: good tracks, largely good hall conditions, lots of people to dance with, unpleasant ronda and much too loud. 

I danced a vals with the serene visitor initially regretting inviting her as we had danced quietly and also to a tanda with high energy and I felt she preferred the former. Vals can, I find - in the wrong circumstances - be a bit crazy in a ronda and I wished I had waited for a quiet tango. The ronda was the most frenetic I felt it that weekend - uneven, disconnected, people doing all kinds of fast, wild stunts.  But we danced very small and quietly in what felt like a still, small pool of our own. For safety there really was no choice.  Sometimes I find a woman who I feel is happy to be quiet and connected and who doesn't mind, who likes even, if things are small and simple because these have their own power. At such times I feel we are deep inside the music, in the centre of it all and any eddying chaos around falls away, blurs out.

I thought about staying until numbers thinned out and the ronda became less unpleasant but figured the volume was unlikely to come down. I quit dancing at 10pm while I went outside the hall to scan through a book I had been lent. I got caught there by the show with my things still inside the room but left directly after that. I had planned to stay til the end but the milonga was scheduled to finish too late for a train so I had driven. Still, in comparison to what I know the Saturday night last train from Edinburgh to be like, after that raw evening, the silence of that hour driving home was like balm.

Edinburgh Festivalito: Music - DJ Ewa Zbrzeska

"What a disaster! If I ever sound to you as though I'm considering hearing DJ Ewa again, please remind me that I've been deafened twice by her. My right ear still hurts. I'm so cross with myself that I stayed in the room for 90 minutes.  If this DJ has not already been deafened - and she must be - she surely will be soon."

The milonga was billed to start at 2000. We arrived around 2020, being among the first there, with our choice of tables. I like to arrive early to feel how things develop. Again, I was surprised how unenthusiastic people seemed to be to come out. Despite the delayed start the DJ still did not start the set, clearly waiting for more people, which I felt was disrespectful to those already there past the billed start time.

When it finally came towards 2030 the opening track was a poor choice:  Que lo sepa el mundo entero  which I know but rarely hear, consider a weak choice in Rodriguez and a disaster as an opener to any tanda, never mind the main night of a festivalito.  Embarrassing then - but no surprise - that of the six or seven couples in the room no one danced it.  The DJ watched attentively, looking curious. The remaining tracks of the tanda were great and well matched. I danced from the second one and by the last one everyone was up. 

I felt the bass reverberate faintly in my body like a warning and groaned inwardly.  The DJ desk was behind the speakers, and to the side. In the first or second tanda the DJ checked the sound twice by coming to stand next to, but (oh, wisely) not in front of the two speakers, which were on the floor at one end. This is why the DJ should dance:  one or two tracks now and then - including the cortina - to tell, sound-wise what conditions are really like on the floor. I realised she must be wondering if the sound was too loud and decided (so I could stay) to confirm that to her: "If you were wondering if it's too loud, it is". She nodded and nothing happened for a few minutes, then I thought it came down very slightly but stayed too loud. Perhaps she didn’t hear me. I should have left then but lots of people were arriving including women I wanted to dance with. 

Twice when I danced as the girl I was standing right in front of the speakers during the cortina and that's when my ear got damaged. I will never stay for music that loud again. I know she was aware of how uncomfortable it was because she kept fiddling with the sound, especially when in one cortina I begged my partner to move us on from there and she grinned, looking uncomfortable.

The music itself was much better than the drama this DJ played at the EITF. The tracks this time were mostly good for me.

The set still felt unbalanced being very much on the "strong" side. There was Demare e.g. Mañana zarpa un barca but that I think was the softest it got. Next closest would probably have been the Caló: e.g. Pa' Que Seguir and A Las Siete En El Cafe which is not really what I mean by soft anyway. 

I told my last partner I was leaving early. “I think I’m done too”, she said meaning I think dancing but she was with her friends. I said it was too loud for me and too chaotic in the ronda.  "I feel the same" she said, "and yet" - with a half-shrug - "here I am". I knew what she meant. I said it is difficult when you have travelled far for a milonga and things are not optimal. 

But increasingly, because I am ultimately never happy in milongas that have things wrong with them - a bad floor, poor sound or are too cold I feel one needs a Plan B - friends to leave with and do something else, or even just the pleasure of silence and a good book. At some such places you can outride a difficult atmosphere by watching quietly but it is hard and more a test of will than a good night out. At others like El Quinto where for me the floor wasn’t ideal, the temperature was freezing, the dancing poor and the music had been artificially slowed to undanceable, I stayed for the chat and to see what happened because often, even if you do not dance interesting things happen. But while having travelled I might stay there, they are not places I generally want to return to.

Edinburgh Festivalito: Music, DJ Adrian Costa

I arrived at 2020 to cortina music, surprised that the milonga did not appear to have started at the advertised time. In popular milongas, when DJs are known to be good I find people arrive early.

Still, things started well with two nice D’Agostino tracks. I couldn’t quite place the third one, though I knew it and liked it less. I asked the DJ what is was later. De igual a igual he said. I was surprised because I know this track well. Later, I realised I know it better in the De Angelis version which I think far superior. I hear so little De Angelis these days, still less good De Angelis.

I asked why the tangos were in threes and whether they were going to stay in threes - thinking perhaps he was waiting for more people to arrive. He said they would stay in threes because he didn't know the people and wanted them to dance with more partners, or, I think he corrected himself, to have the opportunity to dance with more partners. 

Then there was dark Caló, which I suppose presaged the moody musical drama on the horizon. They were I believe La vi llegar, Trenzas and Mañana iré temprano. 

The first milongas were very good standard, steady ones - Canaro I think.

Then there was Tanturi-Castillo but I went out to get wine. I didn’t know A Otra Cosa Che Pebeta  well.   I came back during Decile Que Vuelva, good for me and a better opener I think. 

There were the great Di Sarli instrumentals of around 1939-41

There were those wonderful early D’Arienzo vals: Mentias (1937) which I find haunting and Alma dolarida of the same year.

Then things started to slide. Still, I remember the nice Tanturi vals Marisabel (1942)  and there was D’Arienzo. There were tracks like Pájaro Sin Luz (1945) and Si supiera que la extraño. The singer is Laborde who - while still not Valdéz or Bustos - strikes me as among the more dramatic of D’Arienzo’s singers. I don’t hear these often, don’t really know them well enough for dancing and don’t even get that sense I occasionally get, almost like intrigue, that a track you don’t know might be good for dancing once you get to know it but that somehow so far you’ve missed it.  My copy of this last track is poor in sound and indeed I found the D’Arienzo played was particularly poor in sound quality - these and the famous ones he played later of type El Olivo and Humillación. I love these tracks but the sound was so off or the music by this time was too messed up for me that I didn’t fancy them.

I struggled through a Laurenz: Firuletear de bandoneon which I usually hear in DJs I tend not to want to hear often and I thought it a poor opener. There was Quedate tranquilo which I don’t know well and rarely hear, with, bizarrely, Buzón's Al verla pasar tacked on "for fun". Fun for the DJ perhaps but you rightly rarely hear it because the Laurenz version is incomparably better. I danced it because a woman who knew I wanted to dance with her invited me. 

I quit the floor after the first track of a milonga - which had been fine - because I have rarely heard such a weird and dire second (and third) milonga. My experienced partner was understanding - neither had she. We got up instead to a very strong rhythmic tanda of good instrumentals which I think were Troilo. But the cortina cut in loudly part-way through the third track. It was so violent it felt like being crashed into and it was so final the DJ couldn’t have restarted the track so we all walked off the floor. 

Looking back I am surprised I stayed so long.

There was Di Sarli / Podestá type of type Déjame but this was the best track of those. There was late Caló - from the 50s I think, with Podestá which were not for me. There were two Pugliese tandas and the Gobbi: Si Sos Brujo (1953)  which is when I got up to go, and A Orlando Goñi (1949). I might have tried dancing these if there had been the right guy but he definitely wasn’t at the festivalito this weekend.

Of course, a set remembered after the event can only be impressionistic but I found it uneven, remembering no tangos of Donato, Rodriguez, De Angelis, Canaro, Lomuto, Biagi or Fresedo. At their expense I remember repeats of Caló, Di Sarli and Pugliese, possibly of Troilo and of D'Arienzo, though repeats of D’Arienzo are fine with me.

The DJ pre-listened, but not seriously - only with one ear to one earpiece.

Return to the Counting House

Tuesday 3 November, 2015, 1930

In Glasgow on Saturday, I had learned that the regular host/DJ at the Counting House in Edinburgh being away, Juan was going to DJ for the Sunday night milonga. I decided to make I think only my second trip there of the year. I last went mid-July to hear DJ Lucas Malec who lives in the Netherlands. I did not take a photo so my most recent photo is from nearly a year ago but the Counting House does not really change. It is a much-loved venue for dancing tango - quite the ideal shape and size, with chairs and tables and a bar downstairs. The lights weren’t even turned down too low this time for invitation by look. Entry must be about the best value in the UK: £3 for dancing from 1900-2300, times which certainly suit me, even more so on a school night.

Numbers were about the lowest I have ever seen at the Counting House, hardly over twenty at the busiest time. I heard though that after the August lull the milonga had been busy in September but that there had been a milonga brunch in the city the day before which might have affected numbers. I knew also that there had been a tango tea in nearby Dalmeny that day.

Because of the low turnout the ronda was largely unproblematic. In one tanda though there were only about five couples on the floor yet my partner was kicked by a couple in the centre. The guy had been in extravagant mode and his partners heels flicked up left and right. My partner cried out and we stopped dancing both shaken though she was OK. They both apologised after quite a pause but I was astonished how difficult it had become for me to dance the remainder of the track. These things do happen but I was stunned to see today the same guy talking about #Connect, #HonorEachOther #FeelTheOneness. It is this meaningless, fluffy, marketing pseudo-babble, rife in the tango world that really needles me some days especially when, as in this case, it is so obviously false. Unsurprisingly, that sort of fake-speak is the giveaway. No one talks like that in real life.

Late in the evening while I was dancing I saw a swing crowd invade one end of the ronda and started dancing swing (moves) to tango (music). There was plenty of space and they were not noisy but it was a clash of cultures, inappropriate and disruptive. The host I know keeps a sharp eye out for this sort of thing but was dancing. I saw Juan intervene or be about to intervene. Whether because of this or their own awareness that they were really not fitting in they all trooped out within about a minute. Seated tango dancers who had been watching aghast began laughing so it was well tolerated as the mistake it was.

There was still quite a bit of the "you are invisible" thing going on at the Counting House among the habitués. It is sad that that atmosphere and refusal to acknowledge people is still going strong and being perpetuated but it has been like that in the four years since I first went there. I have heard from women in the surrounding area who I know to be nice dancers that they have been to the Counting House but been ignored, felt understandably uncomfortable and so rarely go back. On the other hand people inside it talk about a "tight" community with little of the common division there often is between teachers and organisers in other cities. I tend to see this more as a monopoly, which I see confirmed by the fact that still only one milonga operates outside of the Edinburgh Tango Society: La Redonda, now sadly downgraded from weekly milonga to a monthly three hour milonga on a Thursday. 

"Tight" communities are also ones that are not necessarily great at welcoming new people. Still, I was aware of at least three of us and possibly more inviting a new dancer who was sitting alone. How different from La Bruja in Amsterdam where one evening I was recently invited by just one guy I had danced with years before in a roomful of 100 or so people. Luckily, some of the women there were keen to dance and lovely.

In the Counting House, a girl I knew to be dancing only five months was so assured in her connection, so natural in her movement. I had seen her dancing in milongas outside Edinburgh. "It is because you are always in the milongas" I said, marvelling, between tracks. She shrugged. “Well, I can't go to the classes so…” ”And see the results of that happy coincidence” I thought, delighting at finding such an unspoilt dancer. Not only that but someone so confident that from learning to dance in the milongas there would be at least nothing wrong with their dancing. Far from it. It will probably be no surprise that she does not have the focused, uptight anguish about dance improvement of so many British dancers. I admire women with the strength of character and the self-belief not only to know just from dancing that they are nice to dance with, but not to be ground down by nay-sayers and those who stump up for class week after week, year after year regurgitating the received idea that everyone needs class for those conveniently vague catch-alls: “the basics” and “working on technique”.

A new guy dancer I met abroad who has sound instincts asked last week:

- What do I respond to the expected good advice to 'take a beginners course' first’ ?
- You might say: "thanks", smile and remember to avoid them for dance in the future :)

Refreshingly, there were a couple of new dancers from Louise Tait's new queer tango group. What a pleasure to meet a guy who wants to “get” the woman’s part - and with enjoyment - while he also learns to dance the guy’s traditional role. It struck me those dancers, though brand new had all the right ideas. Louise brings her students to the milonga. This is how new people learn to dance and learn how things are. They in turn bring others and things get passed on with no unsubtle, in-yer-face milonga rules and demands, of which the smarter versions masquerade as cool talk or comedy. 

Juntos milonga in London (which closed this week) had floor supervisors and seven pages about rules - a warning to other milongas of what not to do if ever there was one. A lot of learning is just being there: watching, listening, chatting, dancing a bit. I heard about a guy in the Edinburgh blues scene who believes just the same thing and who had introduced new dancers that way too. I love to meet people like that.

Music (tangos)  I felt Juan's music had been better in Glasgow. As I arrived I heard two good tandas. One was Fresedo and so good I despaired that I was still getting ready and that it was so early there would be few people with whom I might dance it. The other was possibly Caló, I forget now. I don’t recall hearing Lomuto in the set this time. The OTV in Edinburgh was in the middle of the set rather than early as it had been the day before. Mid-set is fine by me. I find it reassuring when sets don't start with endless Canaro/Carabelli/Maglio/Firpo and worse from the 1930s or even earlier. This tanda started with Coqueta and ended with the Viento Norte which if you follow these links you’ll see were in two OTV tandas of his I minded previously. We had a chat about it though! For those who find these things curious and revealing, Coqueta in that link is being danced by teacher/DJ Stefan OK and his partner. The Viento Norte couple, Pablo Inza and Sofia Saborido I met the other week on their visit to Scotland.

I can’t remember exactly how all the music was over the two nights I heard Juan this weekend but mostly the tangos were nice for me. The most reliable tandas were: D’Arienzo, Biagi, D'Agostino, Donato, Caló, Laurenz I think was all or mostly good; Troilo, though I have also heard him play Troilo with Marino; Demare - what I heard of it because I think I may have left during a Demare on possibly the Saturday. He played Pugliese but I can't remember if it was good for dancing. I rarely dance it in swapped roles and there's almost never a guy I want to dance it with so I switch off a bit. As music for listening it was fine, certainly.

Slightly less reliable for me was Rodriguez but I see I’ve noticed this before. An opener was Expresión campera which I had some reservations about at the time, but listening again I wonder what I minded. I'm not persuaded it's the best opener though.

Occasionally in the music especially in Edinburgh on Sunday I did hear the odd serious miss. One of these was in Canaro, a track I knew but which makes me feel I am in the circus - some Canaro is like that. It wasn't quite El rey del bosque, but it wasn't far off. I nearly quit the floor but my partner was a beginner. It's a shame when there is an embarrassment of great Canaro to choose from. 

I heard a mix of Di Sarli over the two nights. I cannot recall him playing De Angelis, neither this weekend nor in the past. 

The vals and milonga were usually good for me with the odd track that missed. There were Troilo-Marino milongas e.g. Barrio del tambor which I like though I didn’t know his third one. It is a tricky choice though with so few people but they were danced. Later he played fast D'Arienzo milonga including De Antaño which I also like very much. I thought it too much with the Troilo milongas. Although I do like these and dance them quite often with a guy I know well I may be coming round to the view that there are so few people who like these and can dance them well and comfortably that they are probably not worth playing.

I don’t know why people talk so much about, well I think it’s called milonga con traspie and milonga lisa. It feels either smooth, comfortable and safe or it is jerky, rough and horrid. If only more guys tried being on the receiving end of their milonga con traspie I think there would be less of it. Very few dancers in my experience can dance this traspie style well for their partners and so perhaps I am more inclined to think now that it is not the best idea to encourage people to throw others around like rag dolls and do them injury by playing these very fast and jerky milongas. 

It was a relief to meet a visitor from Stuttgart who also struggles with the girls-in-a-line-on-bar-stools thing. There is a view that most guy visitors will try to dance mostly with girly girls in skirts and heels, sometimes regardless of whether they can dance or not and that girls who swap can be near the bottom of the mental list, if they're even on it. I understand that view but there can be some pleasant surprises. It's also nice when you meet a visitor, who can dance and who, like the lovely Finn, sometimes even asks to swap, or in his case presented it, in the middle track more as a delightful fait accompli. I suppose though in general tango tends to attract guys who like girls to be girls. 

A: Would you describe yourself as a feminist?

B: I do not describe myself as a feminist. On the contrary, I might describe myself as a femininist :)

...though to make assumptions about quite what that means might be unwise. 

Luckily, there are all kinds of girls. I was dancing in conventional roles with one of the new dancers and apologising for having my own (silent, dance) ideas and possibly disrupting his (silent) dance plans, which isn't really fair with a new guy. But he was so charming, fun and easygoing - my favourite sort of dancer. He said:

- In the other dance I do we'd call you a "cat" dancer. 

- Why "cat"?

- Well, as opposed to the biddable, puppy-dog type.

EITF: Monday

Monday night

Originally published 10.6.16

I had stayed overnight in Edinburgh after the main festival milonga the previous night.

On the Monday afternoon and the evening milonga I stayed sitting for the most part with friends, none of whom, curiously, were from Edinburgh.  When they said they found the atmosphere closed I wondered if there was a connection between the two things.   I enjoyed the girl chat. For me that Monday afternoon and evening were the best part of the weekend largely for that reason. Sometimes we danced.

The DJ I was most keen to hear was Juan Venegas Ortiz. Juan used to live in Edinburgh but retains the ties.  I knew he could do good sets but sometimes I would hear the odd bit of drama and the occasional Guadia Vieja tanda and occasionally more than a bit of these. I was curious to see which way he was going.

The music was the best I heard this weekend.  I stayed in the salon and danced more so my music notes are more confused for that day. However, I can say  that of the two DJs I heard that day Juan is the DJ I would hear again, being the more mainstream.

As I recall there was great D'Arienzo, good Rodriguez including Este es tu tango and Por eso canto yo. The latter is OK and nice music but not among the best for dancing I think and I find that repeated "ding" on the piano a bit contrived.  I hear it as uncharacteristic of the orchestra, in fact come to think of it it doesn't sound at all like the pianist I expect in that orchestra.  Or maybe it is.  I guess if I'd been on the piano and made to record that track for dance I might have protested the same way.  He sounds a bit ironic to me.

There was a tanda by Laurenz.  I remember because I had two of my best dances of the weekend to that and the Rodriguez with a visitor from somewhere near the Midsummer Tango  event. A friend had previously told me about it. The visitor looked a quiet, even hesitant dancer, easily missed, but I suspected he did not feel that way.  Indeed, he was quiet, assured and musical which is how I and many girls seem to most like them. He disappeared off to class at one point and I could not fathom why he would think he needed to.

I think there were the irresistible Demare vals including No nos veremos más.  Unless I am mistaken there were the Troilo/Marino milongas I like including Barrio del tambor so I guess the others were Con mi perro and the seductive Con permiso but hard to dance without being unpleasantly jerky for the woman. I think these are the best of the possibilities though I suppose one might have been Cimarrón de ausencia. I have a feeling there was also a Troilo/Marino tango tanda of type e.g. Copas, Amigos y Besos  though I think the Biagi/Ortiz is better,  Sombras nada más (“show me that tango passion”- a great tango for performers) and Siga el corso. 

There might have been later Pugliese-Morán of type Pasional and Barro.

I recall dancing good Malerba and next to my note about that is that there was a there was a weird vals I couldn’t place and terrible OTV tangos.  I have heard ropey OTV from Juan before e.g. Viento Norte.  Boy, can you hear it’s 1929.

Not to do him a disservice one of the DJs this day played poor OTV tangos of type Justo el 31 so it might not have been Juan. No matter, whoever it was, this track does not fit in an otherwise largely mainstream set (which Juan’s was). I failed to find the track on the internet, for reasons that will become obvious so here it is on Spotify. I have met people who genuinely like this type of thing and I think all these sort of tracks should be saved up for that select group to enjoy at special milongas of just this sort of music because to inflict them on the rest of us is pure torture.  It isn't just me, see my friend's comment on the similar Lomuto below.  I believe there was also Viejo Arrabal which reminds me of a doolally elderly lady lost in dreams of girlhood. I cannot again find a link on the internet (hint: no one else likes it either) but here it is on Spotify.  Seguime corazón which in comparison has a lot more about it. I don’t know if it was this because I see different versions of it on the internet apparently by OTV though with different melodies but this struck me as easily the best of those.  Considering the rest of the tanda though I'm inclined to think it sounded more like this.  Even if it was the first version, OTV is not for everyone though I heard it played - especially the instrumentals (and not rarely) in various milongas in Buenos Aires.  There is a world of difference though between the (lots of) poor OTV and say Ventarrón.

Most of the rest of Juan’s set I enjoyed and there was a good mix. The dancers showed much appreciation at the end.

Monday Night

Monday night

The salon was prepared differently for the evening compared to the afternoons events. It looked nice but it was darker though this does not really come across in the photos.

The DJ was Jörg Haubner (Germany).  First I should say that once I plucked up the courage to ask him about some of the music which I did several times he was approachable, pleasant and patient.  When I asked him if a tanda later on in the evening was his second Canaro he looked at me as though amused and said yes but that his second one was with Famá from a different era. I had danced I guess the later Famá (which he played earlier) which included perhaps Al subir, al bajar - a mood changing track and one of the happiest I can imagine if you aren't snooty about Canaro and I have been surprised by the number of unpretentious guys I like who refreshingly are not.  At any rate I did not know to recognise all the tracks and asked if I could note the tanda which I had quite liked. He agreed, kindly and I wrote it down but unfortunately as I wrote it on a napkin it did not survive until I had time to reconcile my notes. The earlier one he played later was of type “special” Canaro e.g. Bernabé la fiera - El trapero - Ya vendrán tiempos mejores.  This would go well I feel with that type of OTV I mentioned above, or the Firpo or Lomuto which came later.

I arrived to great D’Arienzo or rhythmic Tanturi - I think it was great D'Arienzo to start and mostly good Tanturi later. There were very few people that early but I knew one lady and we danced it. It was one of my favourite tandas of the weekend because the music was great, I liked my partner and she could dance and with so few around I felt relaxed with no pressure.  Not too long after I danced milonga and later I think Biagi with my most regular guy partner in Scotland, swapping roles back and forth.  Because we know and feel at ease together I felt my normal self return. My eyes were red with sleeplesness but even so I knew after that I was going to dance more naturally than earlier in the festival.

There were De Angelis/Godoy vals which I hear less often but I think they are nice: Angélica (1961)

Hermana (1958)  - I do not think I have ever heard this - and Imaginación (1950).  I have a note that they were played early though and this felt a bit odd because they feel like tracks later in the evening, or maybe that is just in memory I think I heard this sort of thing in Berlin.

Other vals were the OTV of type e.g. La Serenata, Amor Eterna  which I hear little and Amor y Celos.

It was towards the second half of the night during the Canaro-Famá from the earlier period that I considered leaving. After that there was:

Pugliese Moran which was for sure a contrast, of type e.g. No me ecribas, Sin Palabras.

There were Lomuto vals Bajo el cielo azul and Rosas negras  which I don’t think I’ve ever heard but think is nice as with several Lomuto vals. He seems made for the genre. There was the more well known Un vals/Se fue.  

Then D’Arienzo/Valdez of type En el cielo and Por tu culpa te perdi.  Why I didn’t leave at this point I can’t remember.   It is possible it was fascination to see what came next.  I know none of us girls had danced much or at all in a while. 

In fact it was Firpo.  Firpo has become so unpopular among mainstream dancers that I have even seen an encuentro promising no Firpo - no Firpo as advertising, that's how unpopular it is among most good dancers. There was La Bordadora.   I looked at my friends. One gaped in disgust and disbelief saying What is this dirge.  I am afraid I laughed because that is exactly how I often describe this funereal music. I remember a long time BA resident saying in Lo de Celia, a traditional milonga in Buenos Aires, pretty much the same thing when a different (and much better) Lomuto track came on. You have to be careful though with Lomuto, a hair's breadth separates the good from the very bad and, as with OTV not everyone likes it.  And never play Firpo tangos.  Actually I heard the same thing said about Lomuto in another milonga there and by another ex-pat. In the majority they are used to different sorts of tracks.   After that was Firpo's La Carcajarda which I recognised from that cackle.  

Of visitors I did not know I danced with I think four guys during the EITF and one  ambidancing woman.  I wished I had been more relaxed for better dancing with girls before the Sunday night  but did find the conditions inclined me that way.  The best part of the festival for me was the girl chat, hearing the differences in music played by the different DJs and the opportunity to hear La Juan D'Arienzo. 

Edinburgh tango festival: Sunday, including La Juan D'Arienzo

Greyfriars kirk

Originally posted 7.6.16

I usually avoid live music and cover orchestras but this orchestra has a world class reputation and I bought a ticket in advance.  I had already heard recordings of their great instrumental tracks.  Initially I had intended to go to the EITF only on Sunday night but so far this year I had danced just twice (at La Redonda) in Edinburgh.  Being better slept, curiosity, the chance to dance with visitors, to see my visiting friends and to catch up with people I had not seen for a long time persuaded me to go back to the Sunday afternoon cafe.

Afternoon cafe

I think it was on this day that I saw someone I knew sitting alone in the beer garden outside the venue and asked if he was waiting for someone.  He said he had come for the milonga but that the class was still going on in the room so he had come out.  A class overrunning 45 minutes after the start? I queried.  He had been outside for fifteen or twenty minutes so perhaps not quite that long he said.

I chatted to the box office staff for a while and by the time I went in to the salon the milonga was underway.  The DJ was Antonella Cosi, head DJ at the Edinburgh Tango Society and organiser of El Tango Club milongas.  I arrived to a cracking D’Arienzo tanda, type e.g. El cencerro, El caburé, Ataniche which immediately improved my expectant mood.

 Unlike the previous day I was wearing girl clothes and heels. People gave compliments for which I was grateful.  I was to need them later. 

Cortinas
Though the cortinas were longer than the previous afternoon during one of them I counted twenty on the floor. 

Forgive the diversion:  In the ETS regular milongas in the Counting House the confusing,  frustrating and absurd notion of the "silent cortina" used to be the norm until a year or two ago - the excuse being that it was less disruptive.  Less disruptive no doubt for those who want to stay on the floor - as if these are the only people who matter.  Tolerance of, in fact support for that habit remains and was apparent at the festival among some of the ETS head honchos, despite the rules. Once started, the practice snowballed as it often does with such things.  It reminds me of feet on seats in railway carriages.  Rather like a good milonga host some years back some rail companies, sensing much public distaste took a tougher line on that practice and it seems to me to have dropped off.

You see people not clearing the floor generally and notably among those who are anti-cabeceo. The Counting House milongas were my nursery and it is because the floor at the time so seldom cleared that it was a year or two before I learnt the that the cortina is not only an opportunity to swap partners, but more importantly, it lets everyone see to invite by look so that all may have an opportunity to invite efficiently and discreetly, not merely those already on the floor and with no plans to leave.  Now those who remain on the floor usefully demonstrate, as I did, their disrespect for others who, seated, are trying to see across it.  It is curious that those not clearing the floor in the cortina included some of the ETS committee which apparently does exist though its members are still, as far as I know not elected or officially named. Even the student tango society holds elections. What with half the committee sticklers for rules and somewhat more traditional music and some quite clearly not ETS looks under some strain these days. 

Dancing

I spotted about five guys I would have liked to dance with - four of them from out of Scotland but could not get them.  I had had a good seat but was rather blocked by the odd couple in front and I did not want to move.  There were younger girls and good dancers in better positions.  Besides, I thought even so the guys I was interested in had seen me. But getting none of the dancing I wanted I decided to call it quits before mid afternoon. 

Atmosphere

A complaint I heard more than once over the weekend was that the atmosphere was flat.  The same adjective was used by different people. Nonetheless, I heard that at least one of the evenings, I think it was the Saturday night sold out.

***

After I had changed my shoes I spotted my friends, popular dancers arriving as I left. How had the Saturday night been? Their expressions registered dissatisfaction again. More hand-offering? No, just people who know each other dancing together and sticking together and not great dancing. Had the floor cleared in the cortina? No. That had been the other problem. 

A good milonga started and I danced it with a female friend in my chunky, sparkly pink flip flops - repeating almost exactly the same circumstances from three months previously when I had danced like that to amusement in La Viruta with a porteña I had met in the more traditional milongas. We had been about to leave when a great milonga started and she had asked to dance it.

I left more upbeat again to see about some shopping and to get soup at the excellent Union of Genius nearby, forgetting it was closed on Sunday. What’s wrong with me?  I half-thought at my inability to get the dancing I wanted. I wondered at the thoughts of the other women I had seen leaving or who would leave.    I had not realised at that point that the largest single influx of visiting dancers was probably from London, which explained much.  I feel there is a distinctive London style in the milongas because I can sometimes recognise such dancers when I see them on the outer side of the London orbital.  Twenty-five in number I heard from one of them, though they did not all arrive together.

As I walked along outside at the pavement cafes guys looked, caught my eye and held it.  I started to feel better.  A tall, good-looking guy standing on the pavement about to make a phone call grinned at me from behind his sun-glasses and complimented my pink shoes. I answered my own concern: Nothing, in real life! I thought, pleased. It only seems like it in the world of that milonga. I felt relieved I’d left and spent a tranquil couple of hours in the sun.

Curious to see how things had worked out I went back for the last hour and chatted with my friends.   The atmosphere and conditions felt unstable. I did not feel like taking any chances and danced with women I knew though even then not well but also with one or two guy friends.  One gentle dancer always understands the conditions of the woman: "But it took me a long time to realise that" he said.  He said lovely things about my dance as though he realised I needed the boost.  I had been relaxed outside the milonga and still was, in the fun chat with my friends, but realised that inside the milonga I was not relaxed enough to dance as I wanted in the other role.  Besides, the music had deteriorated by the time it reached that last hour. 

***

Music

The volume was significantly better than the previous day.

I heard two of something that did not sound anything like D’Agostino then two D'Agostino, I think Así era el tango and Ahora no me conoces.  The mix of those two with something else was so odd I assumed it was an error.

Then there was:

great rhythmic instrumental Di Sarli of type e.g. Retirao, Catamarca, Shusheta

Demare songs with singer Horacio Quintana of type e.g. Torrente, Solamente ella, Corazón no le digas a nadie (nice, but not the best for dancing for me), Igual que un bandoneon.

Canaro vals of type e.g Sueño de muñeca, En voz baja, Ronda del querer  

Great Troilo with singer Fiorentino of type e.g. Total pa' qué sirvo, Toda mi vida, Tinta roja, Cachirulo

Infallible Caló songs with singer Raúl Berón, of type e. g. Jamas Retornaras, Corazon no le hagos caso, Trasnochando, 

I remember less clearly the music in the last hour but I do remember a Canaro possibly with Melodia Oriental. I don’t think it was the Zerillo version. There was a dire tanda, very poor Lomuto I think, typical of what I remember from the ETS regular milongas type e.g. Cuando llora la milonga  I want to say there was Violin Gitano but I can hardly believe it could be that bad and yet I know it can.  I am pretty sure there was Quiero verte una vez más probably in the Lomuto tanda though it might have been the Canaro, I forget. Both are nice for me.

Sunday night

The main milonga of the weekend was in Greyfriars Kirk, situated within the tranquil setting of its kirkyard.

The DJ was Ewa Zbrzeska with performance from the live orchestra.

Sound from the DJd part of the night was extremely loud and inescapable from speakers all round the floor. I had heard poor reports about this DJ and would be unlikely to attend a milonga with her DJing again. Much of the music was very “tango passion”, not what I enjoy. As an example I believe there was De Angelis/Larocca of type Volvamos a empezar  and Como nos cambia la vida and early on at that, or something similar which felt even more odd at that time. I think I heard Troilo-Marino too but if not there seemed to be much in that vein.

In the past the Greyfriars' floor had been notoriously slippy but was about perfect now. 

Seating and lighting was quite good. You cannot see everyone for invitation because of the size of the venue but guys could move around to invite from different spots without too much bunching and loss of discretion.

The ronda does not look too bad in the top photo, which was taken at about midnight but you can see the right hand side is not as well defined as the left.

The orchestra was great. I danced four tracks with a woman friend and enjoyed it. I would have danced more with others but felt you particularly need the right partner and better conditions for that strong music. I could feel it coursing through me. It was like being in, being part of the music as with the best recorded music only more so. At least two people who did the orchestra’s musicality workshop said it was the best part of the weekend for them. One who went said: a live orchestra for a dozen couples and his expression spoke his enjoyment. I half-wished I had attended but don’t think I could have borne any required partner rotation which is usually the risk in class.

EITF: Music, Saturday afternoon

Originally published 7.6.16

The DJ was Mike Quickfall, The 2.5 hours I heard of the set was quite good. The tracks were great and good tandas but rather unbalanced.  I was surprised how many good tracks because while I had heard a good set by this DJ when he first started, the next set or two that I heard was or were so alternative or had had just poor music (therefore not what I call traditional, even if it is old) and not what I liked that I did not go again. 

Tangos were in four, vals and milonga in threes, cortinas were pretty short, ~10s. I did not keep track of it all as I danced some but what I heard was roughly like this:

• Good trad vals on arrival. Later on there was an alternative vals.
• OTV - Anoche a las cuatro - Mi taza de cafe - Una vez
• Another Mi taza de cafe, in the next tanda: Malerba. I have heard this DJ repeat tracks and also orchestras before in sets to the detriment of balance. There was another good track or two, my sense was that it was Malerba and José García mixed but I was chatting. I think I heard Qué no sepan las estrellas by García. If I’ve got that right it was a bit of an odd mix. Despite that Malerba is very distinctive it didn’t jar badly with me - but might have if I’d been dancing. 
• Great rhythmic Laurenz including No me extraña and Amurado and I think De Puro Guapo but again I was chatting. 
• There was vals Lagrimas y sonrisas, Biagi I think, then something I didn’t know then Corazón de artista, Malerba but I thought it worked OK at the time. Who would think this vals could be so different from his serious, ponderous, tangos?
• There was great Fresedo, good D’Arienzo with I think El flete about here, good milonga, good rhythmic Lomuto songs, good Donato songs. Then there was nice Rodriguez and I heard a Biagi tanda which I’d seen on the playlist and knew to be great with e.g. La maleva and friends. It was not necessarily in that order.

What I heard then this time was quite an earthy set with OTV, Donato, Rodriguez, Lomuto.   To break up the earthy tandas it would have been nice to have something smoother and more sophisticated - Caló, D’Agostino, De Angelis.  Perhaps a Troilo or Tanturi for a different sort of rhythmic sound - to break up the rhythmic tandas I had already heard. Someone who listens, who stayed later than me and hasn't much time for the earthier music said that later there were missed cortinas and that as well as the two Donato tangos I heard there was also a Donato milonga…

The good music I heard was largely ruined by the volume. The speakers were at one end. Even opposite these by the entrance and DJ spot it was far too loud, sometimes deafening. I have also heard very variable sound from this DJ before at the Counting House - too quiet and too loud, usually dependent on whether he was dancing or not. Once that afternoon during a cortina when I was - madly - for a short time sitting near the speakers chatting, I felt the sound go inside my body and and felt it reverberate right through me more than I actually heard anything. Luckily i had blocked my ears and moved straightaway. Later in the weekend I saw an experienced dancer wearing earplugs and thought her wise.

Edinburgh International Tango Festival: Saturday afternoon cafe and generally

Originally published 7.6.16

My husband ran a finger below my eye. You look tired he said. I’ve never seen you with that before. Oh! I said, and looked in the mirror. I had slept little and it was true I had lines under my eyes. We're getting old he said laughing. And what the hell I thought as I went out to do messages in town before driving the hour to Edinburgh. The following week a mum in the playground said that when she told her husband she felt unwell he’d said “You’re getting old”. I laughed at her mock outrage in the retelling and at the coincidence. At least yours said “we” she said. I didn’t tell her my husband’s several years older than I. 

Entrance

This year six of the seven milongas for the EITF were in the same room. The venue was the Teviot building, part of Edinburgh University. You pay £4 entry for the cafe downstairs to the friendly volunteers. I knew one of them and was warmly welcomed. This year on the same level as the salon there is a cloakroom and chairs to change shoes. If it existed in previous years I had not noticed it. 

Refreshments

There were no water jugs or they were empty outside the salon. I went on a hike to find some through the warren-like building to the cafe a couple of levels back down. I came across the organiser there and mentioned it to him. Over the event sometimes there was water, sometimes not. During at least two of the other milongas in that venue I saw no table, jugs or cups for water. There are bars in that venue but the two I went to were closed. No one was drinking anyway. You couldn’t really risk it (see seating). With water unreliable or non existent people eventually got wise to bringing water bottles in with them.

In contrast I liked the tango cafe last year at Bailongo. There you could get decent food and drinks in the room itself.  I remember salad and cake. It was nice and contributed I felt to the relaxed atmosphere.  Two years ago at Bailongo the cafe conditions had been diastrous: the (differently managed) cafe area was right next to the dance floor which was sticky anyway, the space too small, no gangway, lighting too bright, everything had been wrong. But last year the room had changed and everything was much better. I liked the light and airy EITF tango cafe in the other Student Union building last year too though the seating had left a lot to be desired.

Rules

The tabletops had been made into diagrams of floorcraft. Distributed among these was also the most comprehensive list of rules I have ever seen. It was a pamphlet actually including another copy of the same floorcraft diagram. There were nearly fifty items to consider.  

The previous night

Before getting changed I looked in to the salon and spotted some women I knew who were visiting.How had it been last night? They looked uncomfortable at the memory. One looked positively unhappy.  Guys had walked up to invite, even hand-offering one of the women said with an understandable shudder. I guessed such guys had not read/cared about the rules. But then I think things change successfully for reasons other than rules.  I said that with any luck it would be better this afternoon with more of that sort in workshops. In the evenings there is a bigger mix of incompatible people including workshoppers with less experience of milonga etiquette. Apparently the Friday night opening milonga had been busy and the ronda rough.

If I go to festivals - and I have tended not to, for all these reasons and more - I prefer the afternoon dancing for exactly this reason. The lighting tends to be better too.

Attendance and dancing

It was quiet when I arrived.  Fourteen people on the floor, one life couple who were good dancers I had seen before and a number sitting. There were mixed ages, mixed ability. There were some good dancers, many but by no means all of these younger. It got busier over the next hour and at some points it was really busy. 

The ronda at the EITF was one of the worst I can remember since...probably the last EITF. It is not bad at all in the single snap I took of this day as I was leaving but it deteriorated. It can be I think a problem with festivals where a crowd of people who don’t know each other get together, many of whom prioritise class moves over social dancing. So actually all those tabletop diagrams and rules shout that this festival is full of people who need this sort of telling.  But the truth is they are unlikely to pay it any attention because from what I saw, fundamentally the festival-going type do not care about the niceties of social dancing. Some guys do, I know and some, being class-dependent or just,  like me, miss years of experience in the ronda. But the ronda deteriorated over the three days I was there. Once during Sunday night the guy in front of me changed three times, though actually more than that because those three guys kept lane swapping between each other too. I remember once being between two good ronda dancers, which is to say they just kept their place, and thinking what joy, what peace, what uncommon bliss. I saw Edinburgh and ex-Edinburgh dancers with years of experience, who can get good girl dancers but who simply cared not one jot where they were or what they did in the ronda.  Such arrogance is a very Edinburgh attitude among that guard. Combine that with a large influx of London dancers, the more random elements of the Glasgow and Aberdeen crowds and a sprinkling of visitors and you have the perfect storm ronda-wise. On the last day I was so frustrated I felt like raising both elbows and attaching scythes to them, at which point I considered it might be wise to quit dancing. 

Conditions

Lighting was OK though it was bright spots, - theatre lights I think. By the Monday certainly the lighting had changed to this (apologies for the photo quality) which was darker but softer and less blinding.  In the upper left and right sides you can see the lights they had used, now turned off.

The floor was good. The room itself is attractive. Room size and shape were OK but quite large. 

Seating: chairs, tables, access

There were chairs and some tables though more on one side. The small tables made people feel quite connected I think. Big tables in contrast split people into groups. If you are in family or friend groups which some (usually less central) milongas particularly cater for in Buenos Aires then you might expect large tables. But in the UK big tables often force together people who would not necessarily sit together and separate them from others. At the EITF the tables are the small and lightweight folding kind. They are a good size but too light and in those floor conditions were knocked easily and often. That is why you could not risk putting e.g. a large bottle on them. In Buenos Aires I found the small tables more robust.

Apart from the floor not clearing in the cortina the biggest problem was the lack of gangway round the room. People walked between e.g. two dancing couples at the start of tracks and on the floor during tracks. Not just couples but groups stood on the floor in the ronda to chat at the beginning of or between tracks. Both issues worsened during the afternoon and during the festival. The worst spot for arriving pedestrians paying no heed to dancing couples was at the entrance. One pedestrian bashed into my partner and I as we danced with nary an acknowledgement in her haste to reach her seat. 

Invitation

... was difficult because chairs were straight on to the floor. Being so close to the dancers, post-cortina after the first 10 seconds you had no chance to see. This happens in Buenos Aires too but I found you generally have more view of the room than in the Teviot salon because there can be more depth behind the seated dancers. Also at milongas with separate seating the seating is specifically arranged so that you can see guys often to your left and/or right and/or in front e.g. El Beso, Obelisco, Consagradas at Salon Leonesa, Salon Canning, Lo de Celia. Also, guys can and do often move around the room to be closer to invite if they are far away and /or the dancing has started. 

But because in Teviot there was no gangway it was nigh on impossible to move somewhere else if you had no luck inviting at first - unless you walked on the floor and upset the ronda along with everyone else doing the same. 

As the floor increasingly did not clear in the cortina it was even harder for people seated to see to invite. Sitting by the door to the left was a bad idea because the guys standing in the entrance meant your only chance was them or to try to seek invitation down a row (LHS of the photo) which is always problematic. The area to the right of the door was taken up by the DJ and ETS stalwarts. A corner at the far end was taken by other ETS experienced dancers. Everyone else fitted in where they could. I noticed visiting couples dancing often with one another and many visiting women not dancing and looking glum, though others did. The same was true, though less so for some visiting guys.

To get round the "I can't see" problem, many people, guys and girls but especially guys seat-hopped to try and get a view of girls so people never knew where to find each other and seats/tables got taken. Again, if you like a calm environment, it was not that. 

Atmosphere

I am not sure. I don’t know how many cared about the conditions but there was a lot of movement in and out of the milonga though whether to classes or because people weren’t enjoying it I am not sure. Either more people are wise to poor conditions or I am more aware of them but I had a sense some people were not sticking around because of the conditions or were not getting dances. And some were.  And some were having a good time. 

I danced in flats with two local friends soon after arrival and two women visitors I had danced with before. I did not want to take chances with my knee with guys in those conditions. I found it chaotic, frustrating and noisy and left at 1630 after two and a half hours with much relief.

I had skipped lunch and went for good soup in the relative calm of Peters Yard five minutes away by the Meadows. Then I drove home yawning and with no desire whatsoever to return for the evening milonga when I suspected the conditions which had curtailed my visit would be exacerbated. I am much more of a local milonga girl - where those are good. Local milongas have had longer to get the music and conditions right,and these tend to attract the kind of dancers I like.