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Milongas in Buenos Aires
Written by Marek Štefan on Aug 26th 2005
I will try to describe how milongas in Buenos Aires look like. The aim is not a survey of the various milongas I have visited but rather a description of the atmosphere and etiquette I have experienced.
General information
I will not bother
you with a comprehensive
definition of the word milonga: it is simply a place where people
dance tango.
Most milongas officially start at around 10:30 pm but
people usually come around midnight. These night milongas
often finish at 5am or even 7am. Of course, there are also
afternoon milongas (sometimes called matinee) that can start
for example at 4pm and finish at 10 pm. Accordingly,
you can see different kinds of people in each of them:
on an afternoon milonga you can see more elderly people or those who have to wake up really early
to go to work the next day. Younger people,
or those who have no strict
work schedule (besides tourists) usually go to the
all night milongas. On every milonga, you have to pay an
entrance fee of about 5 pesos. There is also a bar where you can get
a drink and often some basic food, too, and tables
with waiter service around the dance floor.
Music
The
DJ is usually a professional with lot of music hired especially to that
purpose. I don't remember seeing a DJ that would
be playing music and enjoying the dancing on the floor
at the same time. At every milonga I have visited
they always use cortinas short pieces
of other (non-tango) music, such as salsa, rock, etc. Cortina (
Curtain in English) announces a short break, say around 1 minute or
so, during which people can have a rest and a drink, and change partners. (Of course, when
there is live music, there are no cortinas.) So cortina makes
the series of usually four (in the case of milongas or valses sometimes three) songs that
are called tandas.
Let me stop here for a moment: I was asking several poeple why they
use cortinas. Except for one younger dancer who "didn't like somebody
else to decide when I should stop dancing", everyone agreed that
cortinas are very important for the milonga's easy going.
It serves as a bridge between various tango orchestras in each tanda
(I have never heard a DJ playing, for example, D'Arienzo, Pugliese,
Fresedo, and Di Sarli within the same tanda.), and, above
all, an opportunity to change partners. As I was explained, if a woman – by
saying "thank you" – stops dancing with a man whose
invitation she had accepted, before the end of a tanda,
the man may take it as a public humiliation. It can also happen that the two
people simply do not enjoy dancing together and
then the cortina is a good chance to look for another partner, perhaps.
For these reasons, cortinas are considered very practical. More over,
it is a tradition.
Invitation to dance
Most of Argentine dancers agree that the one who invites to dance is the man. But, naturally, no man wants to risk the refusal of a woman which, after a direct oral invitation, is quite embarrassing, for some Argentineans even degrading and totally unacceptable. Therefore, most men first seek eye contact with the woman and try to invite her in a very discrete way. Experienced men who go to milongas almost every night (in Spanish, they are called milongueros) tend to walk around the dance floor like sharks to see if there are women they could dance with in the far end of the room too. Certainly, women know that and are also seeking the eye contact while sitting at their tables. When a woman likes a man and wants to dance with him, she simply returns his look. For example, when a nice man is passing by a woman hungry to dance, she keeps looking at him until he gives a slight nod with his head or points to the dance floor with his finger while looking at her. Or he might say silently "Querés bailar?" (Do you want to dance?) or "Bailamos?" (Shell we dance?) Then she stands up and they go together to the dance floor or they meet there. When, on the contrary, she sees a man approaching she doesn’t want to dance with, she simply doesn’t look at him or better starts to speak with her friend at the table, which is an even clearer signal to the man to continue looking elsewhere. If the man, despite of these signals, stops in front of the woman while she is talking with somebody else at the table, or even asks her directly for a dance, then he should not be surprised when he gets a "no". It is really impertinent and rough when a man disrupts a conversation of a woman. Especially if the other person at the table is a man, quite possibly her boyfriend or even husband, the whole thing can end up in a very unpleasant argument (at the least).
Moving on the dance floor
There are two basic rules, both motivated by the fundamental principle of a milonga: enjoy the dance (and the whole night) and let others enjoy it as well, in other words: respect the other dancers sharing the floor with you.
- DANCE DOWN THE LINE OF DANCE
If somebody is dancing in the opposite direction to the rest of the dancers, the others will quite soon start to use various discreet but painful elbow attacks or "heel-to-foot" attacks telling this person to wake up and dance as expected. Usually it is best to dance on the outer edge of the dance floor; in the inner lines you have dancers everywhere around you. If you want to dance a more complicated figure, try to find space in the corner or take the risk and go to the centre (where all the dancers often bump into each other). Men, be careful with backward steps as you can't see behind yourselves and your partner can have her eyes closed. Trying to get ahead of other couples is not very smart either as those in front of you do not see you and thus cannot guess what your intention is. If you crush into a couple, always say "sorry", especially if you crush into the couple in front of you as you are expected to see them. - AVOID FIGURES THAT
REQUIRE A LOT OF SPACE
According to my personal experience, there are milongas where it is impossible to dance between 1 and 3 am. If you really like doing all those figures, better wait until 4 am when there is more space or go to a practica. Figures like ganchos or "high" voleos, when the lady lifts her foot off the dance floor are practically prohibited. Men should realize that those beautiful and sharp heels of their partners (who are basically just following them) are in fact very dangerous weapons in their hands. If the woman does n’t hurt anyone around, the couple is considered only ridiculous; but if she hurts someone, a serious argument can follow. Certainly, the woman's heel lifted off the floor is not always the fault of the man who is leading her so, ladies, please be aware of that too as you don't see what is happening behind you and the man cannot have absolute control over your free leg.
And one more thing I have heard on a milonga in Buenos Aires (but this
information is not guaranteed because, as I have experienced,
an Argentinean will always tell you "the truth" but
each time it will be a different story): They say there were
times when there were a sort of milonga guards who were watching the
dance floor and when they saw someone breaking the basic laws of smooth
dancing they could simply get him out.
Conversation
As it is generally know, there
is usually a conversation going on between the man and the woman just
before another dance starts, be it introducing themselves
to each other or any other topic. However, it is certainly very embarrassing
when, for example, the man starts lecturing
the woman about how to dance a particular figure. Milonga is a place
to socialize, to have fun, and to enjoy the dancing with another person.
You have classes and practicas to discuss technical aspects.
End
A tango dancer dancing great
figures and wild combinations is not necessarily a good milonguero.
A milonga far far away from being a
place where to show off. If you want to show
off, find yourself a stage. The basic rules of a milonga
are basically nothing else than being polite, behaving
well in public, and, especially in Argentina, respecting other people
on the dance floor. Moreover, every old milonguero who remembers
the golden age of tango and who has danced to the live
music of D'Arienzo, Pugliese, or Troilo will tell you that you can tell
a good dancer by the way they walk,
not the number of figures they do.
Epilogue
I haven't written this article because I would think
of I am a great milonguero myself. (I
doubt there is one single person in the Prague
milongas I have not bump into yet.) I just wanted to appeal to others, including myself:
let's try to dance in a way that will not make
it unpleasant for others!
Changed: May 25th 2009 |
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