Misia & Peter – tango blog

Culture clash

“You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls.” -Merce Cunningham

We have been living in Buenos Aires for about a month now, taking tango classes and workshops during the day and going to the “tango tourist circuit” milongas in the Palermo district at night, with occasional trips to more traditional ones such as El Beso or La Baldosa. From our own experience, from observing other dancers and from conversations with Argentines, it seems that locals go to milongas with very different goals from tourists. Understanding these differences can help you avoid a lot of frustration — if you want to have a better time at the milongas in this city, read on.

First, outside of Argentina, in many tango communities milongas are shorter then here and they are a place for dancing — as much dancing as possible during those 3-4 hours in the evening. So those who are dancing tango anywhere outside of Argentina are most likely used to dancing quite a bit at their local milongas, and chatting, socializing, etc. was probably on the back burner for them. Their main goal was to have some really great tandas with their favorite partners.

Second, most people who come here will spend thousands of dollars on their trip, including airfare, accommodation, classes, milonga covers, etc. It’s natural to think that one must get their money’s worth, and that this should include dances with the best local dancers as well. Otherwise, we could all just stay at home, right?

Argentines, on the other hand, go to milongas to socialize — to hang out, talk with friends, drink beer, and so on, from about 10-11 pm until way into the night. If they feel like dancing a tanda, they will get up and dance one, but most likely only a handful of times a night and usually with their friends from their table or group. (There are exceptions, of course, but this is what we saw and heard in general.) Many locals at the milongas are also involved with teaching tango, and they go out after having taught a couple of group or private classes that day.

So, in most milongas, there are tourists really actively trying to get dances all the time, and there are Argentines who would rather just be left alone. But this is just the beginning of the differences. The rules (“codigos”) of asking up partners can be quite confusing, too.

In the Palermo milongas, the cabeceo rules vary quite a bit. In Salon Canning partners are asked mostly via cabeceo, in Practica X (which really functions as a milonga) or the milongas at Villa Malcolm it’s a mixture of cabeceo and walking up to the lady, in La Viruta it’s mostly directly asking her up — with the darkness and crowds it would really be impossible cabeceo anyone across the dance floor.

In La Baldosa, a milonga visited almost exclusively by locals, people seemed to be dancing mostly with those at their table, while at El Beso, men and women are seated separately. In theory, this should make cabeceo easier, but there are so many tables and they are placed so tightly together (with women seated in multiple rows behind one another) that it’s often very difficult to cabeceo someone without the lady in front of her or behind her misunderstanding the invitation.

To complicate things further, tango tourists as a group seem to have something of a bad reputation here. Having danced in Canning a few times, I can really understand this one. Most Argentines, regardless of their level of dancing, are quite good at navigation and are aware of the line of dance, lanes, the space around them and other nearby couples. (This is not only true on the dance floor — just watch them navigate a crowded Corrientes sidewalk at rush hour.) Some tourists, however, cut in and out of lanes, crowd the couple behind or in front of them, lead or follow high boleos, ganchos and other moves completely inappropriate for a crowded milonga. I can see how locals don’t want to take a chance on someone they don’t know because of this. They have to see you dance a few times until they can be pretty sure that you are able to lead or follow not just well, but safely.

This pretty much leaves the tourist with two options. You can spend your evening at the milonga as if you were at home, trying to dance as much as possible with the other tango tourists (most of whom are very high level dancers, and are also eager to dance a lot). You are likely to be pleasantly surprised: there are lots of dancers who teach tango at home or have a serious background in music or other movement modalities, which can lead to truly wonderful dances. You can also try the local way: relax, get a drink, circulate, make eye contact and chat with Argentines, and maybe after a while you will dance with them as well. For this, at least an intermediate knowledge of Spanish is needed as most of the locals don’t speak English or any other foreign language at a conversational level.

peter | tango classes milongas in BsAs | Comments (3)