Music and flow
Not so long ago, someone on a Tango DJ mailing list commented that bad music and bad arrangement of music could lead to chaos on the floor.
My initial reaction to this was: surely any chaos on the dance floor was more to do with the collective technical abilities of the daners? However, things started to make more sense as I started to recall a few instances where the inability to connect with the music meant things just “weren’t right” for the whole night. By way of an illustration, I attended a milonga a couple of months ago where no tandas** were used. Granted that there was a “legitimate” explanation for this particular community to dispense with tandas, I discovered that it was very difficult to relax and dance into a comfortable rhythm. Another example, perhaps less extreme, has already been described in vortex of hell before.
Tone of the milonga
Over at Tango Chamuyo, Janis reflects on her stay in Buenos Aires upon the tenth anniversary since her arrival.
While most are subjective opinions and perhaps more particular to Buenos Aires, there is one thing I can personally relate to, when she said:
“The organizer sets the tone of each milonga.”
Over the years, apart from Singapore, I have been fortunate to be able to dance a little in Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tokyo, Montreal and Melbourne (note that Berlin is absent from this list since I was too fresh to be able to make good observations 🙂 ). While the quality of music is important for me, I think the enthusiasm as well as the level of hospitality (or indifference) displayed by the milonga organiser can often compensate for deficiencies in other areas (such as small venues, lack of dancers, etc.) and set the mood for the milonga. In fact, I was reminded of this again when a friend related her experiences at a recent milonga where people stuck to their small groups and reluctant to start dancing until the wee hours, while the organiser was totally oblivious nor cared, but that is another story for future…
Satisfaction
Tuesday (27 January) was the second day of the Chinese New Year. For those not familiar with Chinese customs, normally the first few days of the lunar new year (assuming they are also public holidays) are filled up with visits to homes of relatives or friends, etc. Because of this I was not optimistic about the attendance at the regular milonga at Xen Bar. In the end, close to 30 people, including a couple of overseas visitors, showed up – more than twice of what I was expecting!
As the crowd was well balanced gender-wise, and since I was feeling rather lethargic because I did not get a good rest the previous night (or perhaps due to the glasses of wine I had…), I had a rare chance to be able to sit back, chat and watch people enjoy themselves for much of the night. I have to admit that it was quite refreshing to be able to sit on the sideline rather than being in the thick of action as it were.
Creatures of habit
During a recent milonga where I DJ’ed, I was a little amused when someone – the owner of the establishment as a matter of fact – was surprised that everyone on the dance floor knew it was the end of the milonga when the La Cumparsita came on. Incidentally it was not my usual “finishing” tanda although I did play the same version of La Cumparsita (30’s D’Arienzo)
However, I have to admit that the process of giving people the message that it was the end of the night was not always so straightforward.