Dancing with broomsticks

I am one of those who believes that it takes two to tango. Sorry, maybe I just used the cheesy line but, to be honest, I have seen so many people that dance only with themselves that I wonder, why bother getting a partner? Wouldn't it be easier for them just to get a broomstick and stay at home dancing to their favourite tracks?

The Lisbon Miracle

Portugal is a country with a deep religious feeling. Everybody believes that miracles just happen. For a city that did not have much tango not so many years ago it looks like a miracle how the standard of dance in Lisbon is so good. The miracle has a name (or two names): Juan Capriotti y Graciana Romero.
All of those who are involved in tango are part of the miracle, Lusitango for instance. But it's undeniable that JyG presence and expertise has propped the tango a few notches up.

An example on how not to dance tango.

The music is shite, the dance is shite and those (pseudo) back ochos... Gosh, there is just so much bad tango going on that you have to see it with your own eyes (from Fishnets and Fedoras)

The reasons I don't take Edinburgh for granted

I don't. I really don't. I never knew how lucky I was to have learnt tango in Edinburgh, until I started going to other places. I'm not saying it is the best place in terms of everything. Of course, as mentioned by koolricky and lots of other people, there are good points and bad points to the tango community of Embra.

Anyway, here are the reasons:

1) Friendly & Welcoming
2) Cheap & Frequent
3) Good standard of dancing
4) Good teaching
5) Relatively integrated (albeit some rivalries)

The first impression is so important. As a guest, one would like to be welcomed where they visit. Maybe one is nervous, is feeling lost, or maybe even doesn't speak the language! Somebody mentioned that the general atmosphere flows from the organisers. The hosts have the responsibility to treat the guests, that are potential future regulars, nicely, or else it's their loss.

In Edinburgh, Toby Morris makes sure that visitors are welcomed. He almost pounces on them as they enter. I've seen it so many times. He talks to them very attentively and introduces them to the local dancers. For a few years that's what I've always seen so I assumed that this would be the case wherever I go. Uh uh. Wrong.

When I was on the committee for the Edinburgh University Tango Society, I was always at the door and made sure I spoke to all those that signed up and came in, and learnt their names. When some of us started up La Otra Milonga, we made an effort to speak to people that we had. How else would people know more about what we did? How else would people come back for the next session? What organisers do, the attenders follow.

The Edinburgh tango community consists of various characters: multitalented, ultra-intelligent, dirty (I don't mean covered in mud and unwashed), tarty, hippie, posh, shy, confident, creepy, chatterbox-that-can-speak-for-Scotland, nice (genuine & fake), interesting, geeky, artsy, weird, temperamental, charming, opinionated, old, young, single, attached, etc, etc... On an unlucky day you might end up sitting next to somebody who is in a bad mood (this happens to at least once a month if you're of a female species) and might just bump into somebody who is rather hot-blooded. Somehow, somehow though, despite such a spectrum of people, MOST of them, I find are friendly and chatty and they are fairly well integrated. Even some known enemies are quite civilised to each other.

Those that complain that men have become lazier and stopped asking women to dance, I totally understand, as I used to be one of them. But what I can say to them now is that it's probably the general trend in life anyway*, and really, Edinburgh is doing well compared to other places. The only exception I can think of is if you're young and female, visiting a testosterone-filled milonga abroad, you have no time to sit down.

In conclusion, my dear Edinburgh tangueros, please don't take Edinburgh for granted, and do continue to be friendly to visitors and newcomers.


*I'm just trying to be provocative; seeing if I get any reactions.

Bajofondo ignites in the Midlands

The star-gazing ambience… The glowing sounds… The hubble-bubble of culture-loving intellectual voices… Is this Edinburgh? Is this the neo-Soho? Or maybe Paris? Mmm… no. Believe it or not, the übercool electrotango band, Bajofondo Tango Club took a brave step to our chavvy Cov, C-o-v-e-n-t-r-y less than two weeks ago. (Though I must add lest I may offend some Warwick uni students, they played at the well-established Warwick Arts Centre.)

Much to our delight and excitement, their performance was pretty awesome. Shame though the audience wasn’t any bigger, but it gave us good space to dance around and make use of the brilliant music. What is it about live music that gets us buzzing? Do they just play it differently? Is it louder? Is it because of the visual aid? Personally, as a performer, I always got a buzz out of the audience and big concert halls, probably because I had to tell my story to not just practice room walls and teachers but to so many individuals. You have to exaggerate, physically and emotionally, and you become much more dynamic and interactive as a result. You have to tell oh-so-many-of-them that you’re angry, happy, sad, or love-sick, whatever. My message to traditionalists is that this can be done so amazingly by electronic means as well as by classical instruments and golden-age music. Bajofondo was numbingly great at conveying their oomph. Only as I reached the bar after the show, I realised my heels were killing me.

What was so endearing was that we didn’t just love them. The Bajofondians also loved us, the audience. They showed their appreciation throughout and after each song. It was nice to see that the individuals were all very different-looking from each other. I’m not talking about outfit. I’m talking about their talents and characters. Individually, they were completely immersed in what they were doing, but somehow their strands of music, and their funky retro images in the background interwove so enthrallingly. Of course, that made the experience of dancing tango rather fabulous. As some of us were invited up on the stage for some serious bobbing up and down exercise, I realised the concert was worth every penny.

If you get the chance to see & hear & feel them live, grab a ticket immediately. Tracks from their new album sound pretty fantastic too… In conclusion, my rating for Coventry went up a notch :-)