THE MILONGA EXPERIENCE

The reason a social dancer goes out.

A good night out in tango has similar benefits for both the partnered and the single dancer. We want to dance; experience tango; go home satisfied - with ourselves and with the night. The physical space is not as important as other factors ... namely: the music and the people. Many communities must organize their evenings in restaurants or church basements or dance studios. You go where you can. Big tango communities have venues dedicated to tango - with their attendant more-conducive ambience. Now, you can "quibble" about the air, floor, lighting, etc. if you must. The music is the major item of concern. If it isn't calling you to dance ... Having good available partners speaks for itself. Every dancer has a vested interest in encouraging new people to stay ... for others if not for oneself. Generosity is a basic tenet of tango/ The more you give, the more you get. Now, if you can hear the music nicely and the lighting isn't objectionable; if you can see in the room an individual you want to dance with, your night takes flight. Time goes quickly by dancing tandas with preferred partners, someone new, a person you haven't danced with for a while. The whole evening is made so much better if the vals and milonga tandas are thrilling. The dry wit knows that in the early evening, the women tend to endure and the men to experiment (not the men who will be staying late). In a perfect world, dancers enjoy themselves with different partners who inspire; have breaks with felicitous conversation and/or valuable watching time ... generally enjoying the evening. Bumping will impinge on that enjoyment; it taunts normally benign sensibilities. If the men don't submerge all other proclivities to successfully clean navigation, the evening's experience will be severly diminished for many. If there are not enough people there, we complain. If too many people are there, we complain, Those two conditions are the way they are, for now. Bumping, on the other hand, can be be addressed. Most teachers/organizers don't seem, to have a strategy for doing so. Consequently, men might snipe at each other or address their grievences in some fashion. Men who can't deal with it will find the good women less available. Clean navigation is the goal of the mature leader; considerate boleos and stride for the follower. Both men and women have to be conscious of the space they are using and whether their moments are too large. Having fun might make us forget, so it's up to all of us to remind ourselves, when the good times are rolling, to keep in an appropriate space. Enter the clock. People start to leave. Of course, the feelings of the night have already been largely set; but change is in the air. If the dj has a nice touch with interesting choices - if the partners for that music are available - a new night can begin. The good dancers will want to stretch a bit now. The body is loose and doesn't want to be so contained ... expressiveness wants out now that there is more space to move in. If the music gets feverish, the dancers will too. This is the time, in the last hour of the milonga, when passion that must be controlled when there are a lot of dancers can find its freedom. The dancers are hot and sweaty. Their eyes show them to be seduced by intense pleasure. It's all a dream in motion. Let the powerful music roll; the sad and tender; the glorious. The athletecism, the animalism - the full hunger of desire that tango inspires you to express - give your movement meaning. If you've never been the last on the floor the night of a good milonga, your heart and mind dancing as if you were really alive, you must look for the opportunity to end the night that way soon. Tango will have new meaning for you. A great milonga satisfies many appetites - and whets their desire for more of the same.