Thursday, October 30, 2008

Milonga/Practica Roundup 1

Tango Soho (Thursday night at Villa Malcolm)
- Candles and red table cloths transforms the space at Villa Malcolm into romantic milonga-land.  The stone floor is big but can get crowded.  The crowd is a good mix of ages, dancing styles and levels.  People seem to be friendly here.

Tango Cool (Friday at Villa Malcolm)
- Younger nuevo crowd at this no frills milonga.  Every once in a while, they'll throw in a tanda of alternative.

Parakultural Friday (Salon Canning)
- Old school milonga.  Beautiful space.  The dance floor is nice but small and crowded until after 2am or so.  The cabacea is definitely employed here.  Music is strictly traditional.  Pulpo showed up as I was leaving.

La Viruta (Sunday at Armenia Social Club)
- A strange mix of tango, swing and salsa with the circles not necessarily intersecting.  The DJ will play 30 mins of swing followed by 1 hour of tango followed by 30 minutes of salsa followed by 1 hour of tango and so on.  The best time to go is after 1 am, when the swing crowd thins out a bit and more tango folk show up.  This is the milonga where the up and coming dancers go to hang out and dance with their friends.

El Motivo (Monday at Villa Malcolm)
- A fun practica.  There's room on the dance floor to try your new moves and it's the same crowd that shows up to all the other Villa Malcolm events.

Parakultural Monday (Salon Canning)
- When El Motivo ends at 1am, everyone walks over to Canning to finish the night.  It's basically a repeat of the Parakultural Friday.

Practica X (Medrano 476)
- the level of the dancing here is through the roof and leans towards nuevo style. The room is somewhat awkward - chairs lining the walls (which makes the cabaceo hard to do) and then a large area tucked waaaay back with tables that no one sits at because it would mean tango suicide.  There were twice as many followers here than leaders.  The floor was large but horrendously gravelly.  I was wincing every time I had to pivot.

Buenos Aires Club (Saturday night at Peru 571)
- I saw Tanghetto here!  It's a small space but the dance floor is nice and generally spacious.  The milonga doesn't get started until 12:30 am.  I tried to get there early to get a table and was gently turned away at the door because the club was hosting a rock concert right then and they didn't want me to have to sit through that.  How did they know I was there to tango and not rock out?

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