Who is teaching whom?!

It is difficult but I will try what I can and speak of another controversial issue, namely "Who is teaching whom?!"

The other day, in a very amusing conversation with some friends we were informed that somebody who is to be known here as "The Character", has set up shop and is now teaching dancing tango. This individual who keeps insisting that "he dances with his heart" unfortunately has always failed to realise that "Tango is danced with our feet too" and that tango is not just for engaging the soul but the body too. "A heart alone, without some body, will sadly not do!" this never seems to have occurred to him to be true.

I, honestly, would like to give him or anyone else like him the benefit of the doubt. If their heart is moving with the music when dancing then perhaps in their mind they can not realise that the body and feet are being needed. The embrace, the techniques, the understanding of any partner's involvement, the connection, the balance etc in this "couple's dance" i.e. The Tango!, may look as secondary and as unimportant issues to them but they are essentials. If their mind tells them these and other similar essential matters do not require their attention then it is only in their mind that the truth may stand to be what it is seen to be by the rest of us watching them!

However, a heart, alone, moving with the music when the feet are still visibly and totally confused to what they are meant to do, will not suffice when it comes to dancing tango in public and even more significantly if one intends to teach the tango. I would have thought even a short few months for anyone to have been present at the tango scene would have been enough for this message to reach home but no, it never did. Instead there soon came "the t-shirt", the over exaggerated accent, the self-promotions, stickiness, the gluing of oneself to various venues, the DJ's desks, and to be seen to associate with individuals who run them, forcing oneself on others' generosity of time and attention when they are simply being too polite or even too embarrassed to shake such characters off.

As strange as it sounds we now hear that such a person has set up shop. Yes, He introduces himself as a "Tango Teacher", and that he is officially teaching tango!!!

Personally I am not against anyone wanting to make a few handfuls of bank notes from "any bizarre bazaar", be it tango or any other trade. If some one has some talents they are entitled and should be encouraged to use it. The rewards are theirs if they can get. In fact the more tango activities, classes, milongas, exhibitions, concerts etc there are, the richer the benefits and rewards are for all of us. However these should not be extended so thinly that taking people for a ride is to be seen as a talent and therefore for us to be fine with it.

On the other hand the shocking truth might be that this individual or people like him may really see themselves as qualified to teach in their own mind and by those who have never been taught. In such cases, these are acts which are at the very best due to self delusions, but I fear the worse that there is something else here at play, a fraud and a con.

Looking around us here we can see that there are some highly skilled, dedicated tango teachers whom we know to have spent many years studying their trade, delivering the goods and polishing their acts. There are also those who may not be the best at teaching tango but at least they are very polished performers and appear where a public face of tango is required in the media. Perhaps there are some we can best call the unsung heroes too these are the teachers who have never managed to claim a great deal of public fame but, despite of that, their successful implementation of teaching techniques and use of knowledge have consistently produced very good dancers and we all take more pleasure with them at our milongas.

So... what are we to do with "the character(s)"? By entertaining the personal delusions of grandeurs of such individuals, or worse allowing the con-artists engaging their trade in our community, I am not sure who would lose out most. I do not have many ideas on how such enterprises or people can be stopped although I do know this that by ignoring these we will all lose out, in our own ways!

MilongaCat
The only cat who loves you back!

Tango, Maths, Discounts and Workshops Bookings!

We go to our Milongas to take lesson and to dance Tango. Tango makes us feel and experience romance, love, passion, and so many other human emotions however it has been a while now that we also need a degree in Mathematics to understand what it costs us.

The entry fees and costs to attend our milongas are getting gradually so complicated to understand and decipher that many are confused and totally lost and sometimes even out of pocket .

There are all sorts of schemes: Membership, No Membership, with and without partner(s), turning up 4.5 or more times a week(!), twice a month, penalty of extra fee for once in a blue moon attendance, extras for sunny day on Wednesday, 1 lesson discounted price if it is a rainy day on 2nd Tuesday morning of the month and you must also book and pay to turn up on the 3rd Thursday the following month.

We may read their notes and find out: any mentioned discount is only available if tickets are booked before lunch times and that we are to collect the pre-b tickets on a specified date like a Friday that happens to be 3 weeks prior to our actual booking dates.

We are also told things along such lines:
"You will be entitled to get any possible discounts by filling in a formal application only which must be returned by registered delivery in post. Such a discount will apply if you book and pay for 14 or more tickets when used in the next 3 weeks but are only valid if you spend minimum of 3 bookings with yet "an unknown teachers" on workshops titled "what to do with your partners' free leg(s) if she is wearing the wrong colour shoes on the 4th Saturday of the month between the hours of 12-00 and 12:30 am".

OK....am I getting close enough for many to recognise their own postings in tango-uk yahoo newsgroups? ;-)

I suppose what it comes down to is that many organisers who do such schemes as above - believe me the above were are not very far fetched from their reality! - they actually sit down with a calculator of some kind and build their pricing. They also want to find themselves "Captured Audience". To encourage and entice their customers to spend more money and time there suddenly bring about their Marketing gimmicks. Consequently they come up with the most bizarre and complicated systems of bookings, attendance, and undecipherable discount systems.

A lot of times I wonder if these guys have any idea themselves what their systems of membership and discounts mean.

The message to some of you (nice!) people is:
Common guys, be inviting and enticing but please for the sake of everyone's sanity: "KEEP IT SIMPLE" and stop penalising "the poor suds" who are not your "cash cows" all of the times!

MilongaCat is back!

(p.s. Thanks to 24tango)

The best London Christmas Party of 2006

In my opinion the award for the best London Christmas Party of 2006 goes to The Crypt.

The grounds for the crypt to come top are many but they are worth mentioning that there were: fabulous live performance by Los Moreados Orchestra with their very varied and delightful selections of songs, plenty of delicious foods of many kinds including vegetarian, sea-food, meat, spicy, traditional English snacks as well as lovely popular selections of good cheeses, in addition to all kinds of fruits and more.

Wait there is more: to accompany and complement the good and generous food there were good & tasty bottles of both red and white wine(s). These were constantly being opened and served to anyone who wished some, and then even some more! All these were done for the guests with big smiles and warm welcoming words and gestures.

Their good hosting at the Crypt continued non-stop to the very end of the evening. It is difficult to imagine if there was some way to improve the evening further, they did it well and all.

Their effort must be mentioned here so that they hear how their guests had such a lovely and special evening at the Crypt with dining, drinking, dancing and enjoying the live music.

It was a memorable evening ,
Well done & Many Thanks!

Milongacat.

Xmas Parties

This week and the next will be party weeks. At homes, offices, with friends, relatives and colleagues there will be many occasions to be merry and festive. However what I am looking forward to the most are the Tango Parties.

There are some notably good ones every year and in my opinion some of our best parties are held at the Dome, the Welsh Centre and the Crypt. This year we shall also be having the chance to experience the Negracha's.

From what I recall, the Crypt's xmas party offering us LIVE music, party drinks, and good food came up first at the top last year. It was a wonderful evening that many shall remember for being one of the best organised for xmas in London for many years.

I am hoping there will be more than one that we can have good memories with for this year.

Merry Christmas from 24tango bloggers.

Missing OS at Zero Hour

We all love OS. He knew how to spin those records every Wednesday at The Zero Hour – The Dome. He would study the dancers on the floor constantly and he would choose what to play next not by accident but by design, experience and knowledge. He was very rarely ever lazy with his job as a DJ. His choices were never made in isolation from each other or without considering either the dancers or the mood of the evening.

There was always a plan. It was shaped and worked on as the evening progressed.
His choices ranged from the classic to the ultra modern but he had a thread joining them together. That thread ran seamlessly and effortlessly through the songs of tangos, Waltzes, and Milongas.

He knew how to generate movement on the floor and build up the energy and movement on the floor. On the other hand he knew how to calm the crowd down after some ultra fast ones.

Everyone who visited the Zero Hour knows that there was something special about the DJ's choices, and almost everyone was pleased by the end of the evening.

He did not play the records to promote himself but he played them to promote the club. It was very common to see dancers to go and thank him at the end of the night for the pleasure they had. Sadly since he has left us from the Dome we have not had the same spirit there anymore. The records get played by what seems to be random and in a haphazard way.

It has been so bad on occasions that at midnight when the evening is finished "NO ONE" has a clue that it is over!!! The confused look on the DJ's face is the only message to those who are near him to see it that in fact he is also not sure what is to happen next!

Last week we had some songs played 3 times over in less that one hour and half!

It looks that the DJ has forgotten what the J stands for in his job as a DJ, no wonder he calls himself MR D! The impression we get is that he has not got a clue what the amplifier's knobs and buttons in front of him are there for either. The only bit of the equalizer he ever uses – if someone bothers to tell him off for – is the volume bar.

The records are often interrupted before they have properly reached their end notes. It has become common for everyone to be surprised if some songs ever reach their proper last notes. It all indicates that the DJ is very nervous and not sure when to change from one deck to the other.

"Dear OS please come back if it is possible at all!", we all miss him dearly and are very disappointed that his absence is filled by a DJ who does not even know how to fake it - never mind how to make it!

The really irritating thing is that there are so many good DJs available in London who would have done a better job but we ended up with the one who is missing a J in DJ.

Common! you guys at the dome, don't be so mean to us, give us the dome back with a DJ who indulges us, and not himself or you alone.

Milongacat is back!

London is getting a face lift!

I feel I need to say sorry for not to having been able to keep the blog updated as frequently as my good intentions were set with that in mind initially.

London is getting a tango face lift! That is how I am sensing it. There are new milonga clubs, in these places there are new teachers/faces teaching, working and attracting old and new dancers to their tango school/milongas.

It seems that there is a modern concept entering the tango scene: "Customers' needs must be met"!

This simple, well tried and tested concept that the customers' needs should come first had a very steep hill to climb with the London Tango scene's organisers. Fortunately the "Market Forces" began to play this market like any other and suddenly real Competition was born. Although it is yet not mature enough to go the whole way and to let the customers really express their wants and needs but things have started to improve already.

There is a long way to go till all organisers read the writings on the wall ...but we are getting there.

The tango dancers/students had hoped that there will be a time in London when competition will start to play its role and the message eventually begins to reach home that customers need are to be treated. Customers in tango scene are intelligent adults who expect to be given a minimum standard of service.

It is about time that the old "school" mentality needs to stop. No more school master/mistress treatment to dictate how our evening night outs are to be spent.

Perhaps it must now be accepted that we, London tango participants, are mature enough to see dancing and learning to dance tango not as a religiously organised affair (with rules and regulations that might send us to eternal damnations if we break the preached mould) but more as true means of taking pleasure in good company, music that we enjoy as opposed to organisers' personal taste, and to embrace friends whom we love sharing our joy of tango evenings with.

So I recommend you not just by voting with your feet whether to attend milongas or not but also by speaking out and aloud to the organisers and to tell them that their taste of music is not enjoyable or it is too loud, too quiet that you can hardly hear it at parts of the room or many other basic issues that they seem to ignore like the toilets being dirt, blocked, inadequately supplied with towels etc, or that the place is too dirty with dust and grime or even that they are being too greedy for charging as much as they are for entry fees or drinks (sometimes both) for what they are servicing us the customers.

There are now some new places and some old places that are getting their act together and we hope that the spirit of better customer service is one that will become stronger and more successful in London.

Negracha: One more of our London milongas

It is that time of the year again when we hear that every milonga starts to get going again with some trouble and gusto.

London tango scene can be very entertaining depending on what taste of milonga one has. The popular middle of the road (traditional tango) music dictates the music choice by almost all London milongas. In other words the dreaded safe populist approach rules the greater if not most or even all of an evening's music in all London regular milongas.

Naturally there are variations between the milongas but they are mostly run under similar guidelines for the type of the music that organisers believe is liked by "the majority".

It is in the light of that above that a few milongas have started to make their mark against the popular. One of these milongas is called Negracha Tango Club where there is a specific effort made to make the choice of music more varied, entertaining, challenging and certainly more of the European tango dancing influence.

Even at Negracha Tango Club they are careful not to brake the mould completely and they have devised the plan of playing different music at the two separate dance floors where one is dedicated to traditional and the other "Electrica Tango".

The Negracha Tango Club has been truly nomadic for over a year now, it has been hosted in 4 different locations to date but it still finds a good following whenever it it finds a home to be hosted and run and this Friday, 13 January will be its first late evening milonga of the year. Their website of www.negrachatangoclub.com usually updates the dates and the location where they are running their milonga in London.

The current place has fabulous two floors , good sound system, great space to dance at and the touch of entertainment that is unique to Ivan who organises and runs the Negracha. He always has a special movie or some multimedia ready program to show his guests as well as treating everyone to more of modern music than others would normally dare in London milongas.

More on other London Milongas at a later date.

Two For Tango at The Welsh Centre

It is not surprising to find out that the Welsh Centre kicks off the first milonga of the New Year in London in 2006.

This Friday, not only "Two For Tango" (24tango) blogger but many more will be hopefully showing up there to start off the 2006 Tango joys and Tango pains.

TANGO - THE ARGENTINO WAY is affectionately known as The Welsh amongst many who visit it without fail every week.

The Welsh is different in the way that it has different visiting teachers almost every week, it is right at the centre of the London which makes it accessible to all. It has a very good dance floor and the DJs are themselves from the regular devoted tango dancers.

The music that is played there is under the recommendation guidelines of the milongas organisers and it tends to be a little too conservative for many of younger dancers.

The Welsh is a milonga that is a meeting point/place for most of the London dancers and everyone feels that it is home. During its many long years of Tango existence, it has been a point of introduction for an incredible number of world famous names of instructors/teachers from Europe, USA, and Argentina.

The regular, myself included, always like to complain about its chaotic dance floor but it seems no one wants it changed! The reason is that it gives us at the very least something to talk about or maybe one good enough reason to complain about the Welsh since everything else about this milonga is difficult to fault.

This Friday 6th Jan 2006, Pablo Alonso is the designated teacher and the DJ there. The class is at 7:30 to 8:30, and the dancing continues till 11:00.
(The address for those who need to know is 167 Grays Inn Road London W1)

New Year's Eve Tango at the Factory

It was a joyful start into the New Year with dancing tango at The Factory, I was lucky enough to be met and picked up from my home by my dear friend and her girl friend.

The Factory was very festively and nicely decorated. The evening's celebration was given a special treat by making sure that the bottles of champagne and white wine as well as other drinks were continuously refreshed throughout the whole evening, a real blast that I am sure all visitors appreciated.

I had some wonderful dances in addition to the pleasure of hearing the good news of two tango friends engagement during Christmas holidays.

New Year's Eve tango evenings can be very tricky affairs. It is something from the limbo land of "Should I go or should I not?" , and many "What if?" scenarios.

This year I think the Factory was the best place I could have chosen to go to, I had a very good time dancing and meeting with friends to welcome the New Year together.