I am very pleased to announce that today’s blog entry was written by Debbi of An Ever Fixed Mark.  Debbi has spent the last couple of months in Buenos Aires and has gravitated towards the more traditional milongas.

I asked Debbi what, in her opinion, makes an excellent milonga.  Debbi’s answer is intricate and intertwined, but ultimately lands on a simple answer …

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From the outside it does not look like much, a doorway with large iron security grates partly closed, where someone perched on a stool is greeting and eyeing those who enter.  Not with an unfriendly eye, but certainly an attentive one.  Smokers congregate at the doorway, challenging the car exhaust with their own plumes of smoke.  Stepping inside transports you to a different world from the one on the street, a huge marble floor lies before you, a grand staircase made of marble and iron to your right invites you to step up towards the strains of D’Arienzo floating down from above.  At the top, you are greeted, pay your Entrada, and receive your ticket.  Before entering through the dark red velvet curtain separating you from Senor D’Arienzo, you must first go to the bano and change your shoes.  Only then can you part the curtain and allow the milonga world to wash over you.  Other sounds merge with the music; the clinking of glasses, murmur of Castellano, and the soft shuffle of shoes across an old wooden dance floor.  The host greets you, and if he knows you, kisses your cheek before escorting you to your table.  Women on the left, men on the right.  The better dancer you are, and/or the more well known you are, the closer you are to the edge of the dance floor and the center of the room.  As you settle at your table, stowing your belongings beneath, a waitress appears at your elbow.  Drinks ordered, and perhaps a tostada or empanada, and it is time to begin your pre-game routine.  Watch the floor.  Pay attention to who the better dancers are, and, perhaps just as importantly, who the horror shows are.  As the tanda ends, the women are escorted back to their tables, and you must watch to see who is sitting where.  The cortina plays, about a minute worth of an old Pat Benatar song from the 1980’s.  Next tanda begins, Biagi.  Eyes seek out eyes.  Slight inclinations of the heads create couples and women are collected from their tables.  The game is afoot.  You find your intended, they find you, and a deal is struck from across the floor.  As the embrace is created, arms circling shoulders and backs, the circuit is complete and the dance begins.

That is an overall generalized account of one traditional milonga here in Buenos Aires, although all but the description of the surroundings could be used for most all of the traditional milongas.  Some milongas are better than others, and a few are great.  What is it that makes them great? That is really a matter of personal preference for the most part, but when so many personal preferences agree, they must be doing something right.

In my opinion, number one is music.  When the music is great, you will forgive the little aesthetic details, such as worn out tablecloths or bare walls.  The music is not only a good mix of known Golden Age music, but the DJ keeps his or her attention on the dancers, increasing or decreasing the energy of the room with strategic selections.  Pacing the energy. Creating tandas where the first song makes you say, “Oh man, I gotta dance this one!” regardless of how tired you are.  If there is less known music, it is skillfully added into the line up.  There is not tanda after tanda of “I found this music in an archive, it has never been played since 1953!”  Well, there very well might be a reason it had been shoved away and not played since 1953, and giving us three tandas of it might find a DJ playing music to people sitting down and muttering angrily about “What exactly is wrong with DiSarli?!?!?”  A very interesting conversation I had with a tango musician recently brought out this excellent suggestion.  “It is fine to play ‘interesting’ music, but the DJ better well have grabbed his dance partner and danced to it before playing it in the milonga!”  I could not agree more.

After that, the next most important aspect to a great milonga is – Know Your Target Audience!!! Here is BA they looooove performances.  So there is usually at least a half an hour of performances, if that milonga has performances.  Some don’t. Sometimes multiple couples perform, sometimes it is not tango that is being performed, but folklorica, and sometimes it is longer than 30 minutes. In the States, a half hour of performances may cause mutiny.  Or it might not.  But it is up to the organizer to know this piece of information.  Other important things to know, are all of the little things that make the majority happy and keep them coming back – lighting, seating, food, beverage, cost, venue, live music, floor condition, A/C… all those “atmospheric” things that create a vibe, an energy to the place.  Make sure your floor layout has a good “marriage” with the layout of the room, it should be easy to get around without walking across the dance floor if at all possible.

A pet peeve is when the milonga is set up according to the specific preferences of the organizer.  I have been to traditional milongas, both in BA and in the States, where everything was obviously set up according to what the organizer liked best, and not what their target audience liked, and it was reflected in the attendance.  Along with my lack of a return visit.

So what makes a great milonga? An organizer who does his or her homework and creates an event geared towards a large audience whom they hope to make “regulars”.  For traditional in BA, that means cabeceo, which means light!  In the States, cabeceo is much less used, so lighting tends to be darker for a more “atmospheric” feeling.  There was a huge topic in the tango blog world about lighting in milongas very recently, and I have to say, after being here in BA, I am leaning more towards light-er so that at least cabeceo is an option.  Other factors are a host who has a presence, who makes you feel that he or she has a stake in your enjoyment of the evening and is not just there to collect your money.  The environment should be inviting, not sterile; the set up of the room must make you want to stay there for hours on end, and not feel deflated or claustrophobic after one hour.  There is a study in psychology as to the impact of one’s psyche from their surroundings — McDonald’s made use of it, they discovered that the color orange stimulates one’s appetite.  Hence the use of it in their chains.  Now I am not saying study what colors and environment make for happy tango dancers and stick to that, most venues won’t be happy if you show up with gallons of paint.  But make your space into something specific, be it cozy, elegant, casual, etc. by enhancing what you do have.  All that being said, there are instances where the venue itself creates all of the atmosphere needed for the dancers, and these are the outdoor milongas.  Two that spring to mind are La Glorieta in BA which is held in a gorgeous gazebo in a park in Belgrano, and Tango Porteno at the South Street Sea Port in NYC which is held on Pier 16 beneath the awesome presence of the historic Peking ship and the harbor stretched out before you.  Both milongas have nothing but atmosphere and good music, but that is more than enough to make it successful.

All in all, the essence of a good milonga is a great organizer.