Montreal Neo Tango Festival - day 1

This is my third time in Montreal, this time all by myself as Debbi had to work this weekend. (Finally) learning from past experiences I decided not to take any workshops as one needs all the energy for the all night dancing. That proved to be wise.

Friday there were two milongas, back to back. One at Espace dell'Artes, from 9:30PM to 2PM and another one at Tango Fabrika from 2AM to 6AM. To sum it up, I had a great time.

Before the milonga I met Caroline, it's quite interesting to meet someone so long after "meeting them online". I've been reading her blog for so long, I felt like I knew her before we met. We had a coffee and a great time chatting, mostly about tango of course, but I promise there were a few non tango related subjects touched... I think.

We went together to the first milonga, and when we got there, we were pretty much the only ones there. We danced a couple of tandas, which was fun, but I was still kind of stiff from the long drive and didn't have the groove on yet. We grabbed a glass of red wine (why on earth we can't have a glass of wine at Boston milongas is beyond me. I've heard arguments about people drinking too much, but I've been to many milogas in both Montreal and NY and I've yet to see someone inebriated), and with it's help I was able to chill a bit.

After opening the evening with Caroline, I danced quite a bit. First with a woman from upstate NY, she is quite fun to dance with, so we danced together three tandas, when we had to take a break, as we were getting tired. Then I danced two tandas with S, one of my favorite Montreal follows, she is quite an awesome dancer. The surprise of the night was L, from Montreal. We talked at the Yale festival, but we didn't have a chance to dance, but we did last night. Wow, that was fantastic. She was born in Argentina, and even though she left the country when she was three, she must have the tango gene because she is incredibly good. Perfect balance, great embrace and musicality, I look forward to dancing with her again. I danced with too many other people to mention them all, besides as the night went on, my memories of it are getting blurry, as I was getting tired.

At the Tango Fabrika milonga I didn't dance a lot, as I was getting tired and I becoming self conscious about my clumsiness.

There are quite a few people I'd like to get the opportunity to dance with before this weekend is over, so it looks like this weekend is going to be a lot of fun.

To be continued ...