Montreal Neo Tango Festival - day 2 - the composer

The practica seamlessly morphed into the milonga as more people arrived. I decided to play smart and save my energy, just dancing with people I really wanted to dance with.

Through the evening I've seen this woman with awesome musicality, very elegant footwork and what seemed a great connection to her partners. I eventually saw her sitting down and I moved in quickly, but before I got there, they announced the live orchestra was about to start playing. That kind of stopped my dead in my tracks about 15 feet away, and as the orchestra started to play Piazzolla, we made eye contact. I don't like dancing on Piazzolla when played by Piazzolla, I'm going to like it even less when it's played by some random band. But I didn't want to give her the wrong impression, so since we made eye contact I went to her introduced myself and told her I was on my way to ask her to dance, but Piazzolla is not something I care to dance on. She asked me if I would like to sit and wait for some other music to come along and I agreed. We chatted a while, her name is L and she is from Toronto. It soon became obvious the band was going to play only Piazzolla and I didn't want to keep her from dancing with other people so we agree to look for each other once some other music is being played.

Half an hour later, I was chatting with someone and L shows up, asking if now would be a good time and off we went on a waltz tanda. Boy, I was right, she is awesome, great musicality, awesome connection, she was also able to catch the most subtle parts of my lead, something that so far, only teacher level dancers (and not all of them) have been able to catch every single time.

Once the tanda was over, the orchestra kicked in again. Grrrrrrr... OK, we agreed to try again once more danceable music is being played, and I went and found her again as the orchestra was playing what was supposed to be their last song. We chatted a bit more and I found out she is a (music) composer ... Well, that explains a lot. That also makes one of the questions she asked on the dance floor one of the best compliments I've ever got. She asked me if I was a musician. I consider that question coming from a music composer one of the best compliments on my musicality I ever got. Period. So the band was apparently a success, as people asked for some more, and the band obliged. Grrrrr... And when that was done, they announced the dance performances ... Double Grrrrr.... ;) The Gods are conspiring against me dancing with L again it seems as the milonga was supposed to and at midnight and it was already 11:40. Sigh ...

The performances were actually quite fun, and once they were done they announce the milonga will go for a bit longer. So I found L and off we went on a tango tanda. That particular set wasn't one of favorites but hey, I'll take what I can get. Interestingly enough, I didn't feel the same fantastic connection as I did for the vals tanda, I think the exhaustion was starting to take it's toll. It was an amazing dance nonetheless. Looking forward to dance with her again.