Montreal Neo Tango Festival - day 3 - "Closing" Milonga

This was in my opinion the best miloga of the whole festival and I certainly had the most fun, probably the most fun I had at any milonga to date.

After starting the evening on such a high note by dancing with Mila, I had my "mojo" on for most of the night and as such, I had a great time.

I've danced with way too many people to mention them all, and I'll only mention some of the highlights.

But before I get to that, it just occurred to me that I did not have a bad dance the entire time I was in Montreal. Actually with the exception of one tanda, which I would say it was an average experience, all the other ranged from good to fantastic.

Back to the highlights of the evening (they are in a relative chronological order).

I was chatting with this woman from NY (let's call her NL), as we were waiting for some music I liked (while most of the music was traditional, there were some neo-tango/electronica tandas when I took the opportunity to rest) so we can dance. She asked me, and that was one of the most elegant (not to mention virtually "risk" free) way a woman could ask a man she doesn't know for a dance. It was something along the lines of (and I'm heavily paraphrasing) "I saw you dance and I would like to dance with you, when you're free, come find me". A man would have to be a total asshole to respond with something unpleasant to such an elegant invite, even if he doesn't have any intention of dancing with her.

Anyway, she asked if I knew how long Mila was dancing tango for, saying she hopes it was a long time, as that would leave her time to "catch up". You know, if you see somebody that is been dancing for as long as you do and they are 10 times better, it tends to get depressing ... That sort of suggested she is been dancing for a while and she's not very satisfied with her progress.

Some music I like comes along and off we go. She is really good (balance, no anticipation, ability to follow dynamic changes, musicality, etc) so I tell her between tandas, asking how long she's been dancing anyway. 9 months. Uhh, well, that left me speechless for a second or so. I don't think NL has anything to be worried about her rate of progress... We danced for a few tandas and it was a delight.

Then I asked A to dance, a woman from San Francisco, I've watched her dance and she looks very peaceful. She is very light, very smooth movements, a pleasure to dance with.

I then danced with Ciko (Adam Hoopengardner's partner), they teach in NY and other places (BTW, I really like the way Adam dances milonga.) I did have the chance to dance with her before a couple of times, but each of those times was kind of bad timing (either I was tired, or I was uninspired, etc) so when she asked me to dance I was glad, as I was having a good night. And it showed, the first song of the tanda was amazing! If I could dance like that consistently, I'd be a happy man (for a while, anyway ... ;-). We danced for a couple of tandas, but that first song remained the best.

I danced a few tandas with E, from Montreal, she has a very warm embrace and she is an all around good dancer.

Also NT from NY, she is a very, very good dancer and we had a few great tandas, and I'm looking forward to my next trip to NY.

There were people I didn't mention, and it's not because it wasn't great, but mostly because there were no surprises, dancing with them was just as awesome I was expecting and I mentioned them in the past. Also towards the end of the night I was getting so tired, my memories are a bit blurry... ;-)