Tango de Los Muertos

It's Wednesday and I'm back to work. This time I was smart enough to get both Monday and Tuesday off (after the festival). I'm glad I did as I was exhausted. I was planning on doing some work around the house yesterday, but I didn't really do much the whole day. Worked a little on the pictures I took at the festival (I took over a thousand pictures, it will take some serious work to edit, crop and adjust all of them).

The festival was great. I mean, what is really important was awesome : the dancers, the music and plenty of time to dance. There were some things I wish were different, but I'll get to that later.

New friendships

Like it happens at every festival, I met new people with whom I had some amazing dances. Amazing for me that is, if they enjoyed it a 1/4th of how much I did, I'd be happy. I will mention the ones that are teaching tango in their cities, because while I never had the opportunity to take classes with any of them, they are such amazing dancers, and such awesome people, I have no doubt they have a lot to give. So, here they are in no particular order. Thank you Jenna (Portland) for the awesome dances. She has a such an amazingly active following style, and if you are a follower and you have a change to take a class, ask her to show you how to improve your giro, I can guarantee she can show you how to make it amazing. Oh yeah, and sorry Jenna for the 10000 left turns I was leading, they were just too much fun, I could not help myself... ;-) You know a dancer is amazing when it inspires you to do things that you were never did before, like that gancho which I didn't even think it was possible ;-) Thank you Charity (San Fracisco) for the most fun bar none I've ever had dancing on live music Thursday and on nuevo music Sunday. I did not think it was possible for me to enjoy dancing on live music or nuevo music. Boy, was I wrong. A very good dancer from NY told me one of his best tanda ever was with Charity. Same here. Her ability to maintain a connection (despite my sometimes awfully clumsy moves) was just amazing. After that tanda on Sunday afternoon, I was high on endorphins for at least half an hour. Thank you Christina (San Francisco) for giving me my first couple of tandas of the festival. DiSarli's Corazon is just too beautiful song not to dance to and thanks to you, not only it didn't go to waste, but I got to dance to it with a great dancer. She has such a calming way of moving, she managed to keep my upper back tension (my nemesis) down, which was an amazing accomplishment in itself.

Old(er) friendships

Then there were the people that I already knew. Marika (Montreal) with her amazing embrace, Mila (Kansas City) which I have to thank for my first two tandas at Sundays afternoon milonga, which set the tone for an amazing tango day. S (NY) which sadly I only got to dance with once at the height of the Saturday mayhem, and who was such a sport about my abysmal navigation skills and inspiration at that time. Shorey (San Francisco) the best DJ I know, with her amazing music on Saturday, I only wish I was more inspired when we danced on Friday. M from NY who is such a sweet person and awesome dancer, R (Princeton) who I rarely get to dance with, which put up with my milonga dancing, M (Chicago) whom I was so glad to see again after meeting her at the NY festival, S (Montreal) and many others.

And then last but certainly not least, my lovely Debbi, with whom I had the last dance each night (well, maybe I should say every morning) and who after less then one year of dancing she dances better then most.

The festival, the good

Tova & Carlos got a lot right with this festival. They managed to attract fantastic dancers from everywhere, they got amazing DJs, danceable live music (those of you who read my blog on regular basis, you didn't think I was ever going to say that, didn't you?), long milongas so we had lots of time to enjoy all those things (like 2 all nighters and the Friday till 3am). The location was Springstep which has great hardwood floors, a great sound system, plenty of parking and it's easily accessible. The themed milongas were fun, a lot of people got into it and came dressed in some very inventive outfits. I thought some of the decorations were inspired, some in my opinion were not (the vertical food thing was awkward at best), but I personally don't think decorations are all that important at a milonga, to me they are pretty much at the bottom of my list (way behind the layout, lighting, drinks and food). Tova & Carlos convinced a local restaurant to open at 5AM so people can go have an early breakfast after the all nighters, which was a nice touch.

the not so good (in my opinion)

table layout - Saturday, the layout of the tables and chairs was uninspired at best. Having chairs along both long walls and nothing else had everyone walk on the dance floor which created a navigational nightmare. I am surprised I have never seen any organizer using cordons to mark the dance floor. They don't take any space and I suspect they would be highly effective at stopping people from using the dance floor as a pass through area.

performances - In my opinion the performances were way too long (3 couples 3 songs each) and taking a one tanda break between the second and third couple was an odd choice at best. They were also very late, past midnight so all the people who were there for the performances were forced to stay longer they would've otherwise. The festivals where performances are scheduled separately, before the milonga are best in my opinion, as it gives one the option of not going to either the performance or the milonga if they don't want to. As far as the performances themselves, while technically perfect (as much as I could tell) they had a lot of acrobatics which I personally don't care for. They reminded me of gymnastics competitions, where the gymnasts are performing complicated heart stopping moves with a face expression that shows the incredible concentration required to do all that stuff. I fail to see tango in all of that. I watched the same people dancing socially later and I liked their social dancing a lot better.

crowded - In my opinion the large studio at Springstep was not large enough for the amount of people that were in attendance. Between 10PM and 2AM it was almost impossible to dance without getting injured. While the orange studio was opened as well on both Friday and Saturday, almost no one went to dance there. I tried, it just felt weird to ask someone to dance and take them to another room. I think more people would've used the room if it was designated as an "alternative/nuevo" milonga with a different DJ.

lighting - The lighting is awkward in the large studio at springstep and aside from that they only had two reflectors on a single stand. As a photographer I am more sensitive then most to the lighting and there is no way to properly light a room with one light stand. I wish some of the effort and money spent on decorations went to a better lighting setup. Which reminds me, I continue to be surprised by people's preference for dark rooms for milongas. How is a dark room more suitable for tango is beyond my ability to understand.

The conclusion

The positive far outweighed the negatives, it was a great festival, looking forward to the next year. And now I'm going back to the regularly scheduled post-festival depression ;)