Originally published 7.6.16
My husband ran a finger below my eye. You look tired he said. I’ve never seen you with that before. Oh! I said, and looked in the mirror. I had slept little and it was true I had lines under my eyes. We're getting old he said laughing. And what the hell I thought as I went out to do messages in town before driving the hour to Edinburgh. The following week a mum in the playground said that when she told her husband she felt unwell he’d said “You’re getting old”. I laughed at her mock outrage in the retelling and at the coincidence. At least yours said “we” she said. I didn’t tell her my husband’s several years older than I.
Entrance
This year six of the seven milongas for the EITF were in the same room. The venue was the Teviot building, part of Edinburgh University. You pay £4 entry for the cafe downstairs to the friendly volunteers. I knew one of them and was warmly welcomed. This year on the same level as the salon there is a cloakroom and chairs to change shoes. If it existed in previous years I had not noticed it.
Refreshments
There were no water jugs or they were empty outside the salon. I went on a hike to find some through the warren-like building to the cafe a couple of levels back down. I came across the organiser there and mentioned it to him. Over the event sometimes there was water, sometimes not. During at least two of the other milongas in that venue I saw no table, jugs or cups for water. There are bars in that venue but the two I went to were closed. No one was drinking anyway. You couldn’t really risk it (see seating). With water unreliable or non existent people eventually got wise to bringing water bottles in with them.
In contrast I liked the tango cafe last year at Bailongo. There you could get decent food and drinks in the room itself. I remember salad and cake. It was nice and contributed I felt to the relaxed atmosphere. Two years ago at Bailongo the cafe conditions had been diastrous: the (differently managed) cafe area was right next to the dance floor which was sticky anyway, the space too small, no gangway, lighting too bright, everything had been wrong. But last year the room had changed and everything was much better. I liked the light and airy EITF tango cafe in the other Student Union building last year too though the seating had left a lot to be desired.
Rules
The tabletops had been made into diagrams of floorcraft. Distributed among these was also the most comprehensive list of rules I have ever seen. It was a pamphlet actually including another copy of the same floorcraft diagram. There were nearly fifty items to consider.
The previous night
Before getting changed I looked in to the salon and spotted some women I knew who were visiting.How had it been last night? They looked uncomfortable at the memory. One looked positively unhappy. Guys had walked up to invite, even hand-offering one of the women said with an understandable shudder. I guessed such guys had not read/cared about the rules. But then I think things change successfully for reasons other than rules. I said that with any luck it would be better this afternoon with more of that sort in workshops. In the evenings there is a bigger mix of incompatible people including workshoppers with less experience of milonga etiquette. Apparently the Friday night opening milonga had been busy and the ronda rough.
If I go to festivals - and I have tended not to, for all these reasons and more - I prefer the afternoon dancing for exactly this reason. The lighting tends to be better too.
Attendance and dancing
It was quiet when I arrived. Fourteen people on the floor, one life couple who were good dancers I had seen before and a number sitting. There were mixed ages, mixed ability. There were some good dancers, many but by no means all of these younger. It got busier over the next hour and at some points it was really busy.
The ronda at the EITF was one of the worst I can remember since...probably the last EITF. It is not bad at all in the single snap I took of this day as I was leaving but it deteriorated. It can be I think a problem with festivals where a crowd of people who don’t know each other get together, many of whom prioritise class moves over social dancing. So actually all those tabletop diagrams and rules shout that this festival is full of people who need this sort of telling. But the truth is they are unlikely to pay it any attention because from what I saw, fundamentally the festival-going type do not care about the niceties of social dancing. Some guys do, I know and some, being class-dependent or just, like me, miss years of experience in the ronda. But the ronda deteriorated over the three days I was there. Once during Sunday night the guy in front of me changed three times, though actually more than that because those three guys kept lane swapping between each other too. I remember once being between two good ronda dancers, which is to say they just kept their place, and thinking what joy, what peace, what uncommon bliss. I saw Edinburgh and ex-Edinburgh dancers with years of experience, who can get good girl dancers but who simply cared not one jot where they were or what they did in the ronda. Such arrogance is a very Edinburgh attitude among that guard. Combine that with a large influx of London dancers, the more random elements of the Glasgow and Aberdeen crowds and a sprinkling of visitors and you have the perfect storm ronda-wise. On the last day I was so frustrated I felt like raising both elbows and attaching scythes to them, at which point I considered it might be wise to quit dancing.
Conditions
Lighting was OK though it was bright spots, - theatre lights I think. By the Monday certainly the lighting had changed to this (apologies for the photo quality) which was darker but softer and less blinding. In the upper left and right sides you can see the lights they had used, now turned off.
The floor was good. The room itself is attractive. Room size and shape were OK but quite large.
Seating: chairs, tables, access
There were chairs and some tables though more on one side. The small tables made people feel quite connected I think. Big tables in contrast split people into groups. If you are in family or friend groups which some (usually less central) milongas particularly cater for in Buenos Aires then you might expect large tables. But in the UK big tables often force together people who would not necessarily sit together and separate them from others. At the EITF the tables are the small and lightweight folding kind. They are a good size but too light and in those floor conditions were knocked easily and often. That is why you could not risk putting e.g. a large bottle on them. In Buenos Aires I found the small tables more robust.
Apart from the floor not clearing in the cortina the biggest problem was the lack of gangway round the room. People walked between e.g. two dancing couples at the start of tracks and on the floor during tracks. Not just couples but groups stood on the floor in the ronda to chat at the beginning of or between tracks. Both issues worsened during the afternoon and during the festival. The worst spot for arriving pedestrians paying no heed to dancing couples was at the entrance. One pedestrian bashed into my partner and I as we danced with nary an acknowledgement in her haste to reach her seat.
Invitation
... was difficult because chairs were straight on to the floor. Being so close to the dancers, post-cortina after the first 10 seconds you had no chance to see. This happens in Buenos Aires too but I found you generally have more view of the room than in the Teviot salon because there can be more depth behind the seated dancers. Also at milongas with separate seating the seating is specifically arranged so that you can see guys often to your left and/or right and/or in front e.g. El Beso, Obelisco, Consagradas at Salon Leonesa, Salon Canning, Lo de Celia. Also, guys can and do often move around the room to be closer to invite if they are far away and /or the dancing has started.
But because in Teviot there was no gangway it was nigh on impossible to move somewhere else if you had no luck inviting at first - unless you walked on the floor and upset the ronda along with everyone else doing the same.
As the floor increasingly did not clear in the cortina it was even harder for people seated to see to invite. Sitting by the door to the left was a bad idea because the guys standing in the entrance meant your only chance was them or to try to seek invitation down a row (LHS of the photo) which is always problematic. The area to the right of the door was taken up by the DJ and ETS stalwarts. A corner at the far end was taken by other ETS experienced dancers. Everyone else fitted in where they could. I noticed visiting couples dancing often with one another and many visiting women not dancing and looking glum, though others did. The same was true, though less so for some visiting guys.
To get round the "I can't see" problem, many people, guys and girls but especially guys seat-hopped to try and get a view of girls so people never knew where to find each other and seats/tables got taken. Again, if you like a calm environment, it was not that.
Atmosphere
I am not sure. I don’t know how many cared about the conditions but there was a lot of movement in and out of the milonga though whether to classes or because people weren’t enjoying it I am not sure. Either more people are wise to poor conditions or I am more aware of them but I had a sense some people were not sticking around because of the conditions or were not getting dances. And some were. And some were having a good time.
I danced in flats with two local friends soon after arrival and two women visitors I had danced with before. I did not want to take chances with my knee with guys in those conditions. I found it chaotic, frustrating and noisy and left at 1630 after two and a half hours with much relief.
I had skipped lunch and went for good soup in the relative calm of Peters Yard five minutes away by the Meadows. Then I drove home yawning and with no desire whatsoever to return for the evening milonga when I suspected the conditions which had curtailed my visit would be exacerbated. I am much more of a local milonga girl - where those are good. Local milongas have had longer to get the music and conditions right,and these tend to attract the kind of dancers I like.
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