At a recent visit to El Encuentro, or the Tango Room, I had a great time dancing and hanging out with friends.
But one thing confused me–as well as some of the men I dance with–we could not distinguish when a tanda ended…so sometimes I would end up dancing six or seven songs with one person until we just looked at each other and said, “That’s enough!”
Also, the songs in some of the tandas were mixed up–for instance, usually a set of waltzes (or vals) would be played in a tanda of songs, but that evening (July 16), a waltz would be mixed with a tango, and then maybe a milonga!
An out-of-town visitor, from San Francisco, had first noted to me the “unusual” music that was being played this evening. He questioned if this was normal for this milonga. I had no idea what he was talking about first, and told him the music is always wonderful at El Encuentro, but then after having to end several dances with several men (or they ended it with me), I realized what he meant.
When leaving at two in the morning, I asked Angel, who was DJing that night, about why he was playing such long tandas, and he insisted he did not, that people were not recognizing the cortinas…I laughed and said, Ok, if you say so….but maybe he was playing a joke on all of us, as Angel does like to kid around…as always, though, whatever music he played was the best.
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