Así se baila el tango (?)

Today was the D-day for me. I went to my first milonga in Murcia. (For those who are not acquainted with the world of Argentine tango – milonga is a place where people dancing tango meet, talk, drink and first of all dance tango). Of course, I was really nervous but, on the other hand, a year ago it had been my first time in Poznań, so I knew what to expect more or less.

There weren’t that many differences between milonga here and milonga in Poznań. People were also not so open, there were groups and the whole environment was quite closed. Probably there are also conflicts I don’t know about. It is a pity that something as beautiful as tango is spoilt by the pursuit of money but this is how it is, and for me it was a bit disappointing that even here, where people generally care less, it is like that.

Another trivia from the Murcian tango world is that here milongas, or at least this particular one, are more chaotic (yes, I know I’m in Spain). Sometimes there are four, sometimes three tangos in a tanda; the rule that a man should dance with one woman throughout the whole tanda wasn’t respected that much and it wasn’t because the women were poor dancers. Instead of a traditional cortinas, sometimes the people were dancing salsa or cacharera, which was quite shocking to me.

Anyway, I had an occasion to dance with a few middle-aged men going by the names of Pepe, Jose, Antonio or Alfonso and another one with a two-syllabic name starting with P. With Alfonso or Antonio it was crazy but creative, with one of the P-named guys it was boring, but the most fascinating was to dance with Irina, hopefully my future maestra here. I don’t have to mention that now when I’m writing this, Irina is probably treating her mutilated feet (I admit to committing the aforesaid mutilation). Nevertheless, with her I felt the music, I was the music, she interpreted it so beautifully. For such moments it is worth paying the price of all the doubts in the world, and believe me, I’ve had a lot of them.