Ardingly Tango Festival 2012: The Dancing

6th June 2012

Introduction | Workshop Notes: Part One | Workshop Notes: Part Two | Dancing and Conclusion

Introduction

This entry is a review of the milongas at the TangoBootCamp / Festival in Sussex over the weekend of 28th - 29th May.

(Note: I headed off on Tuesday afternoon, so I didn't attend the cream tea Milonga on Tuesday. But I'm sure it was lovely :)

Saturday

The Saturday Milonga ran from 9pm to 3am.

There were two rooms:

  • Upstairs: Traditional Tango Room
  • Downstairs: Nuevo and Tangoable Chill Music Room

Upstairs had DJs Diego Doigneau & Tony Walker, live music from Sexteto Milonguero, and performances from Dario & Claire Da Silva, and Joel Daou & Alina Kolonitskaya.

I wandered between up and downstairs - watching some of the performances, and some of the live sets, and then wandering downstairs when it got too busy upstairs.

I enjoyed the evening, the music and people were great, and I collapsed exhausted around 2am. It was a great night - basically, quite similar to a major "event" night at Negracha's, but with decent floorcraft and friendly dancers.

Sunday

The Saturday Milonga ran from 8:30pm to 3am.

There were two rooms again:

  • Upstairs: Traditional Tango Room
  • Downstairs: Nuevo and Tangoable Chill Music Room

Upstairs had DJs DJs Tony Walker & Sergio Schuchinsky, live music from Otros Aires, and performances from Pablo Nievas * Valeria Zunino, and Dario & Claire Da Silva.

Otros Aires were fantastic, really engaging and relaxed, and lit up the room all the time they were on.

I was even more puffed out this time, and only lasted until 1-ish.

Monday

There were two milongas - a "Cream Tea Milonga" at 4:45pm - 7pm, then an evening Milonga from 8:30pm onwards.

There was a singing performance from Paula de Oliveira (Argentine Singer singing classic tango tunes), replacing the sadly-missed Tracey Martin (get well soon, Tracey!).

Sunday's evening milonga was relatively quiet, but I liked the atmosphere, it seemed more relaxed and chilled to me, I enjoyed it more than the Saturday because of it. The only downside was a gender imbalance (fewer men) for this evening, whereas the other two evenings were pretty much evenly-balanced.

Tuesday

I snuck off early Tuesday, I missed the cream tea milonga then. But I'm sure it was great :)

Conclusion

This was definitely the largest Tango event I've attended. Quite possibly the biggest Tango festival in the UK this year - if you look at the Edinburgh festival , Ardingly had more teachers, more workshops, more bands and (possibly) more attendees. Quantity is not quality, of course, but as Stalin said about the Soviet Army, "quantity has a quanlity all of its own" :)

Certainly, Dario & Clare, Otros Aires, and Chan Park were unique differentiators.

Realistically, I'd expect that this is about as big as a UK-based tango weekender can ever get - my understanding is that there were around 300 attendees. It was a real experience.

~ David Bailey, 6th June 2012