I had a private reply to my post asking about my mention of milongas de barrio. I'm not an authority, and I'm sure other listeros can give much better guidance than me.
Milonga de barrio isn't a formal classification. It just means neighborhood parties instead of the parties in the city center. It's kind of your own opinion just how far away something has to be before you call it that. People also seem to be referring to a particular atmosphere. Often, these milongas are in social clubs where people bring out their whole families on weekends. It's fun going to Sin Rumbo in Villa Urquiza. It has a lot of history. It was closed down for a long time, but later it was renovated and revived. I've had a good time at Club Fulgor. Those are just for starters. You can look in the tango guides and consult a map and see just how far out you want to go. Friends of mine have taken me to places that could have been on the moon. Frankly, I don't even know where I went sometimes, but I know it was always an adventure. I've seen some pretty inventive dancing that came from people that probably never stepped foot in a tango academy. They were always pretty serious and dedicated about their dancing when I talked to them, but it also was in a context of being really a lot of fun and part of their family life. I can't explain it exactly. It didn't seem to have that separate compartment of "formal study" that we North Americans often put it in, probably since we're usually coming to it new in adulthood. It was always pretty interesting and surprising. By contrast, I don't imagine going to a bar in a North American rural area and discovering a full-blown, living, sophisticated art form. Well, the people I've talked to in Argentina don't seem to think of it exactly in terms of an "art form" either since its ends aren't primarily to entertain audiences and generate remuneration for the practitioners. (That's another area that can be different about the milongas in El Centro.) Valerie -- Cryptic Ember Tango stories by pseudonymous author Valerie Dark http://crypticember.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
