Fwd: Week 2

[Marisela Rizik]

www.mariselarizik.com

Begin forwarded message:

From: Habid Dall <tangob...@gmail.com>
Date: November 22, 2025 at 6:17:08 PM GMT-3
To: Habid Dall <tangob...@gmail.com>, Marisela Rizik <Mri...@aol.com>
Subject: Week 2



Greetings from the capital of tango;

Hoping everyone is well. I have been fighting flu symptoms for the last 3 days which has considerably used up 4 of my days. Not too happy about it. 

Felt good enough to make it to my friend Jorge (the DJ guy)  once a month milonga/practica last night. So, I might as well start my report on that one. 

This practica/milonga is a good example of what seems like an explosion of new and different milongas /practicas everywhere in the city. This one in a restaurant in Palermo Soho not far from Plaza Serrano, an artsy neighborhood with lots of entertainment all night long. It does  not have an official name yet as this is a trial period.

  Setting: small tables super close to each other, a little smaller than our milonguita space. So you have a bar, some tables, the dance area. Dj squeezed in a little corner of the dance floor. It reminds me of what we had at David’s restaurant years ago in Eugene. 

The glass door faces a busy street and locals and tourists walk by constantly. some onlookers stopped and peered into what was going on. Some came in for a drink while watching us dancing. Needless to say the owner of the restaurant was very happy to have the free promotion and possible new clientele. 

The schedule was 9 pm to 10 for class and then dancing until 1:00 am although some of us stayed until 2am. The owner of the restaurant wanted to squeeze as much as possible from the spectacle. He kept encouraging everyone to keep dancing.  There was one guy left eating(not a tango dancer) and he was so excited that he applauded every time a song was danced. It was really funny. 

 Overall, It was a super relaxed atmosphere. Some were sitting, some were standing. Cabeceó was minimal, everybody had danced pretty much with everybody, so people ended up dancing on the average at least 3 tandas with each other. The tanda were of 3. Lights were dimmed, not sitting by the organizing which then qualified it more as a practica than a milonga.

 There were about 25 people, a group of 6 from the Czech republic that happens to be staying nearby and chose it because it was close to their apartments. They were delighted to have many good dancers willing to dance with them. Pretty tall too.  The dancing format was closed embrace with opening for giros, which happened to be one of the themes of the class and guess what other movement? 

Going to the close side of the embrace and the cadena. Many of you in my classes have worked with this movement, so that was fun to see. 

 Floor was some kind of old wood that I found easy to dance on. 

In short, the explosion of this type of milonga/practica arrangements is happening everywhere, all the results of the economic crisis and the pandemic.  The isolation of the pandemic made people more creative, gathering outside was a way to survive the pandemic and when it was over, people retained those spaces, so nowadays there are a lot of outdoor dancing as well as dancing in the smallest of spaces because hardly anyone has money to sustain the big spaces where milonga used to happened so many of them went under. So, economics and pandemics made it acceptable to change and adjust. There are plenty of the traditional ones, not as it used to be, but they are strong as well. The tango itself will coexist in these environments molding into people's needs. Eventually, I suspect the very informal ones will co exist with the more formal and manage to live together. 

There is more about this week, but right now I'm having internet problem and hoping to send this on time. So, hang in there until next week.

Here your reminders:

Our home grown Dj Clarence will be delighting you with his choice of tangos/milongas and valses. 

And the rest of the team is working to keep your Sunday tango going. 

Next Sunday not tomorrow. The last Sunday of this month, Deanna won’t be available to teach the lessons. So, we have the idea of an open Practica from 3 to 5pm. An intimate time to work in your tango with different friends. Mary and Sandra will give a bit of structure to the Practica. Clarence will be running the music. 

My suggestion is that there are cortinas, so people have the choice to continue or to move to another friend to practice. So, the attendees can choose to be together the whole time with the same person or one tanda or two. It is a little better to have that kind of structure than to have one of the partners abruptly saying thank you and move on. Let’s remember the ideal practica and real practica is to dance a little and stop and talk. You may choose a movement to work on or work on general review of alignment and posture or a bit of each. The cost will be $10.00 per two hours. If you paid for the month, you don’t have to do anything, but if you do the drop in, then the fee is 10.00. Have fun.

La Catedral- went there on Tuesday night. A different experience more later.

Another popular Practica that behaves more like a milonga. It is el Motivo Tango. It has been around for a long time. It happens at Villa Malcom. The host does not sit you and there is no cortina. I went there on Monday. Usually go at least once when I am here. A bit more later. Ok. Have fun tomorrow, with love, Marisela