Heads remained surely and solidly lodged up peoples asses.
Attendance on Sunday was about half of Saturday, so there was quite a bit of space to move, but one still had to keep a lookout for the donkey's that possibly shot out towards you from the dark breeches of the floor.
DJ Yulia did a great job at the afternoon milonga but her one and only alternative set was not a very danceable one.. otherwise she did splendidly.
DJ Fredi should crawl under a rock and rot. He played a lot of alternative.. mostly attached to vals and milonga sets thus extending the length of those sets to 5-7. Majority of the alternative was crap. I'm sure he thought his cortina, too, was a cute and smart one as it was about tango, but it was hard as heck trying to figure out what was alternative and what was his cortina, so you ended up standing there for 15 seconds looking dumbfounded whilst trying to figure out whether to embrace or to say "thank you". Later on in the morning, circa 3 am, he started playing his sets in a completely unpredictable manner at one point playing a tango tanda that was 8 song long. You begin with an format; you end with an format. His sucky selections made me leave early.
In the hindsight: Not a festival worth paying $20 per milonga and $45 per class. Certain people will keep making the festival a destination, though. A festival for people who want to do what-the-ever-the-fuck-they-want-when-they-want-to-do-it, though; not a social dance festival.
Ta.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Sunday ; last day.
Today is the last day of the DC Tango Marathon. Here's my POV and scoop of experiences.
There's a ton of extra women and lack of dancing is causing even good follows to start thinking that they must suck and that they're not good dancers because they're not getting asked for hours - and this time most of the extra women are not women with "extra" or women "without". They're good looking good dancers.. so go figure.
As suspected, the click/clique crowd is alive and well and flourishing. Fortunately they do not have a central hangout place like the do in Portland, but it is clear they only dance with each others and not with others. Since I don't register on the clique radar I found myself sitting, also, for a hour or so in the middle of the milonga - although I have to say I could have been dancing but wasn't feeling like dancing.
The venue. Main ball at the Trinity College in a questionable area of NE D.C. Music is piped through two large sized speakers at an volume that surely damage your hearing if sitting too close to them. The floor mysteriously seems to go from slick to sticky to slick from milonga to milonga and day to day.
Music. Thorstein; so-so music.. didn't obey energy of the floor but also his milonga was deserted. Robin; splendid, as always, love this man. Laura; does not know at all how to boost or control energy.. kept playing weak stuff right when you need to build it up.. Shorey; very nice job, but too much of the same stuff, although she was the first to play Fresedo with Ricardo Ruiz - viva!! Upcoming: Yulia and Fredi.
Floorcraft. Abominable. It'd be easier to go find the abominable snowman than to find a working line of dance at this festival. People in the "middle" or "inner lane" absolutely had no respect for the outermost lane and kept pushing in or dancing into the tiniest holes possible. Small and few gaps in the tables cause people to plop up on the dancefloor right in front of you if you were not paying attention like a hawk. The """A-dancers"""... those with any national infamy were absolutely the worst and the donkeys asses. They kept dancing in a slow moving circle assuming an aura of space because constant steps and moves back toward line of dance. Width-wise they were taking two lanes. If they weren't, they were zig-zagging and taking any little space possible.. even those spaces that one would assume caused someone else to run into them, of course thus making the person whose space was stolen look like the criminal. Floorcraft is worse than in Portland during the height of the festivals - at least so I think.. I might think quite the opposite next time in Portland... fleeting thoughts, maybe.
Maybe people will pull their heads from their asses today and matters improve.. we will see.
Ta
There's a ton of extra women and lack of dancing is causing even good follows to start thinking that they must suck and that they're not good dancers because they're not getting asked for hours - and this time most of the extra women are not women with "extra" or women "without". They're good looking good dancers.. so go figure.
As suspected, the click/clique crowd is alive and well and flourishing. Fortunately they do not have a central hangout place like the do in Portland, but it is clear they only dance with each others and not with others. Since I don't register on the clique radar I found myself sitting, also, for a hour or so in the middle of the milonga - although I have to say I could have been dancing but wasn't feeling like dancing.
The venue. Main ball at the Trinity College in a questionable area of NE D.C. Music is piped through two large sized speakers at an volume that surely damage your hearing if sitting too close to them. The floor mysteriously seems to go from slick to sticky to slick from milonga to milonga and day to day.
Music. Thorstein; so-so music.. didn't obey energy of the floor but also his milonga was deserted. Robin; splendid, as always, love this man. Laura; does not know at all how to boost or control energy.. kept playing weak stuff right when you need to build it up.. Shorey; very nice job, but too much of the same stuff, although she was the first to play Fresedo with Ricardo Ruiz - viva!! Upcoming: Yulia and Fredi.
Floorcraft. Abominable. It'd be easier to go find the abominable snowman than to find a working line of dance at this festival. People in the "middle" or "inner lane" absolutely had no respect for the outermost lane and kept pushing in or dancing into the tiniest holes possible. Small and few gaps in the tables cause people to plop up on the dancefloor right in front of you if you were not paying attention like a hawk. The """A-dancers"""... those with any national infamy were absolutely the worst and the donkeys asses. They kept dancing in a slow moving circle assuming an aura of space because constant steps and moves back toward line of dance. Width-wise they were taking two lanes. If they weren't, they were zig-zagging and taking any little space possible.. even those spaces that one would assume caused someone else to run into them, of course thus making the person whose space was stolen look like the criminal. Floorcraft is worse than in Portland during the height of the festivals - at least so I think.. I might think quite the opposite next time in Portland... fleeting thoughts, maybe.
Maybe people will pull their heads from their asses today and matters improve.. we will see.
Ta
Friday, March 14, 2008
DC Tango Marathon Day 1, Thursday 13th
Been a while again...
Tonight was the (un-)official opening night of the annual DC Tango Marathon. It was at the Eastern Market in SE DC, not far from the Capitol. There was a lot of strange energy in the air this night and I was not the only one to notice it. I think it had something to do with people not quite knowing their places yet, and so there wasn't an established "clique" crowd yet. I'm sure that by the end of the first alternative milonga tomorrow, clear and definite classes will have borne out of the masses; you'll have your A and B class citizens.
The floor at the Eastern Market was it's typical late fall/winter/early spring quality; it was covered in red dust that made the floor very slippery. But by 12:30am the dust had been absorbed into peoples shoes and it even began to shine in places and got to be super sticky - kind of like in the humidity of the summertime.
Another downfall was the lack of bathrooms. In fact, I believe it to be illegal to put on a public event for which you are charging a covercharge, and then not provide lavatories for all.
I wasn't feeling very energetic nor inspired and ended up sitting quite a few sets down. The clear lack of cabeceo also throws me on a loop. We'll see how this weekend progresses, etc.
Ciao
Tonight was the (un-)official opening night of the annual DC Tango Marathon. It was at the Eastern Market in SE DC, not far from the Capitol. There was a lot of strange energy in the air this night and I was not the only one to notice it. I think it had something to do with people not quite knowing their places yet, and so there wasn't an established "clique" crowd yet. I'm sure that by the end of the first alternative milonga tomorrow, clear and definite classes will have borne out of the masses; you'll have your A and B class citizens.
The floor at the Eastern Market was it's typical late fall/winter/early spring quality; it was covered in red dust that made the floor very slippery. But by 12:30am the dust had been absorbed into peoples shoes and it even began to shine in places and got to be super sticky - kind of like in the humidity of the summertime.
Another downfall was the lack of bathrooms. In fact, I believe it to be illegal to put on a public event for which you are charging a covercharge, and then not provide lavatories for all.
I wasn't feeling very energetic nor inspired and ended up sitting quite a few sets down. The clear lack of cabeceo also throws me on a loop. We'll see how this weekend progresses, etc.
Ciao
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