Berlin milongas: people & dancing

People

Berlin has very different crowds attending the various trad milongas. It is good to have milongas that cater for different tastes. Leaving aside the non-trad milongas that I did not go to, I found that in Berlin people separate largely or at least most obviously by age. The young crowd dance in a fashionable, traditional way which is probably the aim of most people dancing in Europe today.

The younger set also have some particularly good DJs.  One local teacher said that these days in Berlin almost no DJ bills themselves as non-trad which was interesting though from the milonga listings and the one, packed, alternative milonga I saw this does not seem to be the case even if it is indicative of the way things are going and perhaps have been for some years. 

Milonga Popular, Alma (hosted at Tango Loft), Nou on Fridays and Cafe Dominguez were where I saw Berlin's "in" crowd, in as much as an outsider can tell. They were also at Loca (hosted at Tango Loft) along with a mix of other dancers too and there were a few at Max and Moritz though fewer than I had expected from hearsay. When I talked about these milongas with local dancers who did not go to these places, they shied away and would not consider going. It is the same in London though. Some who might go to Tango on the Thames or La Mariposa will avoid Tango Etnia or Corrientes. The  music, atmosphere and dancing is different. As in London, these Berlin milongas clearly have quite a reputation. The women at these milongas are almost exclusively young, in their twenties, maybe their early thirties, with the odd exception. At Café Dominguez there was a mix of ages with the skew still towards young women.  There were also one or two children. I'm not sure why Café Dominguez attracts this different crowd. Possibly during the week older dancers with families and careers might not tend not to go out to Alma and Loca and Milonga Popular. Perhaps these people,  like me prefer a weekend afternoon milonga.  Two (young) women I met there from Hamburg told me the scene is older in that city but better in Berlin.

There were older couples at Roter Salon and Villa Kreuzberg and at the Werkloft with Michael Rühl.  At the latter two venues older dancers tended to arrive in couples and for the most part to stay dancing together.  I would say the dancing is different to the trad tango I saw younger couples dancing and dancing to a broader definition of traditional music.  Some of the dancing was very nice.  I remember couples at Villa Kreuzberg and the Werkloft who were lovely to watch.

Among the older dancers, where these were less experienced, I was surprised how many (although not the majority) danced in open hold, even when dancing with the people who would seem to be their life partners. In contrast at Milonga Popular where there seemed to be quite a few new women dancers, most were in the embrace. 

Dancing

I found getting the dances I wanted generally quite hard in Berlin. But at places with good music and dancing there were the youngest dancers, many very accomplished. I found Berliners looked through me but this is often the case when you are a stranger in a local tango scene. There is a pool of young, good, attractive women dancers there, known to the local men and I have seen everywhere I have been in the UK and abroad that most people prefer first to dance with those they know. It is not surprising then that these women are the ones the men choose rather than a very tall, middle-aged visitor of middling dance ability with no interest in making her dance look elegant at the expense of distraction from good feel with the current partner.  I had some very nice dances but I did not accept some dances I perhaps should have done, I am glad I did not accept a few other dances and I accepted a few dances I wish I had not.

That is probably par for the course. On a first trip you expect to take the rough with the smooth. I expected to make dance and social gaffes and hoped to be forgiven them. The milonga is not known to be a forgiving environment or even for giving chances, but some people are understanding of the challenges faced by visiting dancers and more tolerant of the mistakes people make. It is true that I did not really find this to be the case in Berlin, but then it is often not the case anywhere else either. I mean only to report this but not to condone it.

A charming young guy I met in Milonga Popular told me that Germans dance with people they know. I heard this time and time again from locals while I was there and from friends and good dancers who had visited Berlin before me and found it "unfriendly" or hard to get dances. But I talked to men and women, locals and visitors and found them just as pleasant as you find anywhere else. I can't say that I found being "looked through" something peculiar to Berlin. It is perhaps marginally more the case in Berlin. While I was there someone told me they experienced exactly the same in Paris and in other cities.  I have seen the same in Amsterdam, Zurich, London and across the south of England.  Once you get to know people there tend to be more invitations.

If you go alone to the Berlin milongas with good music and you go primarily to dance  then as is probably true in most other big cities I suggest you need to be an excellent dancer, or willing to accept  most dances that come your way, or be young or already well known there or have friends there. Alternatively, go, as I did, with a variety of objectives  in mind other than just dancing.