Masquerade Milonga

What is Milonga?

In most common use of the phrase milonga refers to a festive social dance that tango music is played and dancers dance tango. There are many rules to dancing tango and novices and first time tango dancers will surely find it confusing, and sometimes alienating. Many people come to milongas just to enjoy watching the dancers and socializing with their families and peers.

IMPORTANT: If you want to fully enjoy the experience of milonga and are interested in dancing tango and participating in the New Year's eve dance, we highly encourage you to take some private and group lessons to learn at least the basics of tango. Please feel free to contact us and we will point you in the right direction.

Another meaning for milonga is a style of music that is played at the dances. A milonga is a style of tango music that has a very specific rhythm. The underlying 2/4 rhythm can be described in music terms as a dotted quaver followed by a semi quaver, then two quavers as shown below.

The natural accent on the first and second beats of the bar fit nicely with a brisk walking style of dancing whereas the more experienced dancer will also play with the off-beats using what we call a "traspie".

Some other important terminology used in tango circles:

Tanda : A set of tango pieces ending in a short snippet of non-tango music (cortina). All pieces of music in a tanda are at the very least of the same style tango, milonga, Vals, Nuevo, but traditionally the rules of a tanda go even further specifying that not only should all pieces in the tanda be by the same tango orchestra, they should also be of roughly the same period in that orchestra's career, and with the same singer (if they a sung). Most commonly a tanda is a set of 4 pieces, although it is quite common to only play 3 in the case of a tanda of milongas, as dancing milonga tends to be quite demanding especially on a stinking hot day. The idea is that when you invite someone to dance, or accept an invitation to dance, you dance the entire tanda with that person, then when the cortina comes on you both return to your seats, and wait for the next tanda to start. This way everyone gets to dance a few tango's with the one partner (often the first tango is spent finding out where each other is in terms of experience, and understanding of the music etc...) but then everyone gets a chance to mingle, and no-one is able to hog one person all night. For the more experienced dancers, it also creates an opportunity to pick which dancers they want to dance with to which style (milonga, tango, vals etc...), or even which orchestra, as sometimes you connect really well with one dancer for a particular style, but not so for another style. In Argentina, the dance floor literally clears at the end of a tanda, whereas in other countries some of these rules aren't always followed as strictly.

Cortina : A short snippet of non-tango music used to separate tanda's.

Cabeceo : An invitation to dance by making eye contact with the prospective partner from a distance, and then tilting the head towards the dance floor. This invitation is traditionally issued by the man, however, in some places it is becoming acceptable for a woman to initiate the invitation. It is also becoming more common to use a verbal invitation, especially among people you know. The cabeceo is designed to protect men's fragile ego's as an open rejection from a prospective dance partner could cause considerable embracement. This way, if the woman doesn't want to dance with a guy, she just doesn't make eye contact with him, or if she accidentally does, and can't pretend not to have seen the invitation, at least it is only the two of them that know anything about the rejection. Like many things in tango, it does work both ways, a woman can stare down a potential partner to the point where he is almost obliged to invite her to dance (believe me I have seen this happen), however, if the guy for whatever reason really doesn't want to dance with the woman, all he need do is avoid looking in her direction, or pretend to be focusing on something else. Although the cabeceo is common in Argentina, I have rarely seen it used anywhere else, in most other places I've danced tango, a verbal invitation is generally preferred.

Milonguero : This is the name given to the most skilled dancers that frequent milongas. As milongas tend to be very crowded, the true milonguero needs to be able to dance in a very small space, yet still be able to make the dance interesting for his partner. This lead to a style of dancing tango called Milonguero which is strictly close embrace and devoid of any high leg flicks or moves that take up too much space or endanger others on the dance floor. In the traditional sense, someone was considered a "Milonguero" if they could dance within the space of 1 baldosa (floor tile).