The 4th Tango Festival "La Milonga" in Moscow

Text: Robert Schmitz-Niehaus
Photos: (Sasha) Alexandr Vistgof

"La Milonga" is the home of Sasha & Olga, the initiators and organizers of the festival. They have opened a studio with two practicing rooms, the first and only permanent location dedicated specially to tango argentino in Moscow. Olga - designer by profession in normal life - has put her footprint to the spot by applying fresco like, 3-dimensional paintings to the walls with popping out items. A big event will start from here. Sasha and his team have invested a lot of work - and still lot's to come! A professional camera team is present taking interviews, small nibblish bites and drinks are served at the bar, everything served and presented is high end prime quality. 

The whole Moscow tango scene - a pleasant mix from 18 to 70, has gathered, the invited masters and musicians are present - space deludes and air gets thick- the location isn't designed to cope with such a crowd. The atmosphere is very easy going and respires intimacy.  Friendly, open minded faces with straight eyesight look at me, the foreigner, some of them I already know from the preceding evening. In both rooms people dance, very cultivated and disciplined, appealing. Some of the dancers are fluent in English. Some members of the scene are "Tango Tourists", we share some acquaintances from Nijmegen, Sitges, Berlin....nothing reminds me of "Iron curtain", but I am welcomed by cosmopolite people without restraints. This also applies to the non english speaking members - with whom I just communicate in TANGO: understood worldwide!

Tango has been brought to the conscience of public life - about 600 people have come to the sold out opening ceremony in the concert hall to listen to the wonderful music performed by the Sexteto Andorinha, an internationally experienced tango formation from Germany, to watch the performances of selected Moscow and St. Petersburg solo dance couples and the stage acts of the four master couples. Two hours of enchanting and enlightening tango are offered, recorded and transmitted by two local TV teams, lauded by the argentine ambassador. The hall is echoing from "Bravo" - Superb. Besides me the grandmother of Olga Leonova (not the designer) sits with tears in her eyes. I had offered her some raisins during the show and we talked a little - in English! She had wished so desperately to see her grandchild dance on stage and was - honestly entitled to - proud of the empathic, dreamlike performance of Olga and Slava. By the way: she not only dances on stage like that - I had the honor on Monday night.

Milonga

After this opening we head for the milonga. I am entering a vast room in the basement, obviously being a noble club at regular times - at the entrance there is a display "Face & Dress Code Control". The lowered dance floor is about 100 m² of solid wooden floor and easy to dance. There is enough seating capacity on comfortable sofas and chairs. The rear side of the room features a long bar on a leverage of one step. This way a 3 level room is created witch allows to find someone easily. The welcoming starts, even for me only being here for two evenings dancing. The reception within the Moscow scene is very open and truly warmhearted, admirable. The Sexteto Andorinha and DJ Felix from Buenos Aires heat up the audience andgift me with three soaking wet T-shirts.

That way it continues every evening after: As off 10 p.m. milonga, heated up by Felix and his "Trompetto" yellings in between, topped with life music by Sexteto Andorinha, being a pity without their "Voice", but one evening a Moscow singer lend hers being frenetically applauded - maybe the organization committee could make up its mind to accept musical formations in their ordinary set up for the next event. This example proved that tango with vocals can be danced very well. The evenings are always garnished with show parts of the attending masters and other professionals like Juergen from Vienna who will open a milonga in Kiev soon and give classes there, a fashion show.

The milongas on Friday and Saturday are pretty crowded but spirit is high, enchanting and extroverted. Everything is prepared with a lot of attendance to detail: whether is the flowers or pictures for the masters or their table reservations - everything is planned and taken care off with perfect precision. TV cameras are present all the time. The immense effort pays off and  the - to my sense -  best milonga is on Sunday. The energetic big bang cocktail is ready, is boiling, everything circulates tenderly and without stress, the orbit is reached. Although it is Monday morning Felix is juggling his tapes until 6 a.m. - usually only till 5a.m. - as nobody wants to leave the room filled with positive energy, charged by everybody and then carried by it. This night I had only dances with on highest level dancing tangueras.

Workshop with Demian & Carolina

The audience was international but mainly Russian of course. Exciting is the different styles of dancing due to the origin of the Russian ladies: Moscow is dancing absolutely different than St. Petersburg - everybody very good, just a matter of personal preferences. The end of the festival is marked by the "Chill out Milonga" on Monday evening. All foot and joint sick tangueros and tangueras gathered a last time in order to hug totally exhausted with dark rings beneath the eyes . everybody is done in by the time of the 7th milonga. Many felt like having attended a 7-day milonga.

Being a tangomaniac I join as many classes as possible. Those are offered at a concept that any level of skill can have a full set of classes every day, totaling up to 40 classes you could choose from. I booked classes with all masters. The location is very well chosen: a theatre. Main and off set stages are used. The atmosphere within the rooms is superb, but is well topped by the masters! Every one is prime world class. What is submitted in the 90 minutes is unbelievable - and the content is really hard core tango. There isn't a "best of", it's a matter of personal preference, each of the masters are very charismatic and unique! I whish I could experience such a loaded event more often.

In the workshop with Juan & Gimena

Outstanding as being totally different from concept and therefore valid to a special survey was the class "Improvisation - dancing through a game" by Juan & Gimena. I don't want to publish their pedagogic thoughts but it was a tremendous experience what one could do with a piece of paper; everybody was in a good mood, smiling, laughing instead of featuring a concentrated, serious mimic. I'm convinced that each participant took a lot with him or her out of these 90 minutes. Personally I was smashed by this - at least for me - new approach to tango.

Bottom line: this journey was worth going on! A wonderful festival with lots of precious moments. In case I can manage to free myself,  I'll join in again next year. Ochen' khorosho! Spasibo to Sasha and his team and all the others having contributed to generate this extraordinary event.

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October 2006