La Nuit Blanche

Tango Porteño, 2006.
Photo: Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

It’s interesting to witness the rise and fall of milongas.  In New York, there are so many milongas and practicas on any given night (for the small crowd of dancers that live in this city) that it is inevitable that every month, new ones spring to life, as other ones die out.

It’s like the notorious hit and run fads of the restaurant industry.

Dancers are fickle, hosts get too comfortable, DJs have changing tastes, there is the challenging give and take, or opposition, between the classicism and the modernism of tango in the 21st century.  Some milongas find a niche where certain dancers always feel like they’re family.  Others are constantly reinventing themselves to perk our interests.  Some are very supportive to beginners, while others are intimidating.  A few serve alcohol, and the floor soon degenerates into a free-for-all-for-those-who-can’t-hold-their-liquor…

But occasionally, it all just comes together, to create a few hours of perfection.  A venue so beautiful, we’re willing to forget about the incredibly crappy floor.  Rotating DJs who are long-time favorites in this city, who whet our appetites with anticipation.  Where there is no dress code, but we feel dressed up anyway, because the mood is so romantic.  Where tangueros and tangueras feel loved and special, because, for once, in this godforsaken city, there is no sacrifice demanded of us, no legal or financial issues with real estate to tax our nerves and wallets.  We could just walk across to the pier, and start dancing…

Tango Porteño at South Street Seaport was such a place.  Well, we still have it, but it’s a little different now.  I don’t know exactly what happened back in May, but what is certain is that the principle has been destroyed.  The $5 that is going out of our pockets is incidental and completely negligible.  This is a rare, fabulous milonga, and money is nothing as long as we can still dance here.  But the magic is gone.

I was having a conversation about this with a couple people this past weekend, disappointed that the night was ending so soon.  One tanguera standing next to me insisted on viewing things in a hopeful frame of mind:

“Oh c’mon…  It’s not dying.  It’s evolving.”

True, we still have the venue, although we’re being charged for it.  We still have the milonga, although it’s been cut short by 3 hours.  And due to the shortened hours, there is a slight neurotic desperation in the air, of the kind that this particular milonga had previously lacked, of people wanting to get more good dances within a shorter time frame.  Where people were once so laid back (plenty of time!) that everyone used to dance with everyone, dancers are now being more highly selective about their partners (just like everywhere else).  The hope of mingling between different cliques within the community is coming to an end.  And the beginners pay for it (when I was a beginner, this milonga — and one other place — was the only place where more advanced dancers would give me a chance to dance).  And oh yes, there are fences blocking us inside a smaller square footage inside the pier. Sometimes I feel put on display, as a big crowd of non tango dancers and tourists look on from outside the fence, and make distracting comments as we dance by. And we are now forced to wear ugly neon bracelets that get stuck on our arm hairs — tasteless proof that, yes, we did pay our pennies to get in.

So…  “evolving” is not exactly the term I would use to describe this “change”.  The word evolution predicates that there is a state of change towards something better, bigger.

It remains to be seen whether or not this is indeed an “evolution” or rather, a degeneration.  It’s definitely different.  But is change necessarily a good thing?  Does change, in and of itself, mean an evolution?  I rather think there are certain points at which change is counter-productive.

The brush and the painting.

The pen and the words.

You know, that sort of thing…

We still have the milonga.  But I’d rather not delude myself into thinking it’s getting better, that’s it’s evolving.  The only thing that can be done, is to get used to it.