Disastrous 1st visit to Club Gricel

Buenos Aires 2009 Tango adventure Monday April 13, day 69:

Lunes de Tango

My first visit to Club Gricel, Cool Milongas of Buenos Aires: Club Gricel , was a bit of a disaster. I had heard about this Traditional Milonga and wanted to check it out. I invited Norma to come along, so I didn't have to deal with cabeceo. Norma knew the Monday night promoters Patricio and Adriana. We showed up early and attended the Tango dance class by Nito y Elba Garcia. They taught a couple of patterns with a sacada, a rulo step and a parada. They dance more in a Show Tango Style than Milonguero Style.

After the class we were sat at a small table near the door. Norma was wearing a canary yellow party dress that looked kind of like it was from the 50s. One of the ladies at the next table was looking at her with contempt. I think that this woman was was a tourist with a younger ArgentineTaxi dancer. The dance floor was very crowded, and at the time I hadn’t yet adopted the space efficient Milonguero Style; I was still leading snapping boleos, gaunchos, paradas, foot drags, sacadas and enganches. I know now that all of these moves are inappropriate on a crowded night at Club Gricel, and I have for the most part completely eliminated these steps from my repertoire.

At one point during the night another couple on the dance floor pushed us. At the time I didn’t understand why this woman was so aggressive. I recently read a post on the Tangospam blog, http://tangospam.typepad.com/tangospam_la_vida_con_deb/2010/08/out-of-the-mouth-of-babes.html where the author was kicked four times, during one tanda at Club Gricel, by a woman doing boleos. In retaliation, she kicked the woman back. I didn’t realize until I started writting this post that I had probably inadvertently caused the woman that pushed us to be kicked as I lead Norma’s boleos. After I read the post on Tangospam, I slowly came to the realization that I had been guilty of committing one of the typical dumb Tango tourist dancer mistakes, and had contributed to the widely held belief that tourists are bad dancers.

I didn’t return to Club Gricel for the remainder of my 2009 Tango Adventure, but in 2010 I became a regular Club Gricel dancer, this time with more awareness of the necessary navigational skills and dance style that it takes to become a member of, as my teacher at Milongueando 2009 Alicia Pons, Milongueando 2009 Grand Milonga, put it “The string of pearls “ circulating around the ronda. In a case of not so instant Karma, just over a year later, I was kicked very hard by a wild boleo at Club Gricel; it took a couple of weeks for the cut on my calf to heal.

I have been told by Profesora Silvina that it is necessary to Pagar derecho de piso, which translates to: you have to pay for the right to be on the floor. The dues paying process in Buenos Aires takes time.