After the festival

I intended (as I did the last year) to write every day of the festival about the festival experiences, but (just like it happened the last year - I will never learn) the time was preciously divvied up on doing things rather than writing about doing things. Soooo...

In summary, the festival was great. Lots of good workshops and great socializing with dancers. I plan on returning the next year.

One thing stood out though. It took me a year to figure out at least one of the major goals of the festival. We had a score of mostly old-by-age milongueros, who are not necessarily teachers, accompanied by the teachers teach workshops. And what would usually happen was that a milonguero would show a particular sequence and the teacher would teach the technique involved in achieving whatever the milonguero was showing.

At first, I though that was sort of weird, since tango is not about sequences, as we know. But, then it dawned on me that each one of those old-timers developed something very special in their dance in an organic way - by and large they were not taught dancers, but rather they learned via a long process of dancing. And they mostly really could not teach what they were doing systematically since their dance was not in their brain but in their heart and in their body memory.

Then the expert teachers like Susana, Maria and others, would "deconstruct" what milongueros were doing, they would distill the essential elements of it and teach methodically.

So, as a result, we got the benefit of both the practitioners and the teachers. To me that is the genius of the idea behind the Encquentro Milonguero. I hope they continue the same way into the future.