tango mango

Dance addict that I am Tango Mango at the Rudolph Steiner School in Dartington sounded just my sort of adventure. There was no way I could get away for the full ten days so I went for the compromise - the five day half Mango. ‘Bring your harmonica,’ the organiser said.

Despite assurances of adequate showers I didn’t tick the boxes for the £5 per night camping or dormitory options. A sticky night’s dancing followed by a sticky night in a sleeping bag didn’t sound like a recipe for either ultimate fragrance or comfort. A roof, a door that closed and a bath seemed more my thing and a little ferreting about on the net got me a good single room deal in Totnes.

The preference at the Devonia was for cash. By contrast cheques were fine with the Mango. £45 bought me five days access to the dance floor at any time between 11:00am and almost midnight. Classes at beginners, improvers, intermediate and advanced levels were available in exchange for pre-paid tickets - £6 for large group lessons, and more for small groups. Private lessons at £30 each could be booked directly with the teachers. The group lesson tickets were refundable. The private bookings weren’t.

Also on offer were lunch and dinner at £5 a go. These were perfect dancers’ fodder and by my second day I’d conquered my rota phobia, one session of either washing up or cooking for every five meals consumed being the rule, and joined in. Home cooked, hot and daily different the menu offered lamb curry, chocolate brownies, chilli, different sorts of roast spuds, dahl, apple sponge, cous cous, fruit salad, with cream, chicken and lemon, baked aubergines …. Wonderful, with the opportunity to dance at least some of it off afterwards.

Although I consider myself pretty good in the kitchen I plumped, which is probably the right word, for a real man’s destiny, the washing up. Julia from Oxford, Wim from Holland and I made a good team. Once we boys found a leader to instruct us we flew through our task, sharing a warm glow later when we heard that we had been mentioned in dispatches as the fastest washer uppers of the current Mango.

Looking for a new challenge following four years of intensive salsa, tango has become my dance of choice. Not everywhere in the UK has easy access to lessons yet and then often they’re only available once a week. This is ok if you’ve got some idea of what you’re doing, but if you’re still on the starting blocks you’ve got problems. Hence the attraction of events like the Mango where aspirant tangueros with a little basic knowledge can dance with seemly abandon until well after tea time for days on end.

There is attraction yes, but also anxiety. Would the standard be too high for me as a beginner? Would there be snootiness? Would I be able to cope with it physically? As I was going alone would anyone dance with me? Would I hate it?

I quickly found the answers. Yes they would dance with me and no I most emphatically wouldn’t hate it. The standard was high and I had to work hard to keep up. On the basis that to do is to learn I spent as much time on the floor as I could where mostly patient partners helped me polish my steps and improve my floor craft.

The more one knew the more one gained and the formal teaching was excellent. Two lessons a day with a good break in between were plenty. Classes back to back were definitely for those tougher than me.

Tango is an arena where style is nearly all. On the surface the dancers were courteous and mostly forgiving, but there is a code. One principle is that once an invitation is accepted a couple can expect to be on the floor for three dances. This is known as a tander. As a man, if your partner bales out after the second dance you know your lead just isn’t cutting it. If she’s gone after the first you’ve seriously trodden on her toes in one way or another. Happily this didn’t happen to me too often.

Conventions were flouted of course, occasionally by the teachers themselves. From time to time one pair displayed a frisson of irritation with each other in mid-lesson. The class responded with hoots of glee and the odd cry of ‘domestic’. All very much taken in fun of course with the sparking partners making a big show of post session reconciliation.

Tango Mango is Ruth von Zimmerman’s baby and it is her guiding hand that keeps the show gently on the road. With her quietly efficient support crew she booked the space from the school, organised the lesson rota, martialled the cooking and washing up volunteers, took the money and dealt with the emergencies.

When the male shower failed on the last morning Ruth’s mettle was exposed for all to see. Her unilateral declaration that the boys would have to share the girls’ facility - with appropriate timeslots - faced big feminine opposition. The issue hovered in the balance until she clinched it with ‘If we are to dance we must have clean boys.’ The crisis evaporated like mist on a sunny morning.

If there was a low spot in my adventure it was right at the beginning. When I got to High Street Station in Swansea I was told that no First Great Western trains had left during the previous two hours due to a fuel spillage on the line. I was a little underwhelmed when the smiling lady at the enquiries desk suggested I should cycle to Port Talbot and take my chances there. Fortunately within minutes the evacuation buses turned up - just as the trains began running again.

That was the nadir and easy to choose. In the subsequent melange of cool music, hot food and warm dancing, its hard to pick out the zenith. Hard yes, but not impossible. I’ve been working on tango melodies for about a year and had just got to the point where I felt confident enough to play a few in public. So I did to generous applause after Friday’s dinner.

The real high spot though came for me with the performance by Argentinean tango singer and guitarist Oscar Acebras on the last day. At Ruth’s suggestion, and buoyed up by the response I’d had two days earlier, my harmonica and I sat in with Oscar for a couple of dances. It was a total joy to fit my newly learned melodies to his authentic rhythms and inflections. We played Romance de Barrio and tango classic Malena and went down a storm.

I spent the train ride up the Devon coast and back into Wales cocooned in a mild euphoria which stayed with me as I cycled bedwards that night. ‘What better way to end a five day tango experience,’ I thought, as my sciatic nerve tugged quietly at my consciousness, ‘than to get home to some solid rain and still be dancing on air.’

Maybe next time I’ll camp.

Patrick Ellis October 2009