[Tango-L] Tango in the Spring - festival report

[Myk Dowling]

Here in Canberra we just had a fantastic tango event, and I'm wondering 
if anyone is doing similar events around the world.

The basic idea for the festival was that it was all about social 
dancing. There were no workshops, no performances, just four days of 
social dancing.

The event kicked off Friday evening with the showing of a short film, 
"Si Sos Brujo: Una Historia Tango", which, as a musician, I found very 
interesting. Then there was a welcoming milonga from 8pm until midnight.

Saturday we had an Asado (Argentine BBQ) at lunch time, immediately 
followed by our club's regular Saturday afternoon practica. Then from 
9pm until 2am was "Tango til two", the Saturday milonga.

Sunday afternoon in Old Parliament House there was a short lecture by Dr 
Daniel Martin: "Tragedy, hopelessness, unrequited love", which looked at 
the demographic roots of tango and how they affected its development. 
This was followed by a short milonguita on a very small and quite 
crowded dance floor.

Sunday evening, again from 9pm to 2am, was "Tango til two - the sequel".

Monday was a public holiday in most of Australia, so the festival 
wrapped up with an afternoon milonga from 2-6pm.

There was a lot of great DJing, with well-grouped tandas and nice 
transitions. The atmosphere throughout the festival was absolutely 
fantastic, everyone was kept in a good mood, and the numbers barely 
dwindled until the closing of each milonga. At each of the three evening 
milongas, seating was arranged, with everyone being escorted to their 
table, and the tables were mixed up, attempting to get everyone sitting 
with people from different cities.

But the best thing for me was that there was no cliques; everyone danced 
with everyone, or so it seemed.

So, is anyone else doing events like this, social mixer festivals with 
no workshops, no performances, and no "Big Name" identified people? If 
not, I can heartily recommend that people try it out as an event format. 
It's really great to be able to dance with people from all over when 
they aren't exhausted after nine hours of classes.