[Tango-L] Round 1 of Milongueros del Mundo en Buenos Aires

[Shahrukh Merchant]

I went to La Viruta last night to check out the opening act of 
Milongueros del Mundo. It's a place I normally avoid (bad navigation and 
no ambience), but I must say I enjoyed the milonga last night 
(independently of the campeonato)--I should try going there more often 
on "off" nights.

While registration was supposed to be 1/2 hour before the event, which 
supposedly was at 11 pm, it was certainly going to be later since the 
pre-milonga classes at La Viruta don't end till 11 pm (and in fact went 
on till 11:30 or so). Indeed, he registrations started about 11:15 pm, 
and were being accepted all the way till the start of the competition at 
about 12:30 am.

There were 27 couples altogether, all dressed in "competition attire" 
(suits for the men--somewhat of an anomaly in La Viruta, women all made 
up and coiffed). They divided the contestants into 3 rounds of 10+10+7 
couples. They announced the countries of origin in 2 of the rounds 
(forgot for one of the rounds). It did not appear that many people came 
just for the campeonato

They included couples from: Italy (at least 3), Turkey, Greece, Uruguay, 
Colombia, México, Portugal, Korea (at least 2), Japan (at least 4) and 
Chile. I would say 1/3 of he couples had one Argentine (and if I'm not 
mistaken it was the man in all cases). Anglophones seemed entirely 
absent from the contestants and in fact after not getting any reaction 
to his English greeting, the emcee asked permission of the audience (in 
Spanish) to continue in Spanish only, and after not getting much 
reaction to that either, he proceeded to do so for the rest of the event.

The judges were Marta Anton (of Canyengue fame), Carlos Buceta of the 
"Asociación de Maestros, Bailarines y Coreógrafos de Tango Argentino," 
and Marcela Hourquebie (dancer and choreographer)--I only recognized 
Marta Anton. The couple in all 3 rounds danced to the same three numbers 
each: El Aguacero of Lucio DeMare, Cachirulo of Anibal Troilo and Pata 
Ancha of Osvaldo Pugliese.

I played judge privately as well and divided the 28 couple into three 
categories: Excellent, Good, Eliminate. I have to say that almost all 
couples did indeed dance a nice closed salon style, with minimal 
attempts to put in flashy figures or do "crazy stuff." There was no 
evidence at all of anything that anyone would remotely call nuevo.

I had 4 couples categorized as Excellent (fluid and clean motions, 
excellent partner connection, making everything look simple and 
graceful, a pleasure to watch), 11 as Good and 12 as Eliminate. The 
judges advanced 6 of the 27 into the finals for Sunday: 2 of my 
Excellents, 3 of my Goods and even 1 of my rejects!! And my two 
favourites of all were both rejected by the judges--oh well, we had 
*some* criteria in common, anyway ...

After the competition, which took about 1 hour altogether, the milonga 
continued. As an aside, the Orquesta Mariano Bujacich (a.k.a. Orquesta 
Bujacich Dominguez) was really excellent, VERY danceable, even their 
milongas which few other contemporary orchestras seem to be able to play 
like the classic milongas.

The fun continues tonight at Salon Canning (I'll be there) and tomorrow 
night at Sunderland (I won't be there--enough is enough!) with two more 
qualifying rounds (they are parallel qualifying rounds--you can 
participate in any one of them), with the final at El Pial on Sunday. If 
you want to participate, just show up with your passport or "cédula" 
(national ID card)--photocopies not accepted.

Shahrukh