What is encuentro milonguero?

Since not many dancers in our corner of the world ever visited encuentro milonguero, we feel obliged to give them a little more basic information, something which more experienced milonguero dancer is already familiar with. Consider this page as your guide to check if you belong to our event.

Encuentro milonguero is an international tango event that welcomes milonguero dancers who respect the tango tradition from the Golden Age of tango in Buenos Aires.

Our main criteria for accepting participants is if they respect the traditional Codigos of tango (explained in details bellow).

The purpose for insisting on this is to create warm and friendly atmosphere where tango is used to share, not to compete or show off.

We are not welcoming show dancers and we are not selling workshops or dancing to live music. Our event is completely different than marathons or festivals.

What is required for you to be accepted as a participant?

→ Respect – First of all you need to respect the traditional Codigos of tango and other dancers in the milonga and on the dance floor.

→ Level – The level of the dance is also important, since the number of the participants is limited and we want to give priority to the best dancers.

→ Balance – One of the criteria, that goes without saying, is that participants who have partner will have priority, because we want to provide balance between the number of male and female dancers. We also want to provide balance between different ages, because we believe that is good for the flow of energy in the milongas.

Have in mind that if we don’t personally know you and have no way to know that you are a dancer who respect the Codigos, we will ask you to provide a person whom we know and trust and who can give us his/her word that you belong to this kind of event. We have to do this because we want to create friendly atmosphere.

The most important Codigos of tango you are expected to respect

We believe that majority of the dancers are already familiar with the Codigos of tango, but here is a list of things which we believe are important:

At the milonga…
→ We don’t speak or make loud noise during tandas, to avoid disturbing the music and the dancers. If you want to speak, there will be a bar where participants can socialize.
→ We do invitations only with “Cabeceo” and “Mirada”, preferably from sited position – for which will be provided equal number of seats as the number of dancers. Making invitations with approaching is out of question.
→ Taking pictures or videos is not preferred, but if you do, please do not use flashlight and try not to disturb the dancers or make them uncomfortable in any way.

On the dance floor…
→ We step on the dance floor with care not to disturb the flow. We always prefer to use the corners as a place to enter and always asking permission from the couple before.
→ The ronda moves counter-clockwise. We move with constant speed, so not to disturb the dancers before and after us. Keeping the right distance between the couples is responsibility of the man that dances behind.
→ We never move back and never surpass others in the ronda.
→ Talking between songs is considered polite, but we never talk during the dance.
→ Talking between songs is considered polite, but we never talk during the dance.
→ After the dance the man has obligation to escort the woman to her place.
→ We respect the “one tanda rule”, which means that every milonga you should dance with one partner only one tanda. This is important because it provides fluidity and enables more dancers to experience the magic of the dance.
→ During the cortina, the dance floor must be completely empty.

In the embrace…
→ We dance milonguero tango, which is danced in (close) embrace.
→ We adapt the length of the steps, the choice of repertoire and the energy we use to the space that is available. We do this to allow others to enjoy the dance floor.
→ We always have our elbows down to avoid hitting other dancers nearby.
→ We avoid using “boleos”, “ganchos” or any other steps that can hurt others and take a lot of space, or that stop the flow of the ronda.
→ The dancers should respect each other and adapt their level of dancing to the partner.