Milonga masters you should see

Dancing milonga is pure joy and happiness. Unfortunately there are many communities where the the milonga tandas empties up the dance floor. For one reason or another, the group of dancers who love and enjoy milonga is often minority.

“I want to dance with you”, she said over the table during our dinner with a group of milongueros after the daily milonga.

This goes against all invitation rules of traditional milongas, but who cares… I also wanted to dance with her and even without this I would have invited her.

That evening I came late! I spot an empty chair next to her and I happily took the opportunity.

“Let’s dance!”, I said without even thinking of cabeceo.

“Oh, but it’s a milonga tanda”

“So?”

“So, I don’t dance milongas”, she said.

“Let’s dance anyways!”, I insisted.

You don’t even know how many times this happens: women are avoiding to dance milongas and gentlemen are considering it as time to rest a bit. The bars are usually full when milonga time comes.

Let me be honest: I often do this as well.

That is very unfortunate since milonga tandas can be the most uplifting parts of the evening. That’s why when I’m DJing I pay very special attention to them. I sometimes think that you can tell if someone is a good DJ just by checking out his/her milonga choices.

The old masters

In this article I will try to give you some inspiration. Milonga can be danced in a wild way doing crazy steps, but it can also be danced in a subtle and controlled way. My preferred way is the second one, but I know that both can be very enjoyable if you connect well and respect the partner.

These masters are not show dancers, although as you are going to see, many of them perform for the camera – even when they are recorded dancing in the ronda.

I know that many of them had health issues so they had problems dancing full milonga tanda of 3 songs (some of them couldn’t even finish one song alone), but that didn’t takes any of the value of these videos.

Watching these videos will not only give you inspiration – they are a great way to give you ideas about musicality. I strongly believe that tango world is saturated with the same style of the show dancers and champions. Whenever a look I see majority of dancers doing the same steps ans sequences – take these videos as a chance to shake up the tree and learn something new.

Watching these milonga masters will also give ideas to some of the dancers that dancing milonga can be also done with very simple repertoire, using 2-3 steps – no more; and be fun and elegant in the same time.

1. Jorge Garcia “El Gallego”

I guess many of you herd about his more known brother Dany “El Flaco” Garcia, but I consider Jorge Garcia a better dancer. This is why I included him into this list.

What I don’t like in this video (as you’ll see with some of others as well) is that he focuses on performing so much that often forgets about his partner. Please, try not to learn this!

2. Chiche Ruberto with Mirta Tiseyra

Not long ago I read Monica Paz commenting about his dancing and explaining how excited was she when she first time danced with him – he is a great master and serves as a great inspiration to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3wgnWvre04

3. Ernesto Jorge De Gouvea and Irma Barrientos

Unfortenately I could not embed the video directly here (due to the limitations set by the owner on Youtube), but it’s enough for you to click on the image and you will be taken to see it directly at the source.

If I had to choose one of these videos to be the best one – I think it’s this one. Why? Because they dance in a very very simple way and yet, it’s perfect. All they do is just traspie. That’s it!

4. Pedro Sanchez with Eva Garlez

Pedro has great musicality and watching him gives me great inspiration. He uses simple repertoire and yet, the sequences he creates are not simple by any means.

5. Osvaldo y Coca Cartery

Watching Osvaldo y Coca is always show. Even their interview on Practimilonguero is a more interesting than others – not because of its content, but because the personality of Osvaldo. He was a great star of the milonguero scene.

In this video, in my opinion, he performs too much, but you can still get valuable lessons and inspiration.

Hey, sorry to interrupt…

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6. Jorge Kero with Josefina

What I like about this video is the way he expresses great musicality with very simple repertoire. The energy is calm and grounded, but the movements look easy and with clear intention.

7. El Pibe Sarandi with Naoko Hirai

My impression of the videos I’ve seen is that Ricardo Maceira aka El Pibe Sarandi is a great performer and he loves to act. Although I’m no fan of performing and acting, I get great value and inspiration when I see how he interprets the music with very very few steps: in fact I can count two or three, no more.

8. Ricardo Viqueira with Mirta Tiseyra

Ricardo Viqueira is also a great performer, but he is not acting. He is a proof that one can dance milonguero with a lot of steps. This video gives me great inspiration and ideas about musicality.

I want to here mention Mirta (if you go up, you will also notice her name in the video with Chiche) – she is also great teacher and inspiration, and had great influence on my dancing as well.

9. Santiago Cantenys and Adela Galeazzi

Santiago is not well known dancer, but the few videos of him dancing made great impression on me. But the greatest inspiration here is how Adela gets the best of the dance with him – stealing little pauses between beats to express her own personality.

I must add here that the Santiago’s style reminds me of Jorge Garcia’s dancing and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was his student or admirer.

What are your favorite milonga social dancers? What non-celebrity tango masters inspire you?