Millennium Dragon: Another Summer in Buenos Aires turning to Fall

1 April 2016, this is no joke...The title proclaims: The Ideal does not close. But Confiteria Ideal is closed, temporarily - it says - for restoring it to its former glory. Being Argentina, that may take some time, wisely the sign promises 'for a while' instead of the rumored 'eight months'...but, time will tell.

No more daily afternoon milongas in one of the most famous tango venues in Buenos Aires - everyone, who owns a pair of tango shoes, hopes that once again soon the traditional airs of tango, milonga and vals will see 'the regulars' back on the tiled floor for their accustomed after work diversion of tango.

That's it, 'la persianas' are closed, who knows what is happening, if anything, behind these green curtains....

Meanwhile the Sunderland Club, temple of traditional Tango Salon Villa Urquiza Style, has already 'renovated', not totally, just the gymnasium/dance floor. Sunderland Club is not exactly a romantic venue, it is indeed a baseball court with all the trimmings for a sports venue, and - as a bonus - a reasonable priced very good restaurant inside the building. On Saturdays, tables and chairs are arranged at the edge of the baseball court, tango music fills the hall, and mostly elderly married couples come for their Saturday dining out and tango treat. A few groups of friends congregate to celebrate a birthday, and some aspiring tango champions practice their elegant moves. For outsiders, arriving singly, it is rather slim pickings in terms of getting out on the dance floor for a tanda or two.
Couples dance with each other, friends dance with their table mates, and the few solos are left to wait for a successful cabeceo. Unless one finds an acquaintance among the scant singles, dancing does not materialize...nobody dances with an 'unknown' here...

A large hall with terrible acoustics re-enforced by loud whirring of overhead ventilator fans, the Sunderland Club lacks elegance and warmth, but is strangely proud of its unique aspect in the Buenos Aires tango scene.

Monica and Jorge preparing for their performance of the evening.

Monica Parra and Jorge Olguin after their show of tango, vals and milonga are being presented with a souvenir of their performance.

The floor of the Sunderland Club used to be polished concrete, hard both on athletes' and dancers' feet. It is now covered over with wood. Due to economic constraints the new layer is NOT made of parquett flooring, but of lacquered plywood sheets, enhanced with some kind of gooey material. It is so sticky, that it makes pivoting (a critical move in tango) almost impossible. After an hour of 'pivoting' albeit during a lesson, not during the actual dance (I did not dance one dance) the soles of my new shoes looked like the example on the left. It took an hour of dedicated scrubbing with steel wool to get the gloop off, unfortunately together with the smooth leather surface, to leave me with something like the example on the right.

During the last couple of weeks here, once again - a few outings into the surroundings....