Saturday nights are family nights. For most part of the week, couples are allowed to go out dancing alone. But come saturdays, couples go out dancing together. As such there are many milongas out there catered just for couples, where you only notice that couples dance amongst themselves and with no one else; places such as Club Sunderland and Salon Canning.
Of course there are milongas for singles. But it is paradoxical that the best singles milonga; the place with the highest level of tango dancing; better than any of the milongas during any other day of the week, would be during this day.
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Best Place to Go Maipu 444, or commonly called Cachirulo, after the organizer, is home to the best milonga of the day, if not the week. It is about the size of a badminton court and the wooden dance floor is extremely comfortable for dancing.
The seating arrangement is very well organized, with ladies and men seated directly in front, facing one another. But it really does not matter where you sit because the level of dancing is so high in Cachirulo, if you are a good dancer, you will be in demand. If not, you might not get asked to dance even if you are sitting in front.
Dancers Extremely high level. There is a highest percentage here where the dancers are tango teachers, compared to any other milongas. You see the well known milongueros who are also teachers, like Cacho, Rosana, Miriam Pincen, Tete, Chiche and Marisa Quiroga etc... the list goes a long way.
Besides the old milongueros there are also very good young dancers. Matias and Andrea are amongst them, they are in their 20s and dance a beautiful close embrace tango. Other very good young milonguero dancers for example Osky, and that 17 year old girl I danced with at Lo de Celia frequent that place too. If you are a good dancer looking for a quality night of dancing, then this place is for you. If not, just looking at the best of the best, dance up close and learning from them works too.
Floorcraft Cachirulo can get very crowded, the milonga starts at 5pm and ends about 3am in the morning. Around 10pm till 1am, the floor can be packed. But as the dancers are excellent, you do not get bumped at all. The floor energy can be quite high and not calm like Lo de Celia because there are a lot of dancers who are able to do complicated figures, though they dance close embrace, they can be quite expressive to the music.
Music The deejay plays a nice selection of songs. He also has a special tanda of 7 songs with a romantic selection. Then Cachirulo will dim the lights a romantic ambiente; definitely a tanda for lovers. Sometimes he plays Chacarera (Argentine folklore), rock and swing.
What I like least The level of competition can be very high, due to the high level of dancing. There are times when you feel judged and evaluated by the eyes looking around you. One also feels as if some of the dancers are dancing and doing complicated figures because everyone is watching.
Memories How Meng and Sulyn were in Buenos Aires and the dejay put on a merengue tanda. How Meng and Sulyn proceeded to boogie down. Then one of the old milonguero couple came to them and exclaimed with much excitement that they would never dream that a chinese couple can do merengue so well!
It was also at this milonga that I first met Silvina.
Other Nice Places Club Sunderland, at Lugones 3161, just to soak up the family atmosphere and experience one of the most famous neighbourhood milonga. Bien Pulenta, at Peron 2543, a posh place with frequent spectacular performances; a hip place to go on saturday.
