Are you going to tell us your impression of the NYC tango scene, dchester?
Sure. The quick version is that the wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our time there. The classes were very good. The DJing was very good (to great) at every milonga we attended. The biggest surprise was that there was only one milonga where I didn't run into people that I knew. We will return.
Now for a more details.
The motivation for a our trip were two reasons: We had talked about going to New York for a tango weekend for a few years, and had never gotten it done. Also, Naveira was on my list of teachers I had heard a lot about, and I wanted to learn his "system" so that when people use his terminology, I'd know what they were talking about.
When we saw that Naveira was going to be in New York, we were thinking, it's now or never, so we ended up signing up for his entire series during the holiday weekend (3 classes a day for 4 days in a row, Friday - Monday).
I found him and his wife to be some of the finest teachers I've run across (and I'm specifically referring to their skill at teaching). I heartily recommend them, and will very likely take classes from them again at some point. I will say that over the course of the weekend, we started to wear down (energy wise) by the 3rd class of the day (old age, I guess).
Also, there were lots of good dancers at the classes, and I met Tangobro there.
OK, now for the milongas: We drove to New York on Thursday, and that night went to La Nacional. It was one of the smaller places we attended, with no where near enough seating for every one there (typical for milongas in the US, IME). The DJ was very good (a recurring theme for the weekend). As it turned out, this was the only milonga where I didn't run into any people that I knew (although a couple of the women I danced with there, I did see in the classes over the weekend). There was a nice performance, but I didn't know the couple who did it (although I saw them at every milonga I attended except for one).
The next night, Friday, we went to Milonga Rosa at the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant. This turned out to be my favorite of all the milongas we attended. It was crowded and had the best dancers. A lot of them were teachers that we knew, along with several other people that we knew (including the DJ, Ilene Marder, who is great, BTW). I danced more at this milonga than any of the others. Ney Melo and Virginia Pandolfi gave a very nice performance.
Saturday night, we changed our original plan, and decided to go to Milonga de Barrio at The Ball. The main reason for the change was that a friend of ours (Christy Cote) was going to be performing there, (we ran into her the night before at Milonga Rosa), plus there was going to be live music. This facility had what looked to be a new floor, and it was great to dance on. This milonga also had another room there with alternative music, although I somehow "forgot" to tell the wife about that (let's just keep that our secret)
so I didn't make it into that room. The performances were great, and the band, Los Chantas, was good as well.
Sunday night, I took the advice given and went to the Astoria Tango Club. The only tough part about this one, was figuring out where it was. The building didn't have a the street number, or any identification in any way. To be honest, at first glance I thought it was a vacant building. Eventually, I told my wife (as we walked around trying find the place), this has to be the building, so let me check the door. It was unlocked, we went in and heard the music playing upstairs, and we walked into a large, beautiful dance hall, full of people. It was a good thing I had called to make a reservation, as several of the people we talked to, were commenting on how much more crowded it was that night than typical. We had another nice night, along with having dinner there.
For the final night, we went to Ensueno which was back at the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant. While it wasn't nearly as crowded as Friday night, it was still a good turnout. We had dinner there, but didn't dance quite as much as other nights, as we were just tired.
My observations: the biggest difference between the milongas we attended and home was: more people danced close embrace (not all, though), there were less bad dancers, The DJs played more Troilo, and more Laurenz (I love Laurenz, BTW). I liked having the milongas at restaurants where you could have dinner as well.
