Saturday April 7, Viruta (Experimenting!)

I'm going to title each one separately so as to keep all of this organized.

Now the locals say that the Viruta was closed for a week a few weeks ago because they do not have a license to play salsa and the municipal licensing whatever inspectors got there on a Friday night just while they were playing salsa. So you can imagine my surprise when I got the Viruta on Saturday and they were playing Reguetón (Reggaeton) and Rock. I couldn't wait for the salsa to come on, mostly to disprove the whole "salsa license" hypothesis (also to dance). However, the never played salsa, and my sources are friends with the DJ at the place, so I imagine that they'll never play salsa there.

The reggaeton, rock, and other bullshit music set lasted until 2am (or 1.30, I think) and I was pretty worried that it would go on forever. Please note that this was not the Swing set, in which they dance all that 1950's couple's danceable music. However, when any music comes on, Argentinians kind of stand there and move without any connection to the music. If the music is fast, they move more excitedly, but not in rhythm with the music. Another particularity of local culture is that regardless of the type of music, men ask women to dance ("would you like to dance Celebration with me?"). Weird. Does that happen in the US? I wouldn't know, I guess, but I think that in a hip hop club you might sidle up to somebody, but you're not going to ask somebody to dance.

But anyway, the guy at the door (and later the DJ) had told me that the set only had another .5 hour when I got there, and that was right. Then it was pure tango (and Vals and Milonga, of course). The tandas are large but they are definitely tandas. People were great and every woman I took out to dance lasted a whole tanda with me.

The students from Copello had a table which is why you should always go to some places at least once a week: that way you've got a bit of a social backbone out there. It helps if they're women and know how to dance, which was the case.

Anyway, I took off at 5am but there was still more dancing to be had. The Viruta has a great floor, but it's a bit crowded and some people have no idea what they're doing and even crash into you if you stay still. One of the worst offenders was one of my fellow students at Copello, so I'm not sure what to make of it. I hope I'm not that bad.

One of the things I'm beginning to do on the dance floor is not just dance, but try out some things that I'm thinking of, even if they're simple (like front sacadas) or difficult (like back sacadas). If you're friendly and serious and don't crash into people all the time, women will generally let you do some experimenting. In fact, in my experience they seem to prefer the experimenting. One of the foreign guys down here that women love dancing with is Michael "The Pistol" (keeps his left hand with the index finger out, but I guess he'll stop if he reads this) and he's always trying stuff, some of which doesn't work out at all.

More experimenting!