Queres tomar un café?

For those of you who need a translation of the above, it says: Do you want to have coffee?  This is a question in the milongas worth an explanation for those of you who haven’t yet visited Buenos Aires.

You have danced more than a couple tandas with the same man.  It is getting close to the end of the milonga.  You have been engaging in brief conversation between dances about the music, etc.  Since you understand the language somewhat, he decides to see if he can take things a bit further by inviting you for coffee.  You are flattered that a man who you just met for the first time wants to invite you for coffee.  You don’t have any plans after the milonga, so what’s the big deal?

You accept his invitation at the end of a tanda.  He tells you he will meet you outside on the street corner.  You feel that’s a strange way to meet him. Afterall, he seems interested in getting to know you, so why won’t he be a gentleman, wait for you to change your shoes in the ladies’ room, and then walk out with you?

Ladies, a man who invites you for coffee is inviting you for more than just coffee.  You need to learn about Argentine men and why they go to the milongas.  In a previous posting, I explained how three tandas with the same man to means you are together or at least interested.  If you continue dancing all night long with the same man, he is going to interpret that you are interested in something more. You shouldn’t be surprised when he invites you for coffee or dinner after the milonga.  It can start there and go as far as you want it to go.

When two people agree to leave the milonga together, they do so as discreetly as possible.  He returns to his table, pays his bill, and walks out of the milonga to wait for her around the corner, away from the entrance to the milonga.  She waits until he has left the premises so that they aren’t seen walking out together.  She goes to the designated meeting spot, which could be the corner to take a taxi or walk to another location.

My partner and I had a similar arrangement on Friday nights at the beginning of our relationship.  We arrived alone at the milonga.  We sat separately in the milonga.  We danced with others.  He sat at a table with other milongueros.  At the end of the night, we decided when we had danced enough.  He walked out of Club Gricel and waited for me to arrive at the corner before we went to his car.  Anyone who paid attention could see that we were leaving at the same time, but we didn’t walk out together.  After several weeks of seeing us dancing together, it was obvious that we were a couple.

If you find yourself interested in having coffee after a milonga, you know the rules.

Elba Celia Biscay

February 26, 1941 —

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have admired Elba’s dancing for the past ten years in the milongas.  She learned to dance as a teenager in a neighborhood club.  Elba married and raised a family.  This photo shows her as a redhead, but she is more often a blond.

Elba was the only milonguera interviewed for the television series Codigos de Milongas  on Solo Tango.  In the July 8, 2006 broadcast, Elba talked about experiences in her youth and how much things have changed today.  Women never wore pants to dance, but that’s her normal attire these days.  Her advice to women is to wear colored clothing rather than all black to tell everyone “estoy aqui” (Here I am).  In her early dancing days, she went to Confiteria Sans Souci and Club Monte Carlo, both on Avenida Corrientes.  Her best advice is “You have to like tango before you learn to dance it.”

Elba competed in the finals of the III Campeonato Mundial de Tango (August 2005) with Osvaldo Centeno.  In 2006 she and Antonio Yuffré placed tenth in Milonga and sixth in Tango of the V Campeonato Metropolitano de Baile de Tango and then fifth in the Senior Tango division of the VI Campeonato Metropolitano de Baile de Tango in 2008.

Elba has been dancing in Milonguisimo with Alberto Dassieu and other partners in Oscar Hector Malagrino’s show in Confiteria Ideal.