The little differences

I find it so exciting that every tango community has it's own little "perks" that make it distinct from the others, like for example that New York is used to particularly rhythmic music.

When I was in Vancouver the first night the DJ played all tandas of only 3 songs each. The purpose being that this way people end up changing partners more often and hardly any of the too many women sits for too long. Even though at first it felt strange to me to be "cheated out" of my 4th song in the tango tandas, I got used to it surprisingly quickly, and since I saw the merit in it, I adopted the practice during the second night, when I DJ-ed.  :)

In Seattle I encountered something else - at practicas they don't play cortinas. I liked the idea to skip the cortinas so that the venue feels less like a milonga, although in the end their practicas are just like the New York ones - nobody practices, but just dances socially... with one word - milongas. Nevertheless, there is one huge difference between Seattle and NY venues, and that's the ratio of leads to follows. Since there are so many tech companies in Seattle, the tango community has more men than women. Hint, hint, ladies! :) And what is even more - out of the naturally arising competition many they guys have developed into not bad or even quite nice dancers. :) :) :)