Without a doubt, the best tango in Philadelphia is held once a month at the Ruba Club. We owe this in no small part to the efforts of Meredith Klein who is a force for quality dance in this town. There are others to credit like Andres, Dasha and more but she is the engine behind the scenes; events of this caliber are usually the collaborative effort of a large group of people.
I think this is my fourth or fifth time attending this monthly event. The skill level is very high but without the attitude one might find elsewhere. This means a novice with some experience can expect to get more than just a few dances with someone more accomplished. That’s because the rules of tango or los codigos del tango are observed here. One of those rules says that local tangueros owe it to the milonga, the place where tango dancers gather to practice their craft, to make sure that all the followers get a chance to dance.
Lately I haven’t been paying much homage to that rule but here I felt compelled because this was a real milonga which is, in essence, a group experience, like a play, where everybody has a role to perform, including me. It is a two hour ride for me from the Poconos and I’d prefer to dance only with those women I’ve been thinking about all week, the ones that create a place in my brain where I go when I can’t get to sleep; these ladies are the source of my addiction and the reason I make a considerable effort to support my habit.
Another rule of los codigos del tango is that dancers enter the floor from the corners. Ruba Club is the only place in Philly where leaders not only know the rule exists but respect it uniformly. To join the group, or milonga, another of the many meanings of this word, a leader take his follower’s hand and goes to one of the corners of the dance floor. He waits there until an approaching leader meets his gaze and nods to the space in front of him and his lady. It is now okay for the new couple to safely enter the moving crowd because the nodding leader will create a safe space for them.
When I am at other milongas, new couples entering the line of dance are often like cue balls hitting a rack of pool balls on the break: chaos ensues.
At the Ruba Club milongas, cabeceo is the preferred means of dance requests. This technique is based solely on eye-contact and saves everyone from embarrassing displays of rejection or dreadful acts of mercy lasting for an entire tanda, the amount of time tango dancers spend with each partner. A tanda can be three or four songs separated by a cortina, or curtain, which is non-tango music played to separate the tandas.
To the casual observer it must seem that the dancers’ choices of partners are incredibly random events but they are actually very deliberate. Each invite is made with intent and care not to be discovered by anyone but the intended candidate.
There are many other rules of tango that add to the total group happiness of all in attendance: couples do not pass other couples, collisions are credited to both leaders who apologize sincerely to each other and that there are two lanes of traffic, traveling counterclockwise around the room. Los codigos del tango, when observed, are what makes the milonga a group experience, where the the success or failure of the event is felt by all. These rules are actually guidelines to a satisfying night of dancing tango.
The fact that los codigos del tango are observed at the Ruba Club is a big reason why so many skilled dancers come from New York, Baltimore and DC and they are a reason for all to come and dance or just to observe poetry in motion.
Thank you, once again, Meredith Klein. I had a terrific night of dancing and you played a big part in making that happen. I had such a great time that I felt compelled to write this or else risk many sleepless nights until I did.
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