A City of Plenty
Andrea Shepherd & Ksenia Burobina
Montréal tango dancers know that their city is special , and they are proud of it . But , what makes it so special ? To get the complete answer to that question , we surveyed about twenty-five tangueros and tangueras , focusing on those who travel regularly for tango to and from Montréal . We got answers from local and visiting dancers of all experience levels , from two years to over twenty , amateurs and professionals alike . Clearly , there are two main things that stand out for all dancers about Montréal — the friendliness of the community and the variety of activities available .
Tanya , from Rochester , New York , first came to Montréal during the springtime Bailongo festival in 2014 and has been returning about once a month since then . She calls Montréal dancers supportive , kind and inclusive and credits them with making her fall madly in love with tango . She says the city has a beautiful embrace that offers an overall welcoming feeling .
Aleksis lives in Vermont and has been coming to Montréal to dance for over a decade . These days he drives up to Montréal several times a month . Originally from New York City , he has danced tango all over the world , but he feels Montréal has a special connection to tango . He says : There is a nice balance between the level of the dancers and their personalities . It ’ s open and friendly , a very welcoming place to share close embrace .
A Bountiful Selection It was widely noted and is widely known that you can dance tango every night of the week in Montréal , usually with a choice of activities . The city is relatively small by big city standards with a metropolitan population of about 4 million and fewer than 2 million in the city proper . But with up to four different places to dance on any day of the week , it appears to have one of the largest per capita offerings of tango activities . If you include the schools and activities that have sprouted up in the suburbs and neighbouring towns in recent years , the choice is even greater . photo by Stephane Wagner
A Rich History of Tango Montréal has one of the oldest tango communities in North America . You can dance tango seven nights a week today , and you could dance tango seven nights a week twenty years ago .
2018 will mark the official 30th anniversary of Argentine tango in the city . The tango community has grown steadily over the years , evolving and transforming in the process . These days , Montrealers sometimes lament the fact that there are too many activities going on at once , forcing dancers to choose between must-attend options . Because the population is not huge , if there are three or four milongas on a given evening , there just aren ’ t enough dancers to fill them all . However , visiting dancers cherish this abundance . The city is not that big . Most milongas are centrally located in the Plateau , Mile End and downtown areas , making it easy to visit more than one place in the same evening .
It is worth noting that Montréal is a quite safe city . It easy to roam the milongas freely . Anyone can walk the streets at night and public transit is highly accessible . The excellent Metro system is closed by 1:00 a . m . However , there is a network of night buses that run till the wee hours . Montréal has a widespread and wellused Bixi bike-sharing service as well as a couple of car-sharing services — car2go and Communauto . To use these services , you normally have register ahead of time to have your driver ’ s license verified .
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