Tango in Portland

You can dance your feet off in Portland seven days a week. And Franklin and I did. We created our own tango festival dancing 4-6 hours a day for six days in a row. For an intermediate level dancer I am going to say that dancing in Portland is as entertaining as travelling all the way to Buenos Aires to dance. 

The Portland dancers were very friendly and willing to share what they know. At every practica both male and female partners asked us if there was anything specific we wanted to work on. At one practica there were orange traffic cones on the floor to separate off an area where couples could work on something specific rather than follow the line of dance.

There are probably more women than men in the community. Nevertheless we both had opportunities to dance almost every dance. After the very first practica I already had some regular partners for the whole week. By the way Portland has a large number of female leaders which evens out the numbers. 

Thee are a lot of teachers and the quality of the lessons is very high. Some lessons are offered in a series on the same subject- Beginners at one time followed by intermediates, then advanced. In one week I took classes on subjects as varied as vals, ganchos, traspie, ochos. There is a real sense of community and the teachers seem to support each other rather than feeling threatened by the competition. The community even gets together to make charming little tango silent movies. You can see one on youtube or at silentfilms.com. 

The dress for women is more conservative than I had expected. Portland may have a reputation for eccentricity but this was not reflected in the tango dress code. No jeans for women even in lessons or practicas and almost all women wore dresses or skirts. The local shoe store sells mostly ballroom shoes so many dancers wore basic dance shoes with thicker lower heels rather than tango stilettos (but there certainly were some Comme Il Fauts to be found). 

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Portland has a huge tango festival in October but it is very crowded and several local women said they don’t go to their dance festivals because they are gender imbalanced. I highly recommend visiting at your convenience and creating your own tango festival. Portland has good public transportation but you may want a car and a GPS to find your way around as the venues are spaced out. 

Portland is divided by a river. However virtually all the locations we visited were on the east side of the river and five locations were fairly close together, at least within a mile of each other, not far from the river and the  Burnside Bridge. This may be called the Lower Burnside District but I'm not sure about that. I also don’t know if there are hotels nearby. We stayed on the other side of the river and had a car. 

Here are a few venues we visited. In my photos it may look like the events were sparsely attended but that was never the case. The city may be smaller than Phoenix but there are hundreds of dancers in Portland. I was simply trying to take photos of the venues, not of people. 

Monday

There are a variety of evening classes and a milonga. We took a class at one location and then went elsewhere (nearby) for the milonga. 

Classes at Viscount Studio with Carrie. 720 SE Sandy Blvd. A nice size space with high ceilings and mirrors in two walls. See picture below. We liked Carrie’s teaching. She did three classes in a row on one subject for different levels. Some people stayed but most left and new people arrived. 

Monday Night Milonga- 618 SE Alder. A really good milonga on a Monday night! What a surprise!! This venue was only a few doors down from the Sunday night venue. There are a lot of dance floors in Portland. A nice venue on the second floor of the PPAA (Portland Police Athletic Association). This is very close to Viscount Studio. There is a beginning lesson before the milonga but we did not attend as I was at Carrie’s classes. A good crowd and a good night of dancing. 

Wednesday afternoon- Guided Pracrica with Alex Krebs 12-5 at Berretin  (6305 SE Foster Rd.). Charming venue- several rooms painted and decorated with tango memorabilia. Got a good crowd for a weekday midday. Alex Krebs is a well known dancer and teacher with many youtubes. I did get to ask Alex one or two little questions early in the practica but when the room filled up a lot of people wanted his attention. 

Wednesday Night Milonga- at Norse Hall, 111 NE 11th Street (11th and Couch) in the Lower East Burnside district.  Not sure why the Sons of Norway have two large ballrooms. Maybe because it is cold in winter in Norway and there is not much else to do but dance? Anyway, this is a great venue with a lesson followed by a milonga with both traditional and alternative music- one tanda of each in succession. Momo Smits was the DJ when we were there. Great music. 

Thursday- big Thursday Night Milonga at Norse Hall. I heard this is the most popular milonga of the week but the Monday and Wednesday ones had almost as many people. This is probably the dressiest one but still not that dressy. 

Friday- Friday practica- Paradise Studio  826 SE Belmont. Not far from the other locations mentioned. A good practica. There were cones set up on part of the dance floor to section off a practice area for people who wanted to practice without worrying about the line of dance. Several partners asked it there was anything we wanted to work on. What a good idea!

We attended workshops from an out ot town teacher on Friday night and Saturday day time so I can’t report about the regular events. But I can discuss the venue- Dance with Joy Studios- 7981 SE 17th Avenue, Portland OR 97202 This was a rather inconvenient location. Nevertheless we drove there on at least three occasions. The studio teaches various dances and is run by Rachel Lidskog, who has taught at the Tucson Tango Festival. 

Saturday

We did more workshops with out of town teachers from Italy at Dance With Joy Studios. We also took two classes with young local teachers. Both good classes. 

Saturday night

Aime Comme Moi Milonga at Tango Berretín- 8-1 am This is a very nice venue where they hold the Wednesday daytime practica. It is possibly my favorite tango venue anywhere. There are several interlocking rooms decorated in pseudo Argentine style with tango memorabilia. The other rooms have sitting areas and a snack area. There is a nice size dance floor in a comfortable yet intimate room, 

The milonga started at 8. We arrived around 10. there were not too many people but soon after we arrived the room filed up and the room was pleasantly populated.

There was a special event that night. As I mentioned above, the tango community of Portland gets together and makes very charming short silent tango movies. They screened one at 11 pm. You can see one episode on youtube or at tangosilentfilms.com

Sunday practica- Viscount Studios.Same studio as the Monday class. There were snacks and beverages. The pracrica ended at 5- just enough time to eat and head over to the next event- 

Sunday around sunset- Dancing In The Park  A very charming venue under a gazebo overlooking a large rose garden with a very large fountain in Peninsula Park, small neighborhood park south of the river. They laid down a good sized portable dance floor but I was glad that I had some baby powder as it was a little gritty.  It was nicely attended (as were all events we visited). There were several people from the 5 pm practica and a dozen people I had seen before. This is a seasonal event and ends toward the end of September. It is also dependent on the weather. This is the one event where lots of people wore jeans.

Sunday night- There was a milonga later in the evening with a large dance floor across the street from the PPAA mentioned above. This was upstairs in an industrial part of town. We were there a little early and sat in the car waiting for others to arrive. We hear this was a nice milonga but on this particular evening did not see a lot of people showing up and since we had been dancing all afternoon and evening we left. Certainly it would get more attendance when the Dancing in the Park is not in session. 

We thought the dancing opportunities in Portland were fabulous. In fact while we were there we decided to cancel our upcoming trip to Buenos Aires in favor of returning to Portland. I posted this to give you a head start in case you would like to check it out. It's only a couple of hours away by plane.