I stepped out of the brisk Riga autumn air into a packed dance hall. I was not very late and already the opening Thursday night milonga of the festival was in full swing. An encampment of neatly ordered tables filled with the regiments of dancers flanked two adjacent sides of the already crowded dance floor. I wasn’t expecting this big of a crowd this early in the night. I put on my dance shoes and watched for a few songs to get my bearings, then looked around for someone to dance with. An orquesta from Argentina would be playing later and it looked like about half of the tables were occupied by people who were not there to dance but just came to see the orquesta. All the non-dancers had thoughtfully been seated on one side of the room so it wasn’t too hard to find the dancers.

Roses and bandoneon at the Riga Tango Festival I’ve found that when you’re dancing in a new place where people don’t know you, you can’t just dance with the most experienced dancers from the start. You have to work your way up, creating opportunities for the better dancers to see you dance before they’ll take a chance on you. But you also don’t want to start with just anyone, because then you might look bad or people will think you’re desperate. It’s a delicate balance.

But Riga was not like that at all. The first person to accept my cabeceo felt amazing. She had a dreamy embrace and a great connection. The second person was similarly delightful. In fact, those first two women ended up being two of my favorite dancers of the whole weekend! But that’s not to say that things went downhill after that. Throughout the whole festival, I never had to look far to find a cabeceo and a soft and connected embrace.

I’m not sure how my festival experience compares with the local non-festival dancing in Riga. The vast majority of the women I danced with during the festival were locals. They told me that Riga suffers from a pretty significant gender imbalance with an overabundance of followers. I got a picture of this at the last milonga of the festival. It was a Monday night, so most of the festival goers had probably gone home already. At one point there were seven couples dancing with 14 women and zero men sitting–a 3:1 ratio! One out-of-town woman remarked, “You have to import a leader!” Needless to say, I danced non-stop and closed out the evening with one of the best tandas of the whole weekend.

At a Glance

Friendliness 10/10
Skill 6/10
Embrace 10/10
Overall 9/10

Summary

If you’re a leader, I highly recommend Riga! It was everything I could have hoped for. The Riga community is probably not usually as imbalanced as what I experienced at the festival afterparty, but it’s definitely clear that leaders will have plenty of people to dance with in Riga. Regardless of skill level, I found that they were delightful dancers and very welcoming to newcomers. When I was there in autumn the weather was cold and rainy. So if you don’t go in summer, be sure to bring warm clothes for when you’re on your way to enjoy the warm Riga embraces.