Le Chemin du Tango

Le Cirque du Soleil

2008-11-18T19:02:00.003+01:00

I saw the Cirque du Soleil - Quidam - and it is COOL beyond belief. Really.
I just might run off with the circus.
Or fulfil an old fancy of mine and take up acrobacy.
Or fire juggling! I have a recollection of an old stone bridge across a wide river, lined with statues of saints, the Gothic spires of the towers and the Baroque façades of the churches on either side covered with snow, deserted on a winter night with only a few passers-by hurrying to their homes, muffled in hats and scarves to protect themselves from the fierce cold; and mid-way across the bridge two jugglers with burning torches flying high in the cold winter air, blazing against the outline of the illuminated castle. I stood there and watched until my nose and toes were numb from the cold.

2008-10-03T22:53:00.004+01:00

The gloom seems to be lifting somewhat. Not to be trusted, seeing as the dreaded month of November is drawing near and the mere thought of the cold and the darkness to come makes me shudder; but I am doing my best to concentrate on the brighter aspects of this whole unfortunate affair called winter, such as la fondue savoyarde and roasted chestnuts (which reminds me that marrons glacés will soon be appearing in the shops and I mustn´t miss them!), ice-skating and maybe some skiing - although I find that dancing tango addictively makes me worry a tad too much about the safety of my limbs, which somehow takes the fun out of skiing, especially if you revel in a suicidal skiing style like I do:(
There will also be tango, and that´s a huge consolation these days. I think I´ll go to El Corte to dance the weekend away, and maybe to other places with tango-crazed crowds; I find that lately I tend to dance with the same people all the time, my favourite dancers, plus a stranger every now and then, and while this keeps me very happy and prevents most unnecessary frustrations I sometimes long for more variety and the excitement of discovering a new partner.
I have been looking at various festivals and my heart leapt when I saw who was going to be in Istanbul in November - it´s a dream team, really - and then I almost let out a loud wail when I realized that I couldn´t make it that weekend, for obligations familiales, so to speak.
Damn.

A couple of days ago I was at a milonga, standing at the bar. And there was this bloke, a teacher and a fairly good dancer, of some international renown. He wasn´t entirely sober - but then, he rarely is. Anyway, at one point, after some staring, he says ´Princess, wanna dance with me?´ Not the kind of invitation that would be difficult to turn down; but I was curious. I had never danced with him, and though I don´t particularly like his style, I still wanted to try it out. We went to the dancefloor, embraced, and started dancing. After a couple of steps, he murmured
´You can dance!´ sounding flustered. I refrained from any comments, but I could feel his increasing bewilderment. After the second tango, he stared at me and said ´You dance really well!´ but not in the usual flattering way people say this. He was flabbergasted. I lost my patience, and said ´Yeah, so what? Did you think I couldn´t dance?´
´I did. Not this well, anyway´ (looking at me as though I were an apparition).
´Why did you want to dance with me, then?´ said I, getting a bit annoyed by this silly conversation. But his answer was disarming - it was so matter-of-fact and sincere:
´Because you´re very pretty.´
I rolled my eyes again - this time at him - but I almost laughed. Though it certainly did not increase my esteem for the man, I preferred this frank and straightforward admission to any silly piropo he might have come up with.
Besides, we were even - after all, I wanted to dance with a hot shot and he wanted to dance with a pretty girl, I wonder what´s worse.
C´est le tango...

2008-08-09T20:18:00.002+01:00

The previous post, I realized, goes to show one thing - I am practically unable to write a short post. Really. I digress, get lost in free associations, and end up elsewhere. It is like the stream of consciousness technique, which I have always found interesting, but somewhat lacking in purpose. I never did like Mrs. Dalloway. I liked Orlando, though.

Speed

2008-08-09T17:54:00.002+01:00

Not amphetamine, in case you wonder. I mean just speed, fast motion where the world around you appears and disappears in blurred patches of sun and shade, and you are the center of it, you move and the world moves with you. It is fantastic.

It isn´t about tango, either, and I think it fair to warn those who come here to read about tango to skip this post. My tango life has been quite dreary, lately. Basically, I go to the milonga to eat, chat with friends, and listen to the music. At this point, not dancing is decidedly less frustrating than dancing. Exceptionally, it is not about me. Maybe I should start writing another, non-tango blog, to keep this one coherent.

In the meantime..

I went roller-skating today.
I know this may sound banal, but I am probably the least athletic person you can imagine. In my adult life, anyway. I hate sport for the sake of sport, for the sake of moving, for the sake of - God forbid! - burning calories (ok, I was born with the genetic predisposition to be slim, it runs in the family - the older, the thinner; I´ve always imagined myself, in some forty or fifty years, as one of those tiny, frail and almost transparent old ladies - you know the kind, that look like a gush of wind might carry them away - and I am quite looking forward to it; hence my laziness, probably). I could never ´go to the gym´. The mere thought of the machines and the sweating people makes me nauseous. On the other hand, I love swimming, sailing, skiing, skating, yoga, contemporary dance - as long as it is not perceived as a sport, but an entertaining activity. I like bicycles, but for me they are a means of transport (city transport, preferably). Those people capable of spending their holidays on mountain bikes, cycling forty of fifty kilometers every day, simply puzzle me. Why???
Another reason may have its origin in my childhood. I had an active mother who signed me for classes of practically any activity I had shown any talent in. Unfortunately I was reasonably talented in many spheres, and so I spent my afternoons in all kinds of sport and artistic activities (which I all liked, to be fair). By the time I was fourteen, I´d had enough. All I wanted to do was hang out on the street, like my best friend, who was from a single-parent family and never did anything else. She was also allowed to wear make-up and hot pants that made her the dream of any pedophile. Her mother was very young - practically my age now - and too busy with her own messy love life to mind her teenage daughter, which I then thought was cool (now I feel sorry for her - I find my life complicated enough as it is, without a teenage daughter. The mere thought makes me shiver.)
But how on earth have I got here?

I was saying, I went roller-skating. I prefer ice-skating, actually, because one can develop greater speed, which I assume must be due to lesser friction (hear the amateur physicist!). And for some reason, speed has an almost theraupeutic effect on me. I sometimes go ice-skating after work, during the winter season. Like tango, fast motion makes me forget everything, get rid of any accumulated tension, and joyfully concentrate on the now and here.
I don´t know why.
Is that why people drive fast cars?
There is a large park near my home with large patches of lawn, grown trees, shrubberies, lakes, a fountain, and even a tiny neo-gothic manor house. And a cycling/skating trail. So far, I have only made use of the park to fling myself on the grass with a book, or sit on an old tree and drink mate, or to picnic. But I think I´ll join the rangs of the roller-skaters, every now and then. The thing is, I love skating and listening to Kevin Johansen;) it´s exactly that kind of music..

I will soon be changing my geographical coordinates, so there´s a slight hope for some better tango. Or not.
I am just somewhat tango-depressed.
Why else would I go roller-skating?

Words...

2008-08-01T13:07:00.005+01:00

.. are magic, aren´t they?

(by worldle.net)

Colours and Tango

2008-07-31T18:45:00.006+01:00

I have a cold, in the middle of a hot summer. I hate that. Apart from other things I had been looking forward to, like having picnics in the park, swimming in a lake, throwing dinners, mingling with the tourists in the lantern-lit medieval streets of the city centre on warm summer nights or sitting on the ramparts of the castle overlooking the river and the city, I shall also have to stay away from the milongas for a while. On the bright side, I have the time to read tango blogs. And so, sitting here and sipping mate (as a universal panacea), I came upon an interesting post of Debbi´s where, among other things, she mentions being told that always dressing in dark coulours makes her ´invisible´ at a milonga.
Hmm... I read the numerous comments and started writing one but then realized it would be too long, so I decided to write a post instead.

Should you wear bright colours to a milonga, in order to be seen?

The question had never occured to me before. But then again, I do dress in bright coulours, both in and out of the milongas. Not to be seen; I just like them. And I think there isn´t much of them around. Our culture, in this age, tends to avoid bright colours rather than encourage them. For some reason there is this widespread belief that to look good and cool, black is the best choice. I don´t know. I, too, like black, sometimes. But too much is.. too much. Why don´t we wear colours?
I love the clothes worn by the women in African neighbourhoods, the vivid colours and beautiful textures like brocade that they wear with such grace. I do realize that not everyone can get away with such colours, but then again, the various combinations of grey, brown or navy blue are not particularly flattering, either.

Colour preferences are, of course, very subjective. I like surrounding myself with colours, they make me feel good, and I like exploring different colour combinations; among my favourites there´s orange with bright white, apple-green with black, pale violet with silver, and, my latest fancy, bright red with dark purple. The only drawback is that such clothes can only be worn with black shoes. Now, the last time I wanted to buy simple black tango shoes, I came back with these:

Yep. You get the idea.
They are called Las ondas amarillas and it was love at first sight; but they can only be worn with black, which I find rather limiting.

And so I do, sometimes, dress in black to go dancing. And, frankly, I haven´t noticed any marked difference in the number of invitations I get.
It is a pity no man commented on this aspect of Debbi´s post, but it seems to confirm my theory:
From my experience most men, starting with my brother and including friends and lovers, are fairly conservative as far as fashion is concerned. My understanding has always been that I dress up in crazy colour combinations in spite of men, rather than for them. Let me explain - they like it, of course; but if I actually asked them whether I should put on a black skirt or a bright orange one, 9 men out of 10 would go for the black one. Luckily I am not so foolish as to ask a man´s advice in matters of clothing, so I will just put on the orange one, because it suits my mood, and get an admiring look with ´You look so lovely today!´.
Men. :)
I think it is best to dress for yourself, even if, obviously, you are going to a milonga to be invited (ergo: liked) by others; because after all, if you feel good, and beautiful, you come across as beautiful. And if someone likes your dancing, they will probably notice you even if you´re all in black.

Mientras que milanesas...

2008-07-29T14:27:00.016+01:00

.. y panqueques NO lo son!

And neither is the wolf-whistle!
(Btw, what do you call the wolf-whistle in castellano? I´ve never heard it named in Argentina, just whistled:)
All these things, and more, I have heard Argentines believe to be of their own invention, typical and unique to their culture. And they were mighty surprised when told that, ehm, the wolf-whistle IS a pretty common and internationally intelligible way of expressing appreciation for a woman´s looks, they DO have panqueques in France, because they, ehm, actually invented them in Brittany, and milanesas? well, what do they sound like to you? No matter whether you call them cotolette alla milanese, or Wiener Schnitzel - because yes, that´s where the Italians got the idea from, Milan being very close to the Austrian empire, and then took this way of cooking meat overseas to Argentina, see?
It all came back to me when reflecting on the almost irrational pride in their country displayed by many Argentines. There are some cultures like that. I know a couple from quite close, so I can understand it very well. Then there are cultures that consider such a stance ridiculous, if not inappropriate; there are countries where nationalism is considered almost a swear word, and often for good reasons.. it is obviously a cultural matter that might not have a rational explanation, although I think this ferocious pride and conviction that one´s country is the best in the world is more often than not seen in immigrant cultures, which, I suppose, might feel a greater need to assert their traditions and history (or lack of thereof?).
Aaaaaaaaaanyway, forget about my amateur attemps at sociology.. and think: what is the biggest compliment you have ever got from an Argentine?
When I was in Buenos Aires, I was often told that I looked like a porteña, and judging from the way people behaved towards me, it was probably true. I didn´t really pay any attention to it, because I know I happen to have a faculty of blending in which can confuse most observers - it is a talent developed in my childhood which has now become an instinctive reflex. Besides, being a mixture of the north and the south, with my brown hair, pale skin and green eyes I can usually pass unnoticed (in the good sense of the word;) in most (European) countries, the extreme south and Scandinavia excluded, I guess (in Argentina it was only just in Buenos Aires that I didn´t stick out; I had the most marvellous experience in Salta... but that is another story:)
But, to get back to my point, I was once in La Viruta, dancing on a packed dancefloor (and you know how it is when the dancefloor is packed in La Viruta, it isn´t exactly Niño Bien), and on our way back to the table, my partner said, with a hint of disgust in his voice -
´Hay muchos extranjeros en la pista, no?´
This happens; people will sometimes criticise foreigners in front of me, apparently forgetting that I am a foreigner myself.. I reckon it is flattering, in a way, but I still find such situations somewhat embarassing.
So I smirked, and said
´Si, y estas bailando con una de ellos.´
He didn´t hesitate for a moment (I like this about Argentines:) and with a wide smile and a deep conviction in his voice he said -
´Noooo, vos no sos extranjera, vos sos argentina!´
Another example: at an international tango event, people from all over the world, we were talking about who was from where, guessing, looking for a common language to communicate in, when an acquaintance pointed at me, jokingly -
´So, where does she look like she´s from?´ (It usually proves a tough one to guess.)
And Andrea, putting her hand around my shoulders and saying, in a matter-of-course way -
´Ella? Ella parece argentina. Si, parece porteña.´
Andrea, of course, knows full well where I am from.
Of course I am not Argentine. I might look like a porteña. Or not.
But you see, that´s not the point. Because, I realized, in both cases, the assertion of my argentinidad wasn´t so much about my looks, my castellano, or even my ability to dance tango. No no no.
It was a mark of affection. Like saying ´She´s ours.´
And that felt so good.
Mind you, not that I wouldn´t want to be Argentine:) when it comes to that, there´s plenty of things in the Argentine culture that suit my nature de maravilla - like, boy, was it tough coming back to Europe and having people reproach you for arriving 15 minutes late, when back in Buenos Aires you could take your time, no stress, arrive whenever you arrive, and no problem, not even a glance at the watch.. aaaah, Argentina...:)))

Mafalda es argentina!!!

2008-07-20T20:51:00.005+01:00

..and I had no idea! Aaaaah... not only did Argentina give birth to tango, but also to one of my favourite comic strips! The creator of Mafalda, Joaquín Salvador Lavado, known as Quino, was born in the province of Mendoza, 76 years ago; who would have thought so?
:) Well, in any case, one more reason for this fanatic of la BD to love Argentina!

(We´re screwed, guys! Turns out that if you don´t hurry up and change the world, it is the world that changes you!)

Tango et câlins

2008-07-19T00:58:00.000+01:00

There is an open air milonga in the park, a very pretty place, a kind of a bower which actually looks almost exactly like La Glorieta in Belgrano, only the floor is not tiles but wood - and pretty rough at that; I wore a pair of shoes that had the privilege of only having trodden the beautiful Canning parquet, so that after dancing in them nights on end the soles were practically intact, whereas now, after a few hours they´re all coarse and scratched. Ah, Canning... my feet have had a passionate love affair with its dancefloor; no matter what you think about Canning, its parquet IS the best in town, and the best I have ever danced on - apart from the corner in front of the bar, where the parquet is damaged and uneven.. but I digress. So there I was sitting on the stairs and putting on my shoes and next to me there was a young woman with a little girl and a little boy, all of them watching the dancers, and then the little girl said, pensively -
´Ils font des câlins?´
Her mother shook her head at her question and said ´No silly, they aren´t cuddling, they´re dancing!´
I laughed. And I told the little girl ´It is tango, they are half cuddling, half dancing.´
I wish I had seen someone dance tango when I was 5; I wonder what I would have made of it..?

An Elegy for Lost Blogs...

2008-06-30T12:11:00.003+01:00

With some delay (I didn´t have much time lately so my visits to other blogs have been scarce) I have realized that another tango blog has been taken down this month. It has happened with others before and I just quietly, if with regret, removed them from my blog roll; but this time I would like to say a couple of words, not concerning this case in particular but this whole public vs. private blogging dilemma which apparently often leads to blogs being discontinued or even taken down.
It is always a loss when a blog you read disappears. And they were all really interesting blogs, so I can´t help thinking the blogosphere has lost something. And even if you don´t personally know the writer, you do develop some kind of an affinity with them, especially if it is a blog you read regularly, you come to know their personality as it gleams through their writing, and when it is no longer there, it is like loosing an old acquaintance. It is sad.
I have no intention to question the reasons which lead those bloggers to end their blogs. I don´t think it was easy for them, either. I am just saying it is a pity for everyone.
And of course it depends on why you blog, what you want your blog to be for you and for whomever might read it - because you must always assume someone will read it, it is on the web and therefore, while very personal, quite public. But this seeming contradiction has actually been the reason why I started to blog: I have my own Journal Intime, written by hand, in a notebook, where I write about my intimate life, about people and things that I would not care to discuss with public, some perhaps not even with my closest friends or family. The reason I created a blog was that, apart from the obvious technological advantages a blog presents over a simple diary, I wanted to learn to write about my experiences, my opinions, my life in a way that would be personal and yet suitable to be read by anyone who cares to read it, to find and never cross the line between what is my way of seeing the world, which I will gladly relate, discuss, even defend, and what is private and so intimate I don´t care to share it with others. It is not easy for me - I love writing, but had before only been able to write either essays, well-reasoned, scrupulously objective and elegantly impersonal, or personal journals with very intimate details. I find a blog is the perfect space for one to do something in between, if you want to; I am not saying I have entirely managed to strike this precious balance, but I am trying.
Anyway.. the rest of you, keep blogging, or not, if you no longer find it amusing or satisfactory - but don´t forget your readers;)

A faux pas, or a new trend?

2008-06-29T12:12:00.004+01:00

On a more frivolous note -
a couple of weeks ago I attended a big tango event and apart from the fun of getting to dance with people from all around the world I also had the pleasure of watching the show of the teachers, among whom there were some of the greatest couples of both Argentine and international renown. The performances were great, I enjoyed them so much! The last time I had seen these people dance was months ago at the milongas of Buenos Aires, either performing or dancing socially, but here such treats are harder to come by, so of course one appreciates them more;)
Anyhow, there was one aspect of the performances which at first seemed harmlessly amusing but became quite bewildering as the shows went on and I realized this was a recurring feature: in three out of five couples we got to see a lot of the woman´s knickers during the dance - and I don´t mean a glimpse here and there during a particularly high boleo. The fourth couple broke the pattern because nuevo dancers rarely wear skirts, and the fifth one were two men who both wore trousers.
With the first couple it was, by the look of it, a case of a very beautiful dress of an unfortunate cut and material with a very high slit which was to show off the girl´s thigh but, as it slid around her body during the dance, ended up showing off a completely different part of her body, luckily covered by her knickers. Oh well.. that can happen. But as the performances continued, what with high slits and ultra short skirts, the trend became clear.
I certainly don´t mean to criticize the waning morals of our age:) I just think the matter is noteworthy and cannot be waved aside as coincidence. It might even be a new trend in tango fashion, so I point it out here for those of you who want to be up to date;)

BTW, seeing as Eugenia was the one nuevo dancer who wore wide pants and did not show her knickers, I can name her without compromising her, just to say that she is really incredible; the chica is so graceful you can´t take your eyes off her when she´s on the dancefloor, regardless of whether you like tango nuevo or not. I don´t particularly like her style of dancing, but her moves are so full of grace, it is simply a pleasure to watch. And I really liked her with Ezequiel, they have a lovely connection and on the dancefloor they are just two beautiful people.

El poema del día

2008-06-08T21:59:00.003+01:00

Muere lentamente quien se transforma en esclavo del hábito, repitiendo todos los días los mismos trayectos.

Quien no cambia de marca, no arriesga vestir un color nuevo y no le habla a quien no conoce.

Muere lentamente quien hace de la televisión su gurú.

Muere lentamente quien evita una pasión, quien prefiere el negro sobre blanco y los puntos sobre las “íes” a un remolino de emociones, justamente las que rescatan el brillo de los ojos, sonrisas de los bostezos, corazones a los tropiezos y sentimientos.

Muere lentamente quien no voltea la mesa cuando está infeliz en el trabajo, quien no arriesga lo cierto por lo incierto para ir detrás de un sueño, quien no se permite por lo menos una vez en la vida, huir de los consejos sensatos.

Muere lentamente quién deja escapar un posible amor, con tal de no hacer el esfuerzo de hacer que éste crezca.

Muere lentamente quien no viaja, quien no lee, quien no oye música, quien no encuentra gracia en si mismo.

Muere lentamente quien destruye su amor propio, quien no se deja ayudar. Muere lentamente, quien pasa los días quejándose de su mala suerte o de la lluvia incesante.

Muere lentamente, quien abandonando un proyecto antes de empezarlo, el que no pregunta acerca de un asunto que desconoce o no responde cuando le indagan sobre algo que sabe.

Evitemos la muerte en suaves cuotas, recordando siempre que estar vivo exige un esfuerzo mucho mayor que el simple hecho de respirar. Solamente la ardiente paciencia hará que conquistemos una espléndida felicidad.

Pablo Neruda

Tango and horns

2008-06-04T13:20:00.006+01:00

Fontanelle e motorini.
The epitome of the Eternal City.

Neither the Sistine Chapel, nor the Capitol, the Fontana di Trevi, or the hundreds of other sights, architectural marvels or works of art that Rome abounds in, but the omnipresent fountains with excellent drinkable water all-year round, while the South is struggling with drought, and the likewise omnipresent scooters, largely responsible for the insomnia of the inhabitants of the city centre; yet without them, Rome wouldn´t be Rome, would it?
In keeping with my private promise to go back every year, I have spent the weekend in the Eternal City, to see dear friends and catch at least a glimpse of the ochre-coloured city whose streets I know by heart.
Rome has undergone some changes since my student years, some good and some less good; but, seeing as it is eternal, its centuries-old charm remains unharmed (though the traffic in the city centre really should be banned, or at least drastically reduced, before the smog turns even the Vittoriano black; mind you, it doesn´t look like that will happen now, with the new mayor.. but that´s another story). I did all the right things - long breakfasts with latte con caffè, an exhibition of Renoir´s paintings in the Vittoriano (the real reason of my haste, incidentally, as it ends in June), a walk up the Via del Babuino and Via Margutta to Pincio and then back downtown, a stop to see Caravaggio´s lovely Madonna dei Pellegrini in a side-chapel of a church where a wedding was taking place, an evening stroll down Il Corso, several cones of my favourite rice-and-cinnamon ice-cream, and a stop at Feltrinelli´s:)
And a milonga. That evening, Roma had beaten Inter, and the city went bonkers; the milonga was taking place in a lovely location, a beautiful room with a splendid shiny parquet and large mirrors in gilt frames. It was quite warm and so the high windows and the balcony door were thrown open, to let in the indescribable racket from outside! While dancing, we could at times hardly hear the tango music, drowned by the sounds of horns and cheering outside..
Tango romano?
:)

Just like BsAs

2008-05-20T23:12:00.002+01:00

Not the tango.
Although I can´t complain, I´ve had some really nice tandas yesterday. So nice, actually, that I stayed much later than I had meant to; when I arrived to the métro, the entrance was already shut for the night.
I had been chatting with this fellow at the milonga, and when I was leaving, he insisted on walking me to the métro - just across the street, but the neighbourhood doesn´t have a very good reputation, and he seemed upset at the idea that I should take the métro alone at that hour - apparently Spaniards are gentlemen, and courtesy towards women ought to be encouraged, so I gracefully let him accompany me.
Seeing the entrance shut I decided to take a taxi, so he walked with me to a nearby taxi station. The taxis are all in uniform colours, with the emblem of the city, registration number, etc. My companion suspiciously squinted into the one I was going to take, and said with a solicitous expression: ´Hmm.. the driver looks ok.. I hope he´s a serious person..´
I laughed, shook my head, and thinking something about over-protective gentlemen said good night to him and got into the taxi.
The African driver was very amiable, we chatted on the way, and when we arrived, I got off on the roundabout, because my street is a one-way one, and my house is about ten metres from the roundabout. It is one of the expensive and posh neighbourhoods, with boutiques and cafeterias, very calm and generally considered safe.
As I was getting off, the taxi driver said, approvingly: ´Aah, the street is very well lit; you shouldn´t get mugged.´
Excuse me?!!
For a split second, I felt just like in Buenos Aires.

More Milonga Musings

2008-05-07T22:31:00.003+01:00

Tanguillo mentioned in his comment to my previous post that one must ´tener el sabor (de la milonga)´ to dance it well; I say that to dance milonga well, you must love milonga, nothing less than that.
It boils down to the same thing, really.
If you´re not confident about the way you dance milonga, if you´re insecure about it, if you dance it tentatively rather than with gusto, in short if you don´t revel in dancing milonga - then you are not dancing milonga. IMHO.
You can always tell from your partner´s reaction when they hear the first notes of milonga:
´Oh - uhm - milonga..´ (eyes going wide with horror)
or
´Oh - milonga.. well, shall we try?´
and other like reactions generally bode no good.
Unlike
´Milonga!!!´ (usually exclaimed by both simultaneously, with delighted smiles), at which point the couple quickly embraces and starts dancing without further ado because milongas are too short to waste time with words.

Once, I met this bloke (on the dancefloor); I had never danced with him before, didn´t know him at all, and our first tanda ever was MILONGA (risky, I know.) But we clicked, it was great, and in the pause after the first song, smiling delightedly and unable to believe our good luck, I said ´Adoro la milonga!´ to which he answered, ´Bueno, agarráte!´ And off we went.
:)))
THAT is milonga attitude. Not ´uh, well, shall we...?´

Better than sex?!

2008-05-06T11:51:00.004+01:00

You know how people sometimes compare sex and tango? And how some will go so far as to say that a good tanda is almost as good as (if not better) than sex?

I have always been firmly convinced that, if comparisons must be made, then (good) sex is BETTER than tango.
But I am beginning to foster some grave doubts as to whether sex is really better than -

a really good MILONGA!

Yes, I´ve had a couple of fantastic milongas yesterday, and by the end of the set I was in that state of insane bliss (you know, that one..) and floated home sur un nuage, insanely smiling at the few loosers sharing the last métro with me.

I have become something of a milonga addict. And I think men who also love milonga can feel it.

I have a hunch though that men who CAN dance milonga (I won´t say dance it well, with milonga you either can dance it, or you cannot. Full stop.) are really thin on the ground - perhaps more so then good lovers.

You think you´re a tango addict? Think again...

2008-05-04T22:02:00.003+01:00

I found this article some time ago, leafing through the March edition of El Tangauta, where it was published in the section Renegando con René (a humourist fiction page, basically); I still remember that, reading it back in Buenos Aires, in the whirlwind of the milongas, I didn´t find it remotely funny, but deeply disturbing (not the article as such, which is a bit on the ridiculous side, but the addiction itself, which is pretty well described there, and its potential to mess up people´s lives). The notion of tango addiction had acquired a whole new dimension, and it no longer seemed the harmless (and rather cool, admit it) quirk it mostly is outside of Bs As.
At that time I read it with a shudder and put it away. Now, with some detachment, I think it´s quite interesting, though I still believe it will not seem all that funny to those really addicted to tango, or close to someone who is (unless they are in denial, of course).
The English translation provided by El Tangauta was not up to the high literary standards of this blog; I have therefore taken the liberty of translating it myself:

Grupo Carriego
(´...curdelas de caña y locas de pris...´)

First of all I would like to thank the doctors here for all they have done for me... I would like to bear witness, because the doctor asked me to, and I cannot fail him... well, I hope this can be of some use to somebody... what I want to say is that I am not doing this to torment myself, but in case someone should identify with another´s person´s misfortune, right, doctor?... I´ll go on; should I say anything wrong, stop me... I wanted to tell you that I also used to be a ruin, like you... I had ruined my life, altogether. First I lost my job, then my friends, lifelong friends they were... then my girlfriend left me, and she was a great girl and a beauty... never again in my life will I get a girl like that again... The thing is, I didn´t realize what was happening to me, it seemed normal to me and I thought it was the others that had a problem. I didn´t realize that I was ill, that I needed help... In the beginning of my troubles, those close to me wanted to help me. Because, to be fair, I must say that more than one person came to talk to me... People who would come to me and tell me I seemed odd, untidy, unkempt. And I would tell them that was what was fashionable at the time, that there were many people who wore white shoes, and that those shiny shirts were worn by all the cool guys... They were trying to help me, right, doctor?... Now I can see it all clearly, but at the time I wouldn´t listen to anyone. I changed the way I dressed, I changed friends, I stopped doing the things I used to do: I stopped going to the football matches, for example, because I just couldn´t get up on Sundays. In short, I was a real addict, a guy with a serious problem... Thinking of the dancing, all day long, imagining steps, thinking I had invented stuff; I couldn´t stop... The thing is, at the beginning one thinks one can cope, but then one realizes that he cannot. I even see foreigners who come here, again and again, and they will sell their own mother if needs be but will come every year – they can´t stop, just like I couldn´t... Until, one day, they found me with a compass, a ruler and a notebook full of notes, examining a turnstile in the subway. I tried to explain, but they wouldn´t listen; they gave me a shot and then brought me here to this farm. I have been here for three months, and I truly cannot complain – they take care of us, they teach us crafts, organize activities for us... Just the other day we played a football game with those from the Grupo Andrés. And the doctors are fantastic, they have helped me a lot to deal with my problem... And no tango, none of it – they keep us in shorts and flip-flops, and send us to bed at ten o´clock. And if someone gets a fit, the only thing they will let them dance is the minuet... It´s tough, but you´ve got to endure it... Now, in a couple of weeks I´ll be getting leave permissions, but just for the day and will always have to be back in the evening, to avoid the temptation... Because, once you´ve tried it, you remain hooked for life... right, doctor?

The Embrace

2008-05-02T15:37:00.010+01:00

I haven´t really written anything about my tango in Buenos Aires. I have posted about all kinds of silly stuff like buses, coins, security, but I have completely left out the tango - and that despite the fact that I probably spent about 70% of my waking hours there on high heels :) so much so that when I came back, for a while I had this funny feeling of being shorter, all of a sudden; as though tango shoes had become a part of my body which extended my legs and reshaped my feet in a somewhat curious, but fairly comfortable way (for dancing, that is; it all depends on your perspective, but if you spend more time dancing then, say, playing football, you´ll feel more comfortable in high-heeled shoes than in sneakers, clearly).

To be honest, I have been reluctant to write about tango in Bs As. For one thing, once you become a part of the milonga world, it makes no sense to post about it as if from an outside perspective. If you´re a part of the zoo, you no longer find the animals´ habits strange and intriguing, to be described and analysed. Also, it would be quite inadequate to say that ´the porteños do this, and the porteños would never do that..´ - they are a fairly heterogeneous bunch, the porteños, and besides there are different groups and tendencies within the world of the Bs As milongas, some places where the codigos are on the wane and some where there are no codigos in the old sense, but there are still some rules which may be completely different and will leave those travelling tangueros/as who came equipped with a perfect knowledge of ´los codigos´ entirely flabbergasted. I mean, just watch your surroundings, listen to people around you (but don´t believe everything they say) and use common sense, it should be sufficient. Actually, when you think about it, even most of the old codigos are just logical consequences of polite behaviour and common sense, not all that specific to tango.

I haven´t written about my learning experiences either, which was perhaps a bit selfish, but I first needed to absorb it all and, you know, me ranger les idées.. I´ve learned lots, and I think that I´ve come back with what I had been looking for - my own style (or what I want my own style to be like), the tango that ´I´ want to dance, and the confidence in that. It feels nice. Also, dancing in Bs As was like a trial by fire for me - content as I might have been with my dancing before going to Argentina, I had naturally been curious to see whether it was good enough for Buenos Aires. I emerged from the trial unharmed:)

What sometimes worries me a bit is that, dancing with people who cannot dance - or who dance ´differently´, to put it in a more ´correct´ way:) - could eventually ruin my own dancing and make me loose all that I have learned in Bs As. Javier told me quite uncompromisingly ´Don´t dance with blokes who can´t dance. They will ruin your posture, and your embrace. You won´ t enjoy it. There´s no reason why you should do it.´ Surely that sounds somewhat harsh (not if you know him and the way he has of saying things; but it does, written down like that, or said out loud at a milonga in Europe). It is good advice; it cannot always be followed strictly, but, on the whole, I dance with fairly few men now, but get really good dances and come home from the milonga feeling happy and content.

But I am getting to my point: Yesterday I went to my favourite milonga, and danced with this bloke whose dancing I really like; he goes to Bs As quite regularly, and just got back a couple of weeks ago. After the first tango, as we broke the embrace, he started laughing and couldn´t stop. ´Oh yes,´he said ´I recognize the embrace. You sure do embrace like a porteña!´ Ha!
:))) So I guess I haven´t forgotten.

Recovering... slowly

2008-04-16T22:14:00.004+01:00

It has been three weeks since I left Buenos Aires.
The pain is less acute now. I am getting used to my European life again, and I am surprised to see how much I like it. I had forgotten I liked it so much. It doesn´t take away the pain and the feeling that a part of me is still back in Buenos Aires (and also my favorite jeans jacket that I left at La Baldosa and which was never found - I decided it would draw me back to Argentina, like the coins that people throw into la fontana di Trevi) - but it feels reassuring to walk past beautiful old buildings, ranging from Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance palaces to Baroque churches and Art Nouveau houses, to sleep in a comfortable bed, to be given precedence by drivers as a pedestrian; and then the food... the food! My appetite has come back in no time at all:) The only thing I miss sorely, foodwise, are the churros en chocolate; but they are hard to come by even for those who live in BsAs, after 8 o´clock in the morning; I wonder if the government has issued some kind of quotas on them, perhaps as a part of a national plan to fight obesity in the Argentine population..?
I still drink loads of mate, I am afraid I´ve got myself another addiction. It is, together with my other stimulant, chocolate, wonderful for keeping my brain alert and quick at work while fighting the sleep deficit, for I still haven´t quite overcome my Argentina habit of living at night, only now, I have to work during the day... And I listen to tango most of the time, and against my better judgment; it is rather painful because now, much as I try, I cannot block out the lyrics, and they keep rubbing it in... but then again, they are really beautiful.
..dejame esperarte, nada mas, ya que comprendo que esperar es un pedazo de recuerdo...
I danced to this song a couple of days ago, and I had to tell my partner to please not say anything and not do any nonsense (like boleos, ganchos, leg wraps, etc.) because this song makes me very, very melancholy and I just want to close my eyes, embrace somenone, and dance (and maybe cry, too, but I didn´t say that). He kindly obliged, but seemed puzzled. Ah well.
Fortunately, there is cumbia. It reminds me of Buenos Aires, but there´s no way you can listen to cumbia and be sad. No need to discuss its lyrics;)
Thank God for cumbia!
:)

La pensée du jour:

2008-04-12T01:17:00.002+01:00

Contrary to what some tangueros like to say, and although some milongueros would never admit it -

La vida no es un tango; y el tango no es la vida.

Just a thought...
They do merge sometimes, though.

Paranoid?

2008-04-11T23:24:00.008+01:00

I have just watched this film. I loved it.
It´s a really cool film; plus, it provides a great insight into the porteño mentality.
Living in Buenos Aires, I used to think they were all just paranoid.
Don´t walk around at night, you´ll get mugged!
Don´t keep the windows open, thieves could get in!
Do lock the door at night, see previous..
Keep an eye on your purse, there are pickpockets everywhere!
Do not trust anyone, especially not the taxi-drivers!
And everyone always checking the paper money to see if it´s not fake (ok, I can understand this with 100 pesos bills, but I have seen people importantly squint at 2 pesos bills against the light.. I mean, honestly...
I also understood the change obsession was not really due to the need of coins for the bus ride, but the fear of emerging from an exchange of smaller and larger bills with less money than is due to you, if you are not vivo enough (see the starting scene of Nueve Reinas).
But I refuse to live like that. I think that a certain amount of trust is necessary. Some may call it naiveté, but to me it is a matter of attitude. I can´t live in constant fear of my surroundings. To me, the porteños´ attitude borders on paranoia.
Especially since I did walk around Once alone at night and - nothing, we did keep the windows open, I did not lock the front door at night (though Tina did, so it depended on who got home last:), my purse is so messy that I dare any pickpocket to find anything of value in it - it takes ME ages to fish out my phone or money - and I have never met friendlier taxi drivers than those of Buenos Aires.
Surprisingly, I never even got fake money in change of my 100p bills:)
I found the locals´ paranoia quite amusing, if exasperating at times; I put it down to hard times in the past, and an overall tendency to paint things black. Having seen the film though, I understand much better!
:)))

Missing BsAs

2008-03-28T23:44:00.007+01:00

I got back two days ago.
Paris was all grey when my plane landed. As I was walking out of the airplane, a young Argentine next to me was calling his novia to say he arrived well. ´Te mando un beso, mi vida´. My heart sank. The familiar sound of my beloved French irritated me - I longed to hear castellano, with the porteño accent I had become accustomed to, and came to love.
I am still feeling sort of - confunded (yes, as in Harry Potter). I have been falling asleep most of the time, and randomly unpacking in between, listening to tango, trying on tango shoes, drinking mate, listening to tango, dreaming, drinking mate, writing mails to BsAs, listening to tango. I know I shouldn´t listen to tango, but can´t help it. Besides, I need to get all the CDs I´ve brought back with me into my iPod, and that takes time.
It is cold here. That doesn´t help. I miss - many things. Too many. I am still too stunned and numb with pain to plan going back. There are so many beautiful places in the world, and only so many one can keep going back to. And the emotional ties are too intense. I don´t want to go back one day. I want to be there, now.
I can´t help thinking that at this moment, I would be having breakfast at La Viruta, and then taking the 151 home - it would stop right in front of the door to our house.

:)Oh, but don´t feel too sorry for me. It was worth it, every bit of it;)

Still here

2008-03-04T18:23:00.002+01:00

Help yourself, as they say, and God will help you.
I am still here.
;)

Help!

2008-02-28T00:29:00.003+01:00

I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE! I want to stay here, but the airlines won´t change my ticket!
Please, please, may the workers on Ezeiza go on strike tomorrow!
May my flight be cancelled!
I cannot leave. I just cannot!
Help!!!

los bondi

2008-02-21T19:41:00.005+01:00

Meet my latest crush... :)

Are they not fabulous?
They are probably the most beautiful thing I´ve seen here. Seriously. I fell in love with them the first day, and I have since braved all kinds of inconveniences to travel in them (inside they are just as fascinating and decorative as on the outside).
I have worked out the Guia de bolsillo, which is singularly user-unfriendly. To my knowledge, there is no map where you could see through which streets the buses actually pass - from the Guía you only get a rough idea of the neighbourhood that they are passing through, but you cannot tell which streets, nor where the stops are. And since most streets in Buenos Aires are one-way, when you arrive somewhere and want to take the same line back, you must face the challenge of finding the bus stop in the opposite direction, which can be just about anywhere. It is a tricky business, but not altogether impossible, with the massive cooperation of the locals (who mostly give you loads of interesting, but unfortunately not entirely relevant information about OTHER bus stops -
Question: ´Hello, would you know where the 59 stops, in the direction to Palermo?´
Answer: (helpfully) ´The 59? No idea. But two blocks away from here there is the bus stop of 3 and 112.´
Question: ´Do these go anywhere near Palermo?´
Answer: ´No, no, no.´
But to be fair, if you are lucky, you do meet people who actually take the same bus as you do sometimes, and they help you. The best people to ask have so far proved to be the policemen - they seem to be singularly well informed about where the different buses stop.
Another challenge which taking the colectivos presents is the constant need of change. Coins. Everyone wants them, nobody has them. I think the Central Bank of Argentina ought to give this matter some attention, and perhaps consider issuing more coins. You can only pay for a bus ride by throwing coins into a machine. If you don´t have coins, too bad. Asking people on bus stops for change seems inappropriate (they need it themselves; I have been given a peso for my bus ride, rather then getting it in change of my five pesos bill, because the lady needed the coins she had for tomorrow!).
Nevertheless, impossible as it seemed at first to get enough coins for the public transport, it soon became a kind of a game which I cheerfully joined in with the locals.
The waiter, saying with a pained expression, when I payed a 13.50-pesos bill with a 20 pesos banknote: ´Have you really got no change?´ (a 20 pesos banknote, mind you; it´s not like I wanted to pay one beer with a 100 pesos banknote - which an American tourist at the next table did; and since he spoke no Spanish, the waiter didn´t have a choice and coughed up the change!) ´None at all, I am so sorry´says I, careful not to jingle the 1 and half peso coins in my wallet. ´Ah... all right then...´ he sighs, handing out the change he had had all along, of course.
The rules of the game are: never admit to having change, always ask for it. My man thinks it is a silly game and laughs at my recent obsession with coins, but I now have plenty of coins in my wallet (so many that I will occasionally break the rules and actually give change to someone who needs it:), while he gets to walk a lot:)))

Fast forward

2008-02-20T21:17:00.007+01:00

a parenthesis of [my first week in Buenos Aires - recovering from a nasty cold (three days in this climate and I was fine - really don´t see why people complain about the heat, I love it:) and then just messing around, getting the hang of the place, trying to work out the colectivos network (and becoming obsessed with change as a consequence - the buses here certainly deserve a chapter of their own, coming shortly), getting used to speaking Spanish, buying a mate and some yerba to drink in the afternoon in the Jardín Botánico, and going to a couple of milongas - La Viruta, Villa Malcolm, Tan Piola y Cajetilla, Plaza Dorrego - La milonga del Indio, very nice except for the floor, ah well, but spending the afternoon in the Bar de Plaza Dorrego and watching the people passing by was just as good:), my first dances, mostly with Argentine blokes (which is surprising I guess, I was told that I will mostly dance with foreigners here, but I seem to come across more locals then tourists), some wonderful tandas and embraces (you know what I mean, Tina;) some fairly good, some indifferent; only about two were really bad; and buying shoes, shoes, shoes, of course:)]
then another parenthesis containing our trip to the Northwest [fabulous landscape, insane living conditions in the Puna, an altogether different country that seems to have nothing to do with Bs As; flying to Salta, staying there for a while, seeing the track of the Tren de las Nubes, and going up into the Andes, S. Antonio de los Cobres, la Puna, las Salinas Grandes, then S. Salvador de Jujuy and further north to la Quebrada de Humahuaca which is incredibly beautiful]
and so here I am in Buenos Aires, and honestly I like the city more and more. Right from the beginning this place has reminded me - and it still does - of a city where I spent a large part of my childhood and adolescence (the heat, the traffic, and the smog, the modern houses mixed up with older, 19th c. ones without any discernible pattern or purpose, the smells of food and fruits and flowers, the dark-haired amiable people, the courteous men, the chaotic public transport; the only thing I miss sorely is the smell of the sea; the delta of the Rio de la Plata is not worthy of that name.
The funny thing is that that city is an ancient one, its modern buildings standing on the ruins of a 3000-year-old civilization, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the fairly young Buenos Aires.
And I had a feeling of triumph today, as I strolled down Avenida Las Heras and a boy came up to me and asked for directions (and he wasn´t a tourist or a foreigner either) - this is a specialty of mine; in every city I have lived in, within a couple of days people start coming up to me on the street and asking for directions; I just seem to look like I know - and what is best, I did know this time!!! I pointed him to the right direction, and my, was I proud of myself:)
A couple of hours later I walked into a place to buy an empanada; ´What have you got without meat (sin carne)´, I asked. The bloke reacted immediately ´Pollo - ..´ ´No, no, soy vegetariana (with an apologetic smile)´ ´Ah... entonces (names several types of empanadas, ending with La Napoletana)´ I wanted to know what is in La Napoletana (I have learned to be wary); ´Jamon, queso, tomates.´ ´Qué?!´ not sure I really heard what I heard ´Jamon, queso, tomates´ he repeats patiently. ´Ah, no, yo quiero algo sin carne...´ ´Sí, claro (encouragingly).´ I have a moment of confusion, but then decide to be assertive ´Jamon, pero, es carne!´ He gives me an incredulous smile, and then it dawns on him ´Aaaaah.... Sí...´
I got a caprese, and it was excellent. But, honestly...
Will be good and post some more, if I have the time.. The thing is, there are so many things going on, and I need to absorb them first..

Quote du jour

2008-02-01T20:56:00.000+01:00

Dijo Susana Miller:
(El tango) es primero que todo un "abrazo que camina".
Au fond, c´est ce qu´on aime le plus, n´est-ce pas?

Traveller´s hysteria?

2008-01-31T21:57:00.000+01:00

Two more days... I can´t wait, though I´m dreading the overseas flight. I have never taken sleeping pills in my life, but maybe I could have some now, to knock myself out for the night flight, so that I don´t have to think about the abyss below, and the depths of the ocean? For some reason the idea fills me with horror, similar to the one I feel when sailing on a ship at night, and thinking of the terrifying depths of the dark sea below, from which I am only separated by the thin bottom of the ship; and that is my beloved Mediterranean I am talking about, and not the gloomy grey Atlantic! It is a sort of a vertigo (which I do not have, but I imagine it must feel like that).

Now now, I am growing macabre.

I am so looking forward to Buenos Aires and the summer. I must have forgotten what it looks like. And the travelling. We are planning to go to the Noroeste, Salta, Jujuy. I have been reading some stuff about that region, and it´s fascinating. Now, this is not a travels blog – I find they tend to be rather tedious to read – but it is, after all, where my chemin du tango is taking me (theoretically; in practice it is my man who has this thing about pre-Spanish Latin American cultures:)), and I have a couple of questions for those tangueros, or porteños, who have ventured out of the capital into the northwestern provinces:

First and foremost, should I bring my dancing shoes, or am I not to bother?

And what about the water? I drink tap water (c.f. Tagged), but the guide mentions that the water in the northwest (and only there, it seems) is ´not reliable´ - and also says to beware of salads and fruits and vegetables if you don´t know what water they were washed in (well, show me a restaurant where they wash vegetables in bottled water..) – so, am I to drink bottled water and starve during the trip? Then again I don´t know how ´reliable´ the guide is – I always read guides to places I know well, out of curiosity, and there are always both really useful tips and complete nonsense and paranoia. Hmmmmmm....

But it is all my fault. I have just realized the other day that since I want to travel up north, I should perhaps consider some vaccination (I know, silly me, but it never occured to me for going to Buenos Aires..). I called a health center and they confirmed this and told me off for thinking of it so late.

I am going through the profile of Argentina on the website of the Pan American Health Organization, but will stop now, because it is seriously scary. All epidemics seem to break out in the Salta or Jujuy region, where many horrible diseases are endemic, apparently. Right; I don´t think I want to know this.

Ok, there is definitely something wrong with me tonight. Should have gone dancing.

Speaking of dancing, I have victoriously emerged from my post-New Year-depression. Last week, as a matter of fact, I had two fabulous tandas with two fabulous dancers; and apparently, the pleasure was mutual;) Can´t wait to dance in Buenos Aires.

Tagged

2008-01-08T23:34:00.000+01:00

It is spreading like the plague:) Tangobaby, I don´t think I can link to seven more blogs, unless I tag people who have already been tagged.. it is a small tango-blog world:) but I´ll do my best. Anyway, it is quite an interesting exercise. I certainly enjoyed reading other people´s responses.

So, for those of you who don´t, as yet, know, here are the rules of the game:

Share seven random and/or weird things (you can decide if they're wierd) about yourself. Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here go mine:

My favourite drink is water. I just love its taste (for those of you who think water is tasteless – it is not!) I cannot think of any liquid the taste of which could rival good tap water (mineral water isn´t half as good). As a child I used to get seriously annoyed when well-meaning people would try to force Coke/Sprite/orange juice on me, assuming I was only asking for tap water to be modest.

I like cooking. I find it interesting, fun, creative, and very rewarding:) As a matter of fact, cooking is the only house chore that makes any sense to me. I also like reading cookbooks.

I am left-handed, and I am irrationally proud of it. Maybe because my mother, who greatly admired Leonardo Da Vinci, was thrilled when I started drawing with my left hand and later, when I was four, writing from right to left, ´mirror writing´ certain letters; she never once thought of encouraging me to use my right hand instead. And well until my school years I would occasionally use the mirror form of a letter – certain letters just seemed ok both ways – and I can still write from right to left quite effortlessly.

I have green eyes. Like my mother, and her mother. I used to think it was just the women in my family who had them, until I found out that they come from my great-grandfather. Not very popular in the family, he was what they call a Hochstapler, an adventurer. A very good looking man, who owned and ran several pubs (always went bankrupt in the end) and after he had squandered his wife´s dowry he embarked on a boat to Buenos Aires, with high hopes, it seems, only to return to Europe as penniless as he had left. I wonder if he encountered tango there...

I am a vegetarian. I never really liked eating meat in the first place – I have always found it rather suspect and vaguely disgusting – but after a rather disconcerting experience (a work assignment including visits to abbatoirs – I found out too late and couldn´t refuse) I would no longer put up with it and announced I was a vegetarian. The advantage being I can now tell people I can´t eat meat, because I am a vegetarian and they don´t get offended, which they would if I said I´rather starve than eat that.

Dogs like me and they don´t bark at me; I love dogs and I think they can tell. When I was little I would stroke and cuddle every dog I could get hold off, including very big and very dirty stray dogs, abounding in the country of my childhood; my mother was terrified I would get bitten, but I never did.

I got my degree in historical linguistics, the history of the English language, to be more precise. I studied Old English –

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

- that sort of thing – and I was fascinated by the medieval world of Alfred the Great, the Lindisfarne monks and the Anglo-Saxon warriors, and their grim, funny, bizarre and delightful verses.

So, that´s it:) And I am tagging: The Tango Goddess

Happy New Year

2008-01-04T14:23:00.000+01:00

Haven´t written anything in a couple of weeks, and, what is worse, haven´t danced either:(

And not so much because of the frenetic social life that usually accompanies this time of the year, but rather because – like so many others both around me and in the blogosphere – I got ill a week before Christmas, and spent most of it coughing and sneezing, wrapped up in warm covers on the living room sofa, staring wistfully at the lovely Christmas tree which, I was told, gave out a beautiful smell of winter forests – only I couldn´t smell any of it because of my cold:(

I have been reading tango blogs though – they are such a consolation when I cannot dance myself:) and I have updated my blogroll accordingly.

Then, last night, I went dancing. I am pretty much ok now, though still feeling a bit weak; I didn´t expect this pause of two weeks to influence my dancing very much... but it has. It was awful. My legs were weak, wobbly, I moved with uncertainty, got tired quickly... simply awful. I think (and hope) it isn´t so much my dancing skills reduced to nought in such a short time, but the muscles of my body that have gone soft because of a lack of exercise. But how can my body be so unreliable? I mean, a stupid dragging cold and I get all shaky with the least physical exertion!

The least.. well.. I guess I shouldn´t have begun the evening with a long Gotan tanda – I didn´t want to, either, but my friend insisted. Should have only danced to slower and more soothing music. And then there was the vals tanda – but I do so love vals, and it was with one of my favourite leaders – only somehow it didn´t come out as lovely as it might have. Oh well. Around midnight I decided to call it a day and catch the last metro home.

What grieves me most about this is that towards the end of last year I was going through a very good tango period – I was really quite happy with my dancing, all seemed to go so well. Last night, I felt terribly downhearted as I climbed the steps to my flat on the fifth floor, after the first milonga in this year, and full of doubts about my dancing and tango.

Have to exercise, to get back in shape. And dance, to get back into the right frame of mind. And think of my trip to Argentina.

Buenos Aires - I wonder...

2007-12-18T17:03:00.000+01:00

I am dancing a lot lately, and I am listening to tango music even more. I have taken to looking up the lyrics of the songs that I like so that I can sing them with the music (and understand the parts I cannot figure out on my own – BTW anyone know a good on-line dictionary which would also contain Argentine slang? a monolingual one would do), and they are ever so beautiful! In fact, I hardly ever listen to other music than tango anymore – there still seems to be so much to discover – and while I am perfectly content that way, I have a feeling it might sometimes be a bit overwhelming for those around me, who think that there are only so many times you can listen to a tango...(apart from listening to tango on my iPod, which is quite harmless, I love listening to tango CDs in the living room on a quiet evening at home... or when receiving guests... and when I am cooking... and baking... and getting dressed up and ready to go out... I just like it as a background to my life.

From which it follows that I need more tango music, right? So that people don´t get bored listening to the same tangos all over again and again:)

I have great hopes concerning tango music to buy when I go to Buenos Aires. And the shoes, of course. The shoes...

And the dancing, I suppose...?

Well, the thing is.. I have already got my ticket to Argentina. And the place to stay. And much as I long to dance in the milongas of Buenos Aires, I would also like to see a bit of the country and not just its capital city. I find that seeing the countryside may be very illuminating when getting to know a country, because a capital city will always be the capital. We´re planning to travel up to the north-east, to the provinces near the Bolivian and Chilean border. So I am really looking forward to the whole trip, and have started counting down the days till February.

I am also looking forward to taking some classes in Buenos Aires, and of course to the milongas! But, reading people´s posts about the dancing in B.A., I wonder... Why do some people consider it to be nothing short of paradise? And then, again, specify that ´even´ in B.A. there are some bad dancers...?! Well, of course, there are bound to be better and worse dancers, aren´t there, they are humans like everyone else and not everyone is a born dancer. I know quite a few Argentines who couldn´t dance to save their lives, and why should they?

I do hope that there will be more tangueros in B.A. who dance with the music, not just on it, who dance to connect with their partner, who know how to hold a woman, who know that less is sometimes more, who know how to pause. It may be thanks to the culture of not rushing things and, what is most important, NOT seeing tango as a sport (I am quite allergic to that kind of attitude – but, again, though you may find it more common in some countries than in others, I think it is a personal thing, just like when some people aren´t able to truly feel and enjoy classical music, or delight in the taste of good wine).

Don´t get me wrong, I can´t wait to dance in Buenos Aires, I believe it IS necessary for everyone who takes tango seriously; it is, after all, where it all began..

But then again, it is important to realize that the B.A. milongas are also attended by foreigners, who undoubtedly all go there to dance with porteños, and end up dancing with each other:) and why not? Why do people – foreigners travelling to B.A. – speak so dismissively of ´turistas´??? I live in a breathtakingly beautiful city which is one of the biggest tourist destinations, mainly because of its ´romantic atmosphere´. I have listened to countless tourists say, wistfully: ´It is a beautiful city, ever so lovely, if only there weren´t so many tourists...(sigh)´ Pardon me?! And what would YOU be doing here, then? (I have never actually said that, but the look of astonishment must have been pretty eloquent) We, the locals, have perhaps the right to complain that our favourite haunts are flooded with huge, loud groups of Italian, German, Japanese, and what-have-you tourists. But not the tourists themselves, that argument simply doesn´t hold.

Oh, and before I forget - what I am REALLY looking forward to is the cabeceo being a standard way of asking someone to dance, not just a magic thing that works with certain sensitive individuals...

Worried

2007-11-17T18:52:00.000+01:00

Well, a bit. Have been watching some videos, and following discussions about old milongueros, people like Tete, about how musical they are and how their posture is the way it is because they are, you know, old milongueros, caring more about the connection then what they look like, and, well, let´s face it, they are also quite old, so I guess they can´t be expected to stand perfectly straight and their movements simply aren´t as sharp and elegant as they might have been in their youth (although – you saw how Gavito danced, just a few months before his death? he must have been ill and everything, but as straight and elegant as you can imagine, with unfailing precision of movement; I don´t know how he did it.. of course, he was el grande Gavito.. just a thought).

I like the way these people dance. I love their musicality. I don´t mind the slightly hunched, head-forward posture (Julio Balmaceda has it too, and he is divine). I understand that sharp movements become less sharp as age imposes its physical limitations.

However -

watching these videos I have only just realized something very disconcerting: the women they dance with are always young and sharp and quick and muy elegante... why is that? If these old men are considered the living proof that tango is all about musicality and feeling, then why is it that they do not dance with women of their own age, just as musical, with decades of experience, but with a less-than-perfect posture, women whose sharp steps have become blunt with age?

Why?

Because, frankly, the contrast between the old milongueros and their young partners doesn´t make their dance look better. On the contrary, I think.

And it worries me, because I love tango. And I am a woman.

The Tango Goddess wrote about this in the first part of her post Of Milongueros y Milongueras. If it is true, well... it is sad.

But maybe it´s just the bleak November weather. And who knows, we might not be dancing tango anymore, forty or fifty years from now...

:) Not likely, I know.

The path of tango

2007-11-05T19:59:00.000+01:00

Tango has taught me patience.

Tango has taught me humility. (I never had a shred of either, mind you.)

Tango has taught me to be more optimistic and less cynical,

to accept failure knowing that it is only one of the steps towards reaching my goal,

to be warm and friendly to strangers without worrying whether they will also be friendly to me,

to appreciate other people more,

to take tango (and life) seriously while being aware that it is not worth fussing about.

I have a Buddhist friend who says that when I talk to him about tango, it reminds him of studying buddhism. I can see the point now. There are different paths to learning and understanding, and everyone chooses his own.

This is what I had in mind when I chose the name of my blog, but I had no idea it would prove to be so true.

Can you dance?

2007-11-03T20:38:00.000+01:00

I have been skimming through Robert Fulghum´s posts on tango, and I found this: it is the most lucid view of dancing - and other activities, for that matter - I have ever heard. Why don´t people realize this?
Bravo, M. Fulghum!

Winter time

2007-10-28T16:14:00.000+01:00

We´re switching to winter time! I have never quite understood why some people complain about these changes – I myself always regret the one hour we loose in the spring, but getting an extra hour of life, to sleep – or to tango – in the autumn is such a treat! I suppose that what intrigues me most about the whole business of winter/summer time is that ´the authorities´, so to speak, officially award the public an extra hour of life – or take one away; I find the notion absolutely sensational. It gives me the impression that time doesn´t, after all, flow as ruthlessly as we have learnt to accept, that it is a fluid medium which we can actually modify, by simply deciding to do so...I mean, imagine the possibilities! Also, I have just found out (gathering all kind of fancy information about Buenos Aires for my trip there in winter) that Argentina does not observe daylight saving time – and so no extra hour to dance for the Argentine milongueros and milongueras this weekend... how unfair!

I must admit with regret though that this year, I used my extra hour to sleep...I really needed it. Have had several long evenings lately, and what with the winter approaching and the cold outside, the mornings are so bleak I would just abolish them and sleep until noon (which looks just as bleak, I am afraid). My only consolation is that I will be spending the month of February in Buenos Aires and will thus cheat the year of one extra month of summer:))) – the trick of switching hemispheres is even better than the one with summer/winter time, I must say.

Anyway, some of those long evenings were due to my celebrating my birthday, so I ought not complain:) On the eve of my birthday I went to the milonga. Didn´t mean to celebrate, but somehow the news leaked out and I got the traditional solo dance with men cutting in on each other. It was fun, really. My perhaps all-time favourite dancer also came to the milonga, but he was tired and spent the evening sitting in a corner chatting with friends. However, before the last tanda he put on his dancing shoes – and invited me to dance! It was the perfect ending of an evening, and, though not meant that way, a wonderful birthday gift:)

In any case, what I am looking forward to most in Argentina is that the water going down the drain will be swirling clockwise. Imagine just how thrilling it will be to brush my teeth in the morning and watch the water swirl in the opposite direction than the one I have been seeing all my life! To me, that is nothing short of a miracle:)

Confused

2007-10-14T00:57:00.000+01:00

I hadn´t known a soul at that first milonga I went to here, but I got the impression that getting an invitation wasn´t a problem at all, and so I set out for my second milonga full of optimism. Turns out it is a very – and I mean very – small place, lots of people sitting at the tables and around the bar, but no one dancing. I was somewhat taken aback – it was a quarter to midnight, SOME dancers were bound to have arrived, even here, where people never, ever, go out before eleven; I even considered leaving, but then, I had nothing better to do, so I sat down, got myself a drink, and waited to see what would come out of it.

The situation improved somewhat around half past midnight, when several more people arrived and started, finally, some serious dancing (I later found out that someone had been celebrating their birthday there that evening and brought a lot of non-dancing friends – hence the deserted dancefloor and awkward atmosphere). And then this young bloke, apparently alone, crossed the floor and invited me to dance. It was nice, although he apologized saying he hadn´t danced for ages (he was on a short leave from the army, desperate for some dancing and women, as he earnestly put it), and after several tandas we sat down together and spent the rest of the night dancing and talking; and at one point, our talk turned to the (another) eternal topic – men/women and dance invitations in tango...

The cabeceo, alas, is not commonly practised here, not in its traditional form. Alas, I say, because it seems to me that the cabeceo is the most sensible and equitable system invented so far to allow both men AND women to choose their dance partners – though I am really curious to find out for myself when I go to Buenos Aires whether it really works so well in practice... From my experience, eye contact with (sensitive) leaders can also lead to their coming over to invite you, although, I admit, the strategy is far from being flawless. But seeing as I don´t invite men myself, I haven´t got much of a choice.

Opinions on who should invite whom differ; my own attitude in this respect is somewhat contradictory: I think it makes perfect sense for women to invite men, because they should, after all, also have a say in whom they dance with. That said, I never invite men myself, not because I disapprove of such practices, but because it simply doesn´t do for me; I don´t know whether it is my character, or upbringing, some inhibition, or just pride, but although I think there is nothing wrong with inviting men to dance, I cannot bring myself to do it. Perversely, I find it much more gratifying when someone I long to dance with comes to invite me without getting any sign from me, by the sheer force of telepathy.

Anyway, there was a shortage of men at that milonga, and, to my great awe, as we sat and talked, no less than four ladies came, one after another, and ignoring me superbly they wedged themselves in between us and invited my companion to dance. Needless to say, he always accepted very gracefully, danced one or two tandas and chatted with the ladies for a while before coming back to our table. After it happened for a fifth time, I was going to bring the subject up, when he said ´You never invite men, do you?´ I admitted I didn´t, and added hurriedly that I, nevertheless, found it a very sensible thing to do. I have rarely seen men decline an invitation from a woman, and have always thought most men rather enjoyed being invited by a woman. But my friend, surprisingly, disagreed with me. Now, to put this into context, he comes from an island in the south of the country, whose men are famed for their manliness, one of the bastions of true manhood, so to speak, where men still carry daggers and will slit your throat if you look at their sister (or at least that is what they claim – they do have a tradition to keep up, you see, and that is no small matter). ´Where I come from, this (women inviting men) does not happen´ he said resolutely. ´Not this often, anyway.´ (understand: it happens all the time, but I would rather die than admit it, it would make us seem so much less macho) ´It is not like here in the capital´ (a slight disapproval in his voice).

And we then had this discussion about the traditional role of the man and the woman in our society, and how our attitudes towards this subject in tango might reflect those in our relationships with the opposite sex in general. I wonder... If a man´s natural instinct really is to chase after the woman while a woman´s instinct should be to wait and attract the chase, rather than to start it herself – then I guess these ´traditional´ roles have indeed become rather confused. I mean, reality certainly challenges this theory that my friend was so deeply convinced of; you can observe that at any milonga, though one might not notice it at first sight. He claimed that man´s natural instinct was to chase, yet of the six women he danced with that night I was the only one he had actually invited himself. Then again, I was also the only one he invited repeatedly. In short – it made me wonder whether men really actually resent being invited by women, although they will accept the invitation without showing any resentment, and might even enjoy it, because it is comfortable and flattering...?

Sun, the Sea, and Tango

2007-10-12T22:57:00.000+01:00

I have decided to take a break and gone off to see my parents. I have missed the south dearly and after spending the month of August in the Netherlands I needed a taste of real summer - because in this country of my childhood the autumn is warm and sunny, more summerlike, really, than the northern summer itself.

I initially didn´t mean to tango much here, but I brought my shoes, just in case – I take them everywhere with me, just in case – and eventually, overcome with curiosity (I have never danced tango here) and mild withdrawal symptoms, I set out to explore the local tango scene.

I was quite pleasantly surprised; the first milonga I went to had a great atmosphere and style, the dancing level was fairly good and there were many young men – maybe more men then women, or so it felt at least, for I never waited longer than a couple of songs for an invitation. In any case, it seems tango is becoming rather fashionable among the young people here, which is good:)

Besides, there is this delightful detail: the men here are not very tall, not by northern standards, anyway. I am sort of petite myself, and though I am quite used to dancing with tall men, since most men in the north are much taller than I am, I find a big difference in height inevitably interferes with the connection between the dancers. It was ever so pleasant to dance with men – most of them, here – whose height is just right for me – it made our connection very natural and effortless.

The disastrous effects of work on the human capacity of reflection

2007-09-05T12:40:00.000+01:00

Marx knew it, the Transcendentalists knew it, and so did Ruskin and Morris. Work is BAD for the creative human mind. Mind you, I have nothing against work as such; I even really like mine. And I can´t imagine doing altogether without it, either. But I can´t help noticing the paralysing effect it has on my writing and, while I am at it, thinking as such.

Scary? Quite. I used to think it was only dull manual or office jobs that, after some time, turned people into dumb beasts, whose mind was unwilling to undertake the least effort to react adequately to an unexpected situation, and deprived them of their capacity of rational analysis. But this is something else. It isn´t about mental fatigue, but sheer lack of time; a busy schedule, social life, talk, and chiefly– because it takes more than a half of your waking hours, whether you like it or not – work!

The capacity to reflect on things and analyze events is severely impaired by the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I have always found the Transcendentalists somewhat on the ridiculous side, but they had a point. No need to go live in the woods, of course; that, as a matter of fact, might even prove counter-productive, seeing the disproportionate amount of time one would spend trying to survive... All I want to say is that there is nothing like the far niente to make you see life more clearly. See?

And the lack of sleep doesn´t help, either. When I don´t sleep well, I go through the day like a zombie, perceiving my surroundings through a fog of sleepiness; unfortunately my age-long inability to go to sleep before 2 a.m. unless I am totally exhausted fits ill with the ways of the Society, which I depend on for my living...

Au fond, is social tango dancing an anti-social activity?

Entrega total

2007-08-22T18:55:00.000+01:00

I went dancing last night. Had a few nice dances, a couple of less nice ones, and then it happened.

I danced with this guy who is a great dancer, and he dances milonguero. I know he does, so there was no trying and adjusting the embrace during the first few seconds of the song, I just leaned into the embrace and – we danced. Or I assume we did, since when the song ended and I opened my eyes and emerged from the embrace, we were standing elsewhere. Yet I have no idea what exactly happened in between; it was just me, him, and the music. When I went to sit down later on, I had a blissful smile on my face and felt like I had awoken from a dream; I couldn´t recollect what he had lead, or what I had done... nothing. Just the music and the embrace. It was a small, crowded place, and it was quite hard to avoid other dancing couples. As I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to him, however, I became totally oblivious of the people around, absolutely sure nothing could happen to me while the embrace lasted. And I don´t remeber so much as brushing against anyone else during the songs we danced together.

I know that in some dances, with some dancers, there is feeling, and with some there isn´t any. I had heard about the entrega in tango, and I thought I understood what it meant. I have had great dances/tandas before. But this was a different dimension. We didn´t have a wonderful dance together; we were entirely lost to the dance and each other, that´s the closest I can get to describing it.

Something else also happened which would have, in itself, made my evening, though its importance wanes in comparison with that sublime tanda: I got two most unusual compliments. I mean, every now and then a man you dance with will say how well you dance, or how they enjoy dancing with you – which is always very nice and pleasing (not to mention those who call you a goddess;) But what happened to me yesterday was that two women, quite independently of each other, came up to me just to tell me how they loved my dancing and how wonderful I looked on the dancefloor (and how long I had been dancing, where had I learned, etc.). The precise words were ´Usually it is a beautiful dance with a great leader that makes my evening, but what really made my evening today was watching you dance.´ Wow! I was quite overwhelmed. Like I told the lady, that was some compliment – and doubly so, coming from another woman! :)

Elle est belle.

2007-08-19T21:22:00.000+01:00

This is just something that made me laugh:) It´s got nothing to do with tango, but with men and women - like tango. Take a look!

Classes or No Classes? or, It Is All About the Teacher...

2007-08-17T17:21:00.000+01:00

This post was partly triggered off by this comment left by Tangobaby:

´One of my favorite teachers said that after a while you must stop taking classes because it will kill your dance. I think he meant that you can study too much and then the dance becomes more of a clinical experiment than an expression of yourself.´

I don´t know. I think it depends on what you consider a class, on what your are after learning, and, last but not least, on the teacher; a good teacher should also help you understand that study – in the technical sense – isn´t everything; expression and feeling can´t be taught in class, but they can be shown, transmitted – and that should be a part of teaching.

After a couple of months, when you´ve mastered the basic principles of tango, going to group classes is, honestly, a waste of time – unless you´re one of those people who go to class once a week but never to milongas – in which case you´re not likely to be reading this blog because it would interfere with the time assigned to tango in your life and make you feel like one of those tango-obsessed nutters – or unless you are a leader and want more figures (in which case I would suggest workshops).

Some time ago Tanguillo published a very thorough and insightful (and, incidentally, quite funny) article on how to choose your tango teacher, if you´re going to take group classes. I have rarely taken group classes (and, to be frank, learned little from the ones I took), but would like to expound a bit on the subject of private classes from my point of view.

Private classes are rather expensive, but if you can afford a group class once a week, you can also afford a private every five or six weeks, and that should suffice, provided that you dance a lot in between and that the classes are really useful. I actually find that I need that pause of several weeks for the new knowledge to sink in – especially as most of the things you need to learn after you´ve acquired the basics are in the head, so to speak, rather than in the body. It is a curious thing about physical activities that one can´t learn a move by just practising it physically; one must grasp the nature of a move mentally to be able to perform it – and once you understand the move, and only then, your body can execute it quite effortlessly – and this doesn´t go only for dancing.

Now what is it that makes a good teacher? In my opinion, a good teacher

- knows how to explain the meaning, the nature of a move (c.f. above), not by describing it, but by making you understand it. You know the difference between good and bad math teachers? Very much like that. The best teacher I´ve ever met would never say: ´Not like that, do it like THAT!´ ??? He would roll his eyes in thought every time, then smile and say: ´Don´t think about that move. Imagine that...(something seemingly irrelevant)´ – which would make me do precisely what he meant me to. That is teaching.

- knows how to encourage the student. I´ve had teachers who would yell at me ´What ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING with your feet?! Are you a dancer, or what?´ while they would later mention to someone else that I was very talented indeed. I know this is a way of teaching. It doesn´t shock me. From a very early age and until adolescence I did artistic gymnastics. We were a bunch of skinny 8-year-old girls, hopping gracefully around a ballet studio, while our coach would exclaim in disgust ´You look like a herd of elephants´ and ´Of course you can´t rise properly, your ass is too heavy after all the sweets you have eaten during the Christmas holiday´ (I weighed about 20 kg back then). I know this method, while somewhat harsh, may actually bring good results, and greatly improve one´s technique; yet I have always danced so much better after a class with someone who would treat me as their equal and encourage me to enjoy my dancing (with maybe that foot pointing a bit more to the side – yes, isn´t that beautiful now?) After all, that´s what it´s all about, isn´t it?

- I find that another desirable (and hardly ever mentioned) aspect of a good tango teacher is his/her ability to establish physical closeness with the student (esp. if they teach milonguero). In general this is an innate quality which some have and others lack. It´s about being a physical kind of person in contact with others, I think. I have observed that people who are more reserved in this respect often have difficulties dancing in close embrace (though why they should want to do so in the first place, given their nature, is a mystery to me). Anyway, for teachers this is a most helpful quality.

And, of course, a good teacher doesn´t teach steps, but posture, balance, axis, embrace and body movement technique.. I know, it has been said a million times by others before me, but should be repeated until there are no teachers teaching only steps left out there...

2007-08-12T19:46:00.000+01:00

Seriously, it is! No matter what some Argentines, jealous of their cultural heritage, might say;)

How else would it be possible to walk into a milonga in a town where you don´t know a single person, and feel immediately at home?

I speak from experience. I travel a lot. Sometimes too much for my brain to keep up with. I am often surprised to find myself in a different place than I had expected when I open my eyes in the morning. I mix up my plane tickets (I have tried to board flights with a ticket dating a week earlier or two weeks later – one from the pile of tickets I had picked up in a hurry when leaving home), my friends never know where I might be (and so just wait for a call rather than call me themselves – thank God for email!) and my closest family members often have an only hazy idea of my current whereabouts (it changes all the time, anyway). Certain airport lounges and other most un-homely places have a distinct air of homeliness to me – some kind of a mental defensive mechanism, I assume; although I have always applied the word ‘home‘ very loosely to places where I can sleep, eat, have people I like (at least sometimes) and where I feel well. A childhood remnant, I suppose – I spent a lots of time in hotels in that critical age when children learn to speak, and it appears that I had a difficulty attaching a precise definition to this word – its meaning kept eluding me and upon arriving to new hotel rooms I would excitedly inquire of my parents whether THIS was home, only to be told ´No, no, this is a HOTEL´. The nuance, of course, is irrelevant to a child travelling with her family and all her favourite toys...

However – for an adult, travelling is both mentally and physically exhausting, and travelling by plane is also boring and unpleasant (especially since the ban on gels and liquids in hand luggage – how can a woman entrust the air carriers with her nécessaire, I ask you? my suitcase got lost – well, that´s a euphemism – twice in the past two months). I like to think I can endure the strain better than others, seeing as I have grown up this way and would probably go crazy if confined to one place; still, travelling all the time is bad, both for your private and for your social life, it is bad tout court – except for TANGO.

Travelling is good for my tango: it has enabled me to dance with many many many different partners, thus extending my following ability; it has enabled me to observe and learn different styles of tango; it has enabled me to meet and make friends with tango dancers from other countries and tango communities, which is always interesting (well, that doesn´t go for tango only, but in general; I am, however, trying to stick to the subject, for once!).

And tango is good for my travelling! You can dance tango in practically any big city (apart from the capital of a certain grand duchy which I have always suspected to be an overgrown village rather than a small city:) and I have discovered interesting places in pursuit of milongas, places it would have never crossed my mind to look for, otherwise.

And the best thing is that you walk into a foreign milonga and all of a sudden you find yourself in a familiar environment, where you can move with ease, and where all that matters is that (and, maybe, how..) you dance tango! This overwhelming feeling of affinity with completely unknown tango dancers and the unexpected impression of being at home which I experienced ten days ago as I arrived, melancholy and in denial about Dutch reality, to a milonga in a small Dutch town - what could it mean but that tango is truly international? :)

Heel first, or toe first?

2007-08-09T13:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I gave in to this obsession I have about improving my dancing and took two private classes with local teachers I had never seen before.

Which was somewhat risky, but I like learning from different people; every teacher has a different approach to tango and his/her own way of teaching it, which I find is good. I have never really had a single regular teacher – I believe that it is good to have one in the beginning, but once you have some basics it is better to change, learn from others as well, consider everything and try it out – and then choose what to accept and integrate into your tango and what to reject as unhelpful or nonsense (mind you, it did take me some time to learn THAT; in the beginning one tends to take the teacher´s words as God´s truth:) – and that´s precisely why one should experiment with different teachers).

That´s just to say I am fairly open to other perceptions of tango and have often reassessed my tango in the light of new discoveries. But I try to think for myself.

The first class I took turned out to be a bit of a drag – the teachers were very nice people, and pretty good dancers, but they just kept on stating the obvious, reciting the basic theories I already know by heart; I walked out of there feeling I hadn´t learned a thing. However, one controversial point came up during the lesson that I´ll still need to reflect upon – the ´toe first vs. heel first´ issue. Oh yes. From what I´ve been seeing on the net, it is something that suscitates many debates, and the question whether, when dancing tango, one ought to walk toe first or heel first remains unsettled. I walk toe first. The female teacher´s reaction to that was that this was not at all good, that I should walk naturally – heel first, that is –, that all the great dancers in Bs As walk heel first (do they, now?) and that walking heel first would give me a greater freedom of movement, thus improving my dancing... Then she added, for clarity´s sake, I imagine, that when walking backwards, you should walk toe first. Now, that´s reassuring, isn´t it? :)))

It just didn´t sound very convincing to me. Especially the ´greater freedom of movement´ thing – in my opinion, walking heel first totally blocks your step; by stepping on the heel you nail you foot to the spot and there is no way you can later adjust that step.

But to be fair, I have been trying it out, just to see what effect it would have. I find I can do it in some steps (like in the media luna for example) but not in others; in certain steps it even appears to be counterproductive (like in front ochos). I do find it quite hard, seeing as I´ve been walking toe first throughout my tango existence, but I would like to experiment with it a bit. Nevertheless, walking ONLY heel first doesn´t make sense to me. A combination of the two, pourquoi pas, but on the whole I think there is more to be said for the ´toe first´ theory than for the ´heel first´ one.

Anyway, the second lesson was a blast – body movement and walking technique (yes!), adornos (yes! yes! yes!), not only very illuminating, but great fun into the bargain! The bloke was, or else looked, incredibly young, maybe my age, and has danced tango for 15 years – when did he start, I wonder – in primary school? I wish I had had to good sense to start dancing tango as an adolescent... But then he had learned from Gavito and from Javier.. and it so shows...

La photo du jour

2007-08-08T01:04:00.000+01:00

I just love these two. They´ve got style, they´ve got feeling...

Tango - Relaxed or Snobbish?

2007-08-07T11:22:00.000+01:00

As a rule, different people will describe different milongas – ehm, differently; it depends on their point of view, their preferences, and also on the image they project and how they are perceived by their surroundings. That is clear. Therefore, the following speculations about the nature of the francophone vs. Dutch/Flemish tango communities are no more than that – subjective speculations. But even so:

I have been hearing, from several independent sources, sighs, complaints and assertions relating to the snobbery inherent to the Paris tango scene; I have also been hearing tangueros/as describe the (mostly) francophone Brussels tango community as ´pretentious and haughty´, especially in comparison to the Flemish tango community in Antwerp, and to the atmosphere of the Netherlands´ milongas, which are in general said to be very relaxed, easy-going and friendly.

Now, you can see the typical clichés: the easy-going Dutchman and the haughty Parisian (can be extended to all francophones, according to where you stand). But it so happens that I started dancing tango in Paris. Not taking lessons, I had done that for several months before that, but Paris is where I got really hooked, where I started attending milongas every night, or almost, where I became addicted to tango. I was a total beginner back then, so I didn´t get to dance with many hot shots of course, but I danced with intermediate to fairly good leaders, and danced enough to be able to improve quickly (and often more than my feet could take). Ok, I didn´t go to the Latina. But I went to other very nice places and I thouroughly enjoyed my tango début in Paris; I liked Paris, and I felt that the liking was mutual.

With Brussels it is similar; maybe I don´t notice anymore, I´ve been dancing there for so long, the milongas feel like home. There sure are some really good dancers who will hardly ever invite anyone who is not a great dancer and their friend to boot, but you have such people everywhere. But on the whole, I think the local tango scene is no more snobbish or pretentious than any other tango community in the world (let's face it, there will always be a tiny bit of pretentiousness about tango dancers – those people have put in a lot of hard work to become who they are, they won´t have that passed over lightly).

I have never danced in Antwerp, although I know some tango dancers from there; they say that the atmosphere there is very pleasant and relaxed, but they always hasten to add that the level of dancing is much lower than in Brussels. C. f. above.

And now I am dancing in the Netherlands. It is my second time after the Doble Ocho (I don´t count El Corte, because the chained salons are international really), and it basically confirms my earlier impressions. The Dutch are, indeed, very friendly and easy going, and the atmosphere at the milongas is very relaxed. It is so relaxed you could probably stand on your head in a corner and no one would be scandalized – they probably wouldn´t notice, and if they did, would dismiss it as insignificant. That´s something you learn quickly in a city like Amsterdam, and I own it is a quality I like very much. But when it gets to being invited by really good dancers – I don´t know. Maybe it just can´t be expected within a couple of days – all tango communities are have a fairly complex social structure, even those that appear to be quite open and unstructured at first sight, and it always takes some time to find your own place.

All this just to say that these generalizations shouldn´t be taken too seriously. The milonga environment is very complex and besides, one night may be completely different from another night...

However (now seriously) – some distinctions must be made.

THIS is elegant.

THIS, on the other hand, is sloppy!

The weekend milongas

2007-08-06T20:19:00.000+01:00

This weekend the weather was lovely, even by other-than-Dutch standards:) and so, apart from going to the seaside, I danced a lot – outside!

I began on Friday at the Academia del Tango in Amsterdam. I was advised against this practica by a chance acquaintance (but an experienced dancer), still, I went there, because a friend I hadn´t seen for a while insisted it was really nice and practically like a salon. What can I say, perhaps I ought to have taken the advice; but I really wanted to check out this place. It is perhaps the oldest tango school in Amsterdam and very conveniently situated in the centre. And it wasn´t bad, but, well, it was a practica and it showed on the level of dancing – though it is true that some good dancers started coming in later in the evening. There is, however, one significant drawback to the Academia: it has a linoleum floor! And slippery like hell – it was like dancing on ice! It was not so bad for the slow tangos (though I did put in a lots of circle adornos to enhance my stability..) but the milongas! Some of my dancers found it amusing, you know, there are some fancy moves which are easier to execute on a slippery floor but, frankly, something resembling an ice revue is not my idea of what a milonga should be like. I really found that rather disappointing, because I think that if you decide to open a tango school, with all kinds of tango events, than surely a decent wooden floor ought to be your primary concern..?

On Saturday I went to an open-air milonga in a park in Leiden, and that was really wonderful. The setting was great, the people very nice, lovely dancing and I also managed to take some lovely pictures – to see here.

But the most impressive milonga was definitely the one on Sunday, in the Muziekgebouw, a modern glass building opening on the Amsterdam harbour, with a wooden terrace outside. As there were all-glass walls you could dance and watch the sun set over the harbour – beautiful. Besides it was really warm, so the doors were left wide open and people circulated freely between the dancefloor, the café next to it, and the terrace outside.

I got invited about five times, but somehow I didn´t get to dance with any really good leaders:(

The thing is, I expected it to be outside, and not knowing what floor there would be, I brought my oldest, plain black shoes with rather low heels which I only wear to classes and outside milongas with rough floor... And I forgot that, in a place where people don´t know you and don´t have a clue whether you are a good dancer or not, the only chance of getting invited by good leaders is to wear your flashiest shoes...and watching all these girls with extravagant Neo-tango and Comme Il Faut shoes I was cursing myself for leaving my lovely favourite pale-pink-satin-and-black-lace Comme Il Fauts at home... oh well.

El abrazo

2007-08-03T13:37:00.000+01:00

BTW – what is it with the abrazo? I mean, I can´t make it out, it seems that you simply either have it, or you don´t. But surely something can be done about that?! Imagine milongas full of leaders with that wonderful, warm, firm yet tender, comfortable embrace... Paradise, isn´it? In reality, I know, such an embrace is rather rare. And you have its opposite, an embrace which either just isn´t there (you know what I mean?) or, worse, the forceful, stiff version, extremely uncomfortable to the point of impeding your dancing. I hate that. Which is why I got into this rant...

I went to a local practica two days ago; like I said, it´s a small town, one teacher of tango only, so the community isn´t numerous. They are, however, very nice and open, and I had a very pleasant evening, where in turn I got to dance with practically all the local leaders present. Two of them were fairly good, one horrible and one wonderful.

Now, the horrible one, apart from a muddy lead and scarce musicality, had that particular unpleasant embrace; it was so unpleasant I had to ditch him after the third dance (didn´t want to seem rude and haughty since it was my first tango evening here and like I said, the community is very small... also, I thought he might improve... but he didn´t, seemed actually rather pleased with himself, and when he invited me again later that evening I turned him down with a polite but decided ´no´. I had even asked him how long he danced, ready to make allowances for his inexperience, but when he said four years, I gave up all hope).

The wonderful leader, on the other hand, was an elderly man who was clearly a born dancer. He had obviously danced tango for a very long time, and was very subtly musical into the bargain. But what made the dances so great (I couldn´t stop dancing with him, it was so nice I had that wide smile of total bliss on my face) was not so much what we did with our legs and feet (which wasn´t bad either), but the embrace. It was The Embrace. And it´s funny how you can tell from the very start that a man who holds you like that simply cannot be a bad dancer. I mean, maybe it´s just a coincidence, but have you ever danced with a leader with a great embrace who was a bad, non-musical dancer?

And so I wonder – shouldn´t the tango teachers devote more time to the technique of the abrazo? Shouldn´t they make sure their students understand how important, even essential, it is for good tango? Some people have this gift and don´t need to learn it – some men just know how to hold women better than others – but I am sure that those who do not have this gift could greatly improve their embrace, if they only tried hard enough. Because to me, the biggest problem seems to be that those people are entirely ignorant of their faults... Will somebody tell them, please....!

I don´t know, this seems like a really nice embrace, doesn´it?

The Low Countries and tango

2007-08-03T13:16:00.000+01:00

Have neglected posting again:( had a very memorable month of July, tangowise, though:))) and in the last days I have been too busy finding out all about tango in the Netherlands. Tango is my salvation; the local landscape had plunged me into a profound depression, which lifted after the first milonga:) seriously. I mean, the people here are extremely nice, and I like the water canals (though Venice is a better setting for them I should say) but I have this theory that the style, taste and the overall aesthetics of a country (and its architecture!) stem from its natural landscape. From which you may draw your own conclusions... If there is one thing that reconciles me to this country though, it is Amsterdam. A great city. Maybe it´s just that I am used to big cities, I like them, I feel good in them, and I have been spending the last couple of days in a lovely small idyllic town... Amsterdam, however, is a colourful city bustling with life, full of all kinds of people, and, yes, it´s got style. And then, all those funny little bridges over the canals, all those bicycles (love the Dutch bicycle culture!). If it weren´t so far north it would be one of the places I would like to live in. Luckily one can go anywhere with the train here, and tonight I am dancing in Amsterdam!

Back to tango!

2007-07-13T12:30:00.000+01:00

Yes!!! The fact that I have got back to dancing surely justifies this long pause in posting.. My ankle is alright again (well, hurts a wee bit during barridas sometimes, but doesn't impede dancing in any way) and oh my, is it wonderful to spend evenings on the dancefloor again! The bliss of my first evening of dancing after that one-month pause:) On the whole I can say that that dreary tango-less month actually intensified the pleasure I get from dancing now.
And I began with grand style - on a workshop given by Fabian Salas and Carolina del Rivero. I wouldn't miss that for the world:) and it was actually great fun (colgadas workshops tend to be..). In the evening there was a lovely milonga where they made a demo, which was very impressive. Mind you, I wouldn't really want to dance like that myself (nor could I, of course), but the stuff they do is really incredible, and, well, fun. Cela dit, the use of some of the elements they teach is, at the best of times, limited. It would be sheer madness attempting them at any decent milonga. Ouch.
But life seems rosy at the moment... Lots of milongas to look forward to;) and will need to make some plans for the two weeks I will be spending in the Netherlands in the beginning of August. I have only danced in El Corte in the Netherlands, but Amsterdam sounds promising as well.

Beginners revisited

2007-06-25T05:05:00.000+01:00

Ok, so, I went to the milonga, in spite of ankle and everything. I didn’t mean to; I take very seriously the advice I got from fellow bloggers and tangueros, don’t get me wrong. The thing is, I went for a drink with a friend, who also dances tango. He had arranged to meet up later that evening with some other people from his class on my favourite milonga, and we agreed to have a drink together before that. I wore fairly non-tango clothes and sneakers (very clever of me, eh? but I had danced in sneakers before and it’s not so bad... but anyway, just to point out I did take preventive measures). We had a very pleasant chat and when we got up, he said ‘You coming then?’ And of course I did. And frankly, it did me an awful amount of good.

For one thing, this is a milonga where I feel at home; I simply enjoy being there and seeing the familiar faces, kissing people to say hello on the way to the dancefloor... Also, much as I like to dance, it was fun being there not to dance, for once. We chose a strategic position on the sofa, watched others dance, had some wine – which was nice, because I normally never drink alcohol when I dance; I find it’s not good for one’s balance and I don’t very much like dancing with people who do, unless their balance is so impeccable that they can afford it, which is rare anyway. So we were sitting there, sipping the wine and having a good time, when the others arrived. They were two guys from a lower-level class, one of them with his partner who also brought a non-tango girlfriend.

Now, these two are not very experienced dancers and they hardly ever go to milongas. When they do, they bring their partners and dance with them. I guess it’s understandable, they just don’t feel up to navigating on a crowded floor and coping with an unknown partner, all at once; they think they still don’t know enough and are afraid to bore the woman or step on her feet, or both. But then, how will they ever learn like this?

However, I noticed a strange thing. They danced with their partner, the girl who came with them. But they also danced, and several times, too, with her friend, who had never danced tango in her life and had only come there to watch. They literally spent the evening dancing – either on the dancefloor or in an empty corner, teaching the steps – with someone who had nothing to do with tango! Because, apparently, with her they didn’t feel any pressure or fear of messing up; on the contrary, it must have made them feel, you know, experienced dancers. I was flabbergasted. And, looking at the floor, I saw this guy who never misses a milonga; he is a fairly advanced leader who makes up for his missing talent with diligence and, to be fair, the stuff he knows to do he does well. He is also a flagrant example of a dancer who uses his partners to boost his (apparently shaky) self-confidence. He always dances with total beginners and keeps on correcting them, to the point of being really obnoxious. I pointed him out to my friend and said ‘But what kick does he get out of that? I mean, wouldn’t he rather dance, for once, and have a good time with another advanced dancer?’ Don’t get me wrong, it is good to dance with beginners from time to time, even if you’re advanced yourself. They will learn, and you will have more good dancers to dance with in the future. Every decent advanced dancer ought to know that. But it is not what it’s all about, unless you intend to make your living that way, and, frankly, there are better ways to make a living.

Anyhow, my friend looked pensive. ‘Don’t get me wrong’ he said, ‘but it is actually nice to dance with beginners, there is much less pressure, and you don’t feel bad about botched moves. You know she can’t really judge you.’

‘Sure’ said I, remembering my beginner days, ‘and if it doesn’t work out, she’ll always think it’s her fault. Whereas, like I found out later, if it doesn’t work out, in about 80% of the cases it is the leader’s fault.’

My friend grinned.

Tango withdrawal symptoms

2007-06-13T21:29:00.000+01:00

I cannot dance, says the doctor, for two or three weeks (then we'll see - meaning it could be even longer?)!!!

I am in a state of shock. It hadn't occured to me at all in the beginning - I thought, as soon as I can walk, I can dance - what could be more natural... Well, apparently not, I have to give my ankle some time to heal. But when will it be good enough to resist the tension of dance steps? Never mind the pain, but will it be as flexible and quick as before? I am constantly switching between panic and irritation..

And it is Wednesday, I should be going to my favourite milonga, but.. there I am, not knowing what to do; I feel totally lost. And, with horror, I realize the importance of tango in my life. Two weeks seem an eternity. I would go to the milonga, just to watch, but the idea of going there in my street shoes seems bizarre - I couldn't do that, it just feels totally wrong. And I would probably go crazy watching others dance when I know I can't be on the dancefloor myself.

I have been looking at an analysis of alcohol withdrawal symptoms and comparing them to mine, just out of curiosity:

Mild to moderate psychological symptoms
Feeling of jumpiness or nervousness - well, restlessness, yes; but it's only natural - not going to tango on a Wednesday night has broken a certain routine...
Feeling of shakiness - not in particular - apparently the addiction is more mental rather than physical, thank God.
Anxiety - oh, definitely; will the ankle be all right? am I going to be able to dance like before? what will people think, not seeing me around for so long? and, WHEN will I be able to dance?
Irritability or easily excited - I am terribly irritable. I sit at a party, with very little sympathy for the people around who seem to be having fun, thinking 'Why do I have to be here? I should be at a milonga!'
Emotional volatility, rapid emotional changes - hard to say since even under normal circumstances..
Depression - yes, yes, yes!
Fatigue - I wish! like I said, coming back home at night with my feet not hurting at all, except the accursed ankle, just doesn't seem right... plus I have all this time to sleep now - I still can't get used to it.
Difficulty with thinking clearly - hmm, let's see... no.
Bad dreams - as a rule I never remember my dreams. So who knows.
Mild to moderate physical symptoms - mild, very mild.
Headache - general, pulsating - no, not on top of everything else!
Sweating, especially the palms of the hands or the face - as above..
Nausea - well, yes, I feel slightly nauseous when imagining what my dancing will be like after a couple of weeks abstinence; I am trying hard not to think about it though.
Vomiting - no; but what an awful thought!
Loss of appetite - on the contrary; or rather more time to eat now, whereas when I used to go dancing in the evening, I often simply didn't have the time to eat dinner, and forgot all about it once I started dancing.
Insomnia, sleeping difficulty - only it IS so unusual to have the whole night to sleep now..
Paleness - ???
Rapid heart rate (palpitations) - yes, at the thought of dancing again!
Eyes, pupils different size (enlarged, dilated pupils) - haven't noticed, but who knows..
Abnormal movements - limping instead of dancing? definitely abnormal...
Severe symptoms
A state of confusion and hallucinations (visual) -- known as delirium tremens - now that I think of it - I am confused (disoriented, cf. above), my life seems to lack order; and I frequently hallucinate about tango steps, music, milongas...
Agitation - yes; and the longer it takes my ankle to heal, the worse it gets.
Fever - not yet...
Convulsions - not yet...
"Black outs" -- when the person forgets what happened during the drinking episode - not applicable, seeing as I don't have any tango episodes to forget at the moment :-((

âme soeur - corps soeur?

2007-06-09T13:45:00.000+01:00

Cela fait 9 mois que j'ai écrit ceci, mais j'y crois toujours..
...Les milongas de Paris sont un rêve; ce n'est pas seulement le fait qu'il y en a plusieurs chaque jour de la semaine (d'ailleurs je commence à comprendre qu'il n'est pas possible de continuer à ce rythme effréné et aller danser tous les soirs - mes pieds en souffrent déjà), ni le nombre impressionant de danseurs et danseuses qui habitent dans cette ville ou qui sont de passage aux milongas parisiennes; ce qui ne cesse pas de m'étonner et de me ravir est le nombre de bons danseurs ici. Bien sûr, Paris est la capitale du tango en Europe, précédé au monde seulement par Buenos Aires; il y a d'ailleurs beaucoup d'Argentins qui vivent et dansent ici.
Mais ce n'est pas seulement une question du niveau technique. Dans la danse de couple il y a un phénomène étrange: si on danse bien, on peut danser avec, plus ou moins, tout le monde, et même y prendre plaisir; mais il y a certains partenaires, pas nombreux, avec lesquelles on s'entend parfaitement dès les premiers pas, une coordination des corps presque miraculeuse. Or, il n'arrive pas trop souvent qu'on rencontre son partenaire "idéal" - la probabilité est petite, mais elle existe. Elle augmente, naturellement, avec un plus grand nombre de danseurs disponibles; et alors là, Paris est l'endroit juste pour une telle recherche.
Hier soir, chez Luis et Pascale, c'était une soirée plutôt sympa, mais rien de spécial; j'ai rigolé avec Carlos après notre cours, puis j'ai dansé avec d'autres et finalment, onze heures passées, je suis allée aux toilettes, puis rentrée dans la salle mais restée appuyée sur le mur à côté de la porte. Je trouve que les choses, dans le tango, se passent souvent d'une façon étonnament romantique, presque kitsch; j'étais là, en regardant la piste de danse j'ai vu une ombre d'homme à ma gauche, lui aussi observant les danseurs. Il me voit, hésite, puis vient vers moi. Il est de taille moyenne, mince, sur la quarantaine peut-être, pas très beau, avec des traits un peu rudes. Il m'invite à danser, et je dis oui, pourquoi pas, il n'y a personne d'autre avec qui je voudrais danser. Et alors il me prend dans ses bras et là, c'est presqu'un choc - c'est parfait, il guide bien, il me tient fort mais pas trop serrée, on s'entend parfaitement. J'ai finalment l'impression de vraiment danser!
C'est bizarre; c'est comme si on était tous des pièces de puzzle et il fallait, sur la piste de danse, trouver ceux qui correspondent à notre forme..

Looking back

2007-06-09T13:08:00.000+01:00

Still not dancing... decided to give it a break, so I can restore my ankle to its full use later - but I am not sure I will be able to stand it much longer. I keep on going over the moves in my head and not being able to actually do them is so frustrating.. It may sound like I am obsessing a bit - but please note tanguillo's comment saying that for us dancers it is sometimes hard to find balance in some things, besides the dance:) How very true.
Anyhow, seeing as my current tango life is quite uneventful, I am going to post something of an older date, on an eternal tango topic which we sometimes forget when concentrating too much on things like technique or etiquette; but isn't it, in reality all about finding your other dancing half? You know (I am sure you all know what I mean), the person(s) with whom dancing isn't a painful discussion but rather a smooth, effortless chat, even a harmony without words - a bit like when, with some people, one must constantly search for conversation topics while with others - even complete strangers - one can talk for hours without the slightest effort, almost reading their thoughts? That this may happen in a dance is a source of constant amazement and delight to me - only it happens so rarely..
The post is in French - it was originally written in that language and I couldn't bring myself to translate it. I hope that's ok.

A dancer with a sprained ankle?

2007-06-05T15:01:00.000+01:00

Because that's what I am, at the moment. Not much, huh. Confined to my home for a couple of days, I can hardly walk - well, I sort of hop around, but it's not the same; and, being rather proud of the way I walk (normally), I so hate being reduced to this unsightly limp. But the worst thing about it is that I am unable to dance, had to cancel this week's dancing (the horror of it!), and who knows when that bloody ankle will be firm enough to provide reliable support on heels? However, I am still privatly resolved NOT to cancel my lesson on Friday, unwise though it may be...(wisely enough I chose not to ask for my doctor's opinion on the matter).
Anyway, the good news is that I shall have more time to pore over tango and related topics and write my blog which I have gravely neglected in the past couple of months (it all began with two festivals, one a week after the other, and the sleep deficit has been hanging over me ever since. I somehow cannot find the right balance between dancing tango and writing about tango - and sleeping and all that other unnecessary stuff which is imposed on us for inexplicable reasons, for that matter).
BTW one thing worth mentioning about the festivals is that I saw, for the first time in my life, Julio Balmaceda and Corina De La Rosa, and must join the already large number of people who think they are sublime! I have never seen anything like it before; their dancing is beautiful and impressive without any acrobacy, innovative and original without ever loosing the true essence of tango; a feast for eyes. Which is why I add these links - see for yourselves..
julio y corina tango vals
julio y corina 2
They dance like most of us would like to dance - only about a million times better:)

At the Delhaize

2007-05-23T17:38:00.000+01:00

Now this has got nothing to do with tango, but it is something concerning relationships between people, and besides it is really nice and I can't help mentioning it here:) So, I went to the supermarket the other day, it was early afternoon, no crowds, but there was still a queue of 4 or 5 people at the cash desk (it's a very small supermarket, only 2 cash desks and usually just one open). The employees are always rather nice and as the woman before me was paying, the man at the desk fussed about holding a bag open for her, thanked her and said - Au revoir, bonne après-midi..; she picked up her bag and walked out, he turned to me, I said - Bonjour, while he turned back to see her walk out of the door. She was a younger-middle-aged women, quite common-looking and she wasn't wearing a mini-skirt or anything like that, and so I mildly wondered what had caught his eye, when he distractedly said to me - Just a second, ok? - and sprinted behind her, out of the shop. I was genuinely intrigued by now and so I stepped towards the door for a better view and saw him stop her, explain something and thrust a piece of paper into her hand. And I thought - Jesus, is this what I think it is? I was dead curious. And so, when he came back after a while, I looked at him questioningly. Alors? Alors, he replied with a shrug, it's been five days that I watch her come and go... so I thought, what the hell! I've had enough of being alone all the time... I approved, and wished him good luck. And, well, I don't know the suite, but I still think it was grand... surely he gets points for courage, doesn't he?

Quite Comme Il Faut...

2007-04-08T22:37:00.000+01:00

Now, aren't they lovely?!
And they are mine:)

Beginners

2007-03-01T21:14:00.000+01:00

Had a most delightful time last night! I danced until I could no longer stand on my toes, and with some of the best dancers too. I remember sitting down twice, but never for long, and several people actually remarked on never seeing me off the dance floor. Around one o´clock I decided it was getting late and I should go home; and as I was massaging my aching feet, a girl sitting next to me whom I had seen at the milonga and talked to once or twice, a beginner, said ´Ah, mais tu as vraiment beaucoup dansé!´ I acquiesced. She went on ´Mais tu as de la chance, toi, tu danses tout le temps. Moi, j'en ai marre de être toujours là, assise...´ Anyway, the gist of the conversation was that she was totally frustrated, and really cold on top of that (well, you can´t really wear a warm pullover to a milonga, it wouldn´t be elegant, but if you wear something that shows off your body and then spend the evening sitting down, you end up being really cold). The problem, of course, is that she is a beginner, and not very patient one. She said it was a vicious circle, ´the men won´t dance with you if you´re not a good dancer, but how the hell are you supposed to learn, if they won´t dance with you?´ I told her it was perfectly normal and that all dancers have been through that stage, that it was bound to get better with the time, but that didn´t seem to cheer her up. Maybe she didn´t believe me.
I used to be just as depressed about not dancing much when I was a beginner; but it was also a really good motivation for me to work on my dancing skills and learn all I could. I would always get a few dances (I think everybody does, if they are patient enough - so no need to despair) and besides, I quite enjoyed sitting down and watching the good dancers on the dance floor - it was far better than watching a film, better than Carlos Saura´s Tango. At my first milonga I only danced with three men; still, I stayed until half past four and left with the feeling that it had been an altogether marvellous night.
And as my dancing skills improved, the number of my dancing partners increased. How often you are invited to dance, and by whom, is actually a very useful indicator of your progress (although, of course, there will always be some good nights and some bad nights, that´s just the way it is). I felt the most profound satisfaction when a man with whom I first danced as a beginner while he was very advanced and on the whole a rather good dancer asked me to do an advanced workshop with him. Hooorrraaay!!! He had been a very good indicator throughout - he rather likes to mentor beginners, telling them what they are doing wrong and how to do things right, which I found quite helpful as a beginner, but a bit annoying later on (especially as the stuff he would point out to me were things I knew I still had to work on). His comments grew scarcer, however, and then at some point he stopped commenting on my dancing altogether. I still remember my feeling of triumph:)

Shoes!!!

2007-03-01T18:31:00.000+01:00

I need new shoes. Not any shoes. I need a pair of ´Comme il faut´s. Urgently.
My increasing obsession with these beautiful and, they say, incredibly comfortable shoes - which I take it means mainly that they are very stable and well balanced, and that´s about as much as you can reasonably ask of such 3- or 4-inch-heeled beauties - anyway, my increasing obsession with them happens to coincide with the loosening of my golden sandals´ straps. I could have them fixed, I suppose. I think I will, actually, because I´m very fond of them (they - and my feet, as a consequence - looked awesome last night). But even so, it sort of reminded me that shoes are perishable, and it might not hurt to get another pair? Just to be on the safe side... And since I´ll be getting a new pair of dancing shoes, it seems to follow logically that I should get the best that there is. Not that the ones I have are bad. I´ve already mentioned the golden strap sandals, and then there is the baby-blue/black pair by the Argentinian designer Sylvie Geronimi, simply lovely and very original. But are two pairs sufficient? And the third time´s a charm.. There´s a hitch, however. The closest shop where they sell ´Comme il faut´s is in Paris. Now, shall I go to Paris for a weekend? Wouldn´t mind checking out my old favourite milongas.. but when? No time.. Or maybe just for a day? Take the train in the morning, buy the shoes - if I find any I like - and come back in the evening? It would be feasible.. But is it not terribly extravagant, going all the way to Paris just to buy a pair of shoes? - that seems to imply that buying two or three pairs would be more reasonable - or would it?
Well, I might have to do it - driven by sheer necessity, as it were.

Posing in tango

2007-02-23T15:27:00.000+01:00

This is really a reaction to the comment on my private ´tango nirvana´ theory... there is an important aspect of tango that I have omitted here, but which in my opinion is essential for understanding the tango dancers´ psychology; a sort of a strange dichotomy which probably exists in other dances as well, but is very pronounced in argentinian tango:
On the one hand, we dance tango strictly for ourselves and our partner, a good tango being a very intimate matter between the two dancing partners, an intense personal experience so to speak, which has nothing to do with a show, or a performance for others to look at. On the other hand, though, we also all dance to be seen - hence the shoe fetishism, the motley of different looks you will encounter at a milonga, the way of dancing itself - it is hard to imagine that any dancer, no matter how good they may be, would pay no attention to the image they project. There are always crowds of spectators at any milonga, and the dancers concentrate on themselves and their partner while being at the same time very conscious of being watched. Sounds pretty schizophrenic when put like this, but... Also, women will close their eyes and concentrate fully on the dance and the language of their partner´s body, but they will have carefully chosen their shoes and clothes so as to enhance the effect of their dancing moves. Not to speak of the various dance embellishments... And then of course there are those people who come to milongas ostentatiously NOT dressed-up (such attitude should be combined with high-level dancing skills though, in order to achieve the desired effect).

As for tango addicts...

2007-02-18T17:33:00.000+01:00

... I believe that the stage of addiction is absolutely necessary if one is to become a good tango dancer. And the longer it lasts, the better.. I suppose everyone emerges from it, eventually, because it IS rather exhausting in the long run; but it is something one simply has to go through, no matter how nutty it may seem from an outsider´s point of view. Or, as a friend of mine, a much more experienced tanguera, once put it: ´In tango, you have two kinds of people. There are those who take classes, but rarely go out dancing because it is too time-consuming / exhausting if one has to work the morning after, etc.. - these people go to advanced classes and know many figures, but they never become REALLY good dancers. And then you have those who become hooked and dance like crazy, hardly ever miss a milonga and stay out late although they have to work in the morning - and these eventually become very good dancers.´
Basically it just boils down to whether you adapt tango to your life or your life to tango. And in case someone finds that way-out, I would like to point out that there are tango dancers who simply cannot understand how someone can NOT dance.. It all depends on perspective.
Like I said, however, one is bound to sober up eventually and take dancing easy, ideally content with one´s technique and becoming one of those cool, self-possessed and lofty dancers you sometimes see at milongas, who apparently no longer feel the urge to dance or will only do so for special occasions or partners. But I wouldn´t know, would I, being still a happy addict myself..
I have a private theory about the next and ultimate stage of dancing the tango, a sort of a dancer´s nirvana: the individuals who reach it no longer NEED to dance in order to experience the ecstasy of a perfect tango; the man and the woman simply look at each other and in the split second when their eyes meet, they KNOW what it would be like, they experience between the two of them a perfection beyond the imaginable and the feeling in itself is so intense that there is no need to go through the whole exercise physically; they just sigh contentedly and lean back to recover from it. I have not so far met any such individuals, but of course they would be very rare. Which is lucky, as an abundance of such illuminated tangueros would make milongas extremely dull for everyone else.

In the beginning...

2007-02-17T22:55:00.000+01:00

In the beginning of this blog there was the tango argentino...
It has now been one year since I have embarked upon the path of tango. I´ve been through the stages well known to all other tangueros - at first the weekly lessons, the pleasure of learning and concentrating on my body (a ´I dance, therefore I am´ sort of a thing), then the first milonga where, to my horror, I realized I could hardly walk - yet it was there and then that I completely fell for tango - and then lots of work and dancing to improve, and then my first tango trance when I danced my eyes closed until my feet were sore, limping happily back to my place at half past two on a summer night, still more dancing, and finally becoming a real tango addict (I still remember that week, in Paris, when I went out to dance almost every night, to the practicas, milongas and, of course, les quais de la Seine - most romantic, but deadly for your feet). My feet would hurt non-stop, a night´s rest was no longer sufficient to make the pain go away and, as I walked to the metro station, I had the feeling of stepping, barefoot, on sharp blades.. Yet I do not think there´s any inherent masochism in tango, as a friend of mine (not a dancer, of course, so what would he know?) once suggested when presented with this recollection. Yes, I suppose one COULD dance in sneakers... but it just wouldn´t be the same! It´s not just the shoe fetishism which, I admit, is a part of the whole tango thing, even for someone like me, who had always scorned high heels before and thought Doc Marten´s were the hight of cool; it´s also the undeniable fact that the whole of tango aesthetics is based on high-heel shoes - both the figures and the walk. One simply cannot achieve the same result without that bloody heel.. :) Anyway, one learns to minimize the damage, eventually, and most of the time a good night´s rest will suffice (plus perhaps a massage, a foot-bath, and some exercises - all these do make quite a difference).

I have noticed some women will wear high heels throughout the day, to work or to walk around the town in (though how far they actually get, or if they ever manage to catch a bus, I would be very curious to know); but I have never been one of these women and I find it rather alarming to see what a girl - including myself - will do to her feet when she gets into a tango trance (except for the fortunate specimen mentioned above, who can indulge in high heels without any apparent self-mutilation). Though, on second thought, it may not be so surprising after all. I suppose we all know that fairy tale about the little mermaid - the one that fell in love with a human prince and, in order to become human herself and be able to walk the earth accepted the condition set by the witch who helped her in her predicament, i.e. that every step she would take would feel as if she were stepping on a sharp blade.. That´s where I got the idea, of course..