Tango

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Dancing with Ale, My New Tango Teacher

Here are the first videos with Ale, my new tango teacher. He’s a really good teacher as well as lots of fun, and I’m learning a lot of new things from him. He was very into this video, and he wore his white tango shoes and his milonga hairstyle for the occasion! We made two videos, one tango and one milonga.

There are many famous, classic tango orchestras, each with its own distinctive style. My favourite is Carlos Di Sarli, known as El Señor de Tango—the Gentleman of Tango. His music is lush and romantic, and we danced the first video to my favourite of his songs, Indio Manso.

There are three variations on tango: tango, vals and milonga. Vals is a tango version of the waltz, danced to kind of waltz music but in tango embrace and with tango steps. Personally, I don’t like it much, preferring the other two. While tango tends to be either melancholy or romantic, or a combination of the two, milonga is a faster rhythm, kind of tricky steps and it’s upbeat and fun.

I think you’ll see the difference between the two—I hope you enjoy them. (Ale would love to have your comments!)

 

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Susan’s Tango Party

Last night my friend Susan, who lives just a couple of blocks up the street from me, held her annual tango party.  Her apartment is on the 13th floor, and the outside terrace is spectacular. That’s where we did most of our dancing, under the stars and with the twinkling of Susan’s Christmas lights in the background. So romantic!

I didn’t want to be spending my time making videos, because I just wanted to dance, but I did shoot just this little short one at the beginning to give you a feel for the event.

Susan has quite a lot of tango friends, and she selected some great dancers for the party. I danced with everyone there for about three hours, and then wandered home tired but very happy.

Gracias, Susan!

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La Glorieta

This is La Glorieta, where I went dancing last night. Glorieta is the Spanish word for a gazebo which, as you can see, is what it is. It’s a big one, in the middle of a hilly park in the suburb of Belgrano, which fortunately it’s just a ten minute train ride away.

My friend Lina was supposed to go, but she twisted her ankle yesterday, so she couldn’t go. (She was icing it yesterday so that she would be able to dance tonight—you can’t keep a good tanguera down!) Anyway, I was geared up, so I went by myself and I had a great time. I stayed just under an hour-and-a-half and I danced my little heart out. The only tanda I sat out was by choice. It was a vals, which is the tango waltz, and although I love the music and I like watching, I don’t like dancing it myself. Don’t really know why, but there it is.

Anyway, that’s about enough time there, because it’s a terrazza floor and very hard on the feet and knees. Not only that, but last night was unbearably hot and I just about managed to make it to the train so that I could sit down for a rest!

But today’s another day—and another milonga!

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Polka Dot Night at the Milonga

At the milonga Lina and I go to, they have theme nights. Last week it was polka dots, as you can see from our outfits. There were so many polka dots in the room it made your eyes swim!

This is our friend Martin, who is a fantastic tango dancer and we both love dancing with him. I don’t know why this is, but Julia, the organizer of the milonga, manages to take very unflattering photos (of everybody, not just us!) and I have to note that none of us are as fat as we look here!

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More Tango!

Last night I went with my friend Lina to Sueño Porteño, my favourite milonga. It actually opened a couple of weeks ago, but they require proof of vaccination, which I didn’t have at that time. Now that I do, I happily went along last night.

It’s in a different place from before, and although it’s quite a small space, it’s very nice. Julia, the woman who runs it, likes to have theme nights from time to time, and last night it was Charleston. We were supposed to wear fringes if we had them—and I did! I have a great red and black skirt with black fringes on it that Venetia gave me. She bought it in Spain and although she wore it occasionally, she wasn’t that keen on it. I asked if I could borrow it for the milonga, and she said I might as well keep it! Venetia also gave me this lovely black and red shawl for Christmas one year that she bought in Spain—and that has fringe too. I didn’t actually need the shawl as it was quite warm in the milonga, but I’ll be sure to use it another night because it’s beautiful.

Both Lina and I danced a lot in the 90 minutes we were there, and I have to confess my knees are buckling today, and my back is complaining! I asked my physiotherapist if I should push through with my exercises or give them a rest, but he said I should do them. He also suggested I pace myself a little at the beginning and maybe not dance so much—but obviously he’s not a tanguero! After such a long drought, we all want to dance as much as possible, and I’m sure my knees will get used to it. They’ll just have to!

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My Other New Tango Teacher

As I said in last week’s post, my new tango teachers are a couple. Last week I worked on technique with Lis, and this week with Beto on actual dancing. It was interesting, as he has a very different style both of dancing and teaching than Alejandro, so I will need a little time to get used to him. But he is very nice and a lovely dancer!

He did tell me I have a lot of bad habits I’ve picked up at the milonga that we have to work on—but that’s why I have a teacher, so it’s all good!

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All Tango, All Day!

Yesterday I went to an afternoon milonga on the same day I had my first lesson with my new tango teacher—what was I thinking? Today my whole lower body aches! But never mind, it felt good.

The milonga was interesting. I feel a bit frustrated with my dancing, because of course I’m rusty after all this time. But I reminded myself that the guys are rusty too, so they might not be leading quite as well as usual, making it more difficult to follow. But it was good to dance anyway, and I’m sure we’ll all be back to normal soon.

New Teacher(s)

Unfortunately, Alejandro hasn’t gone back to teaching after the pandemia, so I needed to find someone else. At a friend’s recommendation, I’m going with a couple. One week I work with Beto, which is a conventional tango lesson, but the other week I work with Lis, and that focuses on technique. I had my first lesson with Lis last night and it was fascinating—no dancing at all! She did a lot of explaining about the mechanics of the foot and leg and hip and all the way up to the top of the head. With all that in mind, we practiced walking! It feels strange to be breaking down and concentrating on something you normally do automatically, but the tango walk is different and if you get it right it makes such a big difference to your dancing.

Lis has beautiful footwork, so I’m hoping some of that will rub off on me! I’m looking forward to my lesson with Beto next Tuesday—and I won’t be going to the milonga first!

I thought you might enjoy watching them dance together—I think you’ll agree with me that they are beautiful! And by the way, that bit at the beginning is them asking the audience for a favourite orchestra and tune, which tells you that none of this is choreographed. The fact that real Argentine tango is always spontaneous is just one of the things I love about it.

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Spring Is Coming, Tango Is Back—All’s Right with the World!

This morning’s BA Times had a story that lit up my day, so I thought I’d share it with you. As you know from my constant complaining, the tango scene in Buenos Aires has been shut down for 18 months because of the plague. Now, the milongas are opening up just in time for the arrival of spring. Here’s the complete text of this morning’s report.

Milongas reopen, bringing embraces back to Buenos Aires
Tango begins ringing out across the capital after 18 months of abstinence due to the coronavirus pandemic
In an old patio in the traditional neighbourhood of San Telmo, the first chords of a tango make themselves heard and several couples hit the floor. In Buenos Aires, a milonga starts the revival of tango’s embrace after 18 months of abstinence due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
Today tango is back. That is related to less contagion, most people being vaccinted and the world beginning to breathe again. Bringing back tango somehow starts to bring us closer to normality, although there’s still a long way to go,” says Orlando Espósito, one of those who would not miss the reopening of Milonga Parakultural for anything in the world.
Espósito, 75, is a relative novice in the dance, having only started to take classes seven years ago when challenged by a friend who took him to different milongas across the City. It was there that he met María Cristina and the tango embrace of his dancing partner became transformed into marriage.
They are two of the 125 dancers who reserved places to participate in the reopening of the milonga now transferred to the patio of a formerly Jesuit 18th century building, which then became a women’s prison. Today it houses the Centro Cultural Mercedes Sosa, in tribute to the late Argentine singer.
“During the period of apprenticeship you learn a lot about the steps and the combinations, but then the moment arrives when all that moves to one side and tango becomes the music, the rhythm and the silences. It’s the only dance in the world where you can be standing without moving and still be dancing,” Espósito explains.
In the starry and cool late winter night, a live orchestra breaks into sound – a plus offered by this milonga in which musicians and dancers, professionals and amateurs all mix.
“You hear one chord, one note of the bandoneon and you know it’s tango. The lyrics, the rhythms of tango set the entire stage for your life, the life of Buenos Aires,” says Espósito.

A sea of embraces

“Milonga, a sea of embraces. Milonga, the sculptor of forms which last as long as a tango,” invites the doorway of Milonga Parakultural.
Mentor of the Parakultural – an iconic holdout of the ‘underground’ culture of the Buenos Aires of the 1980s – Omar Viola considers that the milonga “is a way of healing everything, a healthy form of encounter and dialogue not only through words but also embrace and exchange.”
For the reencounter, which ran almost parallel to last week’s Tango World Cup, Viola chose this open-air space, permitting anti-Covid measures to be respected. Meanwhile, around 100 indoor milongas in Buenos Aires are preparing to reopen their doors, closed by the pandemic since March 11, 2020.
At the milonga different partners hit the floor. The most sought after are those who dance best, over and above their age and physique. But the current coronavirus protocols hinder the exchange of partners and take away part of the magic.
“The milonga is the place where couples meet to dance, where music and the poetry is. It’s the here and now, if it weren’t for the milonga, tango would be stored in some cultural warehouse. Milonga brings people together, those who want to dance. It’s the place to embrace, to improvise, to play erotic games,” says Viola.
Let’s dance!

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A taste of a different sort of tango

On Friday I called my friend Joanna to see if she’d like to go out for dinner on Saturday. She said she’d love to, but she had a ticket for a show. If I wanted to go with her, that would be great. I jumped online and got a ticket, and we were set.

We had dinner first in an old-school Buenos Aires restaurant that was OK, and close to the show venue. It’s a great spot called The Backroom, in a larger place called Borges 1975, which is the actual address. I had been there before with a group of friends. The room was dim, almost full when we arrived, and the stage was full of a variety of musical instruments.

We found a table right at the front. Joanna was particularly pleased because the piano player was someone she sings with quite a lot. She said he was an excellent pianist and she wanted to watch his fingers!

The music was a fascinating fusion of tango and jazz. I wasn’t sure I’d like it, being more a fan of tango than jazz, but it was great. Here’s a little taste of it on video, and a couple of shots of the two of us. It was a great night. (For some reason I can’t embed the video in the usual way, so here’s the link to watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=100QUEAJP4A  )

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What I’ve Missed Most

Last night at my virtual writers’ group meeting, one of the prompts was, “What is the thing I missed most during the pandemia, and what will it be like when I get it back?”

I thought you might enjoy reading what I wrote, so here it is.

This is a no brainer—it’s tango! And not just the dance, but everything that goes with it: weekly lessons with my lovely teacher, the constant quest for new shoes and clothes, and finally —the milonga! Sitting on the bus on the way there, feeling as nervous and excited as a teenager on a first date. Will I get dances, or will I be sitting with a fixed smile on my face waiting for the cabeceo, that invitation with the eyes from across a crowded floor?

In the early days I used to get so worked up about all this that I would almost get off the bus and go home. But now I understand the game and how it works, which means I do get more dances and, I think even more importantly, I know I can still enjoy the evening even when I don’t.

So I can’t wait till tango is back in my life.

But I’ve spoken to two people recently who were worried they might have lost it. Maybe they’ve lost the tango rhythm and might keep missing the beat—a cardinal sin in the world of the milonga.

The way I see it is that everybody has been away for the same length of time, and I’m sure there will be a certain amount of stumbling around. But my teacher once told me that when I stopped thinking and started feeling, that’s when I became a tanguera. So that’s going to be my strategy for returning to tango: don’t think, just feel.

Be still my heart!