Pensamientos del Tango
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July 24: Thanks to all who celebrated with us birthday babies on July 22 at the Cafe Casablanca's Birthday Milonga. The birthday babies were Carolyn, Lilija and yours truly, the Melancholy Blogger, the former two young and radiant. About the MB, less said the better. Roland Grittani, our Paris/Victoria accordionista extraordinaire, again generously shared his music with us, and for his pains, received from David the coveted Certificate of Non-Membership in Tango Pacifico, Victoria's new non-profit tango society. Hedy and I were delighted to improvise a dance to one of Roland's pieces. James and Terri shared hosting of the evening with Tango Caminar, James and I doing the DJ-ing: thanks to you both. Chuck and Eve kindly made the lovely arrangements for the goodies and drinkies. And to our friendly tango community family who turned out to dance with us, again, thank you all! July 7: After Hedy and I performed at the Cafe Casablanca's Canada Day Milonga last week, several innocents asked what I'd been rattling on about in my little introductions to our two dances. 
The two pieces we'd chosen both referenced Gardel. The idea was to illustrate how being alive to the new in an art form enriches one's appreciation for the past. Viewed from this perspective, the tradition is no museum for the old and sad, no Old Stasis Home for those fleeing the present. It is a source of inspiration and of going forward with enthusiasm. We also wanted to say something related to this about codes - respecting them and breaking them - as the evening had been designed (very successfully) by our Tango Pacifico colleagues as a traditional Buenos Aires milonga, complete with cabeceo, cortinas, traditional music (DJ David), live band (Trio from Tango Abrazo), performance, empanadas - all the trappings of Buenos Aires tango. (Although we're pretty sure no BA milonga is policed by Mollie's puppets.) We need codes and we need to break codes; that's the creative dynamic. Gardel himself was a breaker and creator of codes: he recorded the first tango song, "Mi Noche Triste" (My Sad Night) in 1917, which created a kind of code of the tango of loss. But he broke a code to do so, being a poor immigrant (so the birthplace in France story goes), in itself breaking a code, who brought tango to the airwaves, something scandalous then. Tango, now replete with codes, was a code-breaker of a dance, which is why it was, and is, so compelling, so hated, and so loved. We wanted to show our respect for the code, even as we broke the rule of not dancing to Gardel. Our first piece was "Lejana Tierra Mia" (My Distant Land), one of the many remarkable songs written by Gardel and his long-time lyricist, Alfredo La Pera. It expresses loss and longing for one's home, a simple powerfully poignant waltz with undertones of moorish Spain. Gardel sings heart-breakingly of wanting to die back home one day with the "consolation" of his village. That voice! The irony is the song was written and recorded in 1935 just before Gardel and La Pera perished in a plane crash, far from home. We danced a simple close-embrace style, just as one does in the traditional BA milongas. Yet the tango is certainly no BA museum, it's evolving,  and the young and young-at-heart are inventing new movement and music at a furious pace. And so our second piece was by the terrific young band, Otros Aires, about whom I've written before.The piece was "Percanta," which is lunfardo (i.e., code-breaking language) for woman. Percanta is the first word of "Mi Noche Triste." Otros Aires samples Gardel's 1930 version of the song, which expresses loss and longing, this time not for a village but for a woman who has just rejected him. The band's modus operandi is to integrate original recordings respectfully into their new esthetic - they play their own instruments live - and the result is exciting, artistically right, and supremely danceable. And so we danced to "Percanta" using the nuevo vocabulary, breaking codes all over the place and having a whale of a time doing so. (Many thanks to our pal Chuck for the photos.) June 24: The riots anticipated after my fashion commentary last entry happily did not materialize. Tango halls were relatively calm and the sidewalks outside were not splashed with blood - at least no more than usual. In some quarters, such is human nature, the appearance of black increased, but I like to think with an undertone of irony and accessorizing that advanced the well-being of all. Certain individuals arrayed themselves in stunning new colours - turquoise comes to mind. I, for one, was enfolded in bliss. But I cannot allow myself to tarry there. I have other business to attend to. One of our more lively new community members mentioned to me as I turned the handcrank on my ancient ibook whilst DJ-ing Friday that he was not in sync with the tanda of the moment and began to philosophize about why. As it happened the tanda was a group of Horacio Salgan orchestra pieces, Salgan a great composer, piano player and orchestra leader.  My friend's inclination to philosophize on this subject struck me as germaine, I sympathized with him, and as sometimes happens when weather conditions are right, I seized upon his comment and ran to blog with it. The basic principle is that one never knows how one will feel on any given night of dancing, nor how one will react to the music. Properly viewed, that is another invaluable wonder of tango and our relationship with it. So many variables at play. There is whether one is rested or tired, drunk or sober, coffee-ed or not, in a good mood or not, there are the number, composition and energy of the community that night, there is the sound system, the fidelity of the sound, volume, location of speakers, there is the overall arc of the playlist, there are one's partners and their abilities, their moods, their chemistry with oneself, there is one's dance experience, music experience (of tango and other music). Some music is immediately accessible, some requires getting used to, some music some dancers never get used to, some music one has heard too much of for a while - on it goes. I've gone to milongas thinking I'm just not on tonight - too tired, too burdened with my share of life's woes. And there comes the surprise: the tango restores me to life, and the energy I thought I didn't have five minutes before walking in the door surges back and I dance for four hours without fatigue, probably able to dance all night. Other nights I arrive full of energy and cannot seem to get traction and so seek to satisfy myself with having a social evening in the company of good friends. Of black nights, we should not speak (there's that dang black again). To return to my friend's philosophizing, he made the good point that we may enjoy different composers' music, and the music of different eras and styles, at different times in our dancing life - sometimes because of the variables listed above, sometimes for no discernible reason at all; it's just part of the mystery. June 10: Taday I sing of black and beyond, i.e., tango black, for I venture to declare that tango fashion is more than black. More than black shirts, black t-shirts, little black dresses, black pants, black shoes, black socks, black vests, black hats, black, black, black. 
How tango black came to be is a question I send humbly into the ether. Black speaks of the night, of course, and nightlife. It is the colour of all colours, containing them all, and I suppose one might speculate that all emotions are contained in the tango, hence black. Occasionally, unarguably, there is red, emitted from amidst the black almost through the force of passion, like blood from a wound. Sensibly, I set that aside and acknowledge there are pragmatic considerations. Most of us look better in black, at least in subdued light. Sophisticated fashionistas know about the slimming, shaping effects of black and other design techniques. On the consumer side, black is a relatively easy choice, and usually not expensive. To effect the move to ritual space, with black our transition from the vocational cubicle to the wild night is fairly easy. Yet black is so black and there is so much black. Does one dare to move beyond black? It is my thesis that however difficult the quest, all tangueros must embark upon the search for their tango fashion identity, and dare to imagine themselves not only in black but in something other than black. I should pause to explain that black does not dominate in Buenos Aires. It is present certainly, and very powerfully in performers. It is present among social dancers too, but in the traditional milongas, dancers, especially older dancers, probably wear less black than the sad reality of brown and other troubled attempts to befriend, or at least not offend, the earth or dirt, like beige. On the other hand, in the new milongas and practicas, in the nuevo world of Buenos Aires and the alternative tango environments everywhere in the world, all the colours of the rainbow iridescently display - the surging glory of youth. Am I counselling an emphasis on externals when the tango is essentially internal? In my experience, the quest for one's own tango somewhere along the line expresses itself also in the quest for the appropriate sheathing of the body in correspondence with the new identity forged by the long apprenticeship in the dance under the tutelage of the music and the movement examples of great dancers. I will speak only of leaders here; I would not presume to address the subject of followers' fashion, as that minefield is better left to more courageous courtiers than I. The fashion genius of the Other is forever a mystery and rightly so. Let us admire with awe and be silent. Now as to leaders, it comes as a bit of a revelation to observe that great dancers have their own unique style of dress and this style generally once forged changes little. Often it is some form of black. I cannot remember Fabian Salas or Gustavo Naveiro in anything but black. Most traditional tango dancers wear black. Occasionally someone will don cream or white, but the strain of that adventure before long seems to drive them back to black. Some great dancers have never worn black, as far as I know, at least not in my sighting. 
But where things get interesting is when a dancer transforms dramatically from black to something else, not just for a night but apparently forever. Elvis comes to mind, and not without sorrow. I remember observing the transformation of Sebastian Arce from a fairly traditional figure in black to an astonishing grunge entity in wild long hair, blue jeans rolled up a foot, t-shirt with some statement on it, and running shoes. Chicho likewise - from heavy black coats and pants, albeit with long hair, to red and white shoes, light coloured shirts, jeans rolled up a foot, and tattoos, piercings, etc. What went on here? Some seismic shift in identity and interpretation of the world, evidently. The outside proclaimed an inner transformation. And so I would advise it should be for us all. Begin with the work. Hear the music. Learn the dance. Open the heart. Allow the transformation. Then, go so far as to permit the possibility of beyond black. Wherever the search may take you, settle for nothing less than the authentic, even when it might be a tie hung artfully around a collarless neck. May 5: The "Forever Tango" show passed through here the other day. It's a venerable franchise produced by Luis Bravo, and renews itself regularly with outstanding new dancers young and old, new choreography and orchestras. It has played a major role in the renewal of Argentine tango at home and in the world.  When we were in Buenos Aires, auditions for dancers were being held over three days from 10 in the morning until 8 at night. We've seen several versions live over the years and probably all the versions on tape or DVD. The current show counts among its stars the remarkable Patricio and Eva, who until recently made their home in Seattle and taught in Victoria a couple of years ago. Their next gig is with Cirque de Soleil in China for three years; they'll be missed in our part of the world, as much as we wish them continuing success. One previous Forever Tango version featured Hugo Patyn and Miriam Larici who also taught and performed in Victoria. Miriam's image became the iconic promotional image of "Forever Tango" at one time. There is a strange prejudice among a few against performance tango. Someone was quoted in the media after this recent show as saying the show was terrific but also a product for "export," an "exhibition," an "exaggerated" version of the true Argentine tango. A related view is that performers do not have the "connection" with the music and their partners that is so fundamental to tango, whose essence on the social dance floor is improvisation. Performers, it is alleged, are merely going through the motions mechanically to a choreography and don't feel the music or their movements or engage in the tango dialogue with each other. My own opinion of this line of thinking about performance is that it is entirely wrongheaded, really a outcropping of philistinism that afflicts all art forms. As one who has danced thousands of kilometers on the social dance floor in Buenos Aires and other cities, done a little performing himself and watched in gasping awe the great dancers of Buenos Aires and elsewhere perform in the Argentine capital and around the world, and as one who has witnessed the passion, dedication, herculean hardwork and artistic genius over a lifetime that are the hallmarks of the great performers, I have to think that this mistaken view arises from some self-protective mechanism in the face of a powerful creative force that is so self-evidently wonderful it can be a threat to some psyches. What is tango performance? Simply put, it is art. It is the art end of the wide spectrum of tango. Tango's mansion has many rooms. Art does not mean, in a negative sense, exaggeration or distortion of anything. Ballet is not an exaggeration of folk dance. Classical music is not an exaggeration of folk music and folk dance. Beethoven is not an exaggeration of anything. Japanese Noh drama is not an exaggeration of anything. The art forms are sui generis. They are what they are, unto themselves, and thank heavens for them. Closer to tango home, Piazzolla is not an exaggeration of traditional social dance tango. He is a wonder in and of himself who happened to work in the tango tradition, having been confirmed in that course by Nadia Boulanger in Paris in his formative years. Anyone who has been to Buenos Aires or to a tango festival anywhere in the world, knows that performance is integral to tango. Most major milongas in Buenos Aires have a performance feature during the evening. Tourists attend some of them, but by and large, the audience for the milonga performances is portenos who have been social dancing at the milonga. The performances are not "for export," they are not "exhibitions," that are somehow less valid than the social dancing of that evening. Rather, the performances are the natural surging up of the creative force of the tango, its most artistic expression. The performers are the best dancers around, whose burning passion drives them to explore the dance's infinite possibilities for the benefit of all who witness them. The performances guide audiences to the soul of the dance and inspire young and old. The audiences of experienced dancers who watch the performances are a tango-educated group who are able to and feel privileged to witness what the human spirit and body is capable of in the tango mileu. As for the performers themselves and their "connection" to the music and each other, would anyone seriously assert that a ballet dancer is less connected to the music or his or her partner or the movement because the dance is choreographed and the music is played from a score? If anything, the lifetime of passionate intense work, the unique talent and skill of great artists, including tango performers, leads to connections the rest of us can only imagine. Apr. 26 (Buenos Aires Journal): I'll start by thanking those intrepid readers of this blog who kindly commented on my ramblings, and who wondered why the entries from Buenos Aires stopped abruptly on April 7. Speculation included my vanishing into the back of a less reputable BA taxi.  Correctly, no one imagined I'd been carried away by one of the large Porteno mosquitos for which this was a banner year, owing to more than double the normal amount of rainfall over the last couple of months, with rainstorms so powerful the water rose up over the sidewalks and into storefronts within about 15 minutes after the rain began.Truth is we got so busy during our final weeks and the experiences were coming so fast and furious it was hard to find time to blog. Re-entry to home life has been busy too but somehow the trip continues and it is immensely satisfying to enjoy this last phase of adjustment and rumination. Friends ask what was our most important experience in Buenos Aires. It took awhile for the answer to arrive. There were so many intense experiences. But it was thinking back to our last Sunday in Argentina that provided the clue. We'd been invited to a barbeque two hours to the northwest of Buenos Aires. Veteran Argentina aficionadas will know the barbecue is a signature experience, and we were delighted with our good fortune. Through the auspices of our good friend Johnny Z, we met Sylvia, a member of the British community in Argentina. Sylvia lives in Hurlingham, named I think after the Irish sport of hurling, a kind of blend of lacrosse and field hocky. Or maybe hurling was named after some Hurlingham in Ireland. Anyway, while her husband played polo nearby on the field where the first polo championships in Argentina were held a hundred years ago, the generous Sylvia drove us to a birthday party thrown by friends of hers, a much-loved Argentinian couple who met at tango some years ago and married. Each year they throw a party to celebrate both their birthdays. This year was Rodolfo's 60th birthday and therefore a very special one, for which he staged a carne con cuerdo barbecue, which means the animal is cooked with the skin still on, certainly traditional but not common, because it takes more work and time. Rodolfo is a self-made man and a great community-spirited person. Two hundred people had been invited to the grass-roofed building in the centre of a large field. No tourists except us. The ubiquitous mosquitos were kept outside by means of a clear plastic sheet. When the meat was ready, it was carried around the hall on a stretcher for the admiring perusal of the guests. Back at the fire pit, blood sausage and chorizo lay on the grill and the hooves had been neatly arrayed on one side. The party lasted all afternoon and into the night. We danced. A trio of a bandoneon and two guitars played. We listened, then danced again. An older woman sang soulfully, and we all applauded wildly.  Rodolfo had been studying sevillana, or flamenco, and his teacher and her troupe performed five or six pieces with breathtaking poise, and Rodolfo joined them for two dances at the end. We danced tango, we danced the Colombian and Argentinian cumbia, we danced folklorica, including the chacarera.Everyone had such a great capacity for enjoyment, and the people at our table were more generous than we could imagine - ensuring we had enough food, warning us not to ask what was in the blood sausage, sharing their wine and champagne, bringing us the ice cream they'd brought with them, dancing with us, sharing stories of their lives, reminding us rightly that visitors rarely get to experience what we were privileged to be part of. It was during one of the folklorica dances that we witnessed what I now realize represents for me the most important gift of our trip. It was a couples dance, and the man and woman each had a large handkerchief folded into a triangle, which they gripped at two points. They performed the sweetest dance of flirtation, improvising individually with their handkerchiefs and inviting their partner's response, the two handkerchiefs alive in the air like birds or wound into thin ropes and then entwined, or placed gently around around the other's neck - there was no end to the imaginative ways the handkerchiefs could be used to express the partners' affection and respect and yearning as the dance went on. One older gentleman, in his eighties, I think, was particularly expressive. Mesmerized, we watched him, as we had earlier watched one of the flamenco dancers, a young woman who had danced with her soul. But everyone that day expressed their emotions so freely with so much vitality. On our return, our friends asked us whether we'd learned new tango steps. Indeed, we had watched dancers very closely, and taken some lessons and learned intriguing new traditional and nuevo figures. And we had danced practically day and night in crowded milongas all over town, honing our navigational skills and appreciating the subtlety of tiny heartbeat movements to the music of the great tradition. But most of all, we'd absorbed on the dance floor and in the presence of those folklorica dancers on that last Sunday in Argentina the most fundamental truth about how we dance: that it is above all about feeling, and the greatest gift we can give ourselves is permission to feel and to express our feelings fully and truly when we dance. Apr. 7 (Buenos Aires Journal): In the Buenos Aires tango magazine "el tanguata," Milena Plebs provides a useful insight for all of us searching for our own tango, "tango mio." Milena has had a long career demonstrating the best of tango performance, including breathtaking dancing with Miguel Zotto in Tango x 2. Hedy and I took lessons from her in Los Angeles a number of years back and she was an inspired teacher of follower's technique. In her recent article, Milena is commenting on criticism from some quarters on the trend of followers to sway their hips and move their shoulders as part of their interpretive toolkit - a fetching commonplace now in Buenos Aires and many parts of the tango world, but apparently of concern to some older dancers - part of that ever-present conservative pressure on the dance (usually from men), a pressure ironically that is an excellent motivator for even faster change, such is the human dynamic when it comes to rebellion. In other words, insist that hats aren't allowed and suddenly hats are everywhere. It "does not bother me that girls sway with grace, everything evolves and one must accept evolution," says Milena, citing the example of Geraldine Rojas, who danced so magnificently with Pablo Veron in the closing credits of the Robert Duval movie, "Assassination Tango." But in taking on such a trend, it is important to make it your own. Geraldine's movement is "organic" and therefore completely convincing. Milena concludes: "In synthesis, it helps to take inspiration from other creators, we all do. But it is fundamental to seek one's own style: functional, original, but basically natural and comfortable for the couple. To discover my tango." At Viejo Correo (the old post office venue) last night, we enjoyed another classic traditional milonga, this time further out in the suburbs, its decor a little less battle hardened than those downtown venues where it seems the esthetic derives more from the boxing ring than the world of dance. Viejo Correo sports a famous black and white tile floor seen in several movies. A nice smooth surface to dance on, if a bit hard. This time the single men and women were arrayed for their cabeceo ritual near the door in rows about five deep on each side of a narrow aisle facing each other and away from the dance floor. Couples like Hedy and me were few and literally far between around the dance floor itself. Friendly hosts. Again an average age of around 60, working-class people, no tourists, and music from no later than the early forties, with a cumulative effect, on us at least, of somnolence after the first few hours of dancing - just not enough variety in beat and orchestration. Once again, as at a couple of traditional milongas we've attended, the cortina was electronic tango. The D/S ratio (for those with the fortitude to have read my previous BA blogs) was good - about half a dance floor. The music was mostly instrumental, not enough voice in my opinion - it is my eccentric view that instrumental speaks mostly to the group and voice mostly to the individual, and for an evening to charm fully, there needs to be a good balance of both. It's just a great pleasure to dance to a singer, his or her unique interpretation of the melody. Incidentally, DJ's tend to be isolated physically down here. At Viejo Correo, for example, the DJ lived, like a rare monkey, in a dark cage above the dance floor accessible only by a ladder. He gave me quite a shock the first time he descended, very rapidly. I enjoyed watching others react to these quick climbings during the evening. Only a long tail was missing.  Around two-thirds of the way through the milonga, a spotlight shone on an enormous disco ball in the ceiling. The dancers were used to this, for it signaled a regular event at milongas here, a tanda of some salsa and rock and roll pieces. Fewer than half the dancers took up the challenge; when the spotlight went off, the floor quickly cleared, and we were back to tango. We left when the smell of food from the kitchens became too great a diversion - as Hedy says, when one is getting hungry after exertion and is concentrating more on eating than dancing, it's time to go. And so we went. On the way home, we again witnessed the silent night-time army of poverty - those with their wagons who collect recyclables from the garbage. There are no dumpsters here, only garbage bags piled high on the sidewalks awaiting disassembly by the recyclers, and the interest of rats in advance of the next wave of disease. (The photo is of the portal to Recoleta cemetary, burial place of Evita and location of some of the most spacious apartments in Buenos Aires.) Apr. 2 (Buenos Aires Journal): Your BA Tango Scene Reporter continues his tour of as many traditional and new milongas and practicas in Buenos Aires as possible in order to send his messages from the frontline. El Beso (The Kiss) is another of the classic old venues. We went to an early milonga there Thursday night that started at 6 pm and ended at midnight. You enter off Corrientes, a busy commercial street that hosts the theatre district a little closer to the center of town and where tourists can run into some trouble from gangs, as we did a couple of weeks ago coming out of a Broadway-style tango show. We were swarmed by some youths and had to take evasive action, successfully as it turned out but a good reminder that this big city is not without its risks. Our friends visiting here from Nanaimo reported a theft from right inside a milonga last weekend, and pretty well everyone has their crime story once the subject is broached. The entrance to El Beso reminded me of the Hell's Kitchen of detective stories, just an anonymous red door in a blistered wall opening onto the ubiquitous dark tango staircase, which took us past a small landing inhabited by a woman collecting our money (20 pesos for the two of us, or about $9 Canadian). Dubious young toughs loiter about the street outside. Hints of the world of knife-wielding tango thugs known as compadritos described by the poet Evaristo Carriego, a briefly popular poet hero-worshipped in the early 20th Century by the very young Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina's greatest writer. Carriego was a family friend and was dead by thirty of tuberculosis. (In the photo, your reporter converses at the Cafe Tortoni with Borges and friends Carlos Gardel and Alphonsina Storli, a writer-champion of women's rights who committed suicide by walking into the water at Mar del Plata.)  Up another level and we go into a small room lit ghastly red and green and crammed with portenos, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are known (technically, only residents of the federal city proper, not the province, can be portenos). On one wall is a gallery of ancient pictures of tango greats. We are firmly guided, as is the custom, by the male host to a table in the far corner of the room at the back. One can rarely sit where one wants in a traditional milonga. This is mostly a singles milonga and governed rigidly by the traditional milonga codes. Women in their place, men in theirs, couples in theirs. The small square dance floor (smaller than Victoria's Cafe Casablanca) with a pillar in the middle is tightly surrounded on each of its sides by tables with the chairs all pointing inward to the floor, implying by design that all the important business of the night is taking place on that dance floor so don't waste any time looking anywhere else, i.e., conversing at your table. Single woman sit on two facing sides of the square, i.e., west and east; single men on their two facing sides, north and south. When couples come in together, she can dance only with the partner she came with during the evening; other men will never invite her to dance when they see she's part of a couple. If the woman wants to dance with other men, her husband/partner and she must come in separately and sit separately. This night all in attendance are working class: this time of this milonga allows people to come directly from work, if they have work or if they are not retired. The women are mostly in their 40s and 50s, the men mostly in their 60s and 70s. Almost no young people, almost no tourists. The men dressed very casually, sloppily really: wrinkled bluecollar workshirts, no ties, workpants. The women dressed a bit more nightlife but only a bit - no real dress-up tango gear. The code of cabeceo, or invitation by eye contact only, functions effectively here. Despite the jam of people, somehow the men send their silent messages and find their partners for a tanda. All traditional music, and excellent music it is - with a rock and roll cortina. Sometimes the men have to get up and wander a bit to find a sightline. Generally, the emotional ambience is friendly, a good community-feeling, because everyone seems to know everyone else, the codes are working to everyone's benefit. Unlike some other milongas that seemed to me more savage, where women seemed to be prey, and placed in a more vulnerable position as they waited, and men's smiles more like leers and their movements more aggressive, here pretty well everyone gets to dance, and there are lots of smiles and tolerant joking during cortinas and in the interval at the beginning of songs before the dancing starts each time. One benefit of the potentially respectful environment created by the rigid codes is the taming of male aggression in the interest of a safe and respectful environment for women. Women can be sure their time with a man will end safely when the tanda ends, if the women want the relationship to end. There is no ambiguity in the length of the relationship between dance partners as there usually is in other dance venues in the world. Another benefit is women will be able to dance with many partners during the evening, for when a cortina sounds everyone leaves the floor and it's rare for the same man and woman to dance again together in the next tanda. On the other hand, a disadvantage is that sometimes women will not get to dance at all. Men will not find them and they will sit all night, not dancing and very alone, not able to converse much with anyone. With men and woman sitting apart during the evening, they can converse only on the dance floor during the brief period after a song begins and before they start dancing. This means that men and women are cast in the role of the "other" during the evening, and the concept of friendship between them, rather than traditional conditioned male and female roles, is downplayed. One sees in the nuevo milongas that the codes are becoming less rigid in concert with the lessening distance between the sexes in every day life and as the possibility of friendship between men and women, rather than only romance, becomes greater. In the couples milongas here in Buenos Aires on Saturday nights, the friendship-between-the-sexes theme is stronger, and couples and groups of couples converse merrily at their tables, where their chairs are pointed in all directions, rather than just at the dance floor. At El Beso we danced for a few hours, pure milonguero, the beautiful wooden floor exceptionally slippery so everyone, especially women, kept pressing their feet on wet towels around the central pillar to slow down their soles and get a better grip, vitally important since navigation on such crowded floors requires great skill. El Beso is the home of Susanna Miller's tango school. We'd had supper with her once at the Portland Tangofest and also run across her in the New York's famous Belle Epoque tango club with its tin ceiling. She's famous for her no-nonsense approach to milonguero style tango, specializing in removing the grace from tangueras and beating hapless male students on the chest until they see the light. On another night, we go to Plaza Bohemia, best known as Maipu 444 (its address) further downtown. Another narrow doorway, another staircase, another too narrow street for the number of loud and polluting buses squeezed into it, this time a name above the door. Instead of the ghastly green and red lights and dusty wall curtains of El Beso, Maipu 444 is all bright clean white walls, a wooden floor about the same size as El Beso's but with perfect traction, exceptionally cheery hosts, and a younger clientele, more in the early middle age range for women, men a bit younger too, although there is a strong representation of older milongueros of exceptional skill. Well-known milonguero-style teacher Cacho Dante arrived alone just when we did, greeted us warmly (we'd taken classes from him a few years ago, but he wouldn't have remembered us - he's just a very friendly guy with a demeanour like a laughing buddha with the big belly: short, baggy regular guy clothes, no teeth as far as I could tell, a pair of glasses he'd removed each time he got up to dance.) Again we danced non-stop for about three hours. Again the chairs all facing the floor, the women and men and couples separated in their traditional places, the cabaceo code working effectively: a happy crowd, including us. Around 11 pm, we head out to a tango party in a vast 19th Century French-style restored apartment in Congreso barrio, 20 foot ceilings, beautiful parquet floor throughout, many rooms, old expert milongueros in attendance, along with an interesting mix of Buenos Aires intellectuals and regular folks and international guests from everywhere - and we're soon dancing again for many hours, Hedy first with a university professor who bears a strong resemblance to Marcello Mastroianni and then with a butter-smooth-dancing milonguero and others, I with everyone, including a vigorous woman from LA who pleads to do some nuevo to break free for awhile from the constraints of milonguero. Piles of food, much to drink - one of those serendipitous events we're told happen all the time in Buenos Aires if one can be open to the flow of the life of this city of many stories. Mar. 28 (Buenos Aires Journal): Tango is evolving at white-hot speed in Buenos Aires, side by side with the traditional milongas in all their variety. The evolutionary tango is evident in some of the traditional milongas when after about 2 am, the floors begin to clear and the younger dancers can strut their stuff. New approaches appear also in the performances featured at nearly every night-milonga around 1 am or so. Nuevo technique is informing all the younger performers now, even when their movement language is mostly traditional. For example, our friend, the always impressive Eduardo Saucedo incorporates nuevo movement into his repetoire, and he shows us some fun neuvo moves when we attend his Practicas every Tuesday afternoon at the Confiterial Ideal. As we all know from his visits to Victoria, he is an outstanding teacher and performer. But the nuevo heartland in Buenos Aires is located in other places than the traditional milongas, mostly in the form of Practicas that are for all intents and purposes milongas, milongas less formal in music choice, cabaceo (invitation to dance by eye contact) and other such codes, and clothing. These nuevo events are happening every night of the week, sometimes two at a time around the city - although there is a cluster in Palermo Viejo where the young are demonstrating their hipness in every conceivable way. Nuevo hot spots Hedy and I have hit so far are La Viruta, Villa Malcolm and Practica X, and there are more out there yet to explore. 
Practica X last night saw about 300 young people gather in the working-class/middle-class Abasto barrio (home of Carlos Gardel) in a newish community centre hall with a huge checkerboard tile floor. Half a block away is a fancy club devoted to Gardel shows; a statue of Gardel sits outside and a lot of bronze plaques adorn the club's exterior walls. We'd taken a two-hour lesson from two young couples just before the Practica and explored the "impulso" energy of tango movement (going with the flow) that is so characteristic of the new approach to the dance initiated by people like Gustavo Naveira and Fabian Salas in the early 1980s of whom I've written before. Their pioneering work was based on the dance's entire movement history. They were innovators basing their innovations on the first thorough analysis and categorization of tango movement. That initial scholarly work allowed them to reinvigorate tango movement and take it into exciting new realms. In addition to the impulse energy fun during last night's lesson, we explored another area that's been played with to fascinating effect in recent years - the embrace. Once the lesson was over, the young people started pouring in with all their sexy energy, great funky fashions and vigorous nuevo movement that moved all over the floor - line of dance but no lanes, no cortinas, traditional music first then interesting electronic and alternative. Their skill level was remarkably high, and because of this high skill level at complex nuevo movement they are exceptionally good on the traditional milonga floor in milonguero close embrace style, as Hedy and I observed at the milonga Nino Bien and elsewhere where navigational expertise was combined with sharp figure work. A highlight of the Practica X evening was the arrival of Chicho Frumboli, a leader in the second wave of innovation, if I have the history right, after Naveira and Salas.  Chicho looked the part certainly: lots of hair, piercings, big tattoos, belly, jeans rolled up a foot, funky red and white shoes. The ultimate anti-tango-stereotype. I'd heard he lives in Paris now, as do other nuevo innovators, and Paris' tango scene is reportedly wonderful and cutting edge. He didn't perform per se last night but his social dancing was a wonder to behold, with its minutely rendered inspired musicality, and like his clothes not a tango movement cliche in sight and yet the tango spirit so powerfully present. It was nice to see Trio Garufa members in attendance, and Andrea, who danced with Homer in Victoria last time when the Trio came up from San Francisco to play for us. Fans will be glad to hear hope remains alive for a second album, although the band members are very busy people in their lives inside and outside tango.The four teachers perfomed last night at Practica X around midnight, exhibiting the pure improvisational ingenuity of new tango. The way the performance was organized said something about the spirit of the new too. We were all given a piece of paper to fill out, on which we were to vote which couple we wanted to dance first and to what music. This meant the performers were dancing to music they hadn't rehearsed to and in an order that respected equality and potential for interesting creation. After each dancing a couple of dances, the teachers then changed partners, further opening up possibility for surprise. Last week we went to La Viruta, another new tango site, for the launch of a great young band's second CD. The band, Otros Aires, has made a speciality of mixing live music (they play piano, bandoneon, drums and guitar, and the guitarist sings) with historical recordings.  Their first album emphasized Gardel. The magic is in how they do the mixing - with great sensitivity, respect and esthetic effect. Anyway, at the launch about 300 young people and a few doddering elders such as ourselves, screamed and danced with joy at the live performance in front of a big screen with evocative videos. The new album is called "Otros Aires Dos."Before that we'd danced at Villa Malcolm at a practica organized by "Tango Cool" where we'd met up again with Homer and Cristina enjoying some down time social dancing - it was easy to see again just how well they dance in any context, including the hypercharged Buenos Aires new tango scene.  A parting note about how milongas are organized. The city has many venues. However, there are many more organizers than venues. A single venue like the Ideal may have two or three organizer hosts inhabiting it during a single day, putting on their own unique events, whether classes, practicas, milongas, special shows, or whatever. In other words, organizers are not necessarily identified exclusively with certain spaces nor spaces identified exclusively with certain organizers. One goes to a venue only partly to enjoy the unique physical characteristics of the place: its floor, architecture, location, roof doesn't leak, etc. More important is the ambience created by the organizer. For example, on Saturday nights at Salon Canning in our neck of the woods - Palermo barrio - the milonga is a couples night, very community oriented, very friendly, as I mentioned in the last blog. On the other hand, we went to Canning another night put on by another organizer and everything was different - the staff, the music, more of a singles scene, more tourists, a different age demographic - less friendly from our perspective. Mar. 18 (Buenos Aires Journal): While Hedy and I are in Buenos Aires, I'll post a few blogs that may interest other visitors.  Dwellers in the Canadian wide open spaces always marvel at crowded conditions in other parts of the globe. Milongas in Buenos Aires are a case in point of special interest to tangueros and tangueras. I've come to measure crowdedness at Milongas in BA by a measure I called the D/S, or Distance per Song. For example, in the Club Espanol, a beautiful room of 19th century and Art Nouveau decor hosting a venerable Milonga just off the Avendia de 9 de Julio , the world's widest street, the D/S was one-third, i.e., Hedy and I were able to travel one third of the line-of-dance circle in one song. The next Milonga we attended, the Nino Bien in the barrio of Constitution, we travelled exactly one foot during a song, a D/S of a very small decimal figure. Even doing a molinete was taking a risk. At the Confiteria Ideal, the D/S was again about one-third. At the Salon Canning in Palermo, a D/S of one-half. Such D/S ratios mean dancing is entirely close embrace, which is most pleasant, and navigation demanding, and the group dynamic powerful. At the Ideal, we had the pleasure of hearing on the same night the orquestras Color Tango and Los Reyes del Tango, two extraodinary bands of exceptional skill and energy. I hadn't heard the latter in person before. They're a bunch of older musicians and the energy they threw at the floor was astonishing - I think a true representation of the powerful magic of the golden age. Live music is a miracle! There are many, many Milongas around the city, usually at two standard times - starting at 3 pm going to 10 pm and the later ones starting at 10 or 11 pm and going to 4 am or 5 am - and their diversity is enormous. For example, Club Espanol has an elderly demographic of a nice mixture of locals (80 percent) and tourists and the atmosphere is friendly and benign. Entirely traditional music, with cortinas, interestingly, of electronic tango. Nino Bien has a harder edge, is mostly locals, good dancers, very crowded, and to my mind, displays something of the old days of compraditos, with the aggression and subtext of hunter and prey. The whole human comedy and tragedy is played out at such a Milonga. The "dons" or older men gathered together at their tables, receiving supplicants and employing the cabeceo or eye contact invitation to dance as a kind of savage blessing later in the evening. BA's famous plastic surgery was evident. Ideal was half tourists and mostly couples this last Friday night when the show aspect of the Milonga was predominant - the bands, several dance performances, including folk dance, some food. Salon Canning this past Saturday night was a traditional couples night and truly a community barrio Milonga, with everyone knowing everyone else, Hedy and I the only tourists, mostly couples dancing only with each other, nonetheless friendly to all, periods of performance, salsa, swing and chacarera woven into the evening. The cortina was amusingly effective - a ballroom-style tango that cleared the floor instantly. Another aspect of all these Milongas is the long period dancers take after the song starts and before they start dancing. It's usually about 30 seconds. Talk between the couples on the floor is animated during this time and stops when the dancing begins. It's part of the social aspect of the tango, and a nice opportunity either to learn something about your partner if you are strangers or catch up on news if you already know each other. Earlier this Sunday evening we dropped down to the old tango district of San Telmo and the Plaza Dorrego, where the famous El Indio gives performances of his unique and virile dance. Alas, we came too late to witness that phenomenon - we'll try again next week - but the two dancers in the photo above captured everyone's heart. Feb. 15: Next month, Tango Vita, the Victoria Tango Association (that's what the VITA stands for), will hold an election for a new executive board at its Annual General Meeting. As long-time members of Tango Vita (Hedy was president for two years), we add our voice to the call for a new board that will take a fair and inclusive approach to promoting tango in our community, an approach that recognizes and supports and respects equally everyone who loves Argentine tango, all styles of music and dance, all venues, all teachers, all DJs, all special events. We think Tango Vita can best go forward by returning to its roots. A non-profit society, Tango Vita's original mandate (according to its Constitution) was to "promote an interest in Argentine tango dancing, and support and nurture its enjoyment." It was "to encourage communication and friendship with other tango dance groups in the community, in the province, and elsewhere." We're a big, lively diverse community now. Good communications, consultation and cooperation are essential for the next stage of tango's development in Victoria. In two recent newsletters, David Gurr of Tango Inspiracion provides a road map to the future, giving those original principles in Tango Vita's Constitution practical expression for today. A founding member of Tango Vita and its first president, David's inclusive vision sees Tango Vita as (and I quote David's ideas that particularly resonate with us): ***An Association which encourages ALL types of of tango styles to be danced and enjoyed in Victoria. Click here to visit the Tango Inspiracion website and see David's newsletters on this subject in their entirety. Hedy and I believe in creative freedom. We believe the best way for the tango community to continue to grow and for all of us to have fun is to nurture every person's freedom to express his or her own individuality in tango and respect everyone else's right to the same freedom. There is an important role for Tango Vita in building this happy, respectful community where all feel welcome. As a public society, Tango Vita's responsibility is to the public in general, to potential members as well as present members. In the language of the Constitution, "the association is not to operate as a social club" for the few, but rather as an organization that embraces the whole community. In its communications with the public, such as its newsletter and website, Tango Vita has the opportunity to re-establish the vision of its founders, a vision of inclusivity and open-mindedness. Tango Vita's mission is to present the welcoming face of our community. Such was the vision contemplated and articulated in the Constitution and such was the vision enacted by the brave pioneers whom we celebrate during this year's Ten Years of Tango in Victoria events like this coming September's exciting weekend with Tony and Ilana and Tango Paradiso. We encourage tangueros and tangueras to come forward in this spirit of respect, cooperation and open communication and place their names in the running to serve on a new board or support those who share this inclusive vision. A Tango Vita search committee has been established for this purpose. Feb. 11: Great energized crowd at last night's La Milonga Alternativa, including not only dancers but people who came expressly to hear the music (recorded). The Cafe Casablanca event - a regular every Saturday at 6:30 pm for a couple of hours - followed on the heels of an exploration of "neo-tango" and the controversy it generates, presented on Thursday night by June Waters of Passion for Tango, and featuring the Robert Mari Jazz Trio live.  Hedy and I performed three tangos at the Passion for Tango event to illustrate in condensed form the history of tango music and movement from early days to nuevo and beyond. Robert gave a highly informative and entertaining lecture-survey-with-music on the tango's development, demonstrating eloquently and with apt musical selections how tango has always had its controversies over tradition versus modern, (think Biagi vs. de Caro) right from its earliest days in the 1890's.Then the Trio (piano, acoustic bass and drums) plunged into some terrific jazz-inflected tango exploration, with Robert shouting from time to time "MEAT OR SPICE?" - his challenge to us to join the controversy joyfully and decide for ourselves whether the particular exploration was tango at heart or rather just influenced by tango while remaining something else. This is the way these "decisions" should be made, not prescriptively but right in the moment,where the energy is. Helpless to resist, dancers lept up and did what bodies always should do: expressed their emotions in movement, the great antidote to all the world's ills and anxieties. Many thanks to June and Robert for a fine celebration of tango and the creative spirit. June worked hard to put together this installment in her Cafe Buenos Aires series, with interesting events still to come. We are fortunate to have in our community Robert Mari, whom the tango bug has bitten hard. His trio and his larger band, Tango Abrazo, are treasures that few communities of our size in the world can boast. What then is an Alternative Milonga? Really, it is nothing more or less than another expression of the creative spirit in an Argentine tango emotional environment. Dancers, musicians and DJs in Buenos Aires and globally are innovating at white hot temperatures.  While at the end of the day I agree with Homer Ladas, our San Francisco guru of creative exploration, that it's all tango without qualifiers - forget about the "neuvos," the "neos," etc. - the reaching for new language does tell us that the creative controversy that's been around in tango since the start is still alive, and thank heavens. It means artists in the music and the dance are still breaking new ground, that it still matters, that they are alive in the moment the way tango asks us to be.At Saturday's Milongas Alternativas, everyone is welcome whether you can dance nuevo or not or dance at all! Everyone is welcome to contribute to the music for the evening. Anyone can DJ. New DJs, especially women, are welcome. We play new electronic tango, acoustic nuevo tango, world music that to us has a tango spirit - anything worth a try as we move. And our dancing goes where it wants to go, close embrace, opening up with old and new figures, surprises are the norm. Where does tradition fit in? My own view is that one must spend a lot of time in and learning the tradition - the music and the movement - before the new is truly exciting for its newness and potential fit. But of course in reality we enter by many doors. Today we are creating tradition as it was created by those who came before us - that is our tribute to them, our duty to ourselves and our legacy to those to come after: to do nothing solely by rote, to not allow ourselves to die in the moment, instead to love and laugh and play and live in that timeless space tango offers. Feb. 2: Last night's celebration of the one-year anniversary of Carolyn Sadowska's magnificent tango wall mural at the Cafe Casablanca was just the fun kind of event the mural would be expected to evoke, magical presence that it is. Tanguera Carolyn is a multi-talented person, and another multi-talented person, Mollie Kaye, came forward to present a hilarious surprise at mid-evening, all guided by the inspired MC-ing of (come to think of it, another multi-talented person) David Gurr. 
Following a slide show organized by David and Chuck of the mural's development from blank wall behind a pool table to its existing glory behind a newish, now well-used stage, Mollie entered the room before a puzzled assembly and ascended the very same stage under a sheet, from which emerged her own shadowy self accompanied by a tanguera without feet, a frighteningly trash-talking puppet by the name of Lola. (Cue "What Lola Wants, Lola Gets," the Sarah Vaughn version remixed perfectly - Verve Remixed 2 - for tango). In the warmth of the mural's vibrant colours, Lola proceeded to give musical voice (and a beautiful voice it is) to the mural's history in a very witty song, to great applause and acclaim.Carolyn painted the mural last January as a gift to the whole tango community, with heroic logistical support by David and physical and monetary support from other community members. Secrecy reigned during its creation behind a sealed curtain attached to a scaffold. It was revealed during a rip-roaring night of dance and entertainment with live band Tango Abrazo at the "Milonga of the Unveiling." Since then, it has worked much magic and brought tremendous pleasure to dancers from near and far. We await further visitations of Lola and her league, hope to hear such a voice in song again, continue to delight in the mural and the presence of its creator and the eloquence of our special event MC, and extend our gratitude to all who dance and all who support the wonderful experience of Argentine tango music and movement. Jan. 14: What is meant by the "tango trance"? Argentine tango dancers often speak of it as the ultimate tango experience. Not easy to describe but once entered, understood, and thereafter longed for. Indeed, people allude to an addiction to Argentine tango, and of withdrawal symtoms if they haven't danced in awhile.  The faces of Argentine tango dancers are testiments to this state, to a journey inward, studies in concentration, the leaders stern, the followers - their eyes closed, their left arms now and then reaching directly above their shoulders in a sensual private stretch to arrange a new closeness with their partner - only occasionally betraying a hint of a smile, as at some dark secret.This is far from the beaming smiles of the ballroom dance world, where the partners display all their teeth in vigorous enthusiasm for the mission and point their happy faces away from each other towards admiring onlookers. The posture of ballroom dance has modified over the years, bending the upper bodies of the dancers out and away from each other. In the Argentine tango, happiness is not quite the ticket and onlookers are irrelevant. The posture brings the dancers' upper bodies together in a close embrace - they lean towards each other. They long for union, to merge into each other. The tango's music of melancholy is more balm for a wound than a hearty laugh with friends. And yet the community on the tango dance floor, for all the couples' inwardness and isolation, forms a powerful bond, a spiritual togetherness, forged at a deeper level than friendship, fired in some furnace heated by the extraordinary music and movement of tango and arcing through the individual couples to somewhere beyond the normal social intercourse enacted by our daily personas. In Milongas, songs often play for 30 seconds or more before the group begins to move. Couples chat while the songs are beginning. As if by silent command, the chatting stops at a certain point and the group starts to dance. The couples are dancing with each other but they are also dancing with the whole group, each leader dancing with every other leader. The code of tango is based on respect for the group, not passing other couples in your lane, not cutting in front or criss-crossing diagonally, which interupts the group's cohesiveness. When the group's dance experience overall is high and the music during the evening is working, the group movement is stronger, and the energy released by the group back to the couples and individuals is powerful. Usually after an hour or so of this kind of an evening, the portal to the trance state opens, and dancers enter an altered state of consciousness, endorphins flow, and we no longer feel fatigue, we are in the moment, and life's troubles are forgotten. Dancing in religious traditions - in Sufiism, the Old Testament, voodoo, and so on - offers the opportunity for an inward journey of great value. And as with meditation, it's one thing to think about the experience and another to have it. In Argentine tango, the experience is available to all, but usually one has to work pretty hard for quite awhile to arrive at the portal and be ready to enter when the opportunity comes. Jan. 1: 2007 is off and running on somewhat sore feet after a weekend of intense tango, including last night's New Year's blast at the Cafe Casablanca, and the launch at the Cafe on Saturday of La Milonga Alternativa. Powerful tango momentum for this new year!  Credit for the success of the New Year's weekend goes to many, but especially David and Diane of Tango Inspiracion, the regular hosts of Tuesday's Open Minded Milonga at the Cafe. David arranged much of the weekend, including inviting live band Tango Abrazo to play. He DJ-ed Friday night and last night at the Cafe, making inspired music choices on both occasions, and his MC-ing last night was rich with his wit and invention, good humour, sense of tradition, and welcoming spirit. The wolves howled at the midnight hour and Big Ben chimed down to the birth of the new year. Only the surprising absence of David's great muse, the non-Dickensian Tiny Tim, prevented a full curdling of the blood, in the best possible way. It was nice to hear by email from Richmond from Amerigo, who was present, as David reminded us, when Argentine tango reached Victoria 10 years ago. (More about that anniversary in future blogs and other media.) In the flesh last night, we had a big friendly contingent from Port Townsend, USA, and guests from many other locales. All our guests' energy was a solstice in itself, and I extend my deep gratitude not only to David and Diane but to all our out-of-town and local guests for coming together in such joyful friendship.  And of course no listing of credit due can omit Chuck and Eve of the Cafe Casablanca whose preparations for the three milongas at the Cafe were enormous and set in an context of salsa festivities going on as well over the weekend. How just two people manage to accomplish so much in providing us with a uniquely wonderful place to dance and socialize so affordably and host the events so graciously remains one of life's miracles. Credit too to live band Tango Abrazo whose generously long presentation of beautifully danceable music swept us all from high to high, along to what may have been the world's longest Cumparsita to close. This band just gets better and better. Its respect for the tradition and intelligent exploration of tango's evolution and relationship with other musical forms is enriching us all. Live music is a tango community essential and we've got it - hurrah! Before heading off to seek ways to restore my equilibrium after this weekend, I want to mention La Milonga Alternativa that started up early Saturday evening and will be a regular event every Saturday 6:30-8:30 pm at the Cafe. Alternative milongas are where we can explore the new in music and movement, where the young and young in spirit can be free for a couple of early-evening hours to be creative as we dance Argentine tango, this ever-evolving art form. La Milonga Alternativa got off to a good start. The atmosphere was casual and friendly and experimental, part milonga, part practica. People felt comfortable showing and trying new movements and brainstorming together. Feedback on the event included pleasure that it was early enough and short enough for busy people, including young parents and students, to fling some body parts around for some happy moments. I kicked things off with a playlist of electronic tango and world music, but anyone is invited to either DJ or bring their favourite music on CDs for whoever is at the controls of the Cafe's great sound system. And at just $2 cover charge. |
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