My Tango Diaries

"If I could suggest a theme for our walk it would be : Tango es entre paso y paso. Tango is between one step and the next. Steps are not tango, steps are memory and choreography. Tango can never be in the things that are said. It is in the improvisation. The steps learned in dance schools are not improvisation, they are choreography. Small choreographies, brief ones. Then you learn how to connect one figure to another but one thing is still missing – tango. There is no step." Gavito in “El Farolito”, Oct. 2003 Almost all of Carlos Gavito's dancing that I had seen until this past week, was stage tango . Choreographed, elegant, dramatic. For all the drama, his performances were still more "contained" than many other stage performances. What few clips on YouTube I had seen of his teaching gave me a glimpse of another side of his dancing. Every move was as elegant, and yet perfectly efficient, as it could be made - for his partner and for himself. His movements loo

. . talking about tango connection. Sallycatway got the ball rolling with her post,, called "The Milongueros I love - The Gift (Pt. 1)" - a brilliant post you should read right away. Really, it's okay, I'll wait. . . . I told you it was brilliant, didn't I? "I have a theory that the milongueros I love the most of all, share a secret. And, it is the secret of how to obtain the gift. The gift is unbelievably precious, is given by women in the tango embrace, and once tasted by a man, cannot be resisted: it will keep him dancing tango, in pursuit of bliss, until the day he dies. "What is the gift? If you dance tango, you’ll probably know what I mean, or maybe you will by the time you’ve finished reading this post. Let me describe the 6 classic bliss-seeking behaviours of all the milongueros I love the most: various combinations of these things guarantee that I will give the gift to them, and these guys know it, the clever devils." Now she asks two ques

I know I've always talked about how devoted I am to estilo milonguero tango, and I really am - but this looks like so much fun!! Every once in awhile a hear of a class or workshop - so next time I may just have to dive in and give it a try. Thank you Irene and Man Yung, for posting it on your wonderful blog !

At the milonga . . . Me: (Surprised to find myself closely embraced.) I thought you preferred open embrace? Him: I find I prefer what the lady prefers. Me: ♥ ♥ ♥

Flow Watching videos of some milongas in Buenos Aires is mesmerizing for me. The music and dancing are beautiful generally, but, especially with some of the more crowded traditional milongas, if the camera angle is just right, you can see the mass of people moving counter-clockwise as one flowing, beautiful, multi-legged organism. Each couple is doing something different, but they are within the music together, with the rest of the floor. Some dancers call this "flow". When you've felt it on the dance floor, there's nothing else like it. It requires a high level of floorcraft and a certain willingness to not stand out - if that makes sense. Within the flow, my partner and I can relax a little, be soothed by the music, each other, and the mass of bodies around us. It's deeply moving, almost meditative. Blissful. Soothing on an almost cellular level. That is the milonga experience I crave and it's so rare. I hear it's rare pretty much everywhere outside of

"I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing." --Buddy Hackett One of the trickiest aspects of writing a tango blog, when you are personally known to your tango community and to your readers, is that it creates an added level of insecurity-angsty-ness when you're already feeling your lowest. Now, when sitting and wondering why it feels like everyone is dancing but me - I don't just have the usual favorites, 'Is it my dancing?', 'Is it the way I look?', 'Was it something I said?' - but also, 'Was it something I wrote ?' It's a hazard of the job... er.. hobby. Public posts are like kids wandering around the mall trying out all the new words they heard you say when you were mad. I just run behind them face-palming and saying 'I didn't mean it exactly like that! Well, I kind of did. Seemed like a good idea at the time . . .'

A tanguero's frustration. He sees "perfection" in the couple before him. A "master" leader able to lead a beginner to dozens of graceful movements while he could not walk her to the cross. "Perfect," he whispers. "Do you think so?" I ask. The follower's face is blissfully light, animated, as if astonished at feeling suddenly gorgeous. "Obviously - look at what she can do in his arms. He's a master! He can lead anything!" He is watching the follower's legs move fluidly from step, to step, weaving in and around her leader. I am watching the leader's face. The master leader is engrossed by his follower's movements. And there it is - a quick change. He had meant to go one way, but her response changed his plan. He smiled, led her comfortably, gracefully into something else. He pays such close attention and never assumes she will be where he led her. Yet there is no furrowed brow, no impatience in the lines of his mo

As I write this, based on notes I started more than a month ago, I know I need to make two points before I start in. 1.) This post is only my opinion and observations of things. That's it. YMMV*. 2.) I haven't been bumped or kicked for the last several milongas (not since the festival). Floorcraft, even on really tight floors like Texas French Bread which was set up even tighter this week, seems to be improving. On nearly every tango forum, blog and mailing list there are discussions and even very heated arguments about floor craft. Nuevo dancers take a large part of the criticism, partly because they're an easy target. Their dancing is considered "bigger" and their moves are more visible on the floor. But I think the blanket criticism that "nuevo (or open embrace) dancers just dance too big" not only ignores the skilled dancers who manage their space well, tightening up their use of space when the floor is crowded, but also misses what's really crea

I'm still sorting through the emails from my "Heartbroken and musings" post and it may be a little while before I get to everyone. I didn't realize how many ways my post could be taken - though I should have. So I'm writing this follow-up to hopefully clear up some misunderstandings. 1. I do not dislike Nuevo Tango. Period. It's a beautiful, expressive style of dance that I do, granted on rare occasions, feebly attempt to dance. My "problem", as one reader put it, with Nuevo is logistics at the milonga - especially crowded milongas. And it's the same problem I would have with estilo milonguero dancers that would hold up the line of dance to lead endless ochos or something. Bad manners are bad manners - no matter who is doing it. The biggest difference is that dancing bigger, or more open, makes it that much easier for others to see mistakes and navigation issues. 2. I do believe that there are challenges for Nuevo dancers in managing space and

Last night I had to face how out of balance my life is right now. In the midst of learning tango, I've forgotten, or been unwilling, to take the lessons that tango teaches and apply them to the rest of my life. For me, and I suspect I'm not alone, tango has been, among the many wonderful things, one less desirable thing (at least when it comes to having balance in my life) - an escape. I think most people go to milongas because it relieves a lot of stress in our lives - but it can go beyond that so easily. The milonga (and classes, and festivals, and practicas) becomes a place to run to when the rest of our world seems too overwhelming to cope with. The tango world can, surprisingly, be a very orderly place in contrast to lay-offs, money worries, and home pressures. It's so much easier to find connection and feel valued at the milonga that it is, for instance, in my job where we just finished a round of "justify your job" meetings. It's that way for a lot of p

If I cared less about tango, statements like these (in bold italic below.) wouldn't break my heart. "Why dance tango if all you can do is walk?" "the milonga is too crowded to do 'anything good' " My heart sinks when I hear those sentences. I hear variations of them all the time. I regret showing how much that first statement bothered me at the time. I was so shocked that someone who had read my blog (and had danced with me), could first of all believe that, and second, actually say that to me. I took it personally and it wasn't intended to be personal at all. It was just that suddenly this leader that I was standing only inches from, seemed miles away. I tried to explain. Tango is a walking dance - not long sequences of steps, but simply walking and moving to the music. I put one hand on his chest, over his heart, and my other over my own heart. I said, tango is only this - between your heart and mine, in the music. That's all. He came to tango

My brain is still too full. The festival, the lessons, old friends, new friends, stress, elation... Too much going on in the little gray cells to pull together many coherent thoughts. I danced Tuesday and Thursday nights, and just couldn't seem to pull together what I learned. In fact just following was challenging. All I could think about was that I should be remembering more of what I learned. Instead, everything seemed bottlenecked - too much information with nowhere to go. Maybe E. is right - I need more time for the things I learned to travel from my brain to my feet. Austin Spring Tango Festival The festival was wonderful, exciting, exhausting. I missed so much of it due to illness, but I find that I still got *enough* - enough of what I was looking for, enough of what I was needing... enough. I'm sad to have missed what's been called the "best milonga ever" on Sunday night at Esquina Tango. You can see video of it here . You can also see/hear the Austin Pia

When I have a music question, I have to go find a sympathetic, and patient , musician to ask. As I've written in previous posts, I don't have the remotest education in music, so just looking something up doesn't really work. The terms don't mean so much to me. Someone has to take the time to break it down and explain it. Thankfully, we're lucky to have tango composer Glover Gill in our community who not only plays several times a month at milongas, but takes time to answer my random tango music questions. So here's the scenario . . . As the music starts, you invite your partner and step onto the dance floor. As you step to the beginning of the next phrase, you noticed that at the next strong beat, where you would normally be stepping down, you're actually in midstep. So, maybe you shift weight a bit, start with the next phrase - and there it is again - where other orquestras have placed the "weak" beat, this one has placed emphasis - a strong beat.