My Tango Diaries

(picture of Ney Melo and Jennifer Bratt from La Planchadora's LOLTango .) The Good News Another lovely weekend of dancing with beautiful music from Li and Fil - both at Esquina and at Tapestry practica last night. In fact last night's practica was very productive. I was able to work on a pretty full range of styles - from shared weight/apilado/carpa movements to very open nuevo moves (including soltadas (yes, even soltadas), shadow leading, volcadas great and small, boleos, ganchos and leg wraps.) I'm usually up for almost anything at practica and I really enjoy the practice. It is only at milongas that I get fairly conservative. So while you may see me doing series of boleos, ganchos and leg wraps all over the place at practica, don't be surprised if you get less enthusiasm for those from me at the milonga. Just saying... The Not-so-Good News "Ladies, you can blame your partner making you bump into somebody. You can also blame him when someone steps on you, but y...

There is much discussion here and on many other forums, lists and blogs about how wonderful it would be if we could all learn tango just by watching and learning with peers, going to practicas and milongas etc., just like they used to do in Buenos Aires. Mario's video here describes that very thing - learning from the people already doing it, by listening to tango on the radio and practicing etc. These sorts of posts and blog entries range from nostalgic (even by people who never had the opportunity to learn that way) to bitter teacher-bashing with insinuations that tango teachers will do anything to sucker folks into continuous lesson. From Tangoconnections : " . . . From this POV classes are a massive success. No matter that the 1-yr drop-out rate amongst their students is around 90%. Amongst instructors it's nearer 10%, because giving classes very much works for them. Further, a large proportion of students that do graduate do so not to the milonga but back to the cla...

I had a weekend of beautiful dances. Friday night, though, I almost sabotaged the entire experience. Overworked, over-stressed, and under-rested, I arrived at Uptown in a state of apology which I always think I'm done with - except apparently when I'm very, very tired. I thought maybe I shouldn't have even come to the milonga. I was caught between being afraid I was going to dance very badly, and needing to dance so very much. I hadn't even changed into my tango shoes yet, but I felt I needed to warn everyone I danced with that I was tired from a long week and afraid I wasn't going to dance well. Like putting on a verbal sign that read: "Keep your expectations low". After almost an hour and a half of that nonsense, I finally realized what I was doing and stopped. The only person complaining about my dancing was me. It turned out to be a gorgeous milonga (and just the beginning a wonderful weekend of dancing). I'm so glad I didn't miss it by listen...

"The thing is, what we find if we're not used to sitting quietly with ourselves, not used to meditation, not used to having any inner solitude in our lives, we find that we're very threatened by nothing happening." Pema Chodron, author "When Things Fall Apart", in her interview with Bill Moyers . Sometimes, when we do nothing, we open the door for everything to finally find space within us. We empty our cups. In tango, in the milonga, so often it's the next step, the next step, the next step, what now? What now? . . . Then the tanda is done and where did it go? Lost in the steps. The pause, a breath . . . the time to connect to each other, listen to each other, hear the music through each other's bodies. Suspended, floating, in the space between one moment and the next. In that space, in that moment, are all the wonders of the dance and the music - the duende, the energy. Entrega happens here. Not just the surrender to our partners, but to the momen...

(Grisha performing at Esquina Tango, Austin, TX) Lessons with Gregory "Grisha" Nisnevich are always fun and very rewarding. My partner and I shared an hour lesson to work on basic technique, but also to learn some more versatile options for milonga and for some Biagi pieces. If you've got musicality stuff to work on, Grisha's a wonderful resource. Not surprising, my right hip still locks through side steps and some turns, but not as much - and I can get it out more smoothly now. In fact Grisha worked with both my partner and me on releasing the tension in our hips to keep from locking them. My balance is still an issue, though. For short movements, a few steps, maybe a molinete, not so much a problem. When Grisha led a couple molinetes in a longer sequence, however, I was not so consistent. At the end he'd lightly let go of me, and I'd tilt forward slightly before regaining my balance. (I was also "drifting" away from him in turns.) My balance is be...

"If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, "When you're ready." Black Swan Green, David Mitchell After much thoughtful discourse around the blogosphere about what should and should not be expressed in someone's blog, I wanted to take a few minutes to share my thoughts, and maybe clarify my position on a couple of things. On blogging generally . . . This is a blog , which is (or was) short for "web log". That is to say, a diary on the web. I have written frequently that these posts are my opinion - and only my opinion. I write about things I like and things I don't like. I babble about random things that I haven't had a chance to form an opinion about yet. I'll like one thing at one point, and hate it 6 months later, and vice versa. This is what many people have blogs for - working things out, getting discussions going, occasionally ranting and raving, more than occa...

Lesson with Oliver and Silvina - Part II Down to business Oliver and Silvina greeted us very warmly and asked us what we wanted to focus on. We really wanted to focus on very basic things, since asking to learn a pattern for example, if our walk was falling apart, would be a waste of time and money. So we danced for them and let them pick it apart. My partner and I are close-embrace, often shared-weight, dancers, So we lean into each other when we dance. In that type of embrace, we sacrifice a certain amount of vocabulary, to enjoy a very comfortable, and solid, connection. We knew that Silvina and Oliver were very much (more upright) Salon Tango teachers - stressing independent axes, and a more fluid embrace. We were taking a lesson with them to become more adaptable - especially since the majority of dancers in our community are Salon, rather than milonguero, dancers. So we worked on posture - and I mean we worked, and worked, and worked . Then we walked, and walked some more. And g...

"It seemed to me that the view behind every single talk was that we could step into uncharted territory and relax with the groundlessness of our situation. The other underlying theme was dissolving the dualistic tension between us and them , this and that , good and bad , by inviting in what we usually avoid. My teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, described this as "leaning into the sharp points." When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Eleanor Roosevelt Lesson with Oliver Kolker and Silvina Valz A Little Context Some readers may remember that I attended classes with Oliver Kolker and Silvina Valz last year at this time and had rather a mixed experience. A lot of what I learned I use literally every single time I dance. Their emphasis on strong technique and respect for basic structure, make them highly sought after teachers, and no one I've talked to has ever been dis...

I'm finally done scanning and all 150 pages are viewable on the Picasa page, linked on the image below. I've made a permanent link on the blog, below the banner -"Tango UNESCO Presentation." The pictures and historical documents are wonderful and definitely worth the look. I've also embedded the video UNESCO posted on the topic, and information about professor who donated the book to University of Texas Benson Latin Library. This book was given to Benson Latin Library by Gerard H Behague : Professor Béhague began his career in musicology in 1966 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by teaching music history, American music, and Latin American music. He gradually moved towards increased interest in ethnomusicology, eventually starting a strong program in Latin American ethnomusicology that is currently maintained there by one of his UT students, Tom Turino. About the Benson Latin Library : The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, a unit of th...

The video below is part of the reason I can't get very excited about soltadas. Moves/patterns/steps should be appropriate to the music - not just the rhythm of the music, but the intention of the music. Unfortunately, deciphering the intention of vocal tangos requires an idea of what the lyrics are saying. (And there's a whole other case made against including vocal tangos at all by Danny Israel here .) I don't know Castellano, but I'm learning. Any time I hear a tango that moves me, or in many cases, moves the leader I'm dancing with, I look up the lyrics. If I can't find a translation, I work out a rough translation for myself. After all, would John Lennon's "Imagine" move people as deeply if they didn't understand the sentiment of the lyrics? It's a beautiful song regardless, but the lyrics tell the story. The lyrics tell a story in this song as well . . . One of the most tragic (and that's saying something) tangos played in milonga...

Part I - The embrace is everything During Spring Tango Festival this past March, I had the opportunity to dance to one of my very favorite milongas with a visiting tanguero. I should say that there are few things I love more than milongas in close embrace. The sensation of having to be completely in synch, throwing ourselves into the music and at the end, hearts pounding against each other's chests - it's like the best ride at the carnival! I was loving the milonga tanda with this stranger and so happy that I had been brave and come to the milonga, even though I had been so very intimidated beforehand. The second song of the tanda came on, and it was another favorite song! But about half way through the song my partner started to pull away slightly. Many followers I know call this feeling "the set up" - the feeling that a move that requires some space and/or some planning is coming up. I was ready, I thought, completely in synch in his embrace. And then abruptly, I w...