My Tango Diaries

The lesson I am forever learning and re-learning . . . Wait. Old Marquez from Pompeya, to Carlos Gavito: "Have you come to ask me what to wait for? [ . . .] For the music to reach you and not for you to chase the music." Gavito: "I never forgot that advice and I still keep repeating it to myself. Don't run. Let yourself move with the music and not with the step." - "I Wanted to Dance - Carlos Gavito: Life, passion and tango" by Ricardo Plazaola

" . . . tango is what remains when you remove all movement, when the only thing that is left is feeling." - Carlos Gavito, (1) Three steps forward, two steps back. At least I have made some progress. But I am still rushing. Still moving too soon. And too fast. Falling away. Tango, it seems, can't undo a lifetime of constantly moving. Constantly running - always closing the doors behind me. It's exhausting to keep moving - but terrifying to stop. To wait. To listen. Sometimes stopping feels a lot like suffocating. What am I so afraid of? Feeling? Possibly. Entrega ? Sometimes. El duende ? Frequently. But even those aren't really it. Maybe that there will be nothing. Not the little nothings that inhabit tiny gaps in our day. Those traveling moments of suspension between one thing and the next thing. Falling forward into the next moment. Not those. Big nothing . Thunderous silence in the absence of. . . . of? the absence of what? The absence of me ? Expanded. Disp...

There is always going to be someone better at what you do, than you are. There's always going to be someone prettier, or smarter, or faster, or stronger. That's the way of the world. But no one can be you , better than you. Get a sense of your self, who you are and the way you are in the world. There will never be anyone else exactly like you - so get that right. From March 28, 2010. Notes I never published, but meant to, from an amazing lesson with Darryl Gaston and Phyllis Williams . Darryl was standing in front me, scowling slightly, searching for the right words. He felt like he was looming over me, though truly he's not that big. He just feels big. He fills the room, he's so present . I fought the urge to back up. (Like so many followers, I was "forward phobic" - I couldn't walk forward into my partner without hesitating, or back weighting.) "When you walk forward, I want you to walk into me," he spread his fingers over his chest, "int...

"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...

By request, a transcript from a talk during Gavito's San Francisco tour, 1996. Courtesy of Alberto Paz, Planet-Tango . The video embedding is disabled, but if you click on the picture it will take you to the Youtube page. Also, since there were a few places/words that were hard for me to make out, if anyone has corrections or suggestions for the transcript please email me at infinitetango(at)gmail.com. "And I have to talk about that. Might be boring for you again, but sorry. . . But I have to say that. "Not too long ago I read on the Internet some note about/regarding someone here in the Bay area saying, which (that) I say, and the others say (in conception?), 'because the history in tango say[s] . . . ' , 'because Borges say[s] . . .' , 'and because Cortazar . . ' "I don't know. I don't know who. "'because the tango blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah . . .' "Listen guys, I'm a milonguero. A dancer. A poet. I ...

Part II of Un Tal Gavito Vol 3 Review Remarks on Waiting, Beauty and Simplicity Gavito and Duran's comments continue, as they describe the beauty of simplified, slowed down movements and how emotion is expressed in the absence of a movement, rather than in a multitude of movements. After Gavito's remarks about intention and moving from the heart in the dance, Marcela added her own comments about the intimate conversation going on at all times, with all parts of the body, between the two dancers. One example she takes issue with is the woman looking like she is "shining her shoes" on the man's pant leg, before the step over after the man's "sandwich". Marcela stresses almost more the caress of her own leg, "the sensuality is in the closing of the legs, with the ankle and knees touching." In the video, embedded in the previous post, you can see the beginning of the sandwich ("el sanguchito") and Gavito's movements, in which he v...

More from Un Tal Gavito, DVD Volume 3. I like this at least as much as the first DVD, but I think that both volumes are essential. What I liked so much about this portion is after they do their initial demonstration dance (shown in the video above), the scene changes to Gavito and Duran sitting at a small table, with Gavito smoking as usual, and they discuss the dance, the intimacy and intention of it. Gavito: This last dance was a dance of intentions, a dance of a silent language, of movements that don't exist.... It's a way of moving from the heart... This is for me, like trying to describe music, which is an abstract thing. It's extremely difficult to express, difficult to evoke, and I think, like I said in another conversation, if music is abstract, I think poetry gets at this, and there are some beautiful tango lyrics that say this poetically, so when we dance I think we're like painters that paint with the music. We paint on the floor, with small brush strokes, w...

(Pictured above, Carlos Gavito and Marcela Duran, photographed by Alex Waterhouse-Hayward .) So far I am slightly less pleased with Disc 2 of Un tal Gavito . The moves and sequences are larger in this series, and open the embrace frequently. That said, I believe this is another example of something I've noticed about many (frequently Argentine, though not always) teachers, where a sequence or step is taught with the purpose demonstrating and refining a technique rather than for the pattern itself. Far more than the previous DVD, the movements in this part of the program are focused on maintaining balance and control of one's axis (with the exception of the very first sequence, salida in carpa (or deep apilado or lean, for which Gavito is famous). Side Note: I was very happy that he explained and demonstrated salida in carpa (led from the back ocho) because I find it so beautiful and intriguing - exemplifying, for me anyway, the power and beauty of surrendering completely to...