My Tango Diaries

(Picture courtesy of Morguefile.com ) The Fandango de Tango festival is over and I'm back at work, trying to remember what it is I do in the daylight hours. I must be dreaming music at night because when I wake up, the silence around me is heavy and sudden - like someone switching off a radio. I think I danced  more at this festival than any previous one I've attended. Five milongas (no classes) - and then I danced again at our local Monday night milonga at Cafe Medici. I wish I could go tonight. I'm pushing off the inevitable tango hangover, but it's coming. I can feel it. The biggest lesson I learned this weekend - nothing beats just asking for what you need .  I think I need to tattoo that on my hand so I don't forget. I danced far more than I thought I would be able to, but it wasn't easy. By the third night it was clear to me, and probably to many of my partners, I wasn't going to be able to keep up the pace.  Saturday night, at le...

Picture courtesy of Morguefile.com At different points in my life I've had the opportunity to work with several exotic dancers, as a coworker in their "day job", and as their make-up artist, photographer etc.  I've been amazed at how transferable the advice I got from them about dancing around, and with, men, is to women in tango and other partner dances. 1. Smell good, but don't smell strong . Leaving a "fragrance trail" on gentlemen is not usually appreciated by them, or by the next woman who dances with them. 2. Limit (or preferably eliminate) the glitter or anything else that will end up on your partner. Married or not, it's not likely your partner wants to wear glitter home - or transfer it on to the next woman he dances with. 3. Same goes for make-up - waterproof and transfer-resistant is the way to go. It's such a cliche but it's disturbing how often I see lipstick on collars. 4. Care about the music you're dancin...

I'm going to Buenos Aires in May. The words don't feel real yet, but I am definitely going. I'm excited and terrified at the same time. This is one of many times that I'm completely in awe of my mom. She went to Brazil on her own, at 19 years old, during the military dictatorship, and without knowing a single complete sentence in Portuguese. Damn. I've never travelled anywhere outside the US. My practical reason is that I have enough points to convert to Delta Skymiles to pay for the round trip flight, and that was the biggest obstacle. Now I just have to come up with the money to pay for everything else. The emotional reason is quite a bit different. It's not intellectual, not practical, almost not rational. It's visceral. Or, lately as I talk about it more, it's a feverish infection taking over my higher reasoning.  I try very hard not to let fear guide any decision I make, but while fear may not be in the driver's seat right now, ...

An (online) conversation with my very amusing friend, a tango dancer born in Buenos Aires, and currently living in Europe. Name withheld to protect the guilty.  ;) J:   The best part of dancing with porteñas is they way they connect so completely with me. J: They are so close, so completely connected, it feels like they are trying to dance inside my shirt. J: There is nothing the same. Me: Wow, that's very close indeed. J:   Yes. And why I am so deeply sad. Me: Because you're in [European city] right now? J: No.  Because they don't actually want to dance inside my shirt  . . . . J: . . . J. I feel so used . . . Me: *smirk* J: hmm.  I sense you do not sympathize with the heavy burden I must carry.

From fellow tango dancer and blogger, Jan Ulrich Hasecke, a lovely guest post on connection and embrace. (Thank you again Jan, for letting me post your thoughts on my blog.) Connection in Tango Jan Ulrich Hasecke I promised to write something about my thoughts about connection in #tango . "What does connection in tango mean to you and how do you create it?" I was asked on Google+. I bragged that I could talk the whole day about connection in tango but was too busy to do it at once. Ok, I won't talk the whole day about connection and maybe I won't find the right words to describe what I mean, but here I deliver on my promise. Connection in tango means everything to me. It's the reason I dance. Showing some cool steps is nice but I can only enjoy them when they add to the connection and don't spoil it. A great dancer and teacher once said in his workshop that tango is the only dance, where you dance /together/. To get and to keep the conne...

 . . .is enough.      [written on a napkin on the way home from a milonga . . .  Very rough draft, but sometimes it's better to leave it that way.] How many painful tandas does it take before I learn? I've got to break this habit of telling myself, It must be me . it must be something I did. I'm not good enough . If I just adjust, it'll work. My mistake was thinking this was a bad tango habit. It's not. In fact, this isn't really about tango. There's a much longer history at work here and you know it , I thought, accusing my red-eyed, disheveled reflection. My reflection in the milonga venue's bathroom mirror blinked back and sighed. I scowled at her and thought sternly (in my best "I mean it this time" voice): "If it hurts, I'm done." No matter who it is, no matter where I am. Even if we're friends, especially if we're friends . . . Say thank you for the dances, but you're hurting me, a...

My answer to Cherie's comment, which was: Really interesting post and one that obviously you have thought a lot about. Please don't take it as a negative when I say that the dancers of traditional tango milonguero here in BsAs don't feel that way. The idea of a conversation between two bodies is rather recent, and foreign. Enclosed in the tango embrace, the body is one--not with four legs, but with two, as this body is only standing on two legs at any one time. It's Ying/Yang--one whole from two parts that meld together and make something new. When I dance I don't feel the need to tap or to do rulos or raise my left shoulder in time to the music--I am completely within the music and at the command of my partner, and with his design of the dance, I can express myself and the music perfectly in his embrace without adding anything but elegant posture and good technique. It's not a struggle between two minds of how to dance this song, but a blending of sou...

Ghost, Here is my response to your questions in the comments of my "Hearing through my Partner" post. Altering the conversation (from this follower's perspective) When a leader leads a movement, there are varying degrees of energy, speed, fluidity etc. he or she can lead the movement with. That tells me about the structure I have to work within. This is an area where I think perhaps some nuevo tango teachers might be doing a better job explaining certain dance concepts like energy exchange, compression, and expansion etc. I'm trying not to generalize, but I've noticed that this topic comes up more in nuevo-based classes, which I think has a lot more to do with how nuevo developed as a teaching method , rather than the actual sequences and moves that are taught and then associated with "nuevo tango". There are so many factors in deciding how much I can contribute, before I even get to what the music might actually call from my body to ...

The tanda was not going well. After the first song, I broke my rule and apologized, telling my partner that I couldn't keep up with him and could we slow down a little bit. My leader had taken a couple of large steps against the line of dance and bumped another couple, so I was rattled and for some reason, I couldn't seem to get my right ankle to cooperate with me. Quick steps and traspies were taking their toll.  He even started telling me verbally what he needed me to do. All I could do was answer, I can't - not that fast . I should have sat down, but I'm always so apprehensive about giving an early thank you - I only do it if there's no other way I can make a tanda work out. The second song went even worse. He seemed to go faster, not slower, and when I couldn't move fast enough, his fingers dug into my ribcage harder. I was heartbroken that I seemed to be dancing so badly to music I loved. My ankle wase getting stiffer, even as I tried to...