My Tango Diaries

It's been so long, I hardly know where to begin. I organized a regular practica, and then gave it up - not even a full year later. Not only was the practica not breaking even, but I'd have to be in bed the next day to recover from it. I'm still selling custom Mr. Tango Shoes (Jorge Nel), and selling tango clothes from the US and Argentina.  I still dance. Sort of. Sometimes. Rarely, if I'm honest. Once a week if I'm lucky. Twice a month is getting to be more common. A couple of tandas and I'm done. I have choices to make. If I go to a milonga across town and I have a flare-up - I'm trapped. I don't drive, so I'm stuck until the dancer who brought me is ready to go home. I can make the best of it but since the cabeceo is a tradition largely ignored here, it means verbal decline after verbal decline - or running away to the loo, or outside, or to get a drink. All I really want to do is sit - not run around avoiding getting asked...

Backstory:  I have a frustrating problem with some tango songs. I love them so much, and feel so strongly about how I want to express them, that I am frustrated at my body's inability to express it the way I feel it.  Laurenz' "Alma de Bohemio" is one of those songs.  Even though I love this song so much, I know it causes some dancers just a small amount of anxiety. The vocalist, Alberto Podestá, carries one soulful note for so long, almost 12 seconds, it can feel like tan eternity between beats. For one long moment, there is no beat, just that strong, clear voice.  What do you do with that? You can try to hold the position you're in, if you managed to be ready and stable when the note started - - otherwise you are forced take a step, mid-note, where there is no beat. It used to feel absolutely maddening to me - moving during the note didn't feel right, but neither did simply stopping.  And my breath always catches while he sings that note, ...

Take a minute to watch this (sorry I could not embed here.) Tango, a Message from the Concrete Jungle It's a beautiful video that I can't stop watching. It takes me back to Buenos Aires, if only for a few minutes. Cab rides, wandering the city with friends, having cafe con leche *everywhere*. Dancing, watching dancing, dreaming about dancing . . . Every time I drift away and think I'll never make it back . . I'm back in its orbit . . . Tango "Tango Always ending, Always reviving." About the video: This poetry video is an elegant dance between the city of Buenos Aires and the Tango. The poem is written by Andres Bosso and the music composed by the poets brother, Jorge Bosso. The city of Buenos Aires, the poem and this intimate partner dancing inspired us to shoot this video.

Courtesy of Morguefile.com - btw, if I had a jar like that, it would have to be much bigger. And full of paper money. And I would have to go to the ATM. Warning : This is not a tango-related post. Well, not directly. Kind of. I don't know, really. It's been so long since I've updated, and I tell myself (and everyone else) it's because I'm so busy. "Busy" sounds so much better than "hiding". It also has the benefit of being mostly true. I have 4 part-time jobs - ghostwriter/content producer, shoe sales and leather restoration, web traffic data analyst, and certified personal trainer for dancers. (According to one of my online Argentinian friends, the fact that I've got several jobs and am working in leather, makes me an honorary Argentinian. I think that's good, right? Does that come with a lifetime supply of empanadas?)  I'm also still a student working on my next certification. Pretty impressive, right? I can revel in ...