I’m back. I arrived exactly one month ago, yet I haven’t blogged at all. There are two reasons for this: one physical, one psychological.
I couldn’t access the blog’s dashboard because I had forgotten my username. Not only that, I was unable to have it mailed to the second named email address because I couldn’t remember that either. It turned out to be one I had forgotten existed, ha! ha! Never mind. What I lack in brainpower, I make up for with resourcefulness, patience and perseverance. I used up valuable tango time trying ever more intricate methods to recover said data until I succeeded. That was the physical side dealt with.
The psychological reason was trickier. For a start, I have been completely riveted by the unfolding story of the Chilean miners all month. I could not bring my mind to bear on tango trivia with this urgent call on my attention. Besides, it’s easy to hold forth when you are having a good time. My last two visits to Buenos Aires had been unabashedly blissful. I could hardly stop myself. Now, here was I in Paradise, all malaise and misgivings, within a couple of days of arrival, after an unsatisfactory work-related encounter with a woman who had been a good friend, last year. I didn’t feel like writing until I had cleared my head for fear that my perceptions would be tinged with the wrong kind of light. So I stalled and stalled.
Now I think it’s time to move on. I have much to be glad of. I am staying at Paula’s once again. A home with buena onda makes all the difference. Almagro is a central barrio with transport links to everywhere and our street is home to the flower market. How lovely to be greeted daily by Buenos Aires with fresh flowers! The flat has wooden floors and exposed brickwork, a vast salon containing amongst other things, a piano and a (what’s the opposite of fun-sized?) flatscreen television, unusually high ceilings, gigantic windows, plants, clever lighting and, my favourite, a disco ball. No fussy ornaments here as in many other places I’ve visited, just the accoutrements of her work and interests: scripts, storyboards, camcorders, guitars, sheet music and books, mostly Spanish, though there are some in English including, I was well pleased to discover, Sylvia Plath and Doris Lessing.
One of the things I love about being back in Argentina is the way people greet each other. A person will enter a room and greet or introduce themselves to each and every person with a kiss, be it friend, acquaintance or total stranger. There is no need for an icebreaker or conversations about the weather. One is immediately related. That is beautiful, and even more so, when one is far from home. The tango teachers, all of them, greeted me with embraces of warmth and pleasure after nearly a year. In London, I didn’t score so much as a smile, never mind a “Welcome back”, much less a kiss, from my regular teachers, when I’d been away for a year. One of them greeted me with, “Twelve pounds, please.” I like this Maya Angelou quote: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
By extension, the abrazo of tango is a physical greeting. That first instant when you step into each other’s arms, can make a woman feel beautiful, appreciated, cherished and in Buenos Aires, as if she is his dream come true. And this causes her to dance as if she is. She can even safely fall in love for the duration of the tanda, without any of the fear of a messy divorce. Or it can make her feel, as it often does in London, like a wheelbarrow, a shopping trolley or if she’s lucky, an articulated lorry. It may not be as much fun, but it is character-building.
Warm and passionate though it is, nothing is perfect, not even the Argentinian psyche. I have discovered that the primitive practice of stonewalling is to be expected here among men who have failed to pull. It is a most frustrating thing when men one would love to dance with again and again, take it to mean that you want them and then punish you when you don’t. I guess the tango culture includes types of personality that men and women are expected to project. If smiles and laughter mean ‘yes’, banter needs to be rationed and the safest expression to wear is a blank.
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Mi Mar del Plata
I went to the inauguration of a new milonga, Mi Mar del Plata, at el Juveníl, on Corrientes 4534. This is where La Maria Practica para Mujeres takes place, only the práctica is upstairs and the milonga is in a larger hall, on the ground floor, with stairs leading to an ample gallery on the mezzanine, where it is possible to sit at tables, watch the dancers on the floor below or even dance, although the space in the gallery is long and thin. Downstairs, alongside the main dance floor, there is a bar and just a handful of tables. The floor was not as smooth as the dancers, but all the beautiful people were there and I think it got off to a great start.
The Night of the Living Dead
No práctica for me today. DNI has closed its doors for the moment, on account of the swine flu. I see on facebook that some other classes and prácticas next week are also being cancelled. Buenos Aires will be soon be filled with tango dancers walking the streets with their arms outstretched, like the zombies in The Night of the Living Dead, in search of an abrazo.
The streets and subtes are filled with people wearing face-masks. There have been 55 deaths and I offer my condolences to those bereaved. There have also been 2,409 confirmed cases of infection with the H1N1 virus, known over here as la gripe A. Paranoia is rife and is every bit as infectious as the flu. You can’t get to a handbasin for the queues of guilty people wanting to wash their hands. The soap industry must be booming. And there are so many people scrubbing their hands with alcohol wipes that all the pharmacies have sold out. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to find yourself sneezing at a milonga. I think I might stay in tonight. Curl up on the sofa in front of our giant screen with a nice DVD. Not as much fun as dancing, but at least I'll have clean hands, eh?
This pandemic is a big deal. Schools across the country have been closed and in Buenos Aires, universities, as well. Pregnant women have been told they can take two weeks off work to avoid contracting the virus. I read that some fast food places have been closed down for not respecting the recommended distance between tables, whilst down the road others have been permitted to remain open for business. You could be forgiven for thinking municipalities were in competition with each other to see which one could close down the greatest number of establishments. However, today, the minister of health announced that protocols for coping with the emergency would be unified. I imagine these cover closures, social distancing and the distribution of anti-viral drugs. I am anxious about whether and how all this might affect air travel, however. I’m supposed to be flying back in six weeks and I don’t want to have to lose my ticket in the event of being caught blowing my nose at the airport.
The streets and subtes are filled with people wearing face-masks. There have been 55 deaths and I offer my condolences to those bereaved. There have also been 2,409 confirmed cases of infection with the H1N1 virus, known over here as la gripe A. Paranoia is rife and is every bit as infectious as the flu. You can’t get to a handbasin for the queues of guilty people wanting to wash their hands. The soap industry must be booming. And there are so many people scrubbing their hands with alcohol wipes that all the pharmacies have sold out. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to find yourself sneezing at a milonga. I think I might stay in tonight. Curl up on the sofa in front of our giant screen with a nice DVD. Not as much fun as dancing, but at least I'll have clean hands, eh?
This pandemic is a big deal. Schools across the country have been closed and in Buenos Aires, universities, as well. Pregnant women have been told they can take two weeks off work to avoid contracting the virus. I read that some fast food places have been closed down for not respecting the recommended distance between tables, whilst down the road others have been permitted to remain open for business. You could be forgiven for thinking municipalities were in competition with each other to see which one could close down the greatest number of establishments. However, today, the minister of health announced that protocols for coping with the emergency would be unified. I imagine these cover closures, social distancing and the distribution of anti-viral drugs. I am anxious about whether and how all this might affect air travel, however. I’m supposed to be flying back in six weeks and I don’t want to have to lose my ticket in the event of being caught blowing my nose at the airport.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Milonga with Mattress Included
As we skyped this morning, one of my daughters remarked that I hadn’t written a sausage in over twenty days. Twenty days? Well, I was in bed for one week. No, it wasn’t swine ‘flu. I gave up smoking and my body went into shock. I did consider writing about my fever and nausea-altered consciousness. Or about staring at the wall outside my window and seeing how many faces I could see in its cracks and shadows. Or about sniffing my farts like flowers, like Jean Genet in his prison cell. But I didn’t have the energy and as soon as I did, I got straight up, Lazarus-like, and danced for seven hours.
As for the other two weeks, my life has been more or less the same everyday and I never tire of it: up around mid-day, an afternoon class at DNI, an evening class, práctica or milonga and sometimes all three. I no longer feel out of my depth in the Level 7 class and my teachers tell me my tango has come along ‘un montón’. I don’t just follow, I dance and I feel the difference in my balance, sensitivity and suppleness. But you’re only as good as your last gig and when I go back home and dance a whole lot less and with dancers of a somewhat different caliber, I imagine I’ll come back down a notch or two. Boohoo!
My faithful friend, Mabel, (pronounced as in Michelle ma belle) who is a dead-ringer for Kate Winslet, or rather a cross between Winslet and Greta Scacchi, asked me to join her at a new milonga last night, in the barrio of Balvanera. It was situated in a great big hangar-like structure on Adolfo Alsina 2764, with pink and lemon lighting, tiered seating on the entrance side and an enormous Romanesque mattress along one side for reclining upon. I bet the mattress came first. They probably acquired this mattress and thought, how can we put this thing to good use and someone said, I know, let’s build a milonga around it. That is almost certainly what happened. Anyway, it was friendly and the drinks were cheap (yes, they sold booze, even though the sale of alcohol was prohibited, it being the night before the elections.) The milonga finished at 03:00 and Mabel and friends insisted I accompany them to La Viruta, even though I was there till 07:00 this same morning. After a few feeble protests, I gave in and off we went, the five of us, all squashed into one taxi, thanks to an accommodating and fun-loving cabbie.
I had to have café con leche on arrival to kid my body into believing I still had bags of energy to burn. But not only had I danced till 07:00 in the morning, I had also been in Tango 7 at DNI at 14:00, followed by three hours of práctica and then a tango electronico class. That’s seven hours of tango on five hours' sleep, before even setting foot in the first milonga. Crazy, crazy, crazy… but isn’t life exquisite, with a capital X.
And now, it’s the night after and I’m sitting in my Sunday night favourite, the Torquato Tasso, scribbling about it all. Someone’s taco crashed into the top of my left foot and even though I murmured my trusty mantra, “Toes of steel, toes of steel!” which always seems to work, it carried on hurting , so I decided to sit out a couple of tandas and whip out my note pad, instead. But here comes another porteño stunner… I’m off. Goodnight!
As for the other two weeks, my life has been more or less the same everyday and I never tire of it: up around mid-day, an afternoon class at DNI, an evening class, práctica or milonga and sometimes all three. I no longer feel out of my depth in the Level 7 class and my teachers tell me my tango has come along ‘un montón’. I don’t just follow, I dance and I feel the difference in my balance, sensitivity and suppleness. But you’re only as good as your last gig and when I go back home and dance a whole lot less and with dancers of a somewhat different caliber, I imagine I’ll come back down a notch or two. Boohoo!
My faithful friend, Mabel, (pronounced as in Michelle ma belle) who is a dead-ringer for Kate Winslet, or rather a cross between Winslet and Greta Scacchi, asked me to join her at a new milonga last night, in the barrio of Balvanera. It was situated in a great big hangar-like structure on Adolfo Alsina 2764, with pink and lemon lighting, tiered seating on the entrance side and an enormous Romanesque mattress along one side for reclining upon. I bet the mattress came first. They probably acquired this mattress and thought, how can we put this thing to good use and someone said, I know, let’s build a milonga around it. That is almost certainly what happened. Anyway, it was friendly and the drinks were cheap (yes, they sold booze, even though the sale of alcohol was prohibited, it being the night before the elections.) The milonga finished at 03:00 and Mabel and friends insisted I accompany them to La Viruta, even though I was there till 07:00 this same morning. After a few feeble protests, I gave in and off we went, the five of us, all squashed into one taxi, thanks to an accommodating and fun-loving cabbie.
I had to have café con leche on arrival to kid my body into believing I still had bags of energy to burn. But not only had I danced till 07:00 in the morning, I had also been in Tango 7 at DNI at 14:00, followed by three hours of práctica and then a tango electronico class. That’s seven hours of tango on five hours' sleep, before even setting foot in the first milonga. Crazy, crazy, crazy… but isn’t life exquisite, with a capital X.
And now, it’s the night after and I’m sitting in my Sunday night favourite, the Torquato Tasso, scribbling about it all. Someone’s taco crashed into the top of my left foot and even though I murmured my trusty mantra, “Toes of steel, toes of steel!” which always seems to work, it carried on hurting , so I decided to sit out a couple of tandas and whip out my note pad, instead. But here comes another porteño stunner… I’m off. Goodnight!
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Saturday Milonga in La Boca Cancelled
Please note, the Saturday Milonga in La Boca, hosted by Soledad and El Gordo, has been cancelled till further notice.
Monday, 8 June 2009
El Indio at La Catedral
A bit dozey this evening, having had just four hours’ sleep last night, I glanced at my watch, misread the time and showed up an hour late for Tango 4 at DNI. At a loss as to what to do with myself, I headed back home and just as I was about to open the front door, thought, I wonder if there’s anything on at La Catedrál, across the road. I went over to check and sure enough, the poster on the door advertised a class that was just about to start with none other than El Indio.
I first heard mention of him in Danny Israel’s book. Since coming to Buenos Aires I have had him pointed out to me several times, most recently at Prácticalab, which he founded. As I paid my entrance, a tall, dark character with striking ‘indio’ features and a long black mane entered the building. Ladies and gentlemen, I thought, He has arrived. He is here. And by some gorgeous accident, so am I.
It was an exciting class. He draws quite a crowd. He teaches purposefully, from the essence. He knows how to communicate the elements, whilst maintaining the pace of the lesson. Musicality, technique and floorcraft were integrated into the preparatory exercises. He was demanding and the lesson was challenging, but the choreography was thrilling and included a move I haven’t seen before, a Montesino gancho. Tango flowed from him into us. I will most definitely be going back for more.
I first heard mention of him in Danny Israel’s book. Since coming to Buenos Aires I have had him pointed out to me several times, most recently at Prácticalab, which he founded. As I paid my entrance, a tall, dark character with striking ‘indio’ features and a long black mane entered the building. Ladies and gentlemen, I thought, He has arrived. He is here. And by some gorgeous accident, so am I.
It was an exciting class. He draws quite a crowd. He teaches purposefully, from the essence. He knows how to communicate the elements, whilst maintaining the pace of the lesson. Musicality, technique and floorcraft were integrated into the preparatory exercises. He was demanding and the lesson was challenging, but the choreography was thrilling and included a move I haven’t seen before, a Montesino gancho. Tango flowed from him into us. I will most definitely be going back for more.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Three birthdays and an opening night
Quite a few parties this week. Three of them were birthdays and two of those were mine. Oh my head. Where is my alka seltzer? My tongue is asleep and my teeth itch. (Okay, that was Shelley Burman.)
On 2nd June, Tango Queer celebrated its fourth birthday with a special milonga (band, balloons and birthday cake.) On 4th June, I held a milonga at home (yes, I did!) to celebrate my birthday. I turned 39, as usual. On 5th June, my class in la Boca held a surprise birthday party for me and on 6th June, Soledad and El Gordo inaugurated their new milonga in La Boca in the same cool venue on Benito Perez Galdos, where the French girls had their farewell party. Getting to bed at 08:00 is becoming commonplace. As is helping to wash up after a milonga. I’m beginning to consider myself at home in Tangoland, consider myself a part of the furniture.
I am malingering at home, between class and going out, waiting for my phone to charge, when I should be out milongaring. I’m snatching a moment with my Thinkpad, to tell you all about my life in Buenos Aires. It is full on, so I’m finding it harder and harder to spare a minute to talk about it. I have never been so deliriously happy, month after month, but I’m suffering from feelings of anxiety about having only got a couple left to go…
At Tango Queer’s birthday party, a woman came and sat at my table. She was small woman with a sweet face, quiet and unassuming. She looked to be in her sixties and I imagined she was someone’s mum, who had come down to TQ to watch. It turned out she was an accomplished dancer from Florida, who could lead with as much panache as she could follow, was seventy-eight years old and that her partner had given Mariana, the founder, a stipend to get this project started. Just goes to show, the boughs that bear the most fruit hang low.
TQ is worthy of celebration. I love the freedom of switching roles mid-dance, watching men dance with men and women dance with women and women lead men as well as the usual. I like being on first name terms with the bar staff. Peru 571 feels to me like an extension of my living room. It was a good night. There was live music from a band called Cruel China and a brilliant solo tango performance from Mario, who dances with a stick as a prop. The place was packed and a good night was had by all.
I decided to have a milonga at home, the day before my birthday. I sent out a whole load of emails and texts, but because it was a weekday and a bit last minute, some of my women friends who have children, were unable to attend. Also, it coincided with the leaving party of one of my other friends. Nevertheless, I was delighted to see all the people who did come, including a few of my tango teachers. This is a lovely space for socializing and we danced till about 03:00 and I’m proud to say the police were called because it was a weekday and one of the neighbours considered us a nuisance. We turned down the music and carried on a while, but then decided to move on. We went to Theodoro’s, an atmospheric tango bar round the corner, which apparently never closes, where you can bring your own booze, forget the corkscrew, and someone with a strong index finger will do the honours for you, where musicians show up randomly with their instruments and keys, crow bars and battering rams for opening the doors of perception and you are treated to spontaneous performances all night long. Red-eyed, coked up revellers who don’t or can’t dance seem to know all the tango lyrics and join in whenever someone starts up. I was completely enchanted. It was broad daylight and there was traffic in Sarmiento, when I emerged, ready for bed.
When I woke up, it was time for my evening class in La Boca. This is a class in a Centro Cultural, a community centre, attended by a cat and the people of this run down barrio. We always have a beer and crisps at the end of the lesson, which frequently goes on till after 01:00 in the morning, but this day, they came with picadas and wine and a home-made birthday cake (full of dulce de leche, my favourite) and every single member of the class, including the teenagers, brought me a present. I was overwhelmed by their warmth and goodness and I will never forget it. We danced everything, including some tango and some of us got very drunk. That was a proper birthday, that was.
Apart from La Viruta, which you either love or hate (I love) and the Milonga de las Morochas, I’m not terribly keen on anything that’s on offer on a Saturday night, so I am very glad that Soledad and El Gordo, two of the most fun-loving people I know, have collaborated to open a new milonga in La Boca. The opening night got off to a slow start, but by 01:00, the place was buzzing and we didn’t start washing up till after 07:00. Sole and El Gordo greet every one that enters as if they are the most important person in the world and they dance with everyone, talk with everyone and make efforts to ensure that everyone has everything they need. The venue is cool. I particularly like the leafy shadows whooshing against the tall windows, the moody lighting, the high ceilings, the kidney-shape of the main room, the gigantic parilla (barbecue) and the fact that there is a quiet room where you can disappear off to for a snog, a chat or a foot massage. In summer, you can even sit in the garden. The next one is the week after next and as of 20th June, it will run every Saturday and offer dinner as well as dancing. Entrance is free. What more can I say?
On 2nd June, Tango Queer celebrated its fourth birthday with a special milonga (band, balloons and birthday cake.) On 4th June, I held a milonga at home (yes, I did!) to celebrate my birthday. I turned 39, as usual. On 5th June, my class in la Boca held a surprise birthday party for me and on 6th June, Soledad and El Gordo inaugurated their new milonga in La Boca in the same cool venue on Benito Perez Galdos, where the French girls had their farewell party. Getting to bed at 08:00 is becoming commonplace. As is helping to wash up after a milonga. I’m beginning to consider myself at home in Tangoland, consider myself a part of the furniture.
I am malingering at home, between class and going out, waiting for my phone to charge, when I should be out milongaring. I’m snatching a moment with my Thinkpad, to tell you all about my life in Buenos Aires. It is full on, so I’m finding it harder and harder to spare a minute to talk about it. I have never been so deliriously happy, month after month, but I’m suffering from feelings of anxiety about having only got a couple left to go…
At Tango Queer’s birthday party, a woman came and sat at my table. She was small woman with a sweet face, quiet and unassuming. She looked to be in her sixties and I imagined she was someone’s mum, who had come down to TQ to watch. It turned out she was an accomplished dancer from Florida, who could lead with as much panache as she could follow, was seventy-eight years old and that her partner had given Mariana, the founder, a stipend to get this project started. Just goes to show, the boughs that bear the most fruit hang low.
TQ is worthy of celebration. I love the freedom of switching roles mid-dance, watching men dance with men and women dance with women and women lead men as well as the usual. I like being on first name terms with the bar staff. Peru 571 feels to me like an extension of my living room. It was a good night. There was live music from a band called Cruel China and a brilliant solo tango performance from Mario, who dances with a stick as a prop. The place was packed and a good night was had by all.
I decided to have a milonga at home, the day before my birthday. I sent out a whole load of emails and texts, but because it was a weekday and a bit last minute, some of my women friends who have children, were unable to attend. Also, it coincided with the leaving party of one of my other friends. Nevertheless, I was delighted to see all the people who did come, including a few of my tango teachers. This is a lovely space for socializing and we danced till about 03:00 and I’m proud to say the police were called because it was a weekday and one of the neighbours considered us a nuisance. We turned down the music and carried on a while, but then decided to move on. We went to Theodoro’s, an atmospheric tango bar round the corner, which apparently never closes, where you can bring your own booze, forget the corkscrew, and someone with a strong index finger will do the honours for you, where musicians show up randomly with their instruments and keys, crow bars and battering rams for opening the doors of perception and you are treated to spontaneous performances all night long. Red-eyed, coked up revellers who don’t or can’t dance seem to know all the tango lyrics and join in whenever someone starts up. I was completely enchanted. It was broad daylight and there was traffic in Sarmiento, when I emerged, ready for bed.
When I woke up, it was time for my evening class in La Boca. This is a class in a Centro Cultural, a community centre, attended by a cat and the people of this run down barrio. We always have a beer and crisps at the end of the lesson, which frequently goes on till after 01:00 in the morning, but this day, they came with picadas and wine and a home-made birthday cake (full of dulce de leche, my favourite) and every single member of the class, including the teenagers, brought me a present. I was overwhelmed by their warmth and goodness and I will never forget it. We danced everything, including some tango and some of us got very drunk. That was a proper birthday, that was.
Apart from La Viruta, which you either love or hate (I love) and the Milonga de las Morochas, I’m not terribly keen on anything that’s on offer on a Saturday night, so I am very glad that Soledad and El Gordo, two of the most fun-loving people I know, have collaborated to open a new milonga in La Boca. The opening night got off to a slow start, but by 01:00, the place was buzzing and we didn’t start washing up till after 07:00. Sole and El Gordo greet every one that enters as if they are the most important person in the world and they dance with everyone, talk with everyone and make efforts to ensure that everyone has everything they need. The venue is cool. I particularly like the leafy shadows whooshing against the tall windows, the moody lighting, the high ceilings, the kidney-shape of the main room, the gigantic parilla (barbecue) and the fact that there is a quiet room where you can disappear off to for a snog, a chat or a foot massage. In summer, you can even sit in the garden. The next one is the week after next and as of 20th June, it will run every Saturday and offer dinner as well as dancing. Entrance is free. What more can I say?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
