I had the horror of being back in the UK, going to a milonga... and not being asked to dance much at all!
Which was good for any I've-Been-To-Buenos-Aires inflated ego I might have been sporting...but bad for general self-esteem...chances to practice...and chances to enjoy a good dance. I pretty quickly realised it was because here I'm not anything out of the ordinary here... no blokes want to show off with the young(ish) blonde foreign girl, because I'm not foreign, not that young in comparison to the age here, and there are lots of other actually good female blonde dancers out there on the floor.
I'm wondering though, if I seemed to make friends/compassionate dance partners, more easily in the milongas in BA. Again, that might have been because I was something different, and because as someone pointed out to me today, when you're on holiday/travelling, you seem to form those connections which would normally take weeks & months in a matter of hours. Of course it could also be that I'm generally an overly chatty bird who'll talk to anyone I've met once as if I've known them all my life. So if I met someone in a class, I'd always say hello to them when I saw them at a milonga later in the week. However that was also the attitude I was met with...people being really friendly and coming up to me and saying hello. Again, maybe it was the foreign bird thing, but some of them were female (and not lesbians as I quite often get), and maybe just because they were friendly...its a fine balance between cynicism and reality.
But I'm also wondering if there's a different attitude in Buenos Aires which made people more compassionate about dancing with beginners. It was the kind of thing I'd hear in a common exchange I'd have when I was asked to dance:
Leader: Would you like to dance?
M: Yes, but I'm a beginner/principiante...
L: We're all principiante.
M: Oh, how long have you danced?
L: 5/10/20/all my life/ years [delete as applicable but it was always a long time] but we all need to practice. We're all principiante.
I wonder how many people in London go back to the beginner's classes here to practice walking and standing? I think that people in BA really do that though. I certainly met enough people who were long time dancers but were in the same classes as me, all learning the same beginners techniques. Which if I'd heard the same technique points 20 times in just in 3 weeks, they must have heard them 100's of times over X years.
I also wonder how cliquey it is here in London (something I guess I'll be finding out soon enough). And then there's the other thing...that the guys in London are just not very good at the eye contact, or the walking around in order to get a dance. We are British after all.
And to cap it all, I really struggled. My goodness the dancing is different here then in BA...
What I initially noticed was people's postures. Both my private teachers and my group class teachers all banged on and on about a tight core, relaxed shoulders, open chests, and knew immediately when I'd relaxed my stomach. So I'm really working hard to try to maintain that as I'm dancing (this conscious whilst relaxed thing is not easy at all). But there were so many bad postures on the floor...admittedly that might have been early on when the less experienced dancers were there, but I've a feeling that even the bad dancers in BA have better postures then some of the technically advanced dancers I saw on Friday. However...as I was mentioning this to a friend I went with, he did point out to me that a) I should not become a Tango Snob (see second sentence of this post) and b) Tango is about enjoyment and at least people were enjoying themselves. So I do thank him for that kick in the arse I so richly deserved.
With my Tango Snob slightly in check, on to the second thing I noticed here that made me struggle. There's so much more showing off on the dance floor. In BA its a very simple style of dancing until the end when the really good dancers come, there's more room and the tango nuevo milonga down the road has closed for the night. The focus is more on the connection and the flow and the pleasure from that, then showing off and doing fancy moves.
Now I admit, I'm making all kinds of assumptions here about why people in London dance the way they do. Its not like I've been dancing here for long enough to really judge, and it will be interesting coming back to this in a few months time and potentially ridiculing myself for making outrageous assumptions and crass judgements... for example one simple reason could just be that there is more room on the floor here so people can make bigger moves. However, i do wonder if people do things in a milonga here, that in BA would be reserved for a practica. That people there work on something in a class and in practica until they were good at that particular move and then they start doing it on the dance floor in the milonga.
My final moan from that evening was finding out that the men here really don't use the first dance to work out what level you're at as a dance they just throw you straight in at the deep end and see if you can do it...which as an beginner/improver leads to lots of embarrassment on my side and boring explaination during the dancing of what they wanted, from their side. And if in that first dance you're so busy trying to think and understand what this whizz bang move is your partner is trying to get you to do, you don't actually get that key 3 minutes of music to feel each other properly...to become one movement together...to allow that connection to happen...and to learn to adapt to each other's style of dance.
Ok...so lots of things I didn't like. However I did enjoy the class before, and did have a couple of nice dances. And I have decided to stick to the resolution I'd made at the end of my holiday...once I'm tired and thinking of leaving, if I've had a nice dance, that's it. No more dances after that. Better to end on a good dance and go home a bit tired, then to end on a terrible dance because I'm too exhausted for my feet to connect to my brain and some poor person has to drag around a dancer with legs made of lead. I managed to stick to my resolution on Friday and although a very nice man asked me to dance I didn't want to risk a lovely end to a mostly tricky night.
All this seems to have just made me keener then ever to learn to lead. Its all very well me moaning about how the leaders lead, but I'm not having to be the one making the decisions about doing it all, having the responsibility of giving the follower a good dance, being the one in charge of keeping time to the music (there are decisions the followers can make about moves, timing, etc, but they're not that many tbh), etc. So I'm toying with idea of going back to 33 Portland Place this sunday and joining the beginners class to learn to lead... I think I'll be terrible at it, but I'm quite up for giving it a go...
Friday, January 9, 2009
Friday, December 26, 2008
Guiding Tango Angels
Yesterday we heralded in the birthday of Jesus with the traditional booze, food, head colds, and drunken dancing. Oliver & Rachel (not me) kindly provided up us with venues, tuck, and fine hospitality.
There was no tango to be had though. Instead an impromptu dance to some reggaeton, which reminded me I really haven´t used my hips for dancing for the last 5 weeks as the only dancing I´ve done has been to tango. And there is no hip wriggling in tango...
Today I had a private class with Aurora Lubiz. She was suggested to me as a teacher by two wonderful German ladies, who were also staying at La Casita De San Telmo when I arrived here and were absolutely wonderful giving me tips on where to go, who to take classes with, and also taking me out with them to milongas. They were completely my Guiding Tango Angels and I´ve missed them ever since they winged their way back to Germany. On their advice, I´ve been to a couple of Aurora´s classes at Escuela Argentina de Tango on womens technique and adornments and really enjoyed her approach. She´s very warm, funny, passionate, but also talks about the muscles to use to make the movements, and where you should feel the movements coming from and ending in. It was her who started me thinking about opening my chest and pulling up through my abdomin, which Mariana then did more work on, to get the correct posture.
It was an enjoyable private lesson, though I felt like I achieved less with her then I did in a private lesson with Mariana. We did some work on walking, ochos, turns, sacada, and a couple of cross steps, as well as some simple adornments which was good and now I look back we did cover a lot. I think one of the reasons it was less enjoyable was that although she moves with you, holding you in a practice hold where you are both holding each others arms rather then in a classic leader follower position, she doesn´t completely dance with you which Mariana does. So I never let go and really got into dancing, it was definitely more practice and less dance. However I think I still got a lot out of the class and am looking forward to a second private lesson on Monday as well as a group class tomorrow.
I asked Aurora how many times I should take classes a week to really improve and work on my dancing, and she said at least two classes. She also suggested doing classic ballet and modern dance to connect with my body and learn how to use it. Finally she did wonders for my current low self-confidence by saying that what I´ve achieved in the last month of learning to dance was really good and I have great potential to be a good dancer if I practice. Hooray again!
So the new plan when I get back to London is:
- Quit gym.
- Join some sort of dance place (Pineapple Studios?) & go to tango, ballet & modern dance...and anything else that looks interesting.
- Visit some more classes & milongas in London to see which suit me and which I can go to regularly and which I can really learn at.
- Take Spanish classes.
- Book flights and accomodation for BA 2009.
I´ll work out how to fit in my job in, and finances around, later.
There was no tango to be had though. Instead an impromptu dance to some reggaeton, which reminded me I really haven´t used my hips for dancing for the last 5 weeks as the only dancing I´ve done has been to tango. And there is no hip wriggling in tango...
Today I had a private class with Aurora Lubiz. She was suggested to me as a teacher by two wonderful German ladies, who were also staying at La Casita De San Telmo when I arrived here and were absolutely wonderful giving me tips on where to go, who to take classes with, and also taking me out with them to milongas. They were completely my Guiding Tango Angels and I´ve missed them ever since they winged their way back to Germany. On their advice, I´ve been to a couple of Aurora´s classes at Escuela Argentina de Tango on womens technique and adornments and really enjoyed her approach. She´s very warm, funny, passionate, but also talks about the muscles to use to make the movements, and where you should feel the movements coming from and ending in. It was her who started me thinking about opening my chest and pulling up through my abdomin, which Mariana then did more work on, to get the correct posture.
It was an enjoyable private lesson, though I felt like I achieved less with her then I did in a private lesson with Mariana. We did some work on walking, ochos, turns, sacada, and a couple of cross steps, as well as some simple adornments which was good and now I look back we did cover a lot. I think one of the reasons it was less enjoyable was that although she moves with you, holding you in a practice hold where you are both holding each others arms rather then in a classic leader follower position, she doesn´t completely dance with you which Mariana does. So I never let go and really got into dancing, it was definitely more practice and less dance. However I think I still got a lot out of the class and am looking forward to a second private lesson on Monday as well as a group class tomorrow.
I asked Aurora how many times I should take classes a week to really improve and work on my dancing, and she said at least two classes. She also suggested doing classic ballet and modern dance to connect with my body and learn how to use it. Finally she did wonders for my current low self-confidence by saying that what I´ve achieved in the last month of learning to dance was really good and I have great potential to be a good dancer if I practice. Hooray again!
So the new plan when I get back to London is:
- Quit gym.
- Join some sort of dance place (Pineapple Studios?) & go to tango, ballet & modern dance...and anything else that looks interesting.
- Visit some more classes & milongas in London to see which suit me and which I can go to regularly and which I can really learn at.
- Take Spanish classes.
- Book flights and accomodation for BA 2009.
I´ll work out how to fit in my job in, and finances around, later.
One last dance before Jeebus´s Birthday...
Dec 25 2008
Yesterday I had my last private lesson with Mariana. It was great. It was two hours long, which is about 30min too long for my concentration, but although I dipped during it, by the end I managed to pull it back for the last couple of dances. As a distraction technique Mariana danced some milongas with me.
Milonga, as well as being the name of the dance everyone attends, is also the name of a dance that you can do. Its double speed of tango and the footwork is double speed in threes. Its really fun, and whereas you might see a little slight smile from a woman as she dances with a good man during a tango, during milonga dances there´s lots of smiling from everyone having fun.
I´d had a group class earlier in the day focussing on disassociation - the separation of the upper chest from the rest of the body and through this using the shoulders first to move the body into a turn. Which was great, but hard to do. So when I had my lesson with Mariana we did lots of exercises to make me use my upper back to push the ocho step forward and backwards. I love how she teaches, at the start of the lesson she dances one dance with you to see how you are doing and then decides what you need to work on. After every exercise she then dances another dance with you to see if you´ve started incorporating the movements into your dance - consiously or unconsiously. If you haven´t you do some more, but different, exercises on it, and if you have you move onto doing something else. After dancing some milongas, we went back to a couple of tangos and did some harder moves (ochos that required greater disassociation) that I hadn´t ever done before. I´m starting to get the disassociation thing and also the lightness required in the legs to be pushed into doing boleros and ganchos (the flicks behind your own leg and between the other partners leg).
It was great. We both left the lesson feeling like I´d really moved on in the week she´s been teaching me. And she said she thought I could be a really good dancer if I practice - hooray!
Before she left I asked her who else I should have private lessons with, we talked about a couple of people I´d come across. She was a bit reticent in passing a judgement on others, but eventually said her concern was that if I had classes with someone who wasn´t very good they´d break me and all the good work we´d done together. So I´m going to have more group lessons, a private class with Aurora Lubiz who is expensive but very good on womens technique and Mariana rates her too. And I´ve found a guy who offered cheap private lessons, that she reckons I should use just to practice with rather then getting too caught up on learning new things.
If only I can find a dancer as good as her - very hard to do though! Because already she´s changed me as a dancer, and also what I want in other dancers. When I first arrived there were a couple of men who have been dancing with me regularly at milongas who I really liked because they were clear and direct in what they wanted. But now I hate dancing with them...they don´t flow and move fluidly with subtlety. Which my wonderful teacher does. So I will head back to London soon, dreaming of her, dreaming of when I´m able to learn to lead, and hoping that she does come to london in July like she said she might. In the meantime, there´s no dancing on christmas day and that´s probably a good thing as I´ve a hideous cold that prooves that it doesn´t matter where you are in the world the Christmas Flu catches up with you always!
Yesterday I had my last private lesson with Mariana. It was great. It was two hours long, which is about 30min too long for my concentration, but although I dipped during it, by the end I managed to pull it back for the last couple of dances. As a distraction technique Mariana danced some milongas with me.
Milonga, as well as being the name of the dance everyone attends, is also the name of a dance that you can do. Its double speed of tango and the footwork is double speed in threes. Its really fun, and whereas you might see a little slight smile from a woman as she dances with a good man during a tango, during milonga dances there´s lots of smiling from everyone having fun.
I´d had a group class earlier in the day focussing on disassociation - the separation of the upper chest from the rest of the body and through this using the shoulders first to move the body into a turn. Which was great, but hard to do. So when I had my lesson with Mariana we did lots of exercises to make me use my upper back to push the ocho step forward and backwards. I love how she teaches, at the start of the lesson she dances one dance with you to see how you are doing and then decides what you need to work on. After every exercise she then dances another dance with you to see if you´ve started incorporating the movements into your dance - consiously or unconsiously. If you haven´t you do some more, but different, exercises on it, and if you have you move onto doing something else. After dancing some milongas, we went back to a couple of tangos and did some harder moves (ochos that required greater disassociation) that I hadn´t ever done before. I´m starting to get the disassociation thing and also the lightness required in the legs to be pushed into doing boleros and ganchos (the flicks behind your own leg and between the other partners leg).
It was great. We both left the lesson feeling like I´d really moved on in the week she´s been teaching me. And she said she thought I could be a really good dancer if I practice - hooray!
Before she left I asked her who else I should have private lessons with, we talked about a couple of people I´d come across. She was a bit reticent in passing a judgement on others, but eventually said her concern was that if I had classes with someone who wasn´t very good they´d break me and all the good work we´d done together. So I´m going to have more group lessons, a private class with Aurora Lubiz who is expensive but very good on womens technique and Mariana rates her too. And I´ve found a guy who offered cheap private lessons, that she reckons I should use just to practice with rather then getting too caught up on learning new things.
If only I can find a dancer as good as her - very hard to do though! Because already she´s changed me as a dancer, and also what I want in other dancers. When I first arrived there were a couple of men who have been dancing with me regularly at milongas who I really liked because they were clear and direct in what they wanted. But now I hate dancing with them...they don´t flow and move fluidly with subtlety. Which my wonderful teacher does. So I will head back to London soon, dreaming of her, dreaming of when I´m able to learn to lead, and hoping that she does come to london in July like she said she might. In the meantime, there´s no dancing on christmas day and that´s probably a good thing as I´ve a hideous cold that prooves that it doesn´t matter where you are in the world the Christmas Flu catches up with you always!
No Nuevo For Meo
Dec 24 2008
Today I´ve been Mrs PMT. Twitchy, enraged for no very good reason, nothing I did all day felt quite right, not really known what to do with myself, unable to make decisions, definitely got a cold (bloody sniffly friend coming out to dinner 2 nights ago saying how ill he was but still sitting there eating and coughing with us), just Out-Of-Sorts.
Was supposed to have a lesson in the evening, but Mariana had some problems up so it ended up cancelled, and rather then going to her class at Tango Queer, decided I really did want to see some Tango Nuevo before I leave BA as its very different to Salon & Milongera; lots of kicks, separating from your partner, coming off your axis, etc. And today I had a very gentle group class today that put in a couple of Nuevo style moves, which I enjoyed doing. So I went to a Tango Nuevo class at Practica X - where all the best dancers go for the milonga after the class. I joined the class late, but still with an hour to go of it. And I´d say only one or two couples there should really have been doing it, because the rest (I include myself here) weren´t holding themselves properly (with the core, so that when you do come off your axis, you´re still balanced...very hard to do as a principiante/beginner). So basically a class where most people were flailing around.
Due to feeling out of sorts, I turned up and immediately wished I´d gone to TQ. Especially as I had no partner to dance with and people weren´t changing partners, so I had to keep nudging the teacher to get them to find me someone. But I stuck with it because I was stuck on the wrong side of town and if I´d left, by the time I´d gotten to TQ it would have finished anyway. Then we had the milonga at which I was unable to dance or concentrate...so just made myself more annoyed. And although I would normally have been happy to sit back and enjoy watching other people dance, I just didn´t feel comfortable there. During milongas there is usually a break for a show given by a professional couple, and there was indeed a great show by some amazing people. But again what would normally inspire me, only served to frustrate me... I couldn´t see how I could ever do any of that stuff when I was struggling so hard with the basics. I feel like I´ve gone backwards over the last couple of evenings, rather then forwards. The night ended early at 12.30am and everyone was invited to a different milonga - La Viruta. So I grabbed the people I was with and suggested that instead of La Viruta we went to TQ. Which we did, and it was lovely. We were just there for an hour or so, but I like it so much. Its relaxed, and very real. Not about showing off, just about dancing and enjoying dancing. Thats not to say that the people at Practica X where I´d just come from weren´t enjoying it, or "real" but I love the openness at TQ. Watching same sex and mixed couples all dancing and swapping roles. And there not being any snootiness about people dancing and getting it wrong. I´m just gutted that it isn´t on every night because I´d live there if it was. And it really has made me want to learn to lead. I danced with a lovely girl, who has only been learning since February this year and is really good. So I´m going to bed trying to hold on to the good fun bit from the end of the night and not the rest. I think a St Johns Wort will help.
Today I´ve been Mrs PMT. Twitchy, enraged for no very good reason, nothing I did all day felt quite right, not really known what to do with myself, unable to make decisions, definitely got a cold (bloody sniffly friend coming out to dinner 2 nights ago saying how ill he was but still sitting there eating and coughing with us), just Out-Of-Sorts.
Was supposed to have a lesson in the evening, but Mariana had some problems up so it ended up cancelled, and rather then going to her class at Tango Queer, decided I really did want to see some Tango Nuevo before I leave BA as its very different to Salon & Milongera; lots of kicks, separating from your partner, coming off your axis, etc. And today I had a very gentle group class today that put in a couple of Nuevo style moves, which I enjoyed doing. So I went to a Tango Nuevo class at Practica X - where all the best dancers go for the milonga after the class. I joined the class late, but still with an hour to go of it. And I´d say only one or two couples there should really have been doing it, because the rest (I include myself here) weren´t holding themselves properly (with the core, so that when you do come off your axis, you´re still balanced...very hard to do as a principiante/beginner). So basically a class where most people were flailing around.
Due to feeling out of sorts, I turned up and immediately wished I´d gone to TQ. Especially as I had no partner to dance with and people weren´t changing partners, so I had to keep nudging the teacher to get them to find me someone. But I stuck with it because I was stuck on the wrong side of town and if I´d left, by the time I´d gotten to TQ it would have finished anyway. Then we had the milonga at which I was unable to dance or concentrate...so just made myself more annoyed. And although I would normally have been happy to sit back and enjoy watching other people dance, I just didn´t feel comfortable there. During milongas there is usually a break for a show given by a professional couple, and there was indeed a great show by some amazing people. But again what would normally inspire me, only served to frustrate me... I couldn´t see how I could ever do any of that stuff when I was struggling so hard with the basics. I feel like I´ve gone backwards over the last couple of evenings, rather then forwards. The night ended early at 12.30am and everyone was invited to a different milonga - La Viruta. So I grabbed the people I was with and suggested that instead of La Viruta we went to TQ. Which we did, and it was lovely. We were just there for an hour or so, but I like it so much. Its relaxed, and very real. Not about showing off, just about dancing and enjoying dancing. Thats not to say that the people at Practica X where I´d just come from weren´t enjoying it, or "real" but I love the openness at TQ. Watching same sex and mixed couples all dancing and swapping roles. And there not being any snootiness about people dancing and getting it wrong. I´m just gutted that it isn´t on every night because I´d live there if it was. And it really has made me want to learn to lead. I danced with a lovely girl, who has only been learning since February this year and is really good. So I´m going to bed trying to hold on to the good fun bit from the end of the night and not the rest. I think a St Johns Wort will help.
A Great First Dance
Dec 22 2008
Taxi drivers here are flipping brilliant. Aside from being wonderously cheap they also wait for you to be inside your destination before buggering off. Last night as some youths walked past whilst I was sorting out cash for the driver, he locked the doors...just in case. Then he made me wait until they were sufficiently further up the road before letting me out and waiting for me to be safely inside. They really are a credit to client services.
Today I had my 3rd private lesson with my fantastic teacher, Mariana Falcon. She knew immediately I was tired, and I wasn´t arguing with her. Last night I went for a class and milonga at La Calesita - a lovely outdoor milonga on the other side of town, where everyone dances around a fountain and there´s steak sandwiches and boozes available. The only thing was the floor to dance on was horrible because it was stone, rather then wood or marble which you can slide on. Trying to pivot for an ocho or a turn was so hard. I was probably being slightly workman blaming tools, as everyone else managed it much better then I, but I will say that I can understand the snootyness around different venues when its related to the state of the dancefloor. A friend I´ve met here wants to go with me again next week to La Calesita, and I just don´t think I can face another struggle with the ground.
I got in from it around 4am - standard time it seems - and was up at 11am to wash my clothes and go out to an out of town market. Only I washed my clothes and then it started to chuck it down. By the time it had finished it was too late to really go anywhere, and I didn´t want to walk far as I´m trying to save my feet. So I bumbled into San Telmo and hired a bike for a couple of hours. Had a great cycle along the docks and then into Boca - where all the pictures of the pretty multicoloured wooden slated houses are from. Boca is really though, properly flavela. There are 3 roads with the coloured houses from the pictures, tourist bars with bad displays of showy tango, and shops that sell tat. The rest of it is run down, poor, shabby though still beautiful in that run down way, and devoid of tourists cos you´re not supposed to roam around there. Obviously I blended in to the background on my bright orange hire bike, with extremely unusual short blonde hair. No problemo.
So by the time my lesson started at 8pm I was pooped. And hungry. But we struggled through with me getting it wrong, not understanding what I was supposed to do (at one point she got almost exasperated with me), failing to do fairly basic things, the lot. At the end Mariana told me to go out tonight and enjoy myself and not to think about what I was doing. And that I was a great dancer...because the secret of tango is to feel like a great dancer even if you´re not. And that´s the leader´s job as well, to make you feel like the best dancer on the floor.
So after a FAT steak and chips I persuaded my friend to come with me to La Viruta. Again on the other side of town. We got there at 11.30pm and they were still teaching a class, so we waited it out in a nearby bar with some large g´n´ts. At 1am we went in (when it also conveniently becomes free and all the good people turn up), only to find it was heaving because there was a Rock and Roll show happening, as well as the tango. The show was pretty good, and the crowd RnR dancing was good. Tho I realised that even if its something like a 50´s jive playing, people still don´t dance alone here, they only dance in couples. Finally they started to play tango music. And I got a dance. And it was a great dance.
I was so pleased, cos it really could have gone either way. And I was so fortunate to have been asked by someone who was a good dancer, and that it worked well between the two of us. Because if it had been a bad dancer I would probably have thought the whole time it was my fault.
After that I had some so-so dances and made lots of mistakes. However, the stuff that I did right I think I did better then a week ago, which pleased me much more then any frustration at the stuff I got wrong. And the lovely thing here is the community. Now that I´ve been to quite a few milongas, taken classes at them and had classes at a dance school, I´m getting to know people. And they´re stopping me and saying hello to me. Which is SO nice. And some of the good ones, who know I´m a beginner, are still asking me to dance. Which is very great.
Today I decided that the first thing I´m going to do when I´m back in London is buy a flight to BA for the same time next year. Although I´ll have no English friends here then, its more likely the same argentinian and international tango dancers will be around. And fingers crossed they´ll still remember me and want to dance with me again.
Taxi drivers here are flipping brilliant. Aside from being wonderously cheap they also wait for you to be inside your destination before buggering off. Last night as some youths walked past whilst I was sorting out cash for the driver, he locked the doors...just in case. Then he made me wait until they were sufficiently further up the road before letting me out and waiting for me to be safely inside. They really are a credit to client services.
Today I had my 3rd private lesson with my fantastic teacher, Mariana Falcon. She knew immediately I was tired, and I wasn´t arguing with her. Last night I went for a class and milonga at La Calesita - a lovely outdoor milonga on the other side of town, where everyone dances around a fountain and there´s steak sandwiches and boozes available. The only thing was the floor to dance on was horrible because it was stone, rather then wood or marble which you can slide on. Trying to pivot for an ocho or a turn was so hard. I was probably being slightly workman blaming tools, as everyone else managed it much better then I, but I will say that I can understand the snootyness around different venues when its related to the state of the dancefloor. A friend I´ve met here wants to go with me again next week to La Calesita, and I just don´t think I can face another struggle with the ground.
I got in from it around 4am - standard time it seems - and was up at 11am to wash my clothes and go out to an out of town market. Only I washed my clothes and then it started to chuck it down. By the time it had finished it was too late to really go anywhere, and I didn´t want to walk far as I´m trying to save my feet. So I bumbled into San Telmo and hired a bike for a couple of hours. Had a great cycle along the docks and then into Boca - where all the pictures of the pretty multicoloured wooden slated houses are from. Boca is really though, properly flavela. There are 3 roads with the coloured houses from the pictures, tourist bars with bad displays of showy tango, and shops that sell tat. The rest of it is run down, poor, shabby though still beautiful in that run down way, and devoid of tourists cos you´re not supposed to roam around there. Obviously I blended in to the background on my bright orange hire bike, with extremely unusual short blonde hair. No problemo.
So by the time my lesson started at 8pm I was pooped. And hungry. But we struggled through with me getting it wrong, not understanding what I was supposed to do (at one point she got almost exasperated with me), failing to do fairly basic things, the lot. At the end Mariana told me to go out tonight and enjoy myself and not to think about what I was doing. And that I was a great dancer...because the secret of tango is to feel like a great dancer even if you´re not. And that´s the leader´s job as well, to make you feel like the best dancer on the floor.
So after a FAT steak and chips I persuaded my friend to come with me to La Viruta. Again on the other side of town. We got there at 11.30pm and they were still teaching a class, so we waited it out in a nearby bar with some large g´n´ts. At 1am we went in (when it also conveniently becomes free and all the good people turn up), only to find it was heaving because there was a Rock and Roll show happening, as well as the tango. The show was pretty good, and the crowd RnR dancing was good. Tho I realised that even if its something like a 50´s jive playing, people still don´t dance alone here, they only dance in couples. Finally they started to play tango music. And I got a dance. And it was a great dance.
I was so pleased, cos it really could have gone either way. And I was so fortunate to have been asked by someone who was a good dancer, and that it worked well between the two of us. Because if it had been a bad dancer I would probably have thought the whole time it was my fault.
After that I had some so-so dances and made lots of mistakes. However, the stuff that I did right I think I did better then a week ago, which pleased me much more then any frustration at the stuff I got wrong. And the lovely thing here is the community. Now that I´ve been to quite a few milongas, taken classes at them and had classes at a dance school, I´m getting to know people. And they´re stopping me and saying hello to me. Which is SO nice. And some of the good ones, who know I´m a beginner, are still asking me to dance. Which is very great.
Today I decided that the first thing I´m going to do when I´m back in London is buy a flight to BA for the same time next year. Although I´ll have no English friends here then, its more likely the same argentinian and international tango dancers will be around. And fingers crossed they´ll still remember me and want to dance with me again.
Why I Love Tango...
Trying to explain my love of tango is a hard one... but here´s an attempt...
Tango fill me up. Same way post-rock fills me up. Mogwai fills me up. Radiohead fills me up. The soundtrack to Amelie (which it turns out is tango) fills me up... It is beautiful.
At the start of a song, someone asks you to dance. You hold them, you move with them, they make you feel like you´re a great dancer, you allow them to be a great dancer, you understand what they want you to do, you take time to do extra little pretty things with your feet, you move together, you communicate with your bodies, you dance across the room with a smile on your face and your eyes closed, you say thank you, you sit down... And your world is made a little bit more beautiful.
You don´t need to be fit or lithe in any way. Of course it helps, but you can get into it without being able to run a marathon. You just need to be able to have both feet on the floor and not fall over. I think almost everyone can dance tango. Some better or worse then others, but everyone can do it. I´ve seen people of all sizes, heights and ages dancing. And dancing well. A 75 year old man who moved like a 20 year old. But also a couple who were of a similar age to him, and moved like their ages... but they felt each other and moved with each other and did small basic things with their feet that weren´t hard but were beautifully timed and were connected together for those dances.
Its definitely not about footwork and leg kicking. Its about standing, waiting, breathing, feeling the movement, feeling the music and feeling the person... It is sensual, but not necessarily sexual. Because the connection and understanding of another person can happen with a boy or a girl, same sex or opposite sex, someone who is attractive or unattractive. Its like any dance, jive, salsa, ballroom, etc., it doesn´t make any difference whether you fancy them or not as to whether you´ll be able to enjoy dancing with them. Its about how well your bodies speak to one another. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn´t. But one of the great things is that Tango is about making the follower feel wonderful.
And when you feel wonderful you ignore your sore feet, fuzzy head, and tired legs, and keep on moving with that closed eyed smile as long as you´re able.
Tango fill me up. Same way post-rock fills me up. Mogwai fills me up. Radiohead fills me up. The soundtrack to Amelie (which it turns out is tango) fills me up... It is beautiful.
At the start of a song, someone asks you to dance. You hold them, you move with them, they make you feel like you´re a great dancer, you allow them to be a great dancer, you understand what they want you to do, you take time to do extra little pretty things with your feet, you move together, you communicate with your bodies, you dance across the room with a smile on your face and your eyes closed, you say thank you, you sit down... And your world is made a little bit more beautiful.
You don´t need to be fit or lithe in any way. Of course it helps, but you can get into it without being able to run a marathon. You just need to be able to have both feet on the floor and not fall over. I think almost everyone can dance tango. Some better or worse then others, but everyone can do it. I´ve seen people of all sizes, heights and ages dancing. And dancing well. A 75 year old man who moved like a 20 year old. But also a couple who were of a similar age to him, and moved like their ages... but they felt each other and moved with each other and did small basic things with their feet that weren´t hard but were beautifully timed and were connected together for those dances.
Its definitely not about footwork and leg kicking. Its about standing, waiting, breathing, feeling the movement, feeling the music and feeling the person... It is sensual, but not necessarily sexual. Because the connection and understanding of another person can happen with a boy or a girl, same sex or opposite sex, someone who is attractive or unattractive. Its like any dance, jive, salsa, ballroom, etc., it doesn´t make any difference whether you fancy them or not as to whether you´ll be able to enjoy dancing with them. Its about how well your bodies speak to one another. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn´t. But one of the great things is that Tango is about making the follower feel wonderful.
And when you feel wonderful you ignore your sore feet, fuzzy head, and tired legs, and keep on moving with that closed eyed smile as long as you´re able.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Story So Far...
Here are some posts I´ve put up in other places on the internet...to get you up to speed...
Dec 19 2008
The update is, today i learnt what i´ve been doing wrong.
OK, actually every day i´m learning what i´ve been doing wrong, but today I really understood what I´ve been doing wrong.
There are 3 (I think) different styles of Tango. Tango Milongese, Tango Salon and Tango Nuevo.
I´ve learnt Milongese in london from my teacher, which is where both partners lean in to each other and the leader leads from the chest. The leader could lead without any arms if he/she wanted to, it is so much about the chest. This is in a closed embrace - so both partners lean in to each other to form a triangle, rest cheek to cheek and the chest is always in contact because that is where the centre is and the communication is.
But here in BA I´ve danced with men who have not always lead with the chest but lead with the arms. Which I think is more Salon. And also bad practice if you´re dancing milonga, but leading in a salon style.
Basically because I´m young(ish) with blonde hair and a bit cute, men here like to ask me to dance to show off with. So I´ve ended up doing lots of great tango moves and doing bits of footwork (all those cute leg moves in the air and circling moves with the foot on the floor), that really, someone with a big stick should have come along to me and hit me and told me to get off the dance floor and go and relearn the basics.
Tango Nuevo is Modern Tango, where there is lots of separation and people who don´t dance it look down on it, because they think its more showy and less about the connection with the other dancer, and more about getting some moves in. I want to learn it cos I´m ultimately a massive show off. However, I need to learn milongese first because that is harder and once I´m able to stop trying to dance ´steps´and instead listen with my body to my partner´s body, wait for my partner to indicate what he/she wants (I went to Tango Queer on Tuesday, so I know a good dance can happen with either sex, as its all about a connection, not about a sexual feeling) and respond accordingly, I will be a better technical dancer and will be able to chuck myself around in Tango Nuevo if I want.
So my revelation came tonight because where i´ve been staying i´ve been hanging out with a couple of german women. One of them has danced with me a couple of times and I could feel her frustration that I wasn´t listening properly with my body to what she was leading me to do. And when i´ve seen her lead with other people, they all seem to get what she wants, so i knew it was my fault and not hers. And today i went to a class where it was explained. How i should lean, how I should listen, how I should walk, what the indicators are. Basics, but the most important things.All stuff I´ve heard before but tonight i really *got* it.
So now I start 10 hardcore days of learning to dance. I plan to have one group class and 1 or 2 private classes a day. Plus a milonga (the dance you go to, like you would a disco, only its tango). Having been to 8 classes and 6 milonga in the last 6 days, I´m cream crackered. And walking 10miles+ across town didn´t help my blisters. But sod it. I´m on it and I love it.
If I can return to London a better dance partner and my teacher notices, my dream will have been partially accomplished. My other dream is of course to do all the flicky footwork and be the greatest dancer in the world ever, but if I can be a good follower first, that will be a good step towards it.
Oh, and for those who have asked...queer tango you dance whichever position you want. Good dancers swap part way through the dance, so you start leading and end up following, or vice versa. If I can learn to be a good follower I reckon next year I´ll start learning to lead. Cos its fun and it will only help to make me a more rounded dancer - when you can understand what the other person is doing, you can really understand what you should be doing. In my classes in london the men learn the same moves as the women because they need to know what the women will be doing as followers so they can lead them properly.
PS I forgot Tango Fantasy which is show tango on stage.
PPS I have got 3 pairs of well cute shoesdance with 8cm-10cm heels. But I think I´m going to only wear the practice shoes I bought in a bowling shoe style with 1cm heels. Cos I figure once I can dance in them properly I can dance in real heels. In heels its much harder to feel what you´re doing on the floor with your feet.
Oh, and so next tuesday when I go to TangoQueer I can look a bit butch ;)
Dec 19 2008
The update is, today i learnt what i´ve been doing wrong.
OK, actually every day i´m learning what i´ve been doing wrong, but today I really understood what I´ve been doing wrong.
There are 3 (I think) different styles of Tango. Tango Milongese, Tango Salon and Tango Nuevo.
I´ve learnt Milongese in london from my teacher, which is where both partners lean in to each other and the leader leads from the chest. The leader could lead without any arms if he/she wanted to, it is so much about the chest. This is in a closed embrace - so both partners lean in to each other to form a triangle, rest cheek to cheek and the chest is always in contact because that is where the centre is and the communication is.
But here in BA I´ve danced with men who have not always lead with the chest but lead with the arms. Which I think is more Salon. And also bad practice if you´re dancing milonga, but leading in a salon style.
Basically because I´m young(ish) with blonde hair and a bit cute, men here like to ask me to dance to show off with. So I´ve ended up doing lots of great tango moves and doing bits of footwork (all those cute leg moves in the air and circling moves with the foot on the floor), that really, someone with a big stick should have come along to me and hit me and told me to get off the dance floor and go and relearn the basics.
Tango Nuevo is Modern Tango, where there is lots of separation and people who don´t dance it look down on it, because they think its more showy and less about the connection with the other dancer, and more about getting some moves in. I want to learn it cos I´m ultimately a massive show off. However, I need to learn milongese first because that is harder and once I´m able to stop trying to dance ´steps´and instead listen with my body to my partner´s body, wait for my partner to indicate what he/she wants (I went to Tango Queer on Tuesday, so I know a good dance can happen with either sex, as its all about a connection, not about a sexual feeling) and respond accordingly, I will be a better technical dancer and will be able to chuck myself around in Tango Nuevo if I want.
So my revelation came tonight because where i´ve been staying i´ve been hanging out with a couple of german women. One of them has danced with me a couple of times and I could feel her frustration that I wasn´t listening properly with my body to what she was leading me to do. And when i´ve seen her lead with other people, they all seem to get what she wants, so i knew it was my fault and not hers. And today i went to a class where it was explained. How i should lean, how I should listen, how I should walk, what the indicators are. Basics, but the most important things.All stuff I´ve heard before but tonight i really *got* it.
So now I start 10 hardcore days of learning to dance. I plan to have one group class and 1 or 2 private classes a day. Plus a milonga (the dance you go to, like you would a disco, only its tango). Having been to 8 classes and 6 milonga in the last 6 days, I´m cream crackered. And walking 10miles+ across town didn´t help my blisters. But sod it. I´m on it and I love it.
If I can return to London a better dance partner and my teacher notices, my dream will have been partially accomplished. My other dream is of course to do all the flicky footwork and be the greatest dancer in the world ever, but if I can be a good follower first, that will be a good step towards it.
Oh, and for those who have asked...queer tango you dance whichever position you want. Good dancers swap part way through the dance, so you start leading and end up following, or vice versa. If I can learn to be a good follower I reckon next year I´ll start learning to lead. Cos its fun and it will only help to make me a more rounded dancer - when you can understand what the other person is doing, you can really understand what you should be doing. In my classes in london the men learn the same moves as the women because they need to know what the women will be doing as followers so they can lead them properly.
PS I forgot Tango Fantasy which is show tango on stage.
PPS I have got 3 pairs of well cute shoesdance with 8cm-10cm heels. But I think I´m going to only wear the practice shoes I bought in a bowling shoe style with 1cm heels. Cos I figure once I can dance in them properly I can dance in real heels. In heels its much harder to feel what you´re doing on the floor with your feet.
Oh, and so next tuesday when I go to TangoQueer I can look a bit butch ;)
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