Tango in Tuscany

SAN QUIRICO D’ORCIA, Tuscany

It is the second afternoon of a very challenging workshop in Tuscany. I am having trouble communicating with the models and think it would suit me well to find out more about them.

One of the models has said that she had been dancing Tango for a couple of years. I play “El Choclo” thinking that maybe I can make the atmosphere lighten up a bit. She begins dancing a Tango on her own.

It has been six months since the last time I had danced, but I join her for a bit. I am nervous as I hold her. I can’t lead her to a cross. Is she really a Tango dancer or am I that bad?

She critiques my style in Spanish, telling me to be “mas fuerte con tu brazo.” That old demon shyness again.

It is still a couple of days before we start communicating well during  the workshop and we don’t click until the last two shoots.

We don’t dance again which is probably best for both of us.

Learning to Walk

Parque Las Heras

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

–Stephen Wright

BUENOS AIRES–October 28

On this trip’s first day of Tango lessons I am surprised to find that despite the six-month gap I remember a bit of Tango: the basic step, the ocho cortado, the close embrace, the walk (more or less), the posture (more or less). The old flaws are still there as well. I still have trouble keeping in line–stepping too much on the diagonal when I step backwards– still have trouble keeping the beat of the music, and I still have trouble walking. That sounds ludicrous to those who don’t dance Tango, but that is one of the hardest things about the dance. To lead properly, you must walk in a straight line, you must close your feet to transfer your weight, you must step backwards in a straight line, you must keep good time with the music and you must hear and feel the changes in the music.

I got in a bit of trouble last April when I put up a video of my instructor Guadalupe and I dancing. I received both a private scolding and a public rant from another blogger because Guada and I danced a number of fancier steps, some including ganchos or kicking embellishments. I was not trying to pass for an expert and Guada was not cheating me (as the blogger claimed) but for the U. S. readers who expect DANCING WITH THE STARS tricks, a walking video wouldn’t have seemed like much at all.

So to the person who expressed such surprising vitriol, let me say that today I am in the third lesson of the week and in all three we have concentrated on breathing, walking, posture, timing and hearing the beats and phrasing of the music.

For a novice like me, I have to develop a tricky mix of bravado and humility. For a man to dance Tango, he needs to lead clearly and with confidence, yet it is also vital that as a novice I return to the beginning and to the basics.

Guada snaps her fingers to the music and we verbally accentuate the music with BUHs and BOMs on the beats. I step forward and backwards, practice changing weight from foot to foot in time with the music. My hips are sore, my quadraceps are burning because I am walking more correctly, rather than the duck waddle of my normal gait.

BUH….     Step forward.

BAH…      Step forward

BUH BUH …    Change weight from foot to foot

BOM… Step forward

BAH BAH BUH BUH BOM… Step forward in time and continue the walk.

Every day I get up and I realize that as the day begins anew, so must I. Thinking that I have expertise doesn’t help, not in my dancing, not in my Spanish, not in my photography and not in writing. I am learning to accept the necessity of being a beginner, not through false modesty or self-loathing or self-deprecation. Not arrogant “expertise,” but the mistakes of experience guide me and improve my skills. When I forget this or become smug, the universe reminds me to pay attention. I trip down stairs, I lose things, I dent a fender, I unconsciously hurt a friend.

Being human requires me to get the start right. I succeed when I keep my attention on the most basic details. I fail when I look past them. Not only am I beginning to learn, I am learning to begin.

Clase de Tango Video

Afternoon Practice, April 7

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In the beginner’s mind there are endless possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.

–Shunryu Suzuki

¡Que Zapato!

I never put on a pair of shoes until I’ve worn them at least five years.

–Samuel Goldwyn

Buenos Aires, April 1

Someone has to be playing an April Fool’s prank. I look in my messenger case, the one I take all over town and the one in which I keep my Tango shoes. There is only one shoe.

These are very good shoes, purchased here in Buenos Aires and rebuilt in Virginia so that they hug my heel and push my toe to the front of the shoe. Before I bought the shoes, I was having trouble walking in time to the music and leading properly. I don’t want to mislead anyone, in both senses of the word, but I still have trouble walking in time to the music and leading properly. Yesterday my entire lesson consisted of walking with my instructor in proper time to the beat and then adding a quicker step as a double beat.

Bum…Bum…BuhBuhBUM…Bum…Bum…BuhBuhBUM…

It is one of the hardest things I do. It is harder than the steps we practiced in the last post because here I have to really feel the music. Here I have to time my steps. There is nothing but my rhythm and my intention and my confidence to guide me. It is very basic and very difficult and even extremely accomplished dancers must practice this all the time.

I search my apartment in a sweat, hoping that maybe I was just rearranging things in the bag. There is only one shoe. Perhaps I opened my bag on the Subte and it fell out? I lost a pair of nice sunglasses last week. I was having neck pain and shifted the bag’s strap to my other shoulder. The glasses were propped on my head and I may have knocked them off. I think I would know if a shoe dropped out. I doubt very seriously that there was a thief who was looking for a single right shoe. The only other explanation is that I emptied out my messenger bag at the studio yesterday to get my wallet and left one of the shoes in the dark entrance foyer.

On my way to the lesson, I think of alternate scenarios. I could buy I new pair, but without the heel reconstruction the foot wouldn’t be far enough forward for me to really feel the floor. Maybe I can learn to dance a One-Legged Tango. Perhaps Riverdancing is in my future. I readjust my bag again, hoping the other shoe won’t drop.

I sheepishly walk into the foyer of the dance studio. Guadalupe is a few minutes earlier and I tell her what happened. She at first expresses concern, then mirrors my self-mocking amusement, and then she tells me that when someone is an idiot people her parents age say “¡Que Zapato!” to indicate the person’s foolishness. Also Guada tells me that in a dance hall it is common to call someone who can’t dance un zapato, as in “How was it [the dance]?” The answer: “Not good, bailando con un zapato.”

That idiot! Dancing with one shoe! Both use the singular form of los zapatos: shoes.

There is a different attendant behind the desk and she has no idea if a shoe was left yesterday. She looks under the counter and starts laughing. She pulls out my other shoe.

Now I can start the lesson properly and learn to walk all over again.

Bum…Bum…BuhBuhBUM…Bum…Bum…BuhBuhBUM…

Two Steps Forward

Guadalupe tries to improve Sam's posture. Since this picture was taken with a camera on a tripod with a self-timer my pose is rushed and my posture even worse than usual

“Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little.”

–Notes from Fred Astaire’s First Screen Test

BUENOS AIRES, March 28

At least I’m not balding.

I know Fred Astaire. I’ve seen him dance. Sir, I am no Fred Astaire.

Forgive me, my children. My writing may be as clumsy as my dance steps. Certainly, there is much in this post that some of my Tango internet friends who have been following me will criticize. One looked at the video that is in this post and said “I’m not going to say anything unless you ask me.” So I didn’t ask her.

People who become involved in Tango are very passionate people and they hold passionate opinions. While in Virginia, I attempted to keep in practice by attending an afternoon lesson and milonga (dance) in Richmond. My partner had never danced Tango before and I am not past the advanced beginner level so I didn’t lead her well. I was telling my partner that as people advance they ultimately move from an open embrace to a closed one and that the dancers lean against one another, become a single unit, and that the communication between the dancers becomes the dance.

An older woman heard my talk, which had been discussed in several dozen lessons and started scolding me: “Don’t ever use the word lean. You don’t lean. That’s not the way.”

I don’t like confrontations and I simply told her that “lean” was the word my Tango teacher in Buenos Aires used and that perhaps it was a language difference. A quick Google search turns up an entire thesis on leaning in Tango as a style called “apilado.” The partners form a triangle and balance their weight against each other using their torsos. Sometimes the best way to win an argument is to walk away. This infuriates some people even more, but I am not particularly clever with the cutting comeback and so I have stopped trying.

The video that I have included was taken on the same small camera I use for all my still shots. That is why the video quality is not up to the standards I like, but it will do for this post. Guada and I are practicing each one of the steps that we learned in February. We set the camera on a tripod and then I edited the clips so that you didn’t see all the walking back and forth to start and stop the camera. Spielberg has nothing to fear.

Sam’s Tango Practice, February 12

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The steps that we are practicing are the basic 8- count step in which woman does a cruzado, a cross, in step five. We practice the ocho cortado in which we begin the basic step and rather than continue to the cross we step backwards and can do a couple of variations. Either I can lead her to a cross and then we finish the step or I lead her to a gancho, or hook. This is the showy step that observers believe will cause the man to be in danger of losing his manhood. The position of the thigh permits the woman to kick the back of the man’s upper thigh, so this is not as dangerous as it looks. I also perform the giro in which I create a spinning motion for myself  doing sacadas or stepping between my partners feet while leading her in ochos or figure eights. Another sacada ends with a lapiz, a half-circle that blocks my partner’s forward movement and allows her to make an embellishment called a parada in which she gently kicks my leg and then steps over it to complete the step.

Guadalupe and I pose for my camera. She makes me look like a milonguero. Maybe one day I'll really look like one. (tripod photo)

My instructor tells me that “people think of Tango as something rigid, but it is much more like elastic.” There are moments when the partners are close, moments when there is space for the various steps. It is not a rigid pattern of steps, but a communication between the partners that is mutual and understood through the energy between them.

All this takes a lot of time to learn and even more to master. It is the man’s responsibility to lead the dance and because of this I have yet to go to a milonga (dance club) and ruin someone’s evening by showing my incompetence. My first lesson upon my return was three days ago and I was confused and clumsy at first but some of it came back to me towards the end of the lesson. As Guadalupe said, “the man invites the woman but then must give her direction.” A central dictum in Tango is that if something goes wrong it is the man’s fault. That, of course, only increases the tension for slightly shy guys like me.

Standing Up For Myself

December 6: Open Air Milonga, Av. de Mayo

BUENOS AIRES, DECEMBER 6

Saturday night there was a grand celebration of Tango on the Av. de Mayo, the beautiful boulevard that connects the Plaza de Mayo and Congreso. There were stage performances by Tango show artists and performances by Tango orchestras and singers on three stages.

It was a valuable occasion for me to see the language of Tango interpreted by the acrobatic Tango show artists and, more importantly, witness the best of the milongueros. A Chicago transplant to Buenos Aires who has been active in the milongas for ten years told me that a significant part of my Tango education is living with the music and feeling the soul of the dance by watching. She said:

“Get to know the music and your tango will come out of you.  You can’t think steps and improvise in the moment at the same time.  Tango is a feeling which is danced.” –Jantango

I have a great deal to learn and I was inspired by the rhythms and emotion in the night air and seeing the best dancers that frequent the milongas. The show dancers are always amazing, but to see people interpret the more authentic Tango in combination with the music inspires me.

It is intimidating to think of the long road ahead for me to begin to feel comfortable with Tango and with Spanish. At this event, people of all ages watched performances by Tango artists young and old. The younger musicians and singers bring new energy to the art, while respecting the tradition and guidance from the golden age. People of all ages watched the music, the couples dancing in the street, and the milongueros on the stages in front of the orchestras.

What I hadn’t fully grasped before I came to Buenos Aires is that Tango is not just a dance, it is music, it is emotion, it is a whole culture of its own, deeply woven into the history of this city. I purposely conceived and planned this journey without very much research because I wanted to be surprised and to have to adapt. Like Spanish, Tango has me intimidated and I have been shy to practice my baby steps in public.

Saturday morning I had a lesson with Guadalupe. At first we tried some close embrace walking and then a couple of ocho cortados. I had problems leading her. We determined that not only it is my inherent shyness, but that I also have a posture problem. We spent about twenty minutes discussing the proper way for me to align my posture and to take the tension out of my shoulders. I was pushing my head forward and my hips back. I had to work on using my lower abs to realign my hips and to feel an invisible string pull the top of my head upwards.

Sam watches the performance

Guadalupe explained: “This is important not just for your dance but also for your life.” My neck has been a disaster for years and part of learning to dance is for me to learn to hold my head up. My sister, who was a sales manager for an assisted living community, had seen the deterioration of the aging exacerbated from years of poor posture. She watched me walk down the street and told me to “stand up straight.” As a younger brother who felt a lot of pain every day I resented the martial quality of her instruction, but part of my irritation was that I knew she was right. With the scar tissue of neck surgery and severe arthritis, it was particularly difficult on that winter day to raise myself up. However, I have to stand up straight, not because someone tells me or because it is proper for dance. I have to stand up for myself.

Tango, like anything worth doing, is a difficult code for the casual practitioner to unlock and I am still at the beginning of my journey.

Some milongueros complain that the milongas are not what they used to be. They are filled with showy youths who do not understand the traditions, and tourists who do not understand the etiquette or have the dancing skills. Perhaps this is true, but I was also inspired that evening by the younger musical artists’ energy and respect for tradition.

That evening, I marveled at Buenos Aires, nocturnal city of music and dance, overflowing with the crowd’s energy and the music’s passions. I strolled up the broad Avenida 9 de Julio and smiled at the giant anachronistic white illuminated Christmas tree that had appeared in the last day. I was filled with instant nostalgia caused by my imminent departure and the often sad and lonely longings of the music itself.

Second Language

Buenos Aires, November 30

It is a Saturday morning and my third private Tango lesson of the week. My instructor Guadalupe has been working with me on a different style of Tango, a “close embrace” rather than the “open embrace” that people learn in group lessons. She says, “It would not be possible to teach close embrace in group class. There is too much for me to watch. This is the dance for the milongas.”

She shows me how to introduce myself to my dancing partner by standing with straight posture and holding up my left arm for my partner to clasp my hand “like you are shaking hands, not too hard, not too soft.” She then shows me how to place my arm behind my partner, drawing her closer by sliding my right arm across my partner’s shoulder blade and eventually to her far left side.

At first I am a bit cautious, I lean back. She shows me how vital it is for the man to lead with confidence and how I must hold my head erect (in some cases so I can watch milonga traffic) and also to lean in with my chest to balance the weight my partner is placing against me.

“You are one with the woman and you must lean against her and she you.” She shows me how the dancers are joined at the woman’s left breast and how in an open embrace you exaggerate the leading to communicate to your partner, while in close embrace the pecho (chest) communicates the dance.

She smiles as she pushes my arm back out to the side. “You are shy. In time, Tango shows you how you are.” She is right, of course. Guadalupe, Tango Analyst.

After some practice, it becomes apparent that this is a very graceful dance. It is very fluid and the communication is exquisite. We learn a new step, the cross step, that is usually used in the milongas, unlike the box step that is taught to the beginning classes.

When I hold her correctly or when my leading is more assured she rewards me with “eso” (as in “that’s right”). She is easy to lead and she helps me gain more and more confidence as I continue.

An earlier lesson in the week was conducted entirely in Spanish. Dance lessons in Spanish are easier for me to follow than other things in Spanish because I already spend so much of my time miming and reading body language.

Today we need some English so that we can discuss the complicated etiquette in the milongas. “The man looks at the woman and he makes the eye contact,” Guadalupe says. “If the woman gives a nod, he walks over. One time I was in a milonga and I made eye contact with someone. When he walked over I stood up and two girls behind me also stood up. He danced with one and came back later and danced with me. He said that he had meant to ask me, but the woman behind me thought he had asked her, so he was polite.”

The last dance of the lesson was longer. We did a number of steps that we had learned that week. When the music stopped, we stopped dancing and Guadalupe was happy at how much I had learned. “I danced with my eyes closed.” She meant that I was able to communicate everything through my movements rather than through counting or words and she had been able to trust me. I took it as a perfect compliment.

Earlier in the morning, Guadalupe had become self-conscious about her English, worrying that she had said “don’t” when she should have said “doesn’t.” I told her it didn’t matter. “But you are a writer and I worry.” I reminded her what I had written in my post “Pingback:” “Guadalupe speaks two languages that I cannot: Spanish and Tango.” She said that she remembered that and she added: “but now you speak Tango.”

Music In The Late Afternoon

Buenos Aires, November 17

It is 7 o’clock on a beautiful spring afternoon. The sun casts long shadows over the lavender-budded trees and commuters wait in long queues for buses. Shoppers crowd the avenues, gathering ingredients for their evening meals, and lovers kiss with varying degrees of passion.

I run through the crowds on my way to the park. I have loaded a Tango mix on my iPod so I have a soundtrack for the film unfolding in front of me. “La Cumparsita” plays its familiar beginning: Be BUH DA da da be buh Da da da da da da… My step quickens and I feel content.

The second song is a plaintive wail, a cry of loss and regret, sung by a woman with a voice colored by whiskey, cigarettes and life’s reversals. So many Tango songs were written and performed in the middle third of the twentieth century and the older sounds add to their romance and glamour. Somehow the sadness makes me feel good.

The next song is Novelle Vague’s cover of The Dead Kennedy’s “Too Drunk to Fuck,” a New Wave classic, and I realize that I have forgotten to delete my old library from the Tango mix. I have to listen because the woman’s voice is too sexy to ignore. I think this is a perfect example of the conflicts of mid-age. Nouvelle Vague does Jazz and Bossa Nova covers of New Wave songs by my favorite nihilist bands from the 70s and 80s. The song makes me feel au courant by covering an old song in a style from my parents’ era. Nouvelle Vague references two past eras by performing an ironic arrangement of an even more ironic song. In Buenos Aires, I am learning an old dance that is practiced to music perfected before I was born. This is in my attempt to see if I can learn something that is best learned by someone younger. Yes, I am turning fifty.

I forward through all the music in English, with the exception of U2′s “Vertigo,” which I deem kosher because of Bono’s beginning count unos…dos…tres…quatorce. Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” also makes the cut because of its Spanish title. I listen to additional sad and evocative Tangos (is it the accordion that makes them so sad?) and then the iPod shuffles to a new song, a melody from my past that awakens a powerful emotion and slows me to a walk. I walk through the happy, chattering crowds in the advancing twilight. The song evokes memories of romance and exquisite happiness that were followed by pain and loss. I feel the mixture of past ecstasy and eventual melancholy, an internal Tango that is mine alone.

Pingback

Buenos Aires, October 30

I arrive at my Tango lesson and the ranks have dwindled quite a bit. There is an Aussie couple, me, and our instructor Guadalupe. I have been alternating between my glasses, and contact lenses augmented by reading glasses. Today is bright and sunny and I wear my contacts, sunglasses, and carry my reading glasses.

I place my sunglasses and reading glasses on a shelf and Guadalupe says, “ah, two pairs of glasses for you today.  The sunglasses are for Bad Sam?”

“Si, si,” I respond. “I have to wear the sunglasses because I am a Man of Mystery, un Hombre Mysterioso.”

She replies, “I know. You are a man of mystery and you just tango on.”

I am embarrassed because I forgot that I have a signature line for my e-mail that includes that information.

“I am impressed by this, this way you make your living,” she says.

I am a little flustered by her reference and it takes me a moment to remember my steps, but finally I begin to walk leading Guadalupe. Guadalupe is trying to prepare us for the pressures of the milonga, the dance hall. “The man has a hard job, because he must lead. The woman can close her eyes and dance, but the man must also watch the traffic and not get too close to the persons in front or of the persons in the back.” She attempts to get the men in the room to lead and not have our partners know the next step or variation we will try. This is quite hard for me at this early stage.

I have an insight that I share with my Aussie colleagues about trying to Tango.  ”You’re studying Spanish, right? It is like learning a language.  It seems okay in the classroom when you are speaking slowly, but get out on the street and you freeze.”

Guadalupe shows us that you don’t even have to make a step.  ”If the floor is crowded, sometimes you can keep your partner in the em-brace and shift your weight from side to side. Dancing is not about making steps, it is about making connections with your partners.”

My Frankenstein choreography now feels cheap and silly.

At the end of the lesson, Guadalupe claps her hands and announces: “OK, chicos, is time to end.” She must hurry to get ready for her performance tonight.

I feel a bit humbled by the session, the “pingback” or reference to my blog, and by the process I have undertaken. Guadalupe speaks two languages that I cannot: Spanish and Tango.

Tangled Up and Tongue-Tied

Buenos Aires, October 28

Tonight you write from the relative comfort of the cot you call your bed. As you had foreseen, learning new things at fifty would be challenging on several levels. There is the embarrassment and hesitancy you feel when trying to speak a foreign language, particularly “immersed” in said language in a foreign land. You walk into a coffee shop and you can’t remember the word for “sugar.” The woman behind the counter speaks a little English and she asks you “what would you like in your coffee?” She helps you and says the word “sugar” in English. This upsets you because you really did want to order in Spanish. Then the word “azucar” rises out of the back of your head and you blush. You buy a bottle of water at a newsstand and simply hold out a five-peso note since you usually can’t understand what the person says when he asks for the money. You get the change and you slink away.

In a restaurant, even before you sit down, the waiter hands you a menu in English, which you politely put to the side as you read the menu in Spanish. Then you furtively peek at the English version and order in broken Spanish and he answers you in English. You sigh.

In class, you SPEAK…LIKE…WILLIAM!…SHATNER!.  Short bursts of fluency, followed by hesitancy, followed by puzzling loss of memory, followed by a P-P-Porky th-th-the Pig stutter. Words that you can easily say on your own are giant moutains of tongue-tying torture when you read them aloud before others.

On a Monday, you show up in class, a little tired and you find that the instructor and everyone in class is different than last week’s class.  Three of the students are Brazilian so they have a little familiarity with Spanish. They speak with a Portuguese accent, your other classmate speaks with a French Swiss accent, and your intense young instructor delivers Castellano Spanish in a rapid manner. (It’s a special accent here–another story) You understand about a third of what he says. You feel that you have never seen a word in Spanish before, even though you passed the first level with flying colors.

Then you spend two hours pantomiming and searching for cognates with an intellectual and friendly instructor and you talk in some detail about American politics, world economics, the films of los Hermanos Coen, the plotting of Hamlet, and the difference between Argentine and American senses of irony, tragedy, and humor.  With all the scribbling out of words and the como se dices and so forth and a couple of lapses into English you manage to hold a conversation for a couple of hours.

Afterwards you drag yourself to your Tango lesson.  It is the same professora but a different crowd of students.  You have a new partner who is a head taller than you and either you cannot lead her or she cannot follow.  You are polite and say to the professora that YOU must be doing the wrong thing, because you do not wish to be a Tangorrista.  The entire class shuts down and you learn to just walk to the music again. Everything you have learned goes out the window. Now you are a Tango doofus. Holding your arms higher to accommodate the taller partner and struggling to find the right way to lead her inflames the arthritis in your neck and the accumulated tension from the day cramps every muscle between your shoulder blades, across your shoulders, and up your neck to your jaw.  You resist the impulse to buy a bottle of whiskey at the store since you do not want to get in the habit of drinking on your own in a foreign country.

You buy your groceries and you tentatively hand out a 100 Peso note and a 50 Peso note to the cashier and you gratefully accept the change, a wordless transaction. You drag the bags up the broad avenue and it is a very long six blocks and you don’t even know if you have the energy to shift the bags so that you can get your keys. You regain your belief in the Creator when you see that the security guard has the door open for some fresh air and that all you have to deal with is pulling the heavy cage door open and pushing it shut on the ancient elevator.

You have a sandwich. You lie down in bed and you write a post, the laptop propped against a pillow on your stomach. This sucks and it is all your fault, but you are in deep. You must Just Tango On.

Mucha Mierda

Piazzolla Tango

You know what the funniest thing about Europe is?  It’s the little differences.

–John Travolta in PULP FICTION

Buenos Aires, October 27

It is a very odd sensation walking back into the Tango studio today after writing about it Friday. I feel very ironic and bemused. Porteños (Buenos Aires residents) kiss each other when they meet, brushing their cheeks and kissing the air. I became aware of this when I first arrived at the airport. Behind the car service counter, a stout man in his forties said goodbye to his co-workers. He kissed each one, two men and a woman, as he said “chau.”

Today, I bump cheeks and air-kiss Guadalupe and shake hands with and air-kiss her partner Emiliano. A doctor from Winston-Salem greets them the same way, looks at me and rubs his cheek as he indicates Emiliano with a tilt of the head. ”Pelo,” he says (Spanish for “hair”).

Friday, I danced with Emiliano, a thin man who stands in perfect balance, as he showed me the proper form on one of the steps. He was the woman, in case you’re interested, and dancing is all I do on the first date.

My Swedish friend who was having trouble with her balance last week finishes her last lesson today. She moves much better, although she is still quite a handful. I find out that her Tango shoes had been too small for her and that today she has a new pair of shoes that keep her on a more even keel. Even so, when we do the more complicated steps, such as the forward ocho (a turn step for the woman, like a figure eight), or the gancho (translated as “hook”), a move when the woman kicks her leg in a hooked fashion between her partners legs, I use so much effort to handle her that my eyes fill with perspiration and I lose count of the step.

Tonight Emiliano and Guadalupe begin their performances at the Tango show. I find out that show folk in Argentina say “mucha mierda” or “lots of shit” to wish each other luck. Emiliano says it is from the days when people used horses to go to the theatre. “Mucha mierda” meant there were a lot of fans.

A postscript:  Friday, I originally titled the article Fighting the Tangorrista: “Fighting the Tangonista.”Later that evening I was worried that perhaps I had unconsciously used the name of a gang or political party. I Googled it and found that “Tangonistas” was already taken by both a musical group and by a Herpes-positive support group. I changed the name to the more original and better sounding “Tangorrista.” I will still dedicate my life to the cause of protecting our freedoms from Tangorristas everywhere and from those who would harbor them.

Fighting the Tangorrista

“I am, uh, shy, but I am, uh…willing.”

–Pepé Le Pew

Buenos Aires, October 24

It has been a week of Tango lessons.  We meet at six in a small studio for an hour lesson. It is about a thirty minute walk from my Spanish school. It is good to take the walk because it clears my head after struggling through a one-on-one Spanish lesson for two hours.

We have a cute and small young profesora, Guadalupe, who teaches the class with great confidence. Coincidently, she will be performing in the same tango show I described in my recent post “Watching The Tango”. There is a lot to learn and a lot to remember, the basic seven-step box–or is it eight?– the backwards and forwards Ocho, the “sandwich,” the “rebound”, and there is simply walking.

“You must walk with confidence and lead the woman with a soft, yet firm EM-brace,” Guadalupe says, putting the emphasis on the first syllable, and when I dance with her it seems much easier. There is a woman from Winston-Salem who is on an extended holiday with her husband, and I find it quite easy and natural to do the steps with her as well. There is a young woman from Sweden who is quite nice but she is very large and clumsy in her high-heeled Tango shoes, and either I don’t lead well or she has trouble following me, because she often gets a little off balance and because she is on the big side, begins to topple over. There is a tall young woman from Aspen who obviously hates having me as a partner (we switch every song) and then there is Francie, a tall woman, a little bit on the big side, dressed in black with rose tattoos crawling up her legs. She has ice blue eyes and she particularly hates dancing with me. There is an Swiss man named Emilio who is at her level and she expects to dance with him and him alone.

On my second day of my lessons, she announced “Emilio better come today, because I am not doing box steps all day.” She could see that I was taken aback and she focused on me and said: “Well, I paid for this after all.” I do not usually come back with a quick retort, as in “you didn’t pay for a private lesson,” and I wasn’t clever at that moment, either.

I avoided her the entire lesson and danced with Winston-Salem, Sweden, and Guadalupe that day. From then on, I dubbed her “Tangorrista:” n.f.: a woman who only dances the angry Tango. I am thankful that she has now taken her last class.

From now on, I pledge to fight the Tangorristas here so that we never have to fight the Tangorristas back home.

Watching the Tango

“I like to watch.”

–Chance (Peter Sellers) in BEING THERE

Buenos Aires–October 18

When you are a writer or a photographer, you tend to remove yourself from the actual scene, even as you are in it.  That is the way you gain enough perspective to record what is happening and the ability to see and relate details and impressions.

At least, that is what is true for me. I think I was drawn to these disciplines by my innate shyness and introversion. My introspection is useful at times, but sometimes also makes me feel alienated and not fully in the moment.  I often have a sense of dèjá vu even as I am seeing something in real time.

My friend Ray, gregarious and extraverted, camps out in a cafe or bar wherever he goes in the world and finds it easy to make friends. I am shyer and more aloof and have never been good at this. I sit in the back and observe and I am intimidated. Since I am talkative with close friends, some may think this is hogwash, but I have always felt like a bit of an outsider. I can be in a gathering and step out of myself and observe in the third person.

One of the reasons this project is such a departure is that I am making myself work through my inhibitions. I will have to fully participate in Tango and try to get along in a foreign country with a foreign language. Mistakes will happen, but I must Tango On. It is the charm and anxiety of the naif, the greenhorn, the amateur that creates a bit of comedy, and I hope interest.

Since I often second-guess myself (another personality feature of the introvert), I wonder if the anticipation of what will be and the observation of the event itself will make it different, similar to the observer effect in physics, where the observation of a phenomenon subtly changes the phenomenon itself.

Piazzolla Tango

Teatro Astor Piazzolla

A Group Dance in Red, Piazzolla Tango

Last evening, I went to a show at a tango dinner club called “Piazzolla Tango.” It was my first live exposure to Tango and I had decided to go because it is within easy walking distance of my apartment and my guidebook highly recommended it.

I dressed in a suit and a black shirt and ventured out into the evening.  Florida Street, generally jammed with tourists, was dark and deserted. A few vendors had mats with unsalable items spread out on the street and there were people huddled in doorways. The shops were closed and the security gates had been rolled down and locked.

I entered a well-lit and pleasant arcade and went to the theatre’s entrance. I had elected only to attend the show, not to have dinner, which made my ticket saleswoman frown. I may have been the only one in the hall of several hundred people who had not dined there, but I get tired of the looks one gets when one dines alone in a fancy place, and I just wanted to see the show.

Descending two flights of stairs and having given my name twice, the lobby was so quiet and empty that I was worried that I had come at the wrong time. I was escorted through a double door into a music hall, festooned with gold accents and covered throughout with late nineteenth-century dark red whorehouse velvet. Laughter and warm conversation bounced around the hall and was absorbed by the fabric, the well-dressed people, the plush carpet.

The lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and dancers twirled on stage, the men costumed in fedoras and suits, the women in tight dresses with frilled skirts and slits to show the legs as they moved. While the men led, the women seemed to show the most expression, kicking their legs high as they turned and snapping their heads back and forth in rhythm with the piano and accordians.

The couples stomped their feet as an accent, the men would twirl the women or catch them in a mock fall, the dance would end with the signature pose of the woman in a low backward crouch and with the man in a pose as if he were a sprinter preparing to start a race. The dancers teased and flirted over a rose, the man offering, the woman pretending not to show interest, and then accepting the rose and circling the stage with her partner in a tug of romance and seduction, rejection and acceptance.

A beautiful brunette singer, sparkling with costume jewelry and luminescent in a white dress, delivered an impassioned song. Between choruses, she gave the audience coquettish looks and swayed her hips, confident in her voice, her beauty, and her sexuality. The performance alternated between the female singer, single couple and multiple couple performances, and a talented and emotional dark-suited male singer. I was moved to give the performance a standing ovation, yet there were not many of us who were standing. Could this be an American habit, giving standing ovations for every performance and expecting the ovation to spread across the entire room like a fungus?

After the performance, I walked back to the apartment, passing a famous milonga (Tango hall), Confiteria Ideal. The hall has been featured in the films EVITA and THE TANGO LESSON. To watch a dance filmed last year at Confiteria Ideal clink on this link. I stopped in and looked at the board. The dances and classes were listed and I blanched a bit. There are dances tonight, which I will probably sit in the back and observe. Tomorrow afternoon, though, there is a class with instruction in both Italian and English. Will I throw myself into the moment, or will I continue to hold back, an observer but not a participant?