Bailar

This is a quotation from the great (and late) maestro Jose "El Turco" Brahemcha. One of the wisest things I have read in ages...

BAILAR NO ES HACER UNA FIGURA TRAS OTRA... EL BAILE ES LO QUE HACEMOS ENTRE FIGURA Y FIGURA...

To dance is not to make figure after figure... The dance is what we do in between figures...

Music in la cancha

Yesterday I went to see River Plate playing against Godoy Cruz, from Mendoza. I really don't want to get into football banter, but River play really badly and need to get real to get to their deserved status. Anyway, the way how I got dragged into this game was unexpected. A friend from work phoned me when I was CD shopping in Florida "Vamos ver River", "When", I asked,. "En 1 hora!"... So, there you go, I had to get to the other side of Buenos Aires and hope the bus didn't crash.
My post, really, begins in the bus journey. The bus was full of River supporters, fully armed with drums, djambes and lots of chants. And they were singing their hearts out, while in the bus. One thing that I noticed was that throughout their chants, the drummer did exquisite changes in rhythm. Time, half-time, contra-time (transpié), back to time, pause and again... After a few weeks of classes with the Disparis I got a bit neurotic about rhythm of tracks so this was a complete revelation to me.
And it maybe explains why Argentines get tango so quickly. A lot of things that people in the UK have to really make an effort to understand (or even hear) is second nature to Argentines. A teacher of mine (not from UK) told me she didn't like to teach in the UK because she had the notion that people "didn't get it". They wanted perfect technique, fancy steps and sequences but never endured to really understand what they supposedly were dancing, the rhythm, the music, the dance beyond the need to show the rest of the people in the milonga how good one is.

dreaming of tango

I'm working in a hospital in Buenos Aires. Everytime there is a ward round we go to the intensive care unit to check how our patients are doing. On the way out, in a bay almost hidden by a corridor I always listen to fuzzy sounds of tango. The other day I ventured to see who was there. I saw a man, in his 70s, intubated and sound asleep, a small radio tuned into 92.5FM pouring tango and nothing else. I asked the nurse who this man was. She told me that he had been in coma for some time now and that his family had brought him the little radio so that he would be listening tango while he was sleeping. They said that if he was listening to tango, he would probably be dancing all the time in his dreams.

The local heroes

I would like to praise the real tango heroes that are most of the times forgotten in blogs and conversations. I would like a word of praise to those local people who put an incredible effort to organise and teach tango, sometimes puting their own money forward, squeezing their time and neglecting their jobs in order to make the local community grow.
It's only due to there people that tango stars can be invited to teach outside their original country. It's only because of them that we are here discussing tango in blogs.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a tango part-time organiser. This post is not written because I want to be pampered or praised. It's for all of those who probably are the people that made it possible for you to be reading this.

Tango and Yoga

It's been a while since I am getting that will to try other things that will improve my dance. I don't mean that I want to leave tango, it still grips me as much as it did since the first day I came across it, but I mean that I want to develop my body and mind a little bit more.
I have never tried yoga before, but people that have done tell me that it is a great way of getting to know your inner self and to reach an equilibrium that you rarely do in the "waking life". So tango and yoga sound like the perfect thing.
There is a problem, though. 500 miles. That's the distance that separates my place from Edinburgh. But if you're lucky enough to be in Auld Reeky, give it a try, it's probably going to help your tango a lot!!!

Lesson learnt

Is good when you see people that not long ago just wanted to learn volcadas and colgadas while finishing their first module of beginner's tango, now turning to me and telling me that the most important thing is the walk and how you dance to the music. It's just a small thing but it sometimes makes me think that I am not talking to the walls... And it really pays off all the effort of starting a tango community from scratch!

Tango in the beach

Hello everybody!
Tangologue had an interruption as I was taken into internetless places, with lots of sea and sand in the mixture... There was no tango in the place where I went but that didn't mean that I wasn't thinking about tango! And I discovered (or saw if it worked) a way of perfecting and understanding tango using that wonderful place that we all love - the beach.
So, leaders, a good way of practising your walk is to walk in the sea with your legs immersed in water. The movement you have to do in tango is exactly the same, chest ahead and the legs grabbing into the floor and pushing forwards!
The wet sand is also perfect for you to understand step patterns. You'll have to do this in a deserted beach (as the place where I was) or else you'll be very confused and will get odd looks. The wet sand will leave you a storyline of your walk. It will tell you if you're legs are too apart, if your steps are too big or even if you're putting the weight on the right place.
So, go on, indulge yourself. Grab your iPod, go to the nearest beach and try it out. Just don't try any giros, or you'll be stuck in the sand! ;oD
















by the way, these aren't my legs!

Tango is alive in the midlands!

The midlands are the bit of land in England that are, as it says on the tin, in the middle. North of London and south of Manchester/Liverpool and Yorkshire. It has the second biggest city in the UK, Birmingham and a cluster of important cities such as Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby. But despite a rsident population of over 10 million people, the tango population was minute, and there was the idea that the midlands were a pretty sterile land, in terms of tango.

But the winds have changed! There are lots of events with professional teachers going on. If you're a tangologuer from the midlands you may want to check this out, it may interest you!

8th June - A Sunday of Argentine Tango organised by Birmingham University Tango
with Marcelo Almirón and Maria Solero (Bs As)

14th June - one day of workshops in Market Harborough
with Octavian Janner (London)

20th-22nd June - Tango Spa - Warwickshire Tango Festival v1.0, organised by TangoWarwick
with Jenny Frances and Ricardo Oria (Edinburgh/BsAs)

7th - 13th July - Birmingham Univeristy Tango organises "Austria Summer Tango training camp"

26th-27th July - El 13 - Tango Salon weekend Villa Urquiza style organised by Tango in Brum (Birmingham)
with Roberto Bolletin and Mariana Bocallate (Italy)

Who dares to say that tango in the midlands is not alive?

Tango, Porto de Honra

Why is Port called Port? Supposedly, Port can only be called to the fortified wine whose grapes have been grown in the Douro Valley (in the northwest of Portugal) and whose wines have been stored in Porto, the city at the end of the river Douro.
Anyway, I have wrote a wee chronicle about SOME of the tango that goes on over there. But we all might be glad to know that that there is real tango being danced there.
Porto de Honra means Port of honour, and when in a group people raise their glasses to drink they drink to their honour.
Today it's the start of a wonderful chapter in Porto (and northern Portugal's) tango scene. I just thought I could drop a line here, just in case you're around the area...

The healing powers of tango help Parkinson sufferers!

It's not an anecdotal report, it's not a beautiful life story, it's pure science, but it's music to my ears!
According to a study published in a scientific journal, tango improved balanced, mobility and obvioulsy, quality of life in Parkinson's disease sufferers.
The authors compared the effects of Argentine tango dance classes to exercise classes on functional mobility in 19 patients with Parkinson's disease. The participants in the dance program showed significant improvement in several standard tests for patients with Parkinson's disease - the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UP-DRS) and the Berg Balance Scale.
The study is going to be continued for further assessments and, if it proves that tango is better than standard exercises it's another challenge for tango teachers. Only they MUST be prepared!

Thanks to Fishnets and Fedoras for bringing this report to my attention

Tango: my food, my poison

Tango is like food for me. Without it, I can't live. There is no way around it. If I can't dance it, I have to listen to it, watch it, read about it, feel it, think it. I am sure I am not the only one, most of you think like I do, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. ;o)
We revolve our life around tango. Suddently, our job becomes something you have to do when you're not thinking about tango. Your friends have to accommodate the milonga times, your kitchen becomes an improvised dancing space to practise whatever you can while the kettle boils, blogger comes up before your email in your most used websites, itunes says that the 50 most played tracks are tangos and Mr Visa is pissed off with you because those shoes looked great so you had to buy them. In fact you're finding it difficult to spend long times with non-tango people because you can't talk about it with them.
And that's when tango starts to taste bitter. When you have to choose between a life and tango. When tango becomes a necessity, creates addiction, takes over your life. Like in tango, in life, there should be a balance. A fine balance.

If visualised:

For those of you who are more visually oriented like me, the pictures shown below are clear and simple analogies of the differences in embrace between Ballroom tango and Argentine tango.

Ballroom Tango

vs

Argentine (true) Tango

*Notice the nocturnal backdrop and fabulous illuminations of la Tour Eiffel, as opposed to the empty cocktail glass.