Very shy tanguero

Did paso básico come into being by coincidence?

2009-12-26T21:49:00.005Z

I took some classes called Orbits with Sebastian Arce and Mariana Montes in September. We were mostly dancing in circular paths there and practising transitions among them. In the end Sebastian talked about paso básico.He supposes that it came into being by coincidence. The couple was probably walking caminata in clockwise curve. This kind of steps are quite usual in canyengue style. And suddenly, another couple was blocking his way. So the man decided to change sense of dancing to counter-clockwise curve. During this manoeuvre his partner made a cruce. The next steps are just natural follow-through.Who knows...?

Paso básico à la Gavito

2009-12-24T19:53:00.005Z

In September 2004, I spent a couple of weeks in San Telmo. The small family guest house was located near Carlos Calvo and Perú crossing. Carlos Gavito was teaching at Dandi studio, one block from my place. One class for 20 pesos. Every class beyond price.We were dancing really, really slowly there. He allowed us to do only one paso básico, one cadencia, two barridas, one ocho atrás and one sandwich during every song. Yes, only five figures in three minutes! It was like a slow motion movie. But today, 5 years later I'm almost sure he was teaching us to dance pausa.

Once upon a time...

2009-10-28T19:05:00.002Z

First tango workshops in Prague (2001 and 2002), Dinzel's notation in vertical shape.

Solitude

2009-10-14T22:41:00.002+01:00

Sometimes, after finishing a tanda you keep standing with your partner on the dancefloor, embracing desperately each other, funking to split, you stay together three seconds longer than anybody else. Then you turn away and you feel cold and loneliness. Sometimes, once a year. Or twice.

Paso básico

2009-10-10T20:25:00.011+01:00

All dances I know have some kind of "a basic step", a short sequence of three or four steps done first forward by leader and then forward by follower during next bar. These steps are usually symmetrical. English waltz, samba, salsa, rumba, Viennese waltz, polka, swing, jive... But not tango.

Basic step of tango (Paso básico or better Paso básico con salida atrás) looks very complicated, sofisticated and it's almost never danced in its "pure" form at milongas although teached in many tango schools. The question is why paso básico seems to be so important when being nearly useless for dancing. What is the reason? A historical context?

With the first step the leader can hit the couple behind because he can't see them. Doing the second one the couple crosses line of dancing of couples beside. This risky part is called salida. Steps 3, 4 and 5 (with cruce) are caminata; this is the most widely used part of basic step. Personally I prefer a little different version of caminata, walking with the same (R-R, L-L) foot but some people can like it as it is.

The last three steps are resolución. They are the strangest ones. Leader has to place his left foot in between folower's legs and in the end the couple is faced to the center of the dancefloor, it means in the worst position for following the line of dance. OMG why? It's so disorienting for inexperienced couples - they probably will crisscross all the dancefloor and drive others to despair.

I think this basic step was "invented" in two phases. At the beginning there were some common movements or short sequences of steps, stuck together but danced on different trajectory or with different directions at least. Afterwards a kind of standardization was applied to it - steps were transformed to linear form and became quite good exercise for practising some fundamental dancing principles (dissociation, cross, walking on right/left side).

Every tango guru has his own version of paso básico which is usable also for dancing at milonga, a version which is corresponding with his dance style. If not, he probably hasn't realized yet that paso básico performed as described above is just an EXERCISE.

Fish and chips

2009-09-18T18:48:00.005+01:00

Plenty of smokers are always standing in front of airport automatic doors. The first ones are just addicted to nicotine. The second ones are just afraid of flying. But now the third group of people appeared: the people who fear that their airlines will go bankrupt even before taking off. I was the smart one - I bought bloody expensive plane ticket, no low-cost crap, so I saved about 10,000 of my air sacks from powerful tar attack.

There was River Tango festival in London last weekend. Four milongas, some workshops, ticket raffle, phrenetic electrotango lovers, gin and tonic, dance shows, live orchestra, old friend, straight gin, double straight gin, that girl from Spain, holes on the dancefloor, broken glass, night buses, coked-up babes, psychedelic trance party underneath a railway viaduct, as usually... You know...

The first milonga was the best one. I came early because I was looking forward to it. It took place in The Dome, located somewhere out of my map, but close to the city center enough so everyone could use the underground to get there. But only there; there was no way back. All night I was looking for a girl, my blind date and partner for classes. Believe it or not being at milonga from 9pm we chanced to meet at quarter past 1am in the bar. We danced two tandas, mostly just walking caminata and it was really good.

The second and the third milonga were in Ballroom Hall. Nice place but I have to say they are taking safety seriously those islanders: to leave your coat in cloakroom was mandatory, they checked your shoe bag and there was at least a dozen of bodyguards downstairs. May be they supposed tangueros to be hooligans. And they were rigth! That night I felt like a punching bag. There was horrible mess on the dancefloor, couples were not following line of dance, some of them came only to show all-they-know. All they know but unfortunatelly not all they can do.

On the other hand, when those tango rats left home, it was very pleasant to dance with partners who decided to stay, with tango afficionadas. If you found them... The ballroom hall looked a little like a place for a satanic mass, a little like a part of documentary film about releasing passangers from kidnapped plane: there was a dark blue light clambering up the wall behind DJ mix pult and a 5000W pink/violet light in every corner. These lights were enough to prevent crashes on the dancefloor but totally useless for searching or even catching sight of possible dance partner. You had to circulate around and around the dancefloor and hunt the fortune. How thrilling!

The last milonga was placed in the studio where all classes were run. It was half a milonga de barrio, half a good-bye party. I danced with some few girls, mostly with locals. With pretty ones. Very tired after classes with Sebastian and Mariana, very tired after 4 nights long tangoing, I was looking only for an embrace of beautiful woman, for a hug - with no ambition to do any sophisticated footwork we were walking around. The circle was closed.

A nightmare called electrotango

2009-08-15T09:59:00.006+01:00

I have some discs with electrotango in my music collection, a dozen I guess. I play them from time to time, I dust them and some of those songs became my favourite ones. With one exception: I don't like them being played at milonga.

Listening master pieces of Di Sarli, D'Arienzo, Pugliese or even Salgán everything's clear. Their music has a structure, melody, changing rhythm, breaks, solos, culmination points and pathetic words. I can follow it very easily, I have no chance to make a wrong decision because the music itself drags me over the dancefloor, stops me when necessary and spits me out completely sucked in the end of song.

Electrotango doesn't. I'm able to identify the rhythm, mood and whatever. But nothing more. I'm completely lost, I would like to interprete the music but no invention comes to my mind. Just to practice the "nuevo" steps - all these volcadas, colgadas, soltadas and empanadas - I found very unsatisfying. So I listen the music again and again, walking to the factory and walking home and I'm away trying to discover an essence of electrotango. May be there is only too little hammond that I love :-) "If you look for perfection in taking a purl, I have nothing to throw in." (V. Vancura: Summer of Caprice)

"Tango is like a shagging when walking." (T. Buchsteiner: Tango solo)

2009-08-02T20:00:00.008+01:00

Recently I opened my heart to my friend Hurricane, how difficult is to write for my blog something with worldwide impact. "It's much more difficult to write something with worldwide impact in Czech language" he rejoined. It was before he started to publish that pornographic serial story. Well, I'm not sure he is going right way...

All people who dance tango agree together that it's definitelly extraondinary dance. There are tens, hundreds and thousands articles and stories on Internet, how tango changed someone's life, how someone got lost his weight with tango, how someone found what he was missing in his life with tango. According to today's fashion gender trends they write about leader-follower relationship, about asexual roles in dancing couple, about communication between (and among) dancers, about tango philosophy, about zen-tango and similar twaddle.

And then, looking at the dancefloor you use to see couples mostly consisting of a man and a woman, the man is more or less leading the woman and she is dancing what she is thinking he would like her to do. Man's role is more dominant and inductive, he more likely determines what and how the couple will dance (in global scale of tango), the woman - on the other side - accepts his leading, submitting volunteer to it and within her personal time-and-space framework she supports man's tango intention with dancing elements oriented either to public or to her partner.

The true is that the first possibility can be very boring for him.

Sometimes it seems to me as though people are nearly afraid to confess that the most attractive thing about tango is "pure" physical closeness of a male or female stranger. Such a closeness that the other person automatically enters into your personal intime bubble. Such a closeness that you can feel other's heartbeat. Such a closeness that you are only one centimeter from three months long troubles with your wife. You are so close and more you hug your partner as it would be the last time in you life.

Abrazo is a soul of tango (talking about dance). Without it only body exercises would remain.

Tango in the sky

2009-07-12T12:52:00.009+01:00

Once a year all faithful tangueros come to a small airport in central Bohemia to celebrate surviving Alchemy Festival. True men and true women who like all three dimensions of our World put on their shoulders a parachute (quitters put on a guy with parachute) and just jump out from the airplane. I did it a couple years ago too.

Later on when sunset is coming, they ride all possible flying machines to catch last rays of Sun and solemnize their end-season rituals. After landing they join Bacchanalia, eating grilled meat, drinking famous dark and strong beer and finally dancing tango in hangar among airplanes. Good Joe who has a portable dance floor came early at the morning to fix it for us. He loves parachuting and he loves tango and it was his idea to connect these two worlds.

Unfortunatelly Spanish immigration officers got definitely mad; they just sent back hundreds of travellers born in Latin America. They didn´t allow them to come to EU although they didn´t need visa or invitation letter. An Argentinean singer who was invited to take a part in a music festival of Prague (and our milonga as well) is back in South America now. Well, you can´t piss up the wind, as we say.

Last night of April we celebrate Coven in Czechia, burning big fires on hillocks to avoid landing of witches. Being mostly ateists we are pagans a little too. However milonga in hangar indicates that not all witches were burnt at the time.

Is going to milongas really worthy?

2009-07-05T17:42:00.003+01:00

Let's summarize it: Milonga starts for instance at half eight. I'm ready to dance but DJ is late. It doesn't matter anyway because only one of my fellow is at milonga - no woman yet. He is preparing a presentation about cement concrete swelling. ??@#!?#@ :-# Ten minutes later DJ comes, plays some undanceable pieces of Piazzolla and takes his soup. WTF, i'd like to say. The first dry beer is over.

One by one other men come - MEN I say, no women! DJ is playing next undanceable set, Gardel one for change. At half nine, there are five men and one sweet couple over 70, dressed in the same color as usually. It looks like The first husbands club here. A friend is sending me an SMS if I'm going to milonga tonight. Well... Finally a woman is coming, ninety minutes and 7 tandas after beginning. As she is sitting at "my" table, it's ease to be the first one who can dance with her tonight. My second dry beer is over.

About quarter past ten people are coming. And the loudspeakers are failing (for the first time). After two next tandas DJ plays an electrotango set. It's 10:40pm but still about 29 degrees. The floor starts to be wet. I'm dancing with another three women and my dry beer is over again. There are still 5 more men than women here, watching the couples and waiting for their fortune. It finally looks like a milonga a little.

But there are only 4 tandas till the end. Nab or die! Charles Darwin was right! It's midnight, DJ is playing La Cumparsita. We are calling taxi 'cause as my friend Hurricane said: "I'm too sexy for using public transportation." Our homes are aligned so we usually share the cab. Someone asked me: "Why did you dance three times with the same girl today? Does it mean something?"

United colors of Tango

2009-06-28T15:48:00.002+01:00

Black, White, Red and Gold. Four colors, four milongas, four dance shows in four days. Tango Alchemy festival run around the June solstice every year in Prague finished last Sunday. And it looks that every year organizators try to surpass the last one. The first festival in 2007 was a mystery tour - no one was able to predict if it was a good idea or if it would flop. The second one was a challenge due to extreme budget that was planned. The third one was also very risky because it was focused on electrotango; Otros Aires orchestra was invited for Red milonga.

Electrotango and tango neuvo (music and dance style) have really weak position here in Czechia. And I can be blamed for it too :-) All dance schools teach more or less traditional tango styles: milonguero at Caminito, systema Dinzel at Julio's Witnesses studio and finally open embrace at TangoImperial - but they have only small influence on Prague tango scene to change the mainstream.

I enjoyed all four milongas. I danced with all women I wanted to. I danced with a few women I didn't wanted to. I met old friend from England, a guy who rather flies fo Prague than drives to London. I danced with a woman whose dance style I was always afraid of and it worked superbly. The only dark spot was DJ Mona (DE). As someone said: "The only difference between her performance last year and this year was that last year she buggered White milonga up and this year she buggered the Black one up." Never mind.

Abundance of freedom

2008-12-03T18:05:00.002Z

Freedom kills. Dancing on empty dance floor I have no idea at the moment what I should do. Unawares whole my life is projected in my head like at a switchback, the film starts to slow down, slow down, the picture gets focused in the end and there is NOTHING in the screen. I brace all my energies and start to walk caminata.

Some tangueros being close to the start point of their tango way are afraid to ask a girl for dance at milongas and say: "I know nothing, no sequence comes to my mind. And when some suddenly does, another couple usually appears in front of me, I can't dance what I planned and I fall into the beginning..." Last week when I was going home from milonga I realized I feel it just completely conversely: "I know some sequences though but none of them comes to my mind. Once a couple (or two or ten) appears in front of me, even though I have not enough room everything is clear at a time. Finally I can dance!"

What can be more enjoyable than to dance milonga on crowded floor?

Tango ethology I

2008-11-10T20:33:00.006Z

There is a web forum about tango in Czechia where people discuss about dance style, teaching methods, which girl likes tango hot and other tommyrot. Once someone started to write about isolation, not the corporal one usually called dissociation in dance terminology but the tango-geographical one.

It's not a rare event that every city (but also a milonga) has its own dance style that is a homeopathic transfer picture of local tango guru attitude. If a migration or some intercentral copulation doesn't happen, a tangogenetically degenerated tribe evolves (like in Helvetian alpine hamlets isolated with snow). This tribe is only local alternative and one can emancipate from its grip just using Aladár Mézga's cosmic ship.

Sometimes the members of such isolated group renounce volunteer any contact with neighboring tangotribes and become a independent entity which doesn't allow any form of communication with members of other tangogangs not even in open and public area as milongas are. Mostly a principle of self-suggested ametropia is applied when both groups can see each other but behave as if the other one wouldn't exist.

And guess now what tango Nowheresville I was writing about :-)

Bobbies never dance

2008-07-12T17:37:00.000+01:00

There are two groups of people in the world: the beautiful, intelligent, perspective, funny and interesting ones and those who don't like tango. As usually rare things can be found only in the middle of amorphous and charmless substance. Earthnuts, gold, zibet coffee, livable planets. And also locations where milongas usually take places are surrounded by tenement houses full of infuriating and hateful residents sticked to keeping of completely cock-eyed rules, for instance the quiet nighttime. Since once in four years this miserable entity goes to cast its vote into the ballot box, the Municipal Police managed by elected representative crawls on its hands and knees over broken glass just to see their photos.

One of the regularly run milongas in Prague takes its place in a restaurant with the glass rooftop. As known the glass is nice-looking but as a perfect sound barrier is suitable just partially. When we started to organize tango nights there a couple years ago, it took several weeks until a fragile equilibrium between tangueros and ambient sleeping tenants was established. With the participation (or better non-participation) of the Police the end of our dancing parties was set up to 11:30 pm. Then there was - more or less - cease-fire for years.

But if 200 people say "OK" and the 201^st dials emergency line all night, we are helpless. The Police solves claims, not agreements. And so, every time when it's sultry day and someone decides to sleep with open windows, we are caught with our pants down. Thus we may have no other possibility than to find another place or engage a tough guy who for 20 bucks will pull off all his nails with pair of pliers to the snitch...

Istanbulean intermezzo

2008-07-06T15:00:00.002+01:00

She knew only three words in English: "tango", "milonga" and "Turkish". I knew only three words in Turkish: "tango", "milonga" and "railway station". But the dance was absolutely amazing...

No rules

2008-07-04T13:42:00.002+01:00

Due to filming a document about tango we organized an extra men's technique lesson. At the beginning we were twisting our bodies in all kind of way there, we were standing on one foot, balancing, pivoting and clowning a little, you know. Then we started to discuss what kind of step-making should be done dancing in milonguero style, tango salon and tango nuevo. Everything was very doubtful.

In the end, Petit Charles, the oldest guy who started to learn tango after his 60, said: "Personally I think if we start to set up some rules, it won't be the Argentinean tango any more."

May be

2008-06-11T21:31:00.004+01:00

There was a biennale Kafka-Borges two weeks ago in Prague. A desolate factory hall, dilapidated working-class balcony houses, red carpet in between, squad cars and a few of ambassadors. And tango naturally! A culture intersection: Kafka in behalf of Czechia, Borges in behalf of Argentina.

Some speechmakers, a diva, the tango in the end. The best of devil-may-care dancers. It was my first performance in public after more than three years and I must say I don’t need to participate any other one for next three years. I don’t like it much. And I feel the people watching my dancing they don’t like it as well. They applaud a little though but… I don’t care a bit. May be after all those eight long years when I abandoned my dance sport career I have lost the excited clownish element of my nature. May be I can’t enjoy the success any more. May be I don’t have hunger to be a champion any more. May be I’m becoming an average poltroon.

The last milonga was again aborted by Municipal Police corps on Tuesday. How typical! Oh Gosh, I really can’t stand the Czechs at some time…

There’s something about tango

2008-06-09T21:09:00.001+01:00

They are making a documentary film about tango in Czechia just now. Grey-Beard is the director and the way he met tango is a little bit extraordinary. He wrote some criminal stories and there was a sentence in one of them: “… he closed the door and left to dance Argentinean tango.” When his publisher read it he asked him: “Do you know the tango is in vogue now?” Grey-Beard pretended as if he was born with the tango in veins. So the publisher said: “Ok, write a story-book about tango.” Grey-Beard came to Prague and started to explore what the tango was, how it looked, how the people danced it and what was the tango about.

At the last milonga his wife told me: “You know… Gray-Beard always gets on something and gives it up after couple of months then. When he started to dance tango I paid no attention to it. But now one year is over, he takes lessons and dances at milongas every week. I like tango as well and I regret I didn’t start with him. I have to catch him now…”

Tango Strainer

2008-04-17T14:02:00.000+01:00

In the beginning the MAN had been living in the caves. One day he woke up, put on something and started to learn tango. Everything was new, he learned hundreds of steps and every one was different from the others. I started to practice aikido and spent the first month doing shoulder rolls. Next month we studied the Art of Falling. In the end they taught us some mazy motoric sequences named in certain occult language.

After some time the MAN discovered that some steps are more amusing than other ones. He started to specialize. He started to sort and classify them. He uncovered relationships and similarities. The Master explained us that everything consisted of five fundamental techniques. But some said there was only one. Who knows what they were talking about.

One day the MAN found out that in fact all these steps and variations are of same kind; so he put the shoes on, came to the milonga, he started to dance and didn’t care about steps any more. In the end everything seemed to him to be just variations of caminata. Did they mean ikkyo undo or anything else…??

Tango at first sight, tango at first touch

2008-03-26T21:57:00.001Z

I don’t dance much. Very often I just sit at the milonga watching couples, eying dancers’ technique and expression. A year ago a milonguera told me: “I understand you. It’s Zen-like story. You look at a woman, catch her eyes and your dance passed away at the moment.”

In fact the dance runs a while after. No matter which woman you asked to dance, no matter if she can dance tango or not. The most important is the first touch when abrazo is born. The first second. Big Bang of tango. If there is no chemistry between you and your partner AT THE MOMENT, you will probably spend the whole tanda only doing steps.

Leaders and Followers

2008-03-22T18:25:00.005Z

Recently I read an interview on tango run by a young feminist who I personally know. Gender, archetype and macho were most frequently used words there. Well, be it so! They talked about switching roles in modern society, culture and common life. A woman taking on the role of the leader in tango was presented as an exemplum, as a proof.

Yes, sometimes... sometimes I see two women dancing together at milonga, one leading another one. A couple of times I saw two men dancing together on stage, but their roles were not clearly defined; they switched them or they were just fighting. But I have never seen a woman leading a man. Never in my life!

Personally, I don’t ask to dance the woman I have seen dancing as a leader before, at least for now. Tango is a kind of flirt for me and I never flirt with men.

Adult age

2008-03-08T13:12:00.001Z

There are three Breaking Points in the life of a true tanguero: his first dance shoes, his first tango shoes imported from Argentina and his first tango shoes bought personally in Buenos Aires. I own three pairs of tango shoes; I have bought them all on my own in Argentina. But only the first one I really love.

Sometimes when I'm in the mood, I dance in my sneakers or flip-flops I use to wear. Many ask me: "How can you dance in this crap? You can't pivot! It doesn't hold your feet tight!" Yes, I can't pivot and it doesn't hold my feet tight, they are right. But dancing tango I don't think about it at all.

Fear

2008-02-28T00:01:00.002Z

Each time I dance with a woman I have persistent feeling that my dancing must be dead boring for her. I do neither tricks nor fancy steps. Just caminata, ocho atrás, ocho milonguero and counter-clockwise giro. I funk I could lose the contact with her body and soul in open embrace. She is mine, all mine for this tango!

Therefore I gave up all those workshops. There is always a hoity-toity fellow demonstrating volcadas and colgadas and asserting that THIS is the tango. But I think it isn't...

Eternal Quest

2008-02-24T17:24:00.001Z

I went to a milonga last Saturday night. There was a guy standing at the door and watching the dance floor fatalistically.

"How long have you been dancing tango?" I asked him.

"For six years. And I'm looking for a good partner along..." he sighed.

I glanced at the dance floor and saw at least ten very good ones. Poor guy! He doesn't know yet he will most likely seek for ever.