HELAINE TREITMAN

In charge of a group of 25 American tango students arriving from different flights and cities to the “Fuimicino” Airport, I was more than happy to finally got everybody together inside the bus but, very sorry in the other hand, to have to left behind the irresistible beauty of the ancient and monumental Rome. Our bus entered in a flat and green countryside where everything seemed to be hills, freeways, country roads and landscaping. History however was following us, just like it does all the time when I visit “The City of Cesar‘s“ and, as soon as we were approaching the area of Umbria, our eyes started to admire an incredible spectacle of beautiful hill top villages and monumental fortress, castles and monasteries. Umbria “el cuore verde de Italia” is one of those areas of Italy where you can still echoes the battles of Etruscan, Romans and all the giants of the middle ages and there, according to my manifest, the students will have a full week of Tango activities at “Casa Crispolti“ in Todi. 

A graduated bachelor in Fine Arts in New York City, Helaine Treitman started as a social worker with Russian immigrants in Brooklyn and after 2 years she decided to explore the banking business in the financial center of Wall Street. This job had certainly nothing to do with the feelings and emotions that she was trained and motivated to full fill so, after 7 long years, she left Wall Street to start a school of drawing, painting and sculpture far away from USA, in Umbria/Italy. According to hers own words: -“I wanted to create an environment that was tranquil and fertile for artists from the US and abroad, to enable them to study and develop their work in close contact with nature and with the great heritage of Italian art. I believed to have found a way to satisfy my need to live a more humanistic life, filled with art and what I referred to as the “poetry” in everyday life“

Once in Umbria she soon become director of an Art School, hers life was no longer frenetic and it locks like, at last, she had started to full fill hers dreams but… something was missing: It was no time or mental space for creation, she was always worried and stressed feeling the frustration of postponing for years hers own artistic needs and ambitions in order to have the time to show to others how to do it. Destiny, however, was already working to change that, something new and very important was about to happen and that would start a new and decisive chapter in hers life:

“In August 1994, when I was already well established in Italy the famous young company of Miguel Angel Zotto and Milena Plebs, “Tango X 2” was on tour in Europe, and I went to see their show “Perfumes de Tango” outdoors in the main piazza of Foligno. The very first tango I ever saw was the fast and powerful “Cumparsita” of the great couple Miguel and Milena. It inspired me profoundly I thought, “I want that!”. . . and that was my turning point. I was bitten!”. “The following month I was in Chicago, working in a friend’s booth in the gift expo at the McCormick Center and by chance I walked by the Aerolineas Argentinas booth, where every half hour a couple danced a few tangos. Mesmerized again, I asked the male dancer if he gave lessons, and the next day – my last day in Chicago before returning home to Italy, I had my first tango lesson. All that evening and throughout the 12 hour nighttime flight back to Rome, my hands trembled with emotion”

That was the real beginning of this Tango History, Helaine impressed and “bitten” by the dance, wanted to study it and to learn it, but… it was no tango in Umbria!. So once or twice a week for several years, she would drive 100 miles each way to Rome or 200 miles each way to Bologna for tango classes and milongas including, of course, a few visits to Buenos Aires. Pretty soon she was organizing the first outdoor milongas in Montecastello di Vibio (the small hilltop village where she lived in Umbria) with tangueros and dancers coming from Rome, while all the curios local people gathered around to watch! Addicted to Tango for life, in 2001 she left the art School to hers business partner, moved to Todi and started bringing Argentine maestros to Umbria organizing monthly seminars with students from the nearby towns of Terni and Perugia. Daniel Lapadula helps her, in part, to get started and them she was ready for the following step:

“At the end of 2001 I organized the first New Year’s tango festival in Italy, a weeklong event in Todi’s medieval center, with a 2-day marathon gala in a glamorous 16th century palazzo with famous musicalizador Vassily from Bologna, 6 days of workshops, and milongas every night. I invited guest artists Milena Plebs and Ezequiel Farfaro, and Carlos Copello and Alicia Monte to do the New Year’s Eve exhibition and teach classes during the week. Then I arranged a municipally funded performance by these two star couples in the Piazza of Todi that freezing cold New Year’s Eve. The festival attracted 250 dancers from all parts of Italy and abroad and received extensive press coverage. I totally exhausted myself and I didn’t break even but it was a huge success!”.

Finally, in 2004 Helaine moved to Perugia and start training a team of teaching assistants from among the best students bringing visiting Argentine and Italian maestros once a month for workshops. Now in Perugia there is at least one milonga every night attended by 30-50 people and eight other schools have sprung up in the city and other towns in Umbria, five of which are run by former students and assistants.

Helaine, all this is amazing, you had done a magnificent job in Italy and I‘m sure, knowing how you feel about tango, that you are satisfied and happy, so allow me to ask you a final questions: Why are you living all this now, at the top of your success?

“Well Orlando, Tango in Umbria has surpassed the dream it once was for me. I've done my job here, it feels good. In the next few months I'll be moving back to the US, because I miss my family and my own culture very much. I'll be settling down for now in Naples, FL. Professionally, I'll be teaching workshops around Florida and the US in emerging tango communities, training teachers and coaching tango community leaders who want to build big, healthy happy tango families, as I did in Italy. I am developing a support system of information products and services, a blueprint new tango organizers can follow, so they can build a thriving tango community, and they can have my support along the way“-

In May of 2008, with Roberto Herrera as a guest artist, Perugia had their third annual “Chocotango* Festival“ founded and run by two of Helaine’s former students. There were more than 400 people at Chocotango’s Saturday milonga and the festival was a total success!. A couple of month ago while in tour in Spain and on my way to Italy I got the following e-mail message from a happy and very excited Helaine: ”Orlando, you should hurry up if you want to visit me again in Umbria…. because I’ m coming Home !!!”

WELCOME BACK HELAINE!

Watch video of Helaine at :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlIAyHPmHuo

(*Perugia is the Italian city of chocolate, famous for its chocolate factory Perugina).

THE MEPHISTOPHELEAN TANGO

by Robert Osborne

email Robert at roberto@lavidatango.com

The Mephistophelean Tango  
 

Part 6   The Scandalous Details

Music and laughter filled the brilliantly illuminated ballroom of the Count's château, and dancers floated across the floor as in a dream. The shiny black shoes of the men, impeccably dressed in white tie and tails, barely touched the floor. And the women, radiant in long satin gowns, their slim necks glittering with jewels, danced with their eyes closed and the corners of their lips turned softly upwards. Tomorrow, the Count will marry Anne-Marie. 

Jacques refilled the glass of the old, gray-bearded, red-faced Russian who knew Prince Bogdanitch before Anne-Marie was born. “Now Count,” Jacques said, rapping the Russian playfully on the arm with his ‘carte des desserts‘, “remember! You promised to tell us the details of the affair between Prince Bogdanitch and the young woman who was to become Anne-Marie's grandmother.” 

“Yes, yes,” the Count replied, raising his glass to his lips. “I have not forgotten, my dear young man.” The Count drank half the contents of his glass and gave the ends of his full gray mustache a twirl. A spark ignited in his eyes as he sat back in his chair and let his mind travel back in time to a small town in the Swiss Alps. 
---------------

As if the fluttering wings of a butterfly may create great storms on the other side of the earth, it is indeed strange how subtle events, distant in time and space, can have a dramatic effect on our future lives and the course of history many years later. Who would have thought that events, so long ago recorded in dusty diaries and faded letters, would bring together this diverse ensemble tonight in this magnificent ballroom. 

When it became clear, shortly after World War I, that the great Imperial Russian Army under the Czar was losing ground to the forces of the revolution, a great exodus of Russian nobility spilled onto the soil of Europe. As a member of the Imperial Russian government in exile, Prince Bogdanitch was fortunate. With his wife, his family and members of his entourage, he succeeded in establishing himself quite comfortably and not immodestly in a pleasant Swiss villa and set about creating favorable liaisons with the Swiss government. But the Swiss were not overly receptive. The Prince, in his usual circular logic, would ask himself, "How much good have I done today? None?" he would tell himself. “But on the other hand, I believe I've not done too much harm, and that in itself is good.” 

Prince Bogdanitch was 40 years old and the Princess was eleven years younger. After giving birth five times -- only two children survived -- she no longer permitted the Prince access to her bedroom. The Princess failed to comprehend her new life, far from the animated life she had led among the privileged elite of Saint Petersburg society. And she made it clear she was not happy. 

The Prince needed no further excuse for establishing a discrete relationship with the charming Sonya, a member of his entourage who worked in his kitchen and who was young enough to be his daughter. She was deeply in love with him, and this disturbed him; for he now had to send her off to Paris to avoid a scandal, and he was worried she might make a scene or do something terribly foolish. One night more, only one night more of love, he wrote in his diary, and the fire pumping hard in his veins caused his hand to tremble. 

So far, Sonya's pregnancy had gone undetected by members of the household, but that could not continue much longer. The Prince half believed himself when he told her of a future life together and convinced himself he was telling the truth and that he was not an opportunistic liar. But suppressed in a corner of his mind was the truth: they would never see each other again. Life is too complicated, and what is past is past, he reasoned. 

Prince Bogdanitch glanced at the clock on his writing table. One more hour and she would be in his arms for the last time. He continued writing quickly with his nervous, sputtering pen, while below, in the darkness of the cold kitchen, Sonya prepared herself. Naked and cold, she moved closer to the glowing kitchen stove. Even a few inches made a big difference, but she still could not stop shivering. She had to be more careful, she told herself. The scar on her lower hip still burned from her last contact with the stove. The red glow from the crackling, wood fire played against her face and her breasts but did nothing to relieve the discomfort of the cold stone floor against her bare feet. And now her back began to freeze. She turned and reversed the process with her back to the stove. 

She heard water begin to boil and the crescendo of the kettle's whistle grow from a low-pitched growl to an almost inaudibly shriek. Grasping the kettle's handle with her washrag, she lifted it from the iron stove-top, poured the boiling water into ten inches of cold water at the bottom of the metal basin next to the stove and tested it with her finger. She stepped into the zinc washtub, sat down and thought of those kisses which, so irresponsibly delivered by the Prince, still burned on her lips. How? How could she live without them? 

She understood when he told her she must go to Paris and start a new life…at least until the execrable revolutionary forces had been crushed and the Czar restored to the imperial throne. I will send money for you and the child, he had told her. And when you return, my sweet, he had said, you shall have a Malmaison of your own in the country, with green fields that stretch to the horizon and beautiful gardens with fountains and woods where you may prance about like a fawn. But despite his words, spoken with convincing sincerity, she somehow knew her departure for a new life in a strange land and the loss of her beloved Prince would be a pivotal point in her life, and nothing would ever again be as it was. 

She was only now awakening to a strange new rhythm in her blood, and her pulse beat with such terrible insistence it overwhelmed all other aspects of her existence and whispered to her in a strange new language she could not comprehend and could not control. She drew her knees to her chest, sank as low as she could in the tepid water and began scrubbing herself, paying particular attention to those places soon be touched by the lips of her Prince. 

The Prince closed his diary. It was time to climb the back stairs to the room under the roof he had come to know so well. But tonight, the last night of love, he felt both the sweet agony of the fire in his blood and the numbing dread of the vacuum that would follow. He rose from his chair, placed his diary in the drawer of the writing table and turned the key. 

Sonya stood before the mirror and tugged at her hairbrush, trapped in the soft brown curls that hung in profusion down her slender neck. She pulled it free and shook her head until a strand of brown curls fell over one eye to give an impudent offset to the classic symmetry of her face. She pinched her cheeks until a faint pink blush rose in them. But her face still lacked color, she thought; its pale reflection seemed to leap audaciously from under the frame of dark curls surrounding it. But she liked the way her dark eyes and prismatic eyebrows stood in an even line below her high forehead and how her nose, longer than she would like it to be, pointed downward to red lips hungry for those of her Prince. She wore the new white dress she had made -- he would remember her this way -- in her long muslin dress, tied with a red ribbon around the waist and a black velvet ribbon tied like a noose around her neck. 

In the mirror she caught the reflection of the ancient Russian icon that hung above her bed. Years ago, when she was still a child, her mother had made her grasp the icon and place her other hand on a thick, black Bible. Her mother then exhorted an oath from her: "Swear to me and to Him, child, that you will always obey the commandments of our holy Russian church; never to surrender to the base ways of the flesh and the insidious whisper of the devil; never, never submit. Never! Otherwise, you will roast on a spit in the eternal fires of Hell. But I know I can trust you, my daughter. You are a good girl. You will not sin. And if you mind the teachings of our church, there will be a place for you in paradise." 

She heard the Prince's footsteps on the stairs, and she bit her lower lip to redden it. A soft rap on the door. She turned with a smile on her lips as the Prince entered the room. He closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. Without speaking, she rushed into his arms. 

Despite his indolent life, the Prince was a strong man, and she could feel the sinewy power in his arms as he wrapped them around her and found her lips with his. He felt a tremendous pressure gather in his soul and rise hotly in his body and flow deliciously from his lips to hers. She drank his kisses greedily, and as the essence of his soul entered hers, she felt hot tears of joy spring from hers eyes and flow down her pale cheeks.

“Do we have the night, my Prince?” Sonya asked. “Yes, my angel, until we hear the Robin‘s wakening song outside your window,” the Prince answered playfully, attempting to ease the tension of their last night together. “And then…I've order a carriage to take you to the station…but let's not talk of that now. Come,” he said, taking her hand. They walked to the bed, and as they passed the dressing table, the candle flickered. The Prince bent down and blew on it, leaving the room illuminated in yellow moonlight. 

She stood between his knees as he sat on the bed. “Turn around, my sweet,” he said, and he began to unlace her tightly bound bodice Her young breasts fell against the thin white gauze of her petticoat. He encircled her from behind with his arms, slipping his hands under the curve of her breasts, caressing them and weighing them in his palms. He felt her soft curls against his lips. He kissed her neck and her ears. He nibbled at her earlobes and drew her earrings into his mouth, tasting their metallic coldness on his tongue. He felt the heat rise from her body and smelled its soapy fragrance as he slipped her petticoat from her shoulders. 

She turned towards him, naked. Under his lips he felt her flesh spring to life. Hot juices began to flow, as guttural animal sounds rose from her throat, like the soft, purring growl of a cat. She began to moan, and her body began to gyrate slowly, rhythmically in his arms, then more violently, in spasms, as if to tear itself free from some inescapable torment. Her moans turned to sobs and tears flowed down her face…..“No…Nooo…Nooooo,” she cried between sobs. “I can't. I'm a good girl. I'm a good girl,” she repeated. “But you must,” the Prince told her. “I order you to submit. I command you to surrender to me. Or must I force you to submit?” 

“I cannot. I cannot, my prince. I promised. I don't want to go to Hell,” she sobbed. “Must I then use the velvet noose?” the Prince sighed. “Yes,” she answered, “the velvet noose.” She could not submit willingly. But if she had no control over what was happening to her, if she were unconscious, would that be a sin? 
“Come here then, and sit on the bed,” the Prince told her. He kissed her on the lips as he reached behind her head and grasped the velvet noose she wore around her neck. He slowly twisted it, and, as the noose tightened, her sobs were replaced by deep gurgling sounds, and her eyes began to turn slowly upwards. “Tighter. Tighter,” she cried. “No,” he said, “it's too dangerous. You might die.” 

“Yes,” she said. “Kill me. I want to die.” Consciousness began to fade, and her entire being became concentrated in a single, sharp point of pleasure that expanded from her thighs and slowly spread, growing more and more intense until it filled her soul. “Yes, yes, kiss me there,” she cried. “Use your lips, your teeth. Do not be gentle with me. Brand me with your kisses so that I may never forget. Aggggg. Yes. Harder.” 

Until the Prince had awakened this sleeping giant, this monster, this sweet fairy, this pit of hell's fire, she had never felt, never imagined she could be capable of such mindless, sweet, soul-squeezing pleasure. Hot juices flowed from the deepest, the darkest, regions of her soul. As consciousness faded, a light, shining dimly in the dark corridors of her unconscious, grew brighter and the pleasure sharper, unbearably intense. Powerful, unrelenting forces of creation, partly from heaven, partly from hell, spilled into her blood like a Mephistoplean cocktail. 

The Prince heard her screams of pleasure, saw her face contort in sweet agony, saw her body convulse in rapture. Never had he been with a woman who responded to his lovemaking as she did. Between her legs she bore the gift of the gods. 
----------------------------------

The red faced Russian Count refilled his champagne glass and lit his cigar. “Well,” he said, exhaling a blue cloud and flicking his wrist, though the match between his fingers was already extinguished, “La Belle Sophie arrived in Paris and gave birth to Princess Anne-Marie's mother, But she died shortly afterward due to complications, although I personally think it was from a broken heart. And when Countess Barca asked me to assist in the authentication of the Princess' title, I was glad to do so. I wish her more happiness than the unfortunate Sophie.” 
(to be continued)

           The Masked Ball       The Fortune-Teller       The Secret Garden      The Duelist

           Chez la Countess