Edition XXVI

February 4, 200


TANGO CONNECTED STEPS

By Elena Pankey

Since tango Argentine is a very strong dance, it is always a position or a margin, angle in it between beauty and vulgar age. Also, in different level of your tango technical achievements, one day you might be able to dance more than only one or two musical instrument.
Some dancers often are very curious and ask us about what makes Tango so fascinating.
Tango learning process is similar to what you have been doing when you learned how to read. First, you learn tango elements- alphabet. Then, you learn techniques: how to put that element together in a nice way. Then, you learn how to make Tango words, then sentences and then you dance paragraphs. Then you might be able to create you own dance.

It is fluid and thoughtful transitions that make this dance complete. All tricks and steps, poses and figures should have some glue that holds everything together: a transition from one trick to another. When you begin to learn tango, you need to learn these transitional moments from the day one. When are not in a hurry to dance anything and anyhow, you need to learn the basic very precisely; you learn all details that would make your dance as an elegant Tango. You need consciously realize and understand where is your arms, hips, tight, feet, all parts of your body are in each single and every moment of your dance. It takes a special effort before it would be as an automat. Also, every moment of your dancing should be on purpose, with meaning and understanding.
Learn and use special transitions to create texture and melody within the dance. The music is changing all the time. Listen to it, first. Try to dance this changing. Keep up your energy - and the character you’re portraying- during every transition.
 

The character of tango is combinations of some legato (smoothly connected) and staccato (disconnected) musical fraises. You don’t want to be as a cooked potato on the dance floor; you don’t want to be one note for the whole routine, and ignore the music.
You need to feel when and where you should be determine, when to be light, when to float along the floor, and when to be grounded.

Every step has the relationship with the next one and with the previous one. Identify it while learning tango. Find a special teacher who will se it and help you.
For example, your simple “side start” could be done as a lead to a “boleo” and then to “Salida,” OR it cold be done as a lead to a poseLa Punta de Pie,” OR it could be a leading move to a woman “Mulinette.” It would depend on what you are planning to do BEFORE you start to dance it. You head should work fast, but you don’t move without thinking; you never lead a woman to ½ of the movement. Every time you dance a Tango sentence, You finish the sentence; make sure that you returned a woman to face you: hips to hips, and stop any movement. It is a little pose in ½ of a second between such musical and your own sentences.

Tango has a domino effect: some sloppy transitions, not brushing, not waiting for a woman to finish the move, all that leads to sloppy ugly dance. Knowing where you are coming from and where you’re going to will help a lot. In order to make a strong lead, first take a deep breath and exhale with a woman together on the step. Important, to visualize yourself and send your energy out from your chest, head and mostly from “Tan-Dien” area (below the belly bottom) forward. It is your first lead. This is a sensitive partner would read in the space of your frame.
Your frame in tango is a space where you have an ability to control your partner. Usually, it is your very frozen upper body: your shoulders and your elbow together moving as a strong block, moving as a one.
Try all that. Then you and your dance will shine during your routine.

visit  www.TangoCaminito.com  email TangoCaminitoSchool@Yahoo.com  AllRightsReserved©2006



Hola Tangueros,

I want to give you my most sincere thanks for supporting our Posada Milonga this past December. It was quite successful and we were
very, very happy. The hours just flew – how I would have loved to be able to detain time and continue dancing our beloved Tango. Every year, we do better than the previous year and all thanks to every one of you who supported us. We were also very fortunate that the wonderful

Jairelbhi and George Furlong of Dallas (above) and 

Susana Collins and Ron Jones of Houston (above) entertained us with their exquisite tango exhibition, they were all absolutely superb.


Hitting the pinata brought back many memories for Manuel Lobo, he said it had been over 25 years.

I am sure you are all aware by now that Circa is closed at the
present time and now we are holding our weekly Milongas every Monday at El Callejon Restaurant which is located at 13259 Blanco Road, San Antonio, TX 78216  Tel. (210) 479-0910. Free tango lessons taught by Manuel Lobo from 6:30 to 8:30 pm every Monday.

This is it for now – keep on tangoing and I’ll see you at our next
Milonga!

Norma



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Mission
 Statement
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Our mission is to provide a virtual home where all tangueros, from beginners to advanced, can access the rich culture of tango 
and the many and varied resources available to them. Remain inclusive and impartial with regard to styles, theories or organizations.
 Strive to help individuals  raise their level and understanding of the dance. Inspire tango lovers to have fun and enjoy their tango.


Our Advice: 
 VAYA PRONTO A UNA MILONGA !

 

Views expressed by reporters or contributors are not always the views of the publisher or staff. La Vida tango is happy to give equal space to all points of contention.

 

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Revised
March 03, 2007

 

© 2004
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Reporting from Buenos Aires . . .

TANGO MUSEUM OF THE WORLD

“Sitio de las musas Tangueras”

When you start walking along the wide side walks of the Avenida de Mayo, an invaluable piece of the Argentinean history in the City of Buenos Aires, you will find there many of the most important organizations dedicated to preserve our rich past. A few steps from the world famous “Café Tortoni” at the number 833 and as part of this proud and magnificent building there is a very special piece of that past and present: “El Palacio Carlos Gardel”, an important complex occupied by “El Museo Mundial del Tango” and “La Academia Nacional del Tango”. This academy used to come and go, according to the history, from one place to the other looking for a place to stay. In 1993 Café “Tortoni”, at the number 830 of the Avenue allow them to hold conferences and meetings in its own installations until one day Horacio Ferrer, its founder and president, decided to talk to the owner of the first and second floor of the same building. This part was property of the Touring Club Argentino. 

Ferrer introduced himself to Don Francisco Dieguez, president of the Club and asked him, "Don Faustino I want to rent one office in the first floor of this building to install the headquarters of The Academia Nacional del Tango y El Museo Mundial del Tango and I wanted to know how much that would cost us”. Don Faustino locked to the eyes of Horacio Ferrer and told him: “Ferrer I thought that you as a good poet, were a little crazy but not this much. How in the hell do you think that “The Argentinean Touring Club” is going to rent one office to la “Academia del Tango” and “El Museo Mundial del Tango”! . . . No senor, is yours for free! And please, do not take just one office … take the whole floor!


"El Museo Mundial del Tango" (Tango Museum of the World). 830 Avenida del Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Entering this place, for tangueros like you and me, may represent a sort of reincarnation with the past, with the history of El Tango. Those walls saturated of history may talk to you and to me or anybody about milongas and milongueros, legendary figures, music scores and thousands of histories of lives, men and tango. Once you take the old elevator and get to the second floor you step out in an office with a piano on one side, a couple of old fashion chairs at one side and a big round table right in the middle. While I was waiting I could no help to admire, like a good tango dancer, a floor entirely covered by a bright parquet wood, the ceilings extremely high were painted, like the walls, in a white color. Crowned, all around the four corners, with an elaborated and rich beautiful wood, paintings hanging all around the walls and, in every one of the doors opening, a single work of art. All the art is framed in wood from the sides up and crowning their tops with … a head of a mythology god!

When I asked for the person in charge I was invited to wait so I started to look to everything and to everywhere anxious to know and see so much history in one place to the point that I lost any notion of time. Gabriel Soria, vice president and one of the founders of the museum, interrupting my inspection, invited me to seat down in one of those chairs, right in front of the big round table what, after all, happened to be his desk. He said to me that the museum was inaugurated on December 22 of 2003 and its purpose was to connect the past and present preserving all the tango history in one place, open to be visited by anyone in the world interested in our Tango. This museum, according to Soria, showed the history of el Tango in its 10 periods of life, from the very beginning, year 1850 to the present. There is an “Olimpo of Tango glories” plus an actual cinema with stage where live orchestras, dancers and singers regularly offers free shows an interpretations for the general public and visitors. Soria was really busy so after this explanations I started my visit by myself which is to me the best and the real way to enjoy an opportunity like this, I wanted to savor every minute of my tour and discover by myself all those tango trophies without anybody talking or explaining them to me, they may crash the solemnity of such a moments..

The first room has been dedicated to Astor Piazzola and, of course, is carrying his name. A couple of secretaries are working at this moment in the edition of “El Chamuyo” a tango news magazine published by La Academia on a monthly basis, at the right side you can see an old and artistic candelabrum presiding the scene. As soon as you get into the reception area or secretaries room all visitors are welcomed by a wall high hanging, and it could not be in any other way in this place, big portrait of Carlos Gardel, this time the name of the room was “Anibal Troilo and Angel Villoldo” (two of the biggest names in the tango’s history). I found there music scores of “El Cachafaz”, “Gira Gira”, “Grisseta” and many others. In the inside and close to a second portrait of Carlos Gardel.


Horacio Ferrer and Gabriel Soria (founders President and Vice President) with views of the different sections and panels at "El Museo Mundial del Tango"

The legendary and very own personal hat of the idol donated to the museum by the tango singer Susana Rinaldi. A display of dresses worn by another immortal symbol of the tango “Tita Merello” put you back in time right in a middle of one of those milongas where TiTa used to sing: “ Se dice de miiiii … que soy renga, que soy fea ….”Maria de la Fuente is also present with one hers dresses. In the same panel a little bit to the right are 2 coats, one of them worn by … guess … Anibal Troilo! and the other one by Roberto Grela. There is a corner named “Rincon Agustin Bardi” and there you may be able to find the very same piano where the master used to play, his picture and some of his musical scores are part of the scenario. An impressive statue of Carlos Gardel made by the Uruguayan sculptor Velarde Gil Perez presides another section of the museum. 

There is also a gallery named “Julio y Francisco De Caro” where local artists expose their paintings, sculptures, photographs and drawings. There is also an entire section for “Tango en el Mundi” and this contains everything related to Tango outside of Argentina. To see and feel in my own skin all this tango history put together in one place was, no doubt about it, very touching but the most emotional moment of all this tour was when, at the end, in an small place dedicated to Argentinean tango figures from interior of the country (outside the capital), I discovered a couple of music score entitled “Si vos Volves” and “Orlandito” and, behind this tango scores, one yellowed by the time old picture of a Tango Orchestra with five musicians. That was, my friends, the tango orchestra “Rex” and one of those musicians, the director and first bandoneon was...was my own beloved father… don Rogelio Budini!


The Tango score "Si vos Volves" (An You Came Back) 
written and musicalized by Rogelio Budini in 1957 
on display at the museum.

The poet Horacio Ferrer, founder and president of “La Academia Nacional del Tango” and “El Museo Mundial del Tango” usually refers to this Institutions as EL SITIO DE LAS MUSAS TANGUERAS (The site of the Tango Angels), he also like to said that this museum was created “To connect the past and the future of El Tango”… and he is certainly right because those “Musas Tangueras” lives and dance every minute linking the past and the future in this sacred cathedral of the worldwide loved and admired music of Buenos Aires!


by Robin Thomas

Dancing in a milonga is a little bit like driving on a highway. There are lanes: usually two, an inner lane and an outer lane. You can't move from one to the other without looking first to make sure that you can do so safely. Generally it is preferable to be in the outermost lane, because then you have one less side to have collisions on.

The middle of the room is a definite no-go area. Dancing there is tantamount to taking a stroll on the middle of a highway median. It causes potential danger to yourself and your partner and everyone around you. There is really no excuse for moving back and forth across lanes or cutting across the room.

There is a simple truism that eludes too many of our tango friends: Tango is not a race: there is no finish line. Therefore, there is no reason to overtake. You can dance as fast or slow as you want and take as big steps as you want, but we all need to move around the dance floor at relatively the same speed. Patience! We have available to us a number of techniques to slow ourselves down when the pair in front of us is not advancing quickly: Make a big step and then pause. Or turn and turn and turn, always moving forward a little bit with each turn. Or take backsteps, but of course never taking a big backstep against the line of dance. There's nothing wrong with covering miles and miles doing little circles behind the person in front of us, waiting for them to move on. And of course there's the simple rockstep, easy-peasy and fun to play with musically. Being patient gives you a chance to be creative in response to your environment (a beautiful thing), rather than show off your imagination by dancing as though you were in a vacuum (not lovely at all).

By the same token, you may have learned some very expensive figures, but you should at all costs avoid doing stationary figures on a crowded floor. Learn to make them move incrementally. Keep them advancing! After all, we don't just dance with our partner, we dance with the entire room.

When you start dancing in the middle of a song, you'll discover that your colleagues have already established a ronda, the revolving circle of dancers that you have to join. You don't do this by plonking yourself smack-dab in one of the lanes, having a wee chat with your partner, and then launching off. This will make people pile up behind you or worse, overtake you, probably hitting someone else in another lane. Your own bad habits might not get your partner hurt, but they're likely to cause someone else to have a collision.

Zigzagging is a big no-no, as is cutting across the room. In Buenos Aires, no matter how elegant or musical you are, if you cut the floor like a jigsaw you are considered a jerk.

1. There is no reason in a salon to overtake. Overtaking is bad form.
2. You can't stop the flow of traffic for more than a few seconds. Otherwise, the leader behind you will be forced to overtake you, switch lanes, and risk hurting someone else.
3. Stay in your lane! If you move diagonally to the line of dance, you're asking to get hit. Or, by moving suddenly in front of someone else, you may cause them to get hurt. Just because your partner doesn't get hurt doesn't mean that the two couples behind you won't bump because of your sloppy floorcraft.
4. New York has a bad reputation for floorcraft. We all have a responsibility to change this. Our partners' achilles tendons will appreciate this.
5. Exercise extreme caution when leading and executing boleos. People can really get hurt. If you are led to do a high boleo, you have the option to keep it low. If you lead a high boleo, you must be certain that you will not hit anyone.

email  niborsamoht@yahoo.com   visit  http://robinthomastango.com/


Tango à la Parisienne

a Tango Story  by        
         Robert Osbourne  

   To Read Part One   Click here     Part Two   Click here     Part Three  Click here      Part Four . . .

A couple of months before falling in love with Natasha on la terrace du Cafe de la Paix, I had watched Mirium dance the lead in Forever Tango, which was playing on the Champs Elysees. I've always loved music. Especially classical music. Often, as I punched out an article on my computer keyboard, a piece of music playing on my DVD would seize control; I would suddenly find myself dancing about my small, Montparnasse apartment to a Chopin Mazurka. And tango is classical music. I've got to learn danser le tango, I told myself.

The first few lessons were the most difficult. But by the time I persuaded Natasha to join the class, I had already mastered the essential elements.....or so I thought. "Robert, I have studied dance at the Bolshoi since I was this big," Natasha tells me, lowering her hand to the level of her knees. "I don't need lessons! Every dance has the same basic movements. All borrowed from classical ballet."

"All?'

"Yes, all. They are modified somewhat, perhaps, to fit a particular pattern or style, but they are all the same basic steps. And it's easier for the women, because tango dancers don't have to dance on their toes, as we must in ballet."

"Hmmmm. That's an interesting thought. What would it be like, I wonder, if danseuses of the tango wore 'toe- shoes'? That idea probably wouldn't work.....too much up-and-down, vertical motion. But maybe we should give it a try? I honestly don't see how danseuses de ballet manage to tolerate all that foot pain. It's like 'foot-binding' in China, where little girls were forced to undergo a practice that disfigured and mutilated their little feet."

"Yes, Robert. But after a while, a danseuse adapts to being on her toes and accepts the pain. The beauty one feels in the dance is well worth it. When I was a little girl, attending The Boshoi College for Children, we learned how to read, by reading little two line poems for children. And the emphasis on poetry, in later Bolshoi classes, never ceased. I finally became aware that music, poetry and dancing are all connected. Rhyme and 'meter' in poetry are like cadence and rhythm in music, and a danseuse learns to 'glide along the rhyme' and 'punctuate around the meter'. One must hear the 'rhyme' in the dance to dance well. When I dance to music, I am really hearing a kind of poetry. One might dance to the 'iambic pentameter' of a Shakespearean sonnet, if one chose to do so."

"Yes. That would be nice. Iambic tango? It might make Shakespeare angry. Fais moi plaisir...please me," I tell her, " just this one time. Come with me to The Tango Bar for a lesson. You'll soon see the tango is not an easy dance to learn. You may find yourself challenged. But I promise I'll help as much as I can."

Around seven in the evening, before the crowd arrives, Victor and Carmen routinely preside over tango lessons at Le Bistro Latin Tango Bar, above the movie theater on la rue du Temple. When Natasha and I arrived at the top of the stairs, Victor and Carmen were seated at the bar, and Isabelle was at her usual station, with a bar towel and an inexhaustible supply of glasses that were already sparklingly bright. She must get some sort of Freudian satisfaction from this work, I tell myself.

Isabelle recognizes Natasha from photographs of the Paris Corps de Ballet and embraces her warmly on both cheeks. They immediately began to chatter away over their shared subject of interest, which is, of course, ballet. Victor and Carmen get up from their bar stools. They both have that lean, vigorous look of the professional dancer. They're probably around fifty years old, but they look younger. Both have brilliant, dark hair, and Victor wears 'Valentino sideburns'. With his long, sharp nose and dark, prominent eyebrows, he looks somewhat like a slim, aging, Spanish matador.

"Bonsoir Robert. Your timing is good. The lesson is about to start." I shake hands with Victor and embrasse Carmen on both cheeks. "I have a new student for you," I tell them, nodding towards Natasha, who is still engrossed in a tete-a-tete with Isabelle. "Natasha," I call out. "The lesson is starting. Come meet Victor and Carmen....danseur et danseuse de tango extraodnaires!"

"Mais non, mais non, Robert," Victor protests.

"Natasha is a principle dancer with Le Paris Corps de Ballet," Isabelle informs them. "But she is new to the tango."

"Ah! Mademoiselle Natasha," Victor exclaims. "It will be my pleasure to be your partner for your first tango lesson." He bows, clearly impressed with his new student's exquisite form. He kisses her hand and whispers "enchante."

Natasha, like many professional dancers, stands out in a crowd. One cannot help but notice her. She has a natural, unconscious grace that causes one to imagine she is dancing to some unheard, ethereal music, although she is standing perfectly still.

Natasha, like many professional dancers, stands out in a crowd. One cannot help but notice her. She has a natural, unconscious grace that causes one to imagine she is dancing to some unheard, ethereal music, although she is standing perfectly still.

"And I will occupy myself with le galant Robert," Carmen announces, with a smile.

Around the dance floor, several tables are occupied by early diners, unafraid of their menu choices, since they will soon be working off those extra calories on the tango dance floor. I watch Victor and Natasha assume the 'starting embrace', their bodies touching slightly at the waist. They both look very relaxed. On the other hand, Carmen often tells me....."Robert, tu danse sur une cord raide!"

"I dance like I'm walking a tight-rope?"

"Oui! You've got to learn to relax. And you've got to be more affirmative with your lead."

"OK. Let's give it a try." As I lead Carmen into the 'starting embrace', I notice that Natasha and Victor have already progressed beyond the 'basic step'; and Natasha is now into a series of effortless 'boleos', which she executes with the sharp precision and 'snap' of a Valentino whip. Victor is enjoying himself. The razor sharp crease in his pin-tripped trousers perfectly complements every movement. He seems to have forgotten about the lesson and is just enjoying a dance with a new partner.

I start off with the basic step. It doesn't go too badly. But then I try leading Carmen into a gancho, which seems to work pretty good. But Carmen decides otherwise. "Non! Non! Robert. You must keep one leg bent and the other leg straight. Here! Let me show you."

Carmen stoops down to manipulate my foot. "Mais non, Robert. Now you have both legs straight. Bend! Bend! As she says this, she attempts to position my foot on the dance floor, shifting my center of gravity beyond the limits permitted by Newtonian physics or the laws of Zen.

I feel myself falling over, backward. I instinctively try to restore equilibrium, by raising the foot Carmen is still clutching in both hands, like a puppy behaving badly. As I stumble backwards, I manage to knock down Carmen, who is still 'stooped' over my errant foot, flat onto her back, spread-eagled in the middle of the dance floor. Her long, black, sequined gown is in disarray above her knees. This does not look good. I've humiliated my tango teacher. But that's not all!

Newton is angry! Very angry. One should not play tricks on Nature. Newton says a body (my body in this case) must continue in motion until some outside force (like a diner table) intercedes. As I stumble backwards across the dance floor, arms and legs gyrating wildly, I hear a gasp from the diners behind me..."Oh! Mon Dieu. Non!" I hear the sound of chairs being pushed back, in a hasty, 'last ditch' attempt to escape the inevitable.

The crash is very loud. I collide with the diner table and a bowl of hastily abandoned hot, French onion soup, as well as an assortment of other delicious house specialties. The table collapses, and I am once again 'at equilibrium', on my back on top of the table, staring at the ceiling fans rotating slowly above me. Tasty noodles, diner plates and dripping, green, leafy things drift down from above, onto my new, pin-stripped, tango outfit. Finally, rose petals softly float down: a fitting tribute. I have spared no one.

Emerging from the debris of upturned tables, smashed dishes and vases, which are scattered around me, and amidst a tangle of red checkered table cloths, I see a forest of arms; and legs, banded with shiny black garters; and shiny, upturned stiletto heels; all struggling to free themselves from the chaos I and Newton created. Except for the ubiquitous sound of the tango and the occasional sound of 'tardy' dinnerware crashing to the floor, there is complete silence.

Then I hear someone clapping, deliberately and slowly. The clapping is accompanied by low laughter. It's Isabelle. "Robert," she says, "I think you're ready for the stage."

Hummmm? What sort of 'stage' could she be thinking of? I ask myself.

to be continued . . .                  email:  robert_o@lavidatango.com