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TANGO CONNECTED STEPS
By Elena Pankey
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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 pose “La 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
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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.
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Hitting the pinata
brought back many memories for Manuel Lobo, he
said it had been over 25 years.
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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!
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to
LaVidaTango
E-zine
email
b@lavidatango.com
Mission
Statementt:
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.
Have
something to contribute or say?
Contact the
Publisher
Revised
March 03, 2007
© 2004
LaVidaTango
E-zine
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Reporting from Buenos Aires
. . .
TANGO
MUSEUM OF THE WORLD
“Sitio de las musas Tangueras”
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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.
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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.
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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..
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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"
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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.
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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!
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The Tango score
"Si vos Volves" (An
You Came Back)
written and musicalized by Rogelio Budini in
1957
on display at the museum.
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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!
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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/
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Tango
à la Parisienne
a Tango Story by
Robert
Osbourne
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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!"
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"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.
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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 . .
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email:
robert_o@lavidatango.com
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