Tango as a force of life...

Tango is not a dance but all sorts of things for me. Its music, and not just any music, its music that is able to tell a compelling story in 3 minutes, as Placido Domingo indicates in the previous post. It is poetry. It is emotion. its a juxtaposition, where simplicity and complexity fall in love...

Tango is the wardrobe, the shoes for me. Tango is the hair, the shower I take before the milonga, and the one after. Tango is the eyeliner, the dress. Tango is the parfume, the cologne, tango is the pheromone.

Tango is the embrace for me. it is powerful enough to make me leave my excess baggage and hang ups at the entrance of a milonga. Through tango, I embrace a total stranger, with the attempt to create an inner connection. It has the power to peel the layers that we so carefully build, trying to harden ourselves against the blows of life.

As the music peels my layers one by one, I realize how great it is to feel again, to breath, to loosen up. The more vulnerable I am, the better the connection, the lighter the step, the prettier the melody, the more tender the embrace.

Tango is the women: old and young, sometimes irresistible, sometimes needy, sometimes pouting, sometimes full of life,sometimes seducing, sometimes shy, but never dull, always dramatic...

Tango is the men: Sometimes tender, sometimes forceful, sometimes wise and sometimes childlike, sometimes insecure and yet armed with the strength to make you feel safe in their arms. Tango, with its embrace, allows us women and men to take care of each other.

Tango is the community, with its gossip, rivalries, jealousies, with disagreements, but also with its solidarity and diversity.

Tango has the power to make life seem more vivid for me. It makes me more sensitive to everything. In any other circumstance, I could not bear to hold a sweaty man (whom I do not know at all) that close to my self.:) In any other circumstance, I don't think I could tolerate spending hours, in a badly lit, sometimes smoky, definitely
humid environment with an intense crowd, whirling like dervishes. In any other circumstance, I would have taken those heels off way before. Tango is my pain killer. So tango gives me the power to bear things beyond my capacity, or what I think is my capacity. It pushes my limits, it expands my horizons. Actually that makes me think, is it because I am in a trans, like the dervishes, who whirl without getting dizzy?

So, by the end of a perfect milonga, when I get out on the street, with my aching feet, my not-so-well hearing, my palpitating heart, I feel like I am breathing the fresh air for the first time. That is why it feels so good to breath in the cold air in the winter. That is why it feels good to walk outside after amilonga in the summer.

Next time you get out of a milonga, ask your self, why does it feel so damn good to hurt? To pass your bed time? To be dehydrated? To fall in and out of love?
For me it feels so damn good because tango is a force of life for me... And for you?

miercoles, jueves, viernes, PLACIDO DOMINGO...

If there is one person I want to meet in this world its Placido Domingo. And you know what, it makes me feel so good to know that someone as talented amazing as him also appreciates tango:) Here is to Placido Domingo, here is to tango!

Tragicomic...

Ok, here is the perfect example.. Bad posture, complete choreography, lack of connection, lead, follow, and most apparent to even a nontango dancer, lack of grace!
My god!!! I got tears from laughing as I was watching it...
Thanks to Alex for posting it:
http://alextangofuego.blogspot.com/2007/09/bad-tango.html

Beautiful people, music, and dance inspire some beautiful words...

I always admire people who can say many things in a few words. That is called parsimony. it is like Haiku, it is like a short poem, it is like a sentence that moves you like a whole song does. They take you to places...

Shakespeare wrote "There was a star danced, and under that was I born," in Much Ado About Nothing. I do feel like that sometimes when I feel like I have this inner unstoppable urge to dance, to go to a milonga. There are times when I cannot... Then I listen to tango and think of the people who are dancing around the world, as I am sitting in my living room, to many many different tandas. I think of all the women who are having butterflies in their stomachs, all the men who feel like they are not dancing but flying... It does not make me jealous one bit, it makes me happy. Because I feel connected to them. Jealousy happens where there is no connection. Because when there is no connection, there is no transfer of joy or sorrow. But since I feel connected to other tangueros by my desire to dance, I do not feel jealousy. I know my time to dance will come.
But those times when I feel like I must dance, I also realize that my deepest connection is with those people who feel the same... I agree with George Balanchine: "I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance." That intense desire, yearning to dance and to connect, that must have feeling is what makes our connections stronger.

I also make a connection about tango and wisdom. That people who can appreciate dancing, who can appreciate and feel connected to tango must be wiser for it. I might be wrong but you do not only have to disprove me on this point, but others like Einstein, Nietzsche, and Socrates.

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. - Michel de Montaigne...

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.- Friedrich Nietzsche

If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution. - Emma Goldman

Human beings, vegetables, or comic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player - Albert Einstein

That blog that drives me crazy...

I love reading blogs. Especially ones about tango. There is one blog that drives me crazy though, ok maybe there are about 3 that kind of rub me the wrong way, or give me this feeling when the teacher used to drag their nails across the blackboard. But there is one particular blog that drives me crazy. The arrogance, the judgemental thoughts, the self congratulatory remarks.. Enough already!!! I hate the content of the blog and yet I cannot stop reading it. What the hell is wrong with me. It is almost like I like torturing myself reading this blog!
People write blogs for many different reasons. I write it as an expressive outlet of my thoughts, my pain, happiness, most of it which, most of the time, relates to tango. I enjoy reading other blogs that make me laugh, think, put me in a melancholic mood, express feelings which I cannot put into words so eloquently.
But here are a few things I hate in blogs:
1. Overanalyzing. I hate this! I absolutely hate it. Because tango is organic to me. It is natural. So was my learning process. I learn many things this way, including languages. I hate overanalysis. It kills the spirit of it. And there are certain people that overanalyze everything, not just tango. They overanalyze their relationships, their work. Its almost like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Or something like that. How can you be relaxed, how can I trust you as a leader, or a follower that I have your full attention, when I know that you are tearing the experience we are sharing into pieces in your mind? Let me stay as a whole. Let this tanda be a whole experience, non-repeatable but memorable, with its goods and bads. In a relationship its the same. I need you to understand me not shred me into pieces. If you do that you might tnever be able to put me back together. And I cannot function in million pieces.

2. Self-congragulating: Ok, I have no illusions about the fact that there are a lot of type A's out there in tango, and in life. I am one of them. But what I hate is that a lot of people pretend like they are tango Gods or Goddesses. Just because you are obsessed with it does not mean you are a pro. Just because you overanalyze does not mean you actually get it. Somethings you might and somethings you might not get. And that is ok. I don't want a perfect leader. I do not want to be a perfect follower. I want expressiveness without putting on a show, I want sweetness without stickiness, I want lightness but with presence. I want attention without harrassment. Our mistakes? ppfhhh! I do not care. I simply do not! The best dancers, bloggers, in my opinion are those that have humility. beginner or advanced. Those are my favorite. The beginners with humility (in dance and in blogging) are aware of their inexperience, and they show they want to learn. That is sweet and makes me want to dance with them. Advanced dancers with humility show me that they do not need to hide behind their ego to prove themsemlves. Their dance speaks for it self.

There are a lot of other things. I can talk about. But I will not.
Instead I want to write things that I like in blogging and in tango:
1. Show of character: There is such a thin line between character and ego. I love a strong character. I like opinionated people. I am, personally not a timid person my self. But I like a character that is self secure. A character that can regocnize its shortcomings, that pushes its potential without denying their limits. I like a character that are secure even with what they cannot do. I love bloggers like this. Because it make them human and I have a lot of admiration and respect for them. And dancers? dancers alike...

2. Sense of humor and irony. I love dancers and bloggers who can laugh at themselves and at me. But without being judgemental. A simple giggle at a mistake that our dance produces puts me at easee that they are happy to go on, and makes me a better dancer in their arms. A simple funny post makes me giggle infront of my computer, and makes me want to come back to that blog more times than I would like to admit.

3. Sence of melancholy: This is what I also love. it gives me the impression that the person who is dancing/ writing is a soul that travels in time. Someone that belongs to now, but also to a past that was beautiful, tearful. The time of Carlos Gardel...I sense this and it inspires me so much to read more, and to dance better.

So my fellow bloggers and tangueros, this is my 2 cents. I read your blogs, I watch you dance, and sometimes without you knowing I might even have danced with you, or maybe I will in the future. These are my observations. This is why tango is such an intense experience, with its good and its bad.

What festival is your favorite?

So I have been reading some blogs on tango, and it seems like many people were at the Denver Labor Day tango festival. When I used to live in my previous location, I used to not to care at all about festivals, simply because the quality and quantity of tango was high. I did not need to travel. Now I definitely do. Any that sucks to a certain extent, but also I should see it as an opportunity to travel to new places, meet new people.
Previously I have been to the Washington DC tango marathon, and Yale tango fest. Oh and Atlanta tango fest. Denver was just a recent addition for me. I have to say Denver was also my favorite so far. I made a lot of new tango friends. Got to see some interesting characters. Got many invitations to travel to other festivals from tangueros and tangoeras of other locations, like Houston, San Fransisco, Portland... It was truly a wonderful experience.
So noe I am thinking... What is next...
Portland...
Let's go to Portland;
Maybe that will be my new favorite.
until I go to BsAs. Then I guess nothing will suffice!
Also... It is so interesting that so many people who blog were actually at the Denver festival. I guess the bloggers are true afficionados of tango!