Liz & Yannick Vanhove pretty much stole the show at Valentango. You can see why, exquisite connection and understated elegance. I was on the floor with them at the opening milonga. They pretty much look like this in their everyday dancing. You’re kind of tempted to poke them with your finger to see if they’re real……….I refrained.
I recently attended the Valentango Festival here in Portland. The last ten minutes of each class were reserved for a review of the lesson, and instructor demonstration. Here’s five that I taped, and a bonus look at shoes:
Se Dice de Mi (It is said about me.) In 1955 Rock Around the Clock topped the charts, and this pre-feminist anthem was popular in tango circles.
Hang on to yourself, we are going out to dance. Notice anything different about this band?
This is a beautiful piece of music, Vida Mia by the Osvaldo Fresedo orchestra recorded at his night club Rendezvous Porteno. At 42 seconds there is a trumpet solo by American jazz great Dizzy Gillespie. At 1:35 is a picture of the band proudly displaying their new state-of-the-art magnetic tape recording devices. The high quality of this recording is available because of that equipment. Gillespie is on the far left, Fresedo is standing next to him. Notice the violins are in the front, bandoneons in the back – just the opposite of the D’Arienzo orchestra.
Album cover: Four songs with Dizzy Gillepie
The Fresedo orchestra with Ricardo Ruiz on vocals, New Years Eve 1941. Melodic and elegant, you can’t get much further away from cartoons than this:
What I was missing was the real deal. Here’s some music from the Golden Age. I think it helps to see some of these performances to recover from the cartoonish introduction that many of us received. This is very serious and beautiful music delivered with passion.
Below is a clip of the orchestra of Juan D’Arienzo – from 1964. This is ten years after the end of the Golden Age. D’Arienzo is a very lively 64, passionately leading the music and often standing next to, and making eye contact with the vocalist. The biggest song of the year is “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles. In contrast, Alberto Echague belts out this song for grown-ups. This could be the sequel song for I Want to Hold Your Hand relationship twenty years later. The lyrics are about love lost, and blame lost too.
You and I cannot go back to yesterday
Never mind. Such is life
It was pure selfishness that brought us together again
And that selfishness shows us how different we are.
Why should we fool ourselves?
Never mind. Such is life
Meanwhile, back at the Ed Sullivan Theater, the Beatles are four guys facing the audience singing I want, I want, I want to…… This is no cartoon.
I’ve been slow to embrace traditional tango music. It wasn’t in my cultural reference. There aren’t drums pounding out the rhythm like I’m used to. The lyrics are in a language I don’t speak. I was always wondering why this music from a 20-30 year window ending in 1955 held such a special appeal. Why did all the recordings sound like scratchy vinyl records?
The scratchy record question has a simple answer. In the early 1960s, probably 1962, there was a fire at the RCA Victor record building in Buenos Aires that stored many of the master recordings for a large body of tango music. The details of the fire are lost to history, but it is known it was the deliberate act of RCA manager Ricardo Mejia. Whether it was his willful act is subject to debate. Theories about tax avoidance, royalty avoidance, feuds among the participants, need for more space, need for a current tax year loss, desire to clearly end the tango era to make way for profitable rock n’ roll music, even political pressure may have been a factor. In any case, after the fire the vinyl record in the best condition of any given song became its’ new master.
To my American born ears, tango music was distant, sometimes odd, maybe bordering on cartoonish. There was a good reason for that. My introduction to tango music was from cartoons, the same cartoons that presented tango as an overly dramatic dance with deep dips that was best performed with a rose stem between the teeth. This was later reinforced by the non-animated cartoons of Lucille Ball & Ricky Ricardo, Al Pachino & Gabrielle Anwar, Richard Gere & Jennifer Lopez, Colin Firth & Jessica Biel, etc.
In Strangers Arms, Beatriz Dujovne
If you tell someone at a cocktail party that you tango, and then you’re exasperated when they start talking about their ballroom dancing experience, or last weeks’ episode of Dancing With the Stars, or Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman…..then In Strangers’ Arms is the book for you. This is a book that is written by someone who understands the zen, connection, and code of the milonguero. It’s the best book I’ve ever read (I only read in English) about the meaning and context of dancing tango on a very personal level. The book is written by an Argentine born Psychologist who was educated in Argentina and the United States. She currently splits her time between Buenos Aires and Portland Oregon. This dual cultural citizenship provides the author exclusive insights of the Argentine tango as a dance, music, and culture, and how that anthropology might incarnate at your local dance hall.
This is not a book you read and put back on your bookshelf. It’s a book you read and keep on your night stand for easy access. It’s organized into three sections; the People, Places, and Poetry. The People is about the magic the dance holds for the dancers. The Places is an explanation of the intertwined development of tango dance and music to the city of Buenos Aires, but also has an insightful look into the world of international festivals. (Participatory festivals, not dance shows or competitions.) The Poetry section is about tango lyrics and music. History is weaved throughout the three sections, as is the authors’ perceptive and intelligent writing about tango practices, customs, and psychology. Notwithstanding all this information, the book is most of all about the heart and allure of tango.
In the interest of full disclosure, Beatriz Dujovne is the only author reviewed here that I’ve danced with. She may have impressive academic credentials and international experience, but a few seconds in her dance embrace lets you know this is someone who knows what they’re talking about. Five stars out of five.
Tango: The Art History of Love, Robert Farris Thompson
Robert Thompson is an academic, a professor of Art History at Yale. This is a text book on tango – I mean text book in a good way. It’s comprehensive, supported by a bibliography, and probably the most authoritative book in English about the anthropology of tango. The history of tango is full of myths and falsehoods that have seemingly developed immunity to truth. For example, a common myth is that tango was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires, and practiced as foreplay for the subsequent business transaction. In fact this “born in the brothels” idea came from two brothers who promoted this salacious version of history in order to improve ratings on their radio show. The truth is that sex workers maximized their income producing activities, and didn’t have a lot to time for terpsichorean amusements. Examinations of floorplans from the bordellos of this period confirm that the houses were like a modern office, with many small cubicles to conduct business, but no dance floors. Is it possible that the male clients practiced tango together while waiting in the halls and lobbies? Yes. They might have played cards too. That doesn’t mean poker was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires.
This book is your “go to” authority for sorting out the myths, cultural geographic influences, tango as portrayed by Hollywood, political impacts, personalities, media influences, and other anthropogenic impactors on tango music and dance. I would say five stars, but at times the book drifts into topics under the assumption the reader has some hefty esoteric knowledge that I wouldn’t think most people have. I don’t know that this is a fair criticism – to say the book should be dumbed down – but at times it seems like the audience is considered to be another art anthropologist that already has a solid knowledge of the topic. Four stars out of five.
Tango: An Argentine Love Story, Camille Cusumano
I’m trying to remember what this book is about. It has something to do with the authors’ first person account of cheating on her long-time live in boyfriend (With her tango partner!), and then being hurt when he in-turn runs off with a mutual acquaintance……or something like that. So she decides to dive deeper into tango, and go on a journey of self-discovery.
The author has two very unfortunate practices that really make the book uninviting. First, as the story is being told, she keeps reminding us how deep, spiritual, zen, and together she is……and how long she’s done yoga. But the stories as told are ordinary and pedestrian. These self-congratulatory reminders of the authors’ mindfulness and enlightenment seem to come out of nowhere, and are very distracting. I don’t think you tell people you’re deep you are – it’s something they need to decide for themselves. The other distracting practice is the placement of these little sex related stories that occasionally pop up in the book. For example, one of these salacious titbits is the recollection of an incident with a French cab driver that occurred many years ago. It has no relation to anything in the book, seems to come out of nowhere, and doesn’t go anywhere. What does this have to do with anything? I hope I’m not creating curiosity, because the story is about as interesting and exciting as an AstroTurf welcome mat. All I could think about after reading it was “Did the Marketing Department put this in to spice-up a book that really needed something to keep the reader awake?”
I must confess, I didn’t bother to read the whole book, and there might have been something good in the second half that deserves a star. For that reason: One star out of five.
Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home, Maria Finn
This is another book from the “I just split with my ex and took up tango” shelf at Barnes and Nobel. It’s a star above the Cumaro book, at least it’s more honest and the author is less self-absorbed. It’s really more like reading someone’s journal. Hold me tight, take me home, buy me cheesecake, whatever…… This book isn’t going to hurt anybody. Two stars out of five.
Didn’t mean to change the subject, you were talking about excellence. I’m still trying to make it into the top hundred million best tango dancers in the world, hard to imagine making it to the top 5 million. (The numbers are a little different from my perspective.)
Connecting & integrating, choreography, musicality……yes. I’ve noticed something else in the great ones – precision. They put the all the components together, and put it into a groove. Paiva, Copes, Dinzel, for example. They’re all really good at advanced ages. It’s like they have excellence stored in a groove, and they can call on it at will.
This isn’t tango, but look at this film of Fred Astaire. He did this routine in 1952, and was asked to replicate the dance wearing nicer clothes…….forty-two years later. So in 1994 he does this routine. It’s the same GD dance! You can’t do that! It's not possible.
OMG, Mariela Sametband is more fun than a tornado in a trailer park. Look at this one below. Walk to the embrace? Nope. This is a romp to the catch. The audience participation at 1:42 is hilarious, and then she tops it with that finish!
Clean? I think she’s kind of sloppy. Steps on her partner’s feet several times during this:
This is a helpful link if you think you’ve seen everything:
I don’t know about Luz’s schools, whether it was a school, or combination of schools and internships. Interesting though, she said her job in BA was as a therapist. Her various web profiles list music therapist as a skill. BA is the world capital of tango, but I’m learning it may be the world capital psychoanalysis too, with more therapist than anyplace else in the world. The Palermo neighborhood in BA is also known as Villa Freud because of the high concentration of therapist in the neighborhood.
The links to YouTube seem to embed if they’re on their own line, and highlighted. That is, if you hit “Enter” after you paste the link. I’m far from a wizard – discovered that completely by accident.
SVB
Godoy is so cool. When they rejoin the tempo at 1:35 it makes me want to stand up and shout.
Not as avant garde, but technically awesome are Diego Lanau and Luz Castineiras. Luz is in town for the Tangofest, at the practica I went to on Sunday, and the milonga I went to last night. She is an absolutely tenacious follower. YouTube is fun, but when you see connection in person it’s a whole new ball game. She’s from BA, and now lives in San Francisco. I talked with her a little bit on Sunday. When she learned tango it was like taking a full time job. Five days a week, eight hours a day……..for five years.
BTW, I didn’t mean to imply I danced with her – I just observed. One of these days……
Yes, this is very nice. I’m not sure, it looks like Jose Peluaga is an instructor in Buenos Aires. I looked at a couple of his other videos. Besides being a great dancer, I really like the way he emphasizes connection. He just makes it a priority. It’s not easy.
I can’t imagine what Buenos Aires is like. There just doesn’t seem to be any end to great dancers. I’ve linked two more below. (Kaustav, the enrosques kick-in around the two minute mark.) I really like the enrosques here because they take place in context of the whole dance. It seems like a lot of times on YouTube the dance gets divided into three parts. A warm up, a complicated combination, and then relief and relaxation now that the athletic feat is over. Daniel Nacucchio and Cristina Sosa dance the whole dance in the same temperament. Natalia Fures and José Peluaga do too. I’m trying to learn from this. If you let a complicated combination dominate the dance, it wrecks the whole dance.
When we watch YouTube most of what we see is exhibition dancing. Two workshop instructors strutting their stuff for the audience seated around the perimeter of the room. This is really a presentation of credentials, and a commercial exchange. It’s not lead and follow, it’s rehearsed and practiced. Who are they dancing for? I think they are promoting their brand, dancing for their customers, and prospective customers. That’s not a crime, but I don’t think it’s something that we necessarily want to copy for our own use. For the most part these demonstrations are overly complex, deliberately difficult so that they are exclusive, and partner connection is often not a high priority. Said another way, in these exhibitions the partners objectify each other a lot more often than they connect.
Below is a link to Melina Plebs dancing at one of her workshops. Nobody does fancy sacadas, showboating enrosques, and machine gun boleos better than Melina Plebs. However, this clip is not about that. This is casual, everyday lead/follow dancing that is a model for dancing inside of the body, connection to your partner, listening to your partner, keeping your axis, and understated elegance. Who is she dancing for in this clip?
What women want: In most cases, an embrace that provides good support is much more important to them than many complex steps. The magnetism generated between the two torsos is all that is needed for dancing. Women are focused on being a foil for the man. They are thankful when he is careful, and does not lead steps that require movements larger than the room that the couple has available at any given moment. They do not need the man to show them all the steps that he knows. For many of them, just to travel through the dance floor in an embrace is enough.
What men want: They celebrate being trusted and allowed to lead. They expect that the position of the woman’s arms will not block their lead and that, in spite of giving themselves to the embrace, women will not lose their axis; that when they do embellishments they will continue to be aware, and not take too much time. Since men have to handle an infinity of situations at the same time, above all they have to calculate the movements of those around them so as to flow with them and continue to advance
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. Best known as the author of the novella The Little Prince.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.
Yves Saint Laurent
Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.
Paulo Coelho
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Isaac Newton
Simplicity makes me happy.
Alicia Keys
I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.
Francis Ford Coppola
Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Obviously none of this happens without David and Nancy, but it takes two to tango. I’m so grateful to have known my Sonoran tango Followers. What can I say to them? Thanks for the dance? That’s hardly enough. About a year ago I introduced myself as a stranger, and received the magnanimous kindness of a group of tango followers. Those of you that endured my initial clumsiness, tolerated my continued awkwardness, held me during weight change exercises, stood with your arm around me while David demonstrated; and in those special moments flowed with me and the music across the floor…….thank you is not enough. I don’t just thank you for you kindness and generosity, I love you for it. I’ll never forget the kindness a stranger received; I’ll never forget each of you.
I’ll be back your way sometime soon; with a big bouquet of cactus flowers in my hand. Until I hold you in my arms again-
Steve
As I write this I’m back where I belong, the land of mist, moss, mallards, mocha, and mushrooms. When I drive around Portland I pass the hospital where my children were born, their schools, my college, and lots of other places that hold memories. In the future I’ll have those kinds of fond memories about Phoenix. Someday I’ll return to the corner of Rural and Elliot and think, “Paragon Dance used to be there – that’s the first place I took a tango lesson. Now here I am, all these years later, back in Phoenix for William Liu’s advanced tango workshop.”
I’m missing you all very much, and want to pass on a few thank you notes and reflections about my year in Phoenix.
You know, it took me a while to figure out that Nancy actually is my mother. I thought it was just something people said. Then one night she and David were arguing about what to do next, how to best teach a certain step, and it dawned on me. OMG, they’re arguing about what’s best for the children. She actually is my mother! She cares about me; she wants the best for me. She’s always encouraging me. I’m worth fretting over. Mommy! Thanks Mom for being the spiritual leader of my freshman year in tango.
We all know David is a great teacher. Blah, blah, blah. I have one more postscript story. A few weeks back in Scottsdale our Followers left us after the first lesson. Four men were left for the second session. Four disappointed men. Nobody to dance with. We didn’t expect that, David didn’t either. Naturally, David was thinking on his feet. He started the session by asking some probing question about issues exclusive to Leaders. This lead to some work on balance, which spun off to a discussion about being in the zone. It was all very personal, and directed by our input. It turned out to be an excellent lesson. I don’t think any of us went home disappointed. Instead we were all charged up a bit by our shared experience. I don’t know why I’m surprised. That’s what he does every lesson. He listens in the most personal way, and responds to what has been said. That’s tango.
Liz & Yannick Vanhove pretty much stole the show at Valentango. You can see why, exquisite connection and understated elegance. I was on the floor with them at the opening milonga. They pretty much look like this in their everyday dancing. You’re kind of tempted to poke them with your finger to see if they’re real……….I refrained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUSpkBulW2k&feature=youtu.be
I recently attended the Valentango Festival here in Portland. The last ten minutes of each class were reserved for a review of the lesson, and instructor demonstration. Here’s five that I taped, and a bonus look at shoes:
Walking Back Ochos, Homer and Christina Ladas, Feb 11, 2016
Valentango Festival class summary, Portland Oregon USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xISypgwaBvU&feature=youtu.be
Vals Phrasing and Pitter Patter, Homer and Christina Ladas, Feb 13, 2016
Valentango Festival class summary, Portland Oregon USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbm1OaLCL28&feature=youtu.be
The Milonguero Dip, Ney Melo and Marika Landry, Feb 13, 2016
Valentango Festival class summary, Portland Oregon USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5S7Bwqdw0g&feature=youtu.be
Turns, Daniela Roig & Herman Prieto, Feb 14, 2016
Valentango Festival class summary, Portland Oregon USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3qtHRzj11E&feature=youtu.be
Dissociation for Ochos and Turns, Santiago Castro and Fernanda Valdovinos, Feb 14, 2016
Valentango Festival class summary, Portland Oregon USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdujNPQK8LU&feature=youtu.be
Valentango Shoes, Feb 11, 2016
Valentango Festival , Portland Oregon USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m4HMKEMuGs&feature=youtu.be
Se Dice de Mi (It is said about me.) In 1955 Rock Around the Clock topped the charts, and this pre-feminist anthem was popular in tango circles.
Hang on to yourself, we are going out to dance. Notice anything different about this band?
This is a beautiful piece of music, Vida Mia by the Osvaldo Fresedo orchestra recorded at his night club Rendezvous Porteno. At 42 seconds there is a trumpet solo by American jazz great Dizzy Gillespie. At 1:35 is a picture of the band proudly displaying their new state-of-the-art magnetic tape recording devices. The high quality of this recording is available because of that equipment. Gillespie is on the far left, Fresedo is standing next to him. Notice the violins are in the front, bandoneons in the back – just the opposite of the D’Arienzo orchestra.
Album cover: Four songs with Dizzy Gillepie
The Fresedo orchestra with Ricardo Ruiz on vocals, New Years Eve 1941. Melodic and elegant, you can’t get much further away from cartoons than this:
What I was missing was the real deal. Here’s some music from the Golden Age. I think it helps to see some of these performances to recover from the cartoonish introduction that many of us received. This is very serious and beautiful music delivered with passion.
Below is a clip of the orchestra of Juan D’Arienzo – from 1964. This is ten years after the end of the Golden Age. D’Arienzo is a very lively 64, passionately leading the music and often standing next to, and making eye contact with the vocalist. The biggest song of the year is “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles. In contrast, Alberto Echague belts out this song for grown-ups. This could be the sequel song for I Want to Hold Your Hand relationship twenty years later. The lyrics are about love lost, and blame lost too.
You and I cannot go back to yesterday
Never mind. Such is life
It was pure selfishness that brought us together again
And that selfishness shows us how different we are.
Why should we fool ourselves?
Never mind. Such is life
Meanwhile, back at the Ed Sullivan Theater, the Beatles are four guys facing the audience singing I want, I want, I want to…… This is no cartoon.
https://youtu.be/7uya-FWs62Y?list=PLS1lHm_CJJTOIp2IUCYXCyQ2yb9Fim4d-
I’ve been slow to embrace traditional tango music. It wasn’t in my cultural reference. There aren’t drums pounding out the rhythm like I’m used to. The lyrics are in a language I don’t speak. I was always wondering why this music from a 20-30 year window ending in 1955 held such a special appeal. Why did all the recordings sound like scratchy vinyl records?
The scratchy record question has a simple answer. In the early 1960s, probably 1962, there was a fire at the RCA Victor record building in Buenos Aires that stored many of the master recordings for a large body of tango music. The details of the fire are lost to history, but it is known it was the deliberate act of RCA manager Ricardo Mejia. Whether it was his willful act is subject to debate. Theories about tax avoidance, royalty avoidance, feuds among the participants, need for more space, need for a current tax year loss, desire to clearly end the tango era to make way for profitable rock n’ roll music, even political pressure may have been a factor. In any case, after the fire the vinyl record in the best condition of any given song became its’ new master.
To my American born ears, tango music was distant, sometimes odd, maybe bordering on cartoonish. There was a good reason for that. My introduction to tango music was from cartoons, the same cartoons that presented tango as an overly dramatic dance with deep dips that was best performed with a rose stem between the teeth. This was later reinforced by the non-animated cartoons of Lucille Ball & Ricky Ricardo, Al Pachino & Gabrielle Anwar, Richard Gere & Jennifer Lopez, Colin Firth & Jessica Biel, etc.
In Strangers Arms, Beatriz Dujovne
If you tell someone at a cocktail party that you tango, and then you’re exasperated when they start talking about their ballroom dancing experience, or last weeks’ episode of Dancing With the Stars, or Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman…..then In Strangers’ Arms is the book for you. This is a book that is written by someone who understands the zen, connection, and code of the milonguero. It’s the best book I’ve ever read (I only read in English) about the meaning and context of dancing tango on a very personal level. The book is written by an Argentine born Psychologist who was educated in Argentina and the United States. She currently splits her time between Buenos Aires and Portland Oregon. This dual cultural citizenship provides the author exclusive insights of the Argentine tango as a dance, music, and culture, and how that anthropology might incarnate at your local dance hall.
This is not a book you read and put back on your bookshelf. It’s a book you read and keep on your night stand for easy access. It’s organized into three sections; the People, Places, and Poetry. The People is about the magic the dance holds for the dancers. The Places is an explanation of the intertwined development of tango dance and music to the city of Buenos Aires, but also has an insightful look into the world of international festivals. (Participatory festivals, not dance shows or competitions.) The Poetry section is about tango lyrics and music. History is weaved throughout the three sections, as is the authors’ perceptive and intelligent writing about tango practices, customs, and psychology. Notwithstanding all this information, the book is most of all about the heart and allure of tango.
In the interest of full disclosure, Beatriz Dujovne is the only author reviewed here that I’ve danced with. She may have impressive academic credentials and international experience, but a few seconds in her dance embrace lets you know this is someone who knows what they’re talking about. Five stars out of five.
Tango: The Art History of Love, Robert Farris Thompson
Robert Thompson is an academic, a professor of Art History at Yale. This is a text book on tango – I mean text book in a good way. It’s comprehensive, supported by a bibliography, and probably the most authoritative book in English about the anthropology of tango. The history of tango is full of myths and falsehoods that have seemingly developed immunity to truth. For example, a common myth is that tango was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires, and practiced as foreplay for the subsequent business transaction. In fact this “born in the brothels” idea came from two brothers who promoted this salacious version of history in order to improve ratings on their radio show. The truth is that sex workers maximized their income producing activities, and didn’t have a lot to time for terpsichorean amusements. Examinations of floorplans from the bordellos of this period confirm that the houses were like a modern office, with many small cubicles to conduct business, but no dance floors. Is it possible that the male clients practiced tango together while waiting in the halls and lobbies? Yes. They might have played cards too. That doesn’t mean poker was born in the brothels of Buenos Aires.
This book is your “go to” authority for sorting out the myths, cultural geographic influences, tango as portrayed by Hollywood, political impacts, personalities, media influences, and other anthropogenic impactors on tango music and dance. I would say five stars, but at times the book drifts into topics under the assumption the reader has some hefty esoteric knowledge that I wouldn’t think most people have. I don’t know that this is a fair criticism – to say the book should be dumbed down – but at times it seems like the audience is considered to be another art anthropologist that already has a solid knowledge of the topic. Four stars out of five.
Tango: An Argentine Love Story, Camille Cusumano
I’m trying to remember what this book is about. It has something to do with the authors’ first person account of cheating on her long-time live in boyfriend (With her tango partner!), and then being hurt when he in-turn runs off with a mutual acquaintance……or something like that. So she decides to dive deeper into tango, and go on a journey of self-discovery.
The author has two very unfortunate practices that really make the book uninviting. First, as the story is being told, she keeps reminding us how deep, spiritual, zen, and together she is……and how long she’s done yoga. But the stories as told are ordinary and pedestrian. These self-congratulatory reminders of the authors’ mindfulness and enlightenment seem to come out of nowhere, and are very distracting. I don’t think you tell people you’re deep you are – it’s something they need to decide for themselves. The other distracting practice is the placement of these little sex related stories that occasionally pop up in the book. For example, one of these salacious titbits is the recollection of an incident with a French cab driver that occurred many years ago. It has no relation to anything in the book, seems to come out of nowhere, and doesn’t go anywhere. What does this have to do with anything? I hope I’m not creating curiosity, because the story is about as interesting and exciting as an AstroTurf welcome mat. All I could think about after reading it was “Did the Marketing Department put this in to spice-up a book that really needed something to keep the reader awake?”
I must confess, I didn’t bother to read the whole book, and there might have been something good in the second half that deserves a star. For that reason: One star out of five.
Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home, Maria Finn
This is another book from the “I just split with my ex and took up tango” shelf at Barnes and Nobel. It’s a star above the Cumaro book, at least it’s more honest and the author is less self-absorbed. It’s really more like reading someone’s journal. Hold me tight, take me home, buy me cheesecake, whatever…… This book isn’t going to hurt anybody. Two stars out of five.
Didn’t mean to change the subject, you were talking about excellence. I’m still trying to make it into the top hundred million best tango dancers in the world, hard to imagine making it to the top 5 million. (The numbers are a little different from my perspective.)
Connecting & integrating, choreography, musicality……yes. I’ve noticed something else in the great ones – precision. They put the all the components together, and put it into a groove. Paiva, Copes, Dinzel, for example. They’re all really good at advanced ages. It’s like they have excellence stored in a groove, and they can call on it at will.
This isn’t tango, but look at this film of Fred Astaire. He did this routine in 1952, and was asked to replicate the dance wearing nicer clothes…….forty-two years later. So in 1994 he does this routine. It’s the same GD dance! You can’t do that! It's not possible.
OMG, Mariela Sametband is more fun than a tornado in a trailer park. Look at this one below. Walk to the embrace? Nope. This is a romp to the catch. The audience participation at 1:42 is hilarious, and then she tops it with that finish!
Clean? I think she’s kind of sloppy. Steps on her partner’s feet several times during this:
This is a helpful link if you think you’ve seen everything:
I don’t know about Luz’s schools, whether it was a school, or combination of schools and internships. Interesting though, she said her job in BA was as a therapist. Her various web profiles list music therapist as a skill. BA is the world capital of tango, but I’m learning it may be the world capital psychoanalysis too, with more therapist than anyplace else in the world. The Palermo neighborhood in BA is also known as Villa Freud because of the high concentration of therapist in the neighborhood.
The links to YouTube seem to embed if they’re on their own line, and highlighted. That is, if you hit “Enter” after you paste the link. I’m far from a wizard – discovered that completely by accident.
SVB
Godoy is so cool. When they rejoin the tempo at 1:35 it makes me want to stand up and shout.
Not as avant garde, but technically awesome are Diego Lanau and Luz Castineiras. Luz is in town for the Tangofest, at the practica I went to on Sunday, and the milonga I went to last night. She is an absolutely tenacious follower. YouTube is fun, but when you see connection in person it’s a whole new ball game. She’s from BA, and now lives in San Francisco. I talked with her a little bit on Sunday. When she learned tango it was like taking a full time job. Five days a week, eight hours a day……..for five years.
BTW, I didn’t mean to imply I danced with her – I just observed. One of these days……
This Venn diagram was made by Clay Nelson, the dean of Portland tango, to illustrate the beginners challenges. (Portland being your new sister city.)
Yes, this is very nice. I’m not sure, it looks like Jose Peluaga is an instructor in Buenos Aires. I looked at a couple of his other videos. Besides being a great dancer, I really like the way he emphasizes connection. He just makes it a priority. It’s not easy.
I can’t imagine what Buenos Aires is like. There just doesn’t seem to be any end to great dancers. I’ve linked two more below. (Kaustav, the enrosques kick-in around the two minute mark.) I really like the enrosques here because they take place in context of the whole dance. It seems like a lot of times on YouTube the dance gets divided into three parts. A warm up, a complicated combination, and then relief and relaxation now that the athletic feat is over. Daniel Nacucchio and Cristina Sosa dance the whole dance in the same temperament. Natalia Fures and José Peluaga do too. I’m trying to learn from this. If you let a complicated combination dominate the dance, it wrecks the whole dance.
When we watch YouTube most of what we see is exhibition dancing. Two workshop instructors strutting their stuff for the audience seated around the perimeter of the room. This is really a presentation of credentials, and a commercial exchange. It’s not lead and follow, it’s rehearsed and practiced. Who are they dancing for? I think they are promoting their brand, dancing for their customers, and prospective customers. That’s not a crime, but I don’t think it’s something that we necessarily want to copy for our own use. For the most part these demonstrations are overly complex, deliberately difficult so that they are exclusive, and partner connection is often not a high priority. Said another way, in these exhibitions the partners objectify each other a lot more often than they connect.
Below is a link to Melina Plebs dancing at one of her workshops. Nobody does fancy sacadas, showboating enrosques, and machine gun boleos better than Melina Plebs. However, this clip is not about that. This is casual, everyday lead/follow dancing that is a model for dancing inside of the body, connection to your partner, listening to your partner, keeping your axis, and understated elegance. Who is she dancing for in this clip?
Isn’t what we’re watching actually two conscious minds sharing the same thought?
https://www.facebook.com/MilenaPlebsTangoCo/videos/vb.500901023287953/964205376957513/?type=2&theater
Milena Plebs is just brutal. This is a 15 second Bernot, some kind of reverse pivot freno. Creative, simple, elegant; and likely to drop you to your knees sobbing at the beauty and grace:
https://www.facebook.com/MilenaPlebsTangoCo/videos/vb.500901023287953/1017582134953170/?type=2&theater
What women want: In most cases, an embrace that provides good support is much more important to them than many complex steps. The magnetism generated between the two torsos is all that is needed for dancing. Women are focused on being a foil for the man. They are thankful when he is careful, and does not lead steps that require movements larger than the room that the couple has available at any given moment. They do not need the man to show them all the steps that he knows. For many of them, just to travel through the dance floor in an embrace is enough.
What men want: They celebrate being trusted and allowed to lead. They expect that the position of the woman’s arms will not block their lead and that, in spite of giving themselves to the embrace, women will not lose their axis; that when they do embellishments they will continue to be aware, and not take too much time. Since men have to handle an infinity of situations at the same time, above all they have to calculate the movements of those around them so as to flow with them and continue to advance
Maria Nieves Rego, born Sep 6, 1938
Juan Carlos Copes, born May 31. 1931
This clip is presumably from their Argentinean television show in 1987. Maria is 48, Juan is 56.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c7drnK57Zc&list=PLS1lHm_CJJTOIp2IUCYXCyQ2yb9Fim4d-&index=10
Fast Forward:
Feb 1, 2013, Maria is 74 at the time of this filming (She just turned 77):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHs9ZxBGcCk&index=12&list=PLS1lHm_CJJTOIp2IUCYXCyQ2yb9Fim4d-
2013, Juan is 81 at the time of this filming (He’s 84 today):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbeSqt-TcZc&index=11&list=PLS1lHm_CJJTOIp2IUCYXCyQ2yb9Fim4d-
The story of their lives together, and not together, is the subject of the soon to be released film Our Last Tango:
https://vimeo.com/138545957
Some random quotes about simplicity:
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. Best known as the author of the novella The Little Prince.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.
Yves Saint Laurent
Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.
Paulo Coelho
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Isaac Newton
Simplicity makes me happy.
Alicia Keys
I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.
Francis Ford Coppola
Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Obviously none of this happens without David and Nancy, but it takes two to tango. I’m so grateful to have known my Sonoran tango Followers. What can I say to them? Thanks for the dance? That’s hardly enough. About a year ago I introduced myself as a stranger, and received the magnanimous kindness of a group of tango followers. Those of you that endured my initial clumsiness, tolerated my continued awkwardness, held me during weight change exercises, stood with your arm around me while David demonstrated; and in those special moments flowed with me and the music across the floor…….thank you is not enough. I don’t just thank you for you kindness and generosity, I love you for it. I’ll never forget the kindness a stranger received; I’ll never forget each of you.
I’ll be back your way sometime soon; with a big bouquet of cactus flowers in my hand. Until I hold you in my arms again-
Steve
As I write this I’m back where I belong, the land of mist, moss, mallards, mocha, and mushrooms. When I drive around Portland I pass the hospital where my children were born, their schools, my college, and lots of other places that hold memories. In the future I’ll have those kinds of fond memories about Phoenix. Someday I’ll return to the corner of Rural and Elliot and think, “Paragon Dance used to be there – that’s the first place I took a tango lesson. Now here I am, all these years later, back in Phoenix for William Liu’s advanced tango workshop.”
I’m missing you all very much, and want to pass on a few thank you notes and reflections about my year in Phoenix.
You know, it took me a while to figure out that Nancy actually is my mother. I thought it was just something people said. Then one night she and David were arguing about what to do next, how to best teach a certain step, and it dawned on me. OMG, they’re arguing about what’s best for the children. She actually is my mother! She cares about me; she wants the best for me. She’s always encouraging me. I’m worth fretting over. Mommy! Thanks Mom for being the spiritual leader of my freshman year in tango.
We all know David is a great teacher. Blah, blah, blah. I have one more postscript story. A few weeks back in Scottsdale our Followers left us after the first lesson. Four men were left for the second session. Four disappointed men. Nobody to dance with. We didn’t expect that, David didn’t either. Naturally, David was thinking on his feet. He started the session by asking some probing question about issues exclusive to Leaders. This lead to some work on balance, which spun off to a discussion about being in the zone. It was all very personal, and directed by our input. It turned out to be an excellent lesson. I don’t think any of us went home disappointed. Instead we were all charged up a bit by our shared experience. I don’t know why I’m surprised. That’s what he does every lesson. He listens in the most personal way, and responds to what has been said. That’s tango.