May 19-25

Thursday, May 19, 2011
Free Talk at Stanford: "History and Insight into the World of Argentine Tango" by dancer, choreographer, tango historian and author Anton Gazenbeek. I had heard of Anton Gazenbeek for years, but never got to see him live in person except maybe once years ago, as he left the area long before I ever was active in the San Francisco Tango Community. So I've admired his work from afar, like his instructional video with Cecilia Gonzalez (la otra, no la famosa), and read about his school in NYC. For the lecture, I was expecting more of a general talk about Argentine Tango, but it was a history of the show "Tango Argentino", with many video clips. The show "Tango Argentino" was THE precursor show to Forever Tango, and which toured the world from 1983 to 1992, featuring such legends as Los Dinzel, Los Rivarola, Juan Carlos Copes & Maria Nieves, etc. I had read about this show, and all the drama that went on behind the scenes, but had never actually seen the show or any clips (at least not that I know of). The lecture and video presentation consisted of various clips of the dancers throughout the show's history, private film clips, news footage, rehearsals, snippets from the Merv Griffin show, and illegally filmed snippets from the audience. The clips were from productions all over the world-- Broadway and the US, Osaka, Paris, Italy, and France, to name a few, and covered the entire run of the show. There were examples of the early goal of showing elegant tango dancing, with the goal of being stylized and yet with natural movement, as well as dancing for applause (which happened later during the Show's run). There were clips of milonga, men dancing with each other or women dancing with each other with lead-follow exchange, Monica and Luciano dancing to El Choclo with the Spanish woman doing a more Flamenco style dance to the Campadrito's (native Argentine male) gaucho style dance, Los Rivarola in their 30's dancing to La Cumparsita choreographed by Juan Carlos Copes, a crazy fast milonga, and the Clase Elvira, one of the first tango classes ever taught in the U.S. It was a very interesting video presentation and talk, and the audience, largely made up of Stanford music students (though there were about a dozen tangueros in the mix, along with the tango band Quin Tango), asked Anton and his partner to do a little demo at the end, which he obliged. He is an amazing dancer, truly wonderful to watch, and someone speculated that he must be entirely physically double jointed since he had so much flexibility and range of motion in his core, legs and hips. I don't know about that, but it sure made me smile to watch him dance. Much of what he presented (sans the video clips), is in his book, "Inside Tango Argentino": http://www.sergioseguraproductions.com/insidetangoargentino.htm

Friday, May 20, 2011
MUSE Milonga. I missed the lesson beforehand, taught by Amy Lincoln and Santiago Croce. I listened to part of it as I set up the noshables. The milonga was a little less attended than the two weeks prior, but it was still a nice, friendly crowd. The lovely Rochelle made some amazing desserts of white and dark chocolate covered cheesecakes on a stick, which were truly a striking sight to behold, and some mini bundt cakes (chocolate and vanilla), which resembled mini frosted doughnuts, appropriately presented on a tiered platter. Those luscious treats definitely rounded out the rest of the menu, which included the usual fresh fruit and veggies, chips, and my phyllo thingies (chicken and cheese flavored on this particular night). Neeraj was the DJ, and his selection of music seemed particularly inspired and yet crowd-pleasing at the same time. As far as I could tell, those who were there had a good time (though of course my opinion is biased since I adore this milonga).

Saturday, May 21, 2011
La Gran Milonga de Los Mendoza with Trio Garufa at the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club. I couldn't resist going to this milonga, despite its higher price tag ($20), since it was in my old 'hood. The fact that they had accommodated for 50 cars to park at the St. Peter's and Paul's church Salesian lot was great, and I thought I could snag a spot by getting there at the reasonably early hour of 9:15 p.m. Boy was I wrong. Apparently, all of those spots were snapped up by 8:05 p.m., which left most of us taking an impromptu car tour of the 'hood. No worries for me though, since I know it like the back of my hand. So I drove by North Beach Playground, down Columbus, and by my parents home off of Lombard. I was tempted to ask if I could park in their 4-car garage (a gold mine in North Beach), but decided against it as I had flashbacks of my teen years and my parents' hide getting chapped as I rolled in sometimes obscenely after midnight from dancing at the clubs. I did NOT want to relive that again, especially in my 5th decade! So I just drove on by, back up Columbus, and lo and behold, the Parking Gods must have been smiling on me because I got a primo spot, just around the corner from the club. Ah! It was meant to be! The parking situation was not going to kick my butt, though I knew I could always park at the police station (or what is now the lot across the street from the police station) if I got truly desperate, but I really didn't want to shell out any more dollars than I had to.

Apparently, everyone and their cousin knew that this was the milonga to be at on this night. There were also lots of folks from the local Italian-American community, new or non-tango dancers, who attended to check things out. The space is beautiful and spacious, but it was very crowded and warm, with lots of spectators and newbies. Trio Garufa played well. The food was excellent with foccacia from Liguria Bakery, of course, the onion of which was a childhood staple and still tasted as divine and exactly the same as I remembered, even the tomato and the raisin ones. (Liguria Bakery has been on the corner of Filbert and Stockton since forever, and it really does have the BEST foccacia in all of San Francisco.) A cheese platter with a very nice selection of semi-hard and soft cow and goat cheeses, an extremely UK-influenced cracker selection that included digestive biscuits and cream crackers a la Jacobs (but not specifically Jacobs branded), and a lovely fruit platter with assorted sliced melon, grapes, and strawberries, along with a strawberry yogurt sauce. There was a full bar and ample pitchers of water and stemmed glasses.

Los Mendoza honored Amy and Jenkin, one of the Bay Area's golden couples of tango, since they were one of Los Mendoza's first students and they have been supportive of most or all of Los Mendoza's events over the last 10 years. Amy and Jenkin were totally surprised, of course, which just made the moment all the more touching.

Despite the overall loveliness and elegance of the space and tasty food selection, I only had an OK time dancing. It was too hot for me, so I was glad to sit out quite a bit and just watch other people dance. I don't believe I was alone in thinking it was too warm since even those who are never warm were fanning themselves quite ferociously at times. So for me, it was an OK, reasonably nice, but not great, evening. Loved the nostalgia of being back in the 'hood, but disliked how trendy and hip it has become, especially with the Saturday night crowds spilling out from the restaurants, bars, cafes and gelato places. It seems the recession is over, at least on Saturday nights in North Beach.


Coming up next week...

Ana y Jr. Scout Extraordinaire's Excellent Adventure in ...




www.scoutingtour.blogspot.com

May 5-18

Friday, May 6, 2011
MUSE milonga with lesson beforehand by Glenn Corteza. I got there late for the lesson. When I got there, they were working on walking in partnership, and were instructed to walk together as if pushing a heavy object, to add more color to the walk. Then the lesson progressed to working on just leading Follower ochos or just doing turns. It was a very good, fundamental lesson.

The milonga was fun. There was a very nice crowd of both regulars and newbies, so it was very pleasing to see the momentum building. There were more Leaders than Followers, so this made for a very busy night for me as I made the rounds. La Russa, who has been a constant, consistent fan of this milonga, had a great time (she told me so several times), as the Leader quality was ample and high. It was very interesting to get out of myself and focused on others' enjoyment: my thinking of "Am I going to have a good time at the milonga tonight? I hope I some good dances." switched to "Wow, look at all these new Leaders here tonight. I'll do my best to see that they have a good time so that they come back again. I hope they enjoy dancing with me."

I made my usual phyllo thingies (beef, egg and olive on this night), and I felt the dough (Safeway brand) was thinner than usual, which made for a visually wrinkled end product, as well as a very high filling to dough ratio. Though not a complete FAIL since they were still snarffled up, it frustrates me that there could be such a drastic variation in thickness (I so dislike such batch-to-batch variability, especially when I only use one sheet instead of layering multiple sheets).

Saturday, May 7, 2011
Nora's milonga in Palo Alto. There was no lesson beforehand, which was just as well since I would have missed it. This was the celebration/graduation milonga for the students who took the 4-day Gustavo & Giselle workshops. I figured that everyone and their cousin would be at this milonga, so I made the 75-mile-round trip drive to attend. I was not mistaken, as it got quite crowded during the milonga, and floorcraft was a little hairy at times. Since my feet were still quite tired and sore from the night before, I was perfectly fine with sitting out half the time, and was very pleased that the other half of the time when I did dance, I danced with very high quality leaders (including some who did well at the recent competition). Food was the usual fresh fruit (grapes, strawberries), and veggies (sugar snap peas, baby carrots, broccoli in manageable-size pieces, and baby tomatoes, and thankfully no cauliflower--gigantic or otherwise sized--for anyone to break apart with their bare hands and no hand sanitizer in sight and leave for others), with the periodic appearance later on on spanikopita-like empanada thingies, and meat taquitos. The much-awaited and anticipated performance of Gustavo and Giselle was nice.

The only damper on the evening was that there was at least one couple who was unusually aggressive, possessive, and territorial about "their" seats all night up until the performance, which made for a weirdly hostile vibe. As you might have guessed, this was at the table I was originally at, but after their behavior (first telling me to move one seat over, even though the seat I was sitting on to change into my dance shoes was supposedly the gal's husband, and he was at that time nowhere to be seen, and then later on telling TWO different male friends of mine very pointedly that THAT seat was taken and could they please move over somewhere else, even though they had just sat down to CHANGE THEIR SHOES), I made sure to stay clear of them and "their" table as much as possible. It was shocking to me since this couple dances well, and so I figured they have been around the community for quite some time. Also, the milonga was crowded with lots of folks streaming in throughout the night. Obviously, folks would need a place to sit, even if just temporarily, to change their shoes. So for this couple to to behave as rudely they did...well, by golly, it's just as well that they are married, because they likely would not have done well in the dating scene as they BOTH surely must have been charm school flunkies! Or maybe they have just cornered the entire market on milonga real estate, and somehow I and everyone else DID NOT get that particular memo. It was truly flabbergasting to me how excessively territorial and rude this couple was.

Sunday, May 9, 2011
Studio Gracia Milonga with lesson beforehand by Eduardo Saucedo and Marisa Quiroga on Milonga. I missed the lesson, but watched the tail end of it. It was a packed lesson with a few extra followers. Still, it appeared that everyone had a good time learning a few new milonga steps, and this was confirmed verbally to me by many students later on. The milonga was very full, and though floorcrafting was difficult at times, it never got atrociously bad. Like the lesson, the milonga had more Followers than Leaders, but I think more than a few people, myself included, were happy to sit out a good bit of the time rather than join the crowded conditions on the dancefloor. It was just one of those nights, I suppose, where you want to be social and at a milonga, but there is no desperation to rack up floor time during every single tanda (especially when our feet were already tired and sore from dancing in the days before). Maestros did a nice several song performance, and a birthday vals for Keiko, which culminated in Maestro cutting in and concluding the dance with a dip, which caused peals of delighted laughter, along with a wave of innocent vicarious jealousy among the Followers.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011
CellSpace Alt Milonga. I got there late, just in time for my take-down shift (10:00 p.m.). The milonga was nicely attended, but not excessively crowded. By CellSpace standards, it was a light evening. I had a good time though. I danced pretty much every tanda while I was there and before it was time to break everything down for the night. The DJ's Leslie and Thomas were really good, and the alt tandas had a very bluesy, mellow vibe to them, matching the crowd and the evening.



After this, I did not dance again until the following Wednesday. Why, you might ask? My body was truly aching from my day job of two days (Thursday and Friday) of clearing out a house of several decades worth of accumulations to get the house ready to sell. And then having my own Totally Free Garage Sale on Saturday to get rid of hundreds of pounds of my own accumulations over the decades. It was very liberating emotionally, but very taxing physically.



Wednesday, May 18, 2011
CellSpace Alt Milonga. I got there late, enjoyed a few tandas before sitting out one for door duty, and then danced the rest of the night away. It was pretty crowded on this particular night, which was strange since the prior week was so much lighter. Ben was the DJ and birthday boy, so we had a non-vals dance for him, and his lovely wife provided the extremely yummy and insanely generous coffee ice cream cake with chocolate cake base. Cleanup was smooth and easy. CellSpace needs more volunteers, so anyone wanting to save a five-spot on their Wednesday night dancing should definitely get on the roster. It's very nice to be a part of such a friendly group of dancin' fools.


COME JOIN ME!
Friday, May 20, 2011. MUSE Milonga with lesson beforehand by Santiago and Amy. Should be a great night. Be there or be square.

April 28 - May 4

Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Verdi Club Milonga. I arrived in the middle of the lesson, taught by Marcela Duran and Gaspar Godoy of Forever Tango, and since there were more Followers than Leaders in the packed class, I skipped participating in it, though I was able to watch it. Gaspar taught in Spanish, and Marcela translated to English. I found his instruction and her translation and additional instructions to be very clear and precise. They also struck me as being very enthusiastic, caring teachers. They did a two-song performance later on during the milonga.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT7f0WtlEhg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuIFbJMvrls


The milonga was fun. The Ben Bogart Sexteto / Los Gatos Azules were the same musicians as the night prior at CellSpace, with the exception of Adrian Jost of Trio Garufa sitting in for Korey Ireland. They played well to a full house. The milonga was reasonably fun on account of the good crowd, the live music, and the buzz and excitement of having tango royalty (Marcela and Gaspar) in the house. Unfortunately, floorcrafting was a little hairy, aggressive, and careless at times, though I suppose it could have been a lot worse (but thankfully wasn't).

Some of the the San Francisco Bay Area competitors from the Argentine Tango USA Festival and USA Championship were there at a reserved table, and it was fun seeing them all together. Although we've seen them dance (or danced with them personally) for years, I think there is a keener eye on them and appreciation of their dancing after the competition. It seems the Bay Area is still buzzing and basking in the afterglow of all the excitement, and lucky for us some of the maestros have extended their stay for another week or so (Pulpo!). Christy mentioned that Ramada and Yumiko came in second place in Salon, and just bopping into the Festival web site, here are the official results:

Argentine Tango USA Champions
Salon Tango (Official Category)
1st Place: Brian Nguyen and Yuliana Basmajyan from Los Angeles.
2nd Place: Jesse Ramada Salieri and Yumiko Krupenina from San Francisco.
3rd Place: Gustavo Hornos and Jessica Salomón from San Francisco.

Stage Tango
1st Place: Marcelo Molina and Carolina Vasquez from Fresno.
2nd Place: Gustavo Hornos and Jessica Salomon from San Francisco.

Congrats to all who participated, even those who didn't place. It's not easy going through the daunting task of competing, with the hundreds of hours of practicing, the expense both time and moneywise of costuming, and just the sheer pressure and emotional stress of being judged publicly.

COME JOIN ME!

MUSE Milonga tomorrow night!