October 29, 2022
Saturday
It was a mellow, easy going day, as there’s not much to do on Saturday morning and I still had plenty of food from last night’s Coto trip.
So breakfast was leftovers while I reviewed and edited yesterday’s class notes. I’m amazed at how much more content I am able to retain compared to what I wrote in 2009, when I first took Intensivo A. Granted, a lot has happened since then. I am sober, and there’s no drama, trauma and gas lighting in my life now, thankfully. While my note taking has improved over the years, there was also a large gap where I didn’t take any notes at all, or didn’t transcribe them. So I’ve improved! And life is good!great!
During the day I did laundry by hand in the kitchen sink using the powdered laundry detergent in my studio (exciting, eh?).
Then I went over to EAT to Turco Suaya’s class, which was Tango Therapy. I had never taken such a class, and the ad said “inscription previa”, which means “pre-registration” so the week prior I did get approval from Maestro to take the class, though not sure I needed “therapy”, but what the heck. Don’t we all need therapy?!?!
Alejandro Turco Suaya’s class at Escuela Mundial de Tango (ARS$1600)
We began the lesson sitting on stools at the front part of the seat, and doing arm movement exercises to the music of Piazzola, taking care to make our arm movements show, precise, and fluid. It is important to breathe every time we move. Then, still sitting at the front part of our stools, we added leg movements very big lapices, while opening and closing our hips, and with our feet turned out and in. After doing these chair exercises for several songs, we got up and did them standing, for several songs, also adding weight changes, first on axis, and then in our stepping. Our last step was a weight change to a planeo, starting at our upper bodies first and our feet coming around as a consequence.
Tango has tools to research many elements.
We were to explore connection, movement, and musicality, the three elements that are super important, with the layer of the music being irregular (based on whatever orchestra we were dancing to), improvisation and interpretation. Since styles are different in different orchestras, so should be our dance.
We worked on walking together, ochos, ochos with the Follower’s leg extended as an embellishment, ochos with the air rulo Follower embellishment, volcadas and colgadas.
Needless to say, it was a very challenging class for many of the dancers (my colgadas still suck).
I did meet Dano, from Denver, in class, and afterward I suggested that, if he didn’t have anything better to do, to go to Practica Gallo Rojo (Practica Red Rooster), since the lesson would be in English as well and there would be plenty of gringos there to dance with. :o)
As I made my way back to my apartment after class, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of empanada places with the low prices of ARS $100 and ARS$110, so I decided to give them a go.
Empanada Mania
554 LaValle
ARS $110
I got 4 empandas: Carne, Verdura (veggie, which turned out to be Spinach), Calabaza y Queso (pumpkin and cheese), and Bandiola BBQ (BBQ pork). They were all hot from the oven and delicious. Interestingly, the veggie ones had whole wheat dough. Their Google listing says their hours are 7am to 10pm every day, which seems insanely early to me, but whatever. Hope Google is right for those needing to get their early morning empanada groove on.
Sabores Express
Tucuman 572
ARS $100
I got 3 empanadas: Verdura (which turned out to be Spinach as well), Calabaza (pumpkin) and Bandiola BBQ (BBQ pork). They were also hot from the oven and delicious, with veggie ones with whole wheat dough. Their Google listing also says their hours are 7am to 10pm every day, so it seems LaValle y Florida are the area to head to if you have early morning Empanada munchies.
I made it back to my apartment with just enough time for a quick shower and to get dressed before I headed out to the Practica Gallo Rojo (Jean Jaures 690), where two of the LV class assistants was teaching.
Diego Braude and Daniela Belen were the teachers. Diego dances like an angel, is fluent in English, and is spot on with his corrections. Can’t speak regarding Daniela’s skills as I don’t get to partner with her since I am not a Leader, but I was confident that she would be great!
When I got there, Dano arrived just ahead of me. I was glad to see that several other Intensivo students were already there, so at least I would have several people to dance with!
The lesson was good. We began with a connection exercise, using a balloon as a prop in between the two dancer’s chest. We did this with several partners, first just walking, and then with Leader rotating his chest around his spine to work on the concept that it is his spinal rotation, with a focus on coming from the scapula, that moves the Follower. Then we got rid of the balloons and danced together working on connection and leading the Follower to do nice ochos with the Leader leading from the spine.
During the practica, I danced with the other Intensivo students, an old friend from San Francisco, who is an Argentine, and amazingly, a local maestro and organizer, Ivan Inera, who happened to ask me to dance since I was sitting next to him. No cabaceo, just a tap and “Bailas?” I said yes, despite not knowing who he was, and I was not disappointed as I could tell instantly that his dance level was very high.
The practica was good. All the cool kids were there, and the skill level was very high. There were also women dancing together and men dancing together, so a very accepting place. They had a bar there, and while the mixed drinks were made with care, I would stick to the easier drinks like bottled water or wine. They also had empanadas, and it’s a good thing because it was easy to stay there until the wee hours, it was so much fun. The floor was stone, and since it was a practica, I felt totally comfortable wearing my dance sneakers all night.
Around midnight, who decides to walk in but Giovanni Garcia! I couldn’t believe my eyes, and he recognized me right away and I recognized him right away, too! It was lovely! Giovanni rotated just between me and another dancer friend for the time we were there together, and it was nice catching up. We exchanged contact info and promised to meet up again before next Saturday when I leave (boo!). He also took me on the dance floor for the salsa (which I used to be quite good at) and cumbia (which I totally suck at). Giovanni is such a strong leader that it’s super easy to follow him and a good time is pretty much assured.
Giovanni told me that it was I who inspired him to really lean into his Tango teaching, and because of that, he’s been able to travel the world (Korea, France, etc.). It’s been an amazing life since 2007, when we first met during our tour group privates with Los Dinzel and their wonderful assistants, of which he was one. Hard to believe those classes were 15 years ago!
I stayed at the practica until about 1:30am, a first for me for any Buenos Aires milonga or practica! And that was after showing up at 8pm for the lesson! Needless to say, I had a truly wonderful time.
I tried to be adventurous and take a collectivo (bus) home, but I waited at the stop for a while with no bus in sight, and nature was calling, so I hailed a cab instead. I just learned on this trip that in Buenos Aires, there is a way to hail a cab versus telling the bus to stop for you. For a cab, you put your arm down low. For telling a bus to stop for you at the designated stop, you raise your arm high. D’uh! Can’t tell you how many times I tried to hail a cab and have it just whizz by like they didn’t see me. It’s because my arm was too dang high! The arm low thing worked like a charm and the first cab I hailed, stopped for me and we were on our way! Yay! The fare back to my apartment was around ARS$700 (USD $2.50). I gave him a 1,000 peso note and told him to keep the change. Because I really, really had to go by this time. LOL.
October 30, 2022
Sunday
Even though I stayed out until the wee hours, I still got up somewhat early. Not much to do on Sundays so I did another few bits of laundry so I have an entirely clean and fresh wardrobe for next week.
Then I got down to writing, as I wanted to remember this trip and everything that happened. LOL. You know, it’s funny, back in the darkest days of the Great Recession, writing the blog was one of the few things that actually kept me sane and gave meaning to my days, which when you are unemployed, seem to stretch into eternity, with each day getting scarier and gloomier than the last one. And it certainly didn’t help with relentless drama, trauma and abuse being piled on by a seriously mentally ill narcissist. Thank God all of that is far, far in the rearview mirror with no chance of ever returning. For a while, I was extremely pissed off at Tango over it since I thought it was Tango’s fault that I had gotten into such a horrible, sticky, exhausting mess, and I stopped dancing for a while, and stopped taking lessons and notes, and stopped writing in general.
While I don’t do tango enough now to write as actively as I did before, I do have some interesting events coming up that I will lay down on paper (er… the internet!).
Where I live now, there is some tango, but not like SF. I used to go into NYC for tango, but stopped as the $25 round trip train ride, subway fare, and time it took to travel did not justify the amount of pleasure I got from going. And while there are some tango events in my state, it’s usually just one milonga a week, sometimes an hour or more drive away one way. And gosh, I went to an event recently, just 15 miles away, and it took me 1.5 hours to get home on the hellscape that I-95 can be. Even on a late Friday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment