Next Time I Post, BUT Today.

Next time I post I will make a list of all the activity and surprises at our (Facebook) NEPA Tang0 in the TENT last summer. Frank Como kept showing up every Sunday from Waverly, NY.- 1 1/2 hours NW with his crew of dedicated followers. We also added in 2 "Drawing Socials" with Ted Michalowski and a group of new friends- coaxed them all to try a little embrace and walking to DiSarli.
So here we are, 4 months in the cocoon of tango.
Getting in the taxi at EZE last Monday, I sighed, I AM HOME. Getting off the plane in the USA I always say, I am back.
Our lovely tango school, EAT, at the Galerias had closed in August and I wondered what we would do for a quick lesson on a whim, usually a daily whim. Mike, on Wednesday, said lets just walk up there. My thoughts were-NO-not to look at the depressingly closed door.
SURPRISE!
Claude Murga was jumping around in the welcoming, repainted school, so thrilled to be the director of the new Nuevo EAT= NEAT on Facebook. New lighting, new air conditioners and everything SO clean. It opened this week with some of our favorite teachers on the building schedule. Now we dance close to home, and always in our thoughts

Mike and I studied with Gabriel Misse in 2006 at our first festival in BsAs and we studied with him again in NYC in 2013.

I like this quote from the NY Times- August 12, 2013

Gabriel Missé and Analía Centurión performing at Dardo Galletto Studios.

By ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Yes, tango is inherently dramatic and scintillatingly musical, but its whole emphasis can be distorted by rendering it theatrical or exhibitionistic.

At a recent master class in Vail, Mr. Missé ended by stressing that, when you have mastered the principles of tango, you fill it with your own expression.

DRAFT of another Poem

What Comes Down OUR Calle Florida
Yeah, Yeah all the tour books say a million pedestrians stroll these 16 blocks every day.
Beware the ladrones!
Shoppers, vendors, tourists all purposefully moving along at different  paces.
Moving past our building where our tiny apartment gives me a glimpse of the street, a glimpse when I hang off the narrow balcony and stretch a long neck to the left. 
If  the wind blows from the east, luring words drift upward, "cambio, cambio, cambio" or "tango show, lady" or "leather factory, lady" as they echo through soft street music.
But other happenings along Calle Florida stun me into silence.
There was butterfly week. Up they came from south to north,
Tiny orange flutterers tinted with yellow, day after day
Zooming up past the 11^th floor and out of sight
On a mission to somewhere, I think.
More butterflies than the determined window shoppers. Why don’t you look up at these fragile beauties, I wonder    
And the clouds.
The puffy ones float by from west to east
White figures against deep blue where I search for tango dancers or other kinds of mating rituals    
Oops, there goes a spouting whale- moving backwards next to a toadstool forest
My bed in the window where the street sounds are muted from Cordoba is a candy store.
The southern cross stares down at me from this window bed, but I doubt if the pedestrians along the street below look above to find its silent beauty
How can life become that busy?
Karen Lucey    April 2014

KHALIL GIBRAN- posted by Amanda Gris

Cierta vez una bailarina con sus músicos había arribado a la corte del Príncipe de Birkasha. Y, admitida en la corte, bailó ante el príncipe al son del laúd, de la flauta, de las tablas y tambores, y de la cítara.
Bailó la danza de las estrellas y la danza del espacio, y por último la danza de las flores al viento. Luego se detuvo ante el Príncipe e inclinándose, le hizo una reverencia.
El príncipe emocionado le pidió se acercara y le dijo:
" Bella mujer, hija de la gracia... y del encanto, de donde viene tu arte? Como dominas tú la tierra y el aire en tus pasos y el agua y el fuego con tu ritmo y tu cadencia?"
La bailarina se inclinó de nuevo ante el Príncipe y le contestó:
"Su alteza, no estoy segura como responder su pregunta, pero sí sé que el alma del filósofo vive en su cabeza,
el alma del poeta en su corazón, que el alma del cantor vibra en su garganta.
Pero que en cambio, el alma de la bailarina, vive en todo su cuerpo"
Khalil Gibran


Once, a dancer with her ​​musicians had arrived at the court of the Prince of Birkasha. And, she, admitted in court, before the prince, danced to the sound of the lute, flute, drums and tables, and zither.
  She danced the dance of stars and the dance of space, and finally the dance of flowers in the wind. Then she stopped and bowed to the Prince- he bowed.
  The prince asked her to approach excited and said:
  "Beautiful woman, daughter of grace and delight, whence comes your art? Like you dominate the earth and the air in your footsteps and water and fire with your rhythm and cadence?"
  The dancer bowed again before the Prince and replied:
  "Your Highness, I am not sure how to answer your question, but I do know that the soul of the philosopher lives in his head,
  the poet's soul in his heart, the soul of the singer vibrates in his throat.
 But instead, the soul of the dancer, lives in his whole body "
  Khalil Gibran

Dinzel- Lesson 2- Not an April Fool's Gag

Rodolfo Dinzel. I like the way the name sounds so I write both first and last names. We were there, Villa Crespo, at 10:00 for our second lesson. First a five minute warm up and then the master, who sits in the corner, and his followers, who sit around the room on the floor, watch us dance. Next comes the discussion, Spanish to English with an interpreter at his side, His "baby?". El maestro says to write on paper, I think this typing will satisfy him, all that he has mentioned and study it all for our next lesson on Tuesday.
For Mike:
Repeat all the exercises from week 1. Also keep the steps long and slow.
Use the back muscles more for the pivots and the torso for the back ochos. A wider base keeps you more stable.
Keep the left arm forward of the torso.
Use a step into and between the woman. This is the tango.
Use the chest as the eyes. Pretend it's a spotlight looking into my face.
For me:
Work on my right arm. Don't let it collapse
Dance more around Mike
Keep the same distance between us. Chest to chest.
At times step between his legs.
Be happy. Enjoy the dance.
Come back on October 7th to celebrate his birthday. MAYBE?

SOLO WHALE

I asked my friend Juan to translate my little poem into Spanish.

ALONE

Why have you become the solo whale?
The adventure is now closer to shore where the
     water runs warmer
Head off to the deep when the music stops
When you must find your own quiet space
But today the frolic and dance continue

 Karen Lucey  -2013


ON APRIL 5th it arrived via email

A spanish version for your great poem

Hugs for both of you.   Juan

Soledad

¿Porque te has convertido en la ballena solitaria?

La aventura ocurre ahora bien cerca de la costa

donde el agua es más cálida

Regresa a lo profundo cuando la música pare 

cuando debas encontrar tu propio espacio, más calmo

Pero ahora la diversión y el baile continúan

IT GOT BETTER

Just when I think I can't absorb another tango ANYTHING, it got better.
Today we had a lesson with the master Rodolfo Dinzel. Our teacher at the Galerias, Amanda Gris, said we must persue a lesson with Sr. Dinzel to explore the possibilities of more communication between us.
OK. I sent an email- no response. I called and left a message- no response. Mike and I said let's just get on a bus and go his studio (Jufre 160) to see if we can get a lesson.  He was there in a more than interesting studio. It was a new approach to the dance. We stepped out for empanadas and returned in an hour for our lesson. First he wanted our attitudes changed- more attitude.
After another dance he wanted longer and slower walking.
Next he gave us exercises to practice before our lesson next week.
I hold Mike's shoulders and lead the back ochos for myself.
One hand (right or left) goes to Mike's or my chest and we move with eyes closed to the music. Next both hands, palm touching lead the dance in a circular or back and forth movement to the music.
We need to do these exercises 5 minutes every day to start to feel the circular communication of the dance. LOVED this lesson.

From the Sunday NY Times- March 2014

In the large-scale Nurses’ Health Study of more than 60,000 postmenopausal women, those who walked briskly at least four times per week were at much lower risk of hip fractures (an indirect but practical indicator of bone health) than the women who walked less often, more slowly, or not at all.

Had the walkers occasionally jigged backwards and sideways, all the better. So-called odd impacts, created when you move in a direction other than straight ahead, can initiate remodeling throughout the hipbone and spine in older people, a few recent studies suggest.

Now what dance does that bring to mind?

This post is for ME-What I have learned.

1. Silvina Valz: Go with my body, Go with ease, Look out at or above eye level (this organizes my body), Walk on the beat, Caress the floor, Move leg from my diaphragm, go at the last minute (tension and release)
2. Cecelia Gonzalez: Use more disassociation, Use the torso and back in the molinete, Keep my hips facing the man.
3. Amanda Gris: Improvise and interpret on my own, Keep body soft (ice to water)
4. Johana Copes: Don't go up and down, Make a definite step, Use the standing leg for power, Don't collapse my left side. In forward ocho- torso, hip, leg and then the foot, In the back ocho- hip first.
5. Maria Angeles Rodriguez: Weight over front foot in forward ochos
6. Marcela Duran: Long leg back in the ocho before the weight goes down( cross the leg a little), Ice-cream cone theory- enjoy every part of every step.
7. Augusto Balizano: Dance the pivot into the floor, Posture erect, Take my time- slow it down, Follow through with the right arm.
8. Olga Besio: Find the pause in the tango, Dance to the floor and the music.
9. Daniela Arcuri: Don't collapse my left side, Don't collapse my right side.
10. Carina Mele: Lift torso, Lighten my upper body
11. Eliana Sanchez Arteaga: Follow the man's left arm
12. Marissa Quiroga: Feet on the floor, Beauty in the foot.
13. Pablo Veron: Put the back heel down, Look over the mans shoulder and up a bit (posture up, head up)
14. Sonia Peralta: Move like a methodical cat, Don't go up and down.
15. Pablo Alvarez: Keep hip level in the side step
16. Noelia Barsi: Open the hip on the back step, deeper cruzada
17. Aurora Lubiz: Free leg totally free, small beautiful adornos but seldom
18. Gabriel Misse: Use the diaphragm for balance forward and back, Use the back muscles for lateral balance, lag the back leg
19. Oscar Gauna: Breathe together.
20. Silvana Nunez: Vary the speed between fast and slow
21. Me: Perservere, Keep a blog about all this, Thank all the above and all the below in some way.
22. Privates and group lessons with instructors who nudged me with some of the above ideas. Junior Cervila, Jesus Velazquez, Natalia Rojo, Miguel Zotto, Alberto Paz, and more to come.
ADD ONS from April 2014- Of course, Rodolfo Dinzel
 Beto Barsellini and Lis Dorin: Complete the pivots, relax the ankles, knees and hips, lift the chest at a slight diagonal, push the floor on every step. More disassociation.

WATER to ICE - ICE to WATER

About 70% of the human body mass is water Amanda Gris tells us at our Thursday tango lesson. It is easy for a couple in a tanda to realize that one or both has a great deal of tension in his or her embrace or frame- ICE. If the woman has the tension, the man tries to soften her body by breathing with her and relaxing his own body back to WATER before the first step of the dance.  If the man has the tension- ICE, the woman can do her best to relax her own body and dance to the floor. The goal is to get out of the ICE and turn it back into the flowing WATER- in Spanish- being tranquila y relahada.
The goal of the lesson was to work with improvisation. The improv part of the lesson was clever and new. After the side step, I go. Mike goes. I go. Mike goes, etc. Doing this back and forth for a three minute piece of tango music was fun and funny. In the real dance if he is going to give me a chance to improvise, he opens the embrace and allows me to play until he is ready to move again. We can't wait to try this at our Wednesday pracitcas this summer in the TENT.

Copes- THE COPES

Karen Lucey

We are living in BsAs because we saw you dance in the movie TANGO. We dance tango because we saw you dance tango. Thank
you SO MUCH. Karen and Mike Lucey on Calle Florida

1:35pm

Juan Carlos Copes

I miss you so much , I will see you in the Ladys Tango.

Reagars. Copes.

Borges "El Sur" and tango

Michael (not my Mike) recounted the short story El Sur while we enjoyed ribs at our monthly BAIN luncheon. Luckily I can search and find these files on the internet, which I think would have amused Borges. His writing makes me laugh and makes me cry all  in the same moment. Here is an excerpt

He placed his suitcase in a luggage net.  

When cars lurched forward, he opened it and, after some hesitation, took

out the first volume of the Thousand and One Nights. Travelling with this book, which
was so linked to the story of his misfortune, was an affirmation both that that misfortune
had been erased and a joyous and secret challenge to the frustrated forces of evil.
On both side of the train the city gradually broke apart into separate suburbs.
First this view of them and then the sight of truck gardens and small farms delayed the
start of his reading. The truth is that Dahlmann read very little. The magnet mountain
and the genie who has sworn to kill his benefactor were—who can deny it—
marvelous,16 but not much more than the morning and the fact of being. Such joy
distracted him from reading about Shahrazad and her superfluous miracles. Dahlmann
simply would close his book and let himself be alive.


So in tango. Close the lessons and let it be only the music and the floor. Let it come alive.

Please Roy! Don't Ask Me to DELETE This.

Roy has given me a place to think about tango in a different way.


Here are some of my thoughts on Tango as a dance, a form of expression, a philosophy, if you will.  Some is old material.

Roy  

P.S.  It is a bit kitsch.

                        On the Spiritual Physicality of The Tango
                                             by  Roy Whitman

 The Tango begins with the embrace between consciousness and necessity, or the spiritual and physical worlds, which assumes a restricted form (Adorno & Horkheimer).  The embrace represents one physical unit, like an anchor, with its own weight and synergy.  The steps of the tango, however, are light and ephemeral.  It is both Beethoven and Bach at once, or the physical and spiritual entwined (Kundera).  The dance is both spiritual (heavy) and spirited (light) with two physical beings together like Jacob wrestling with the Angel (Genesis).  It is both a restricted physicality (Cohen) and a restricted spirituality (Whitman).  It is the forces of nature colliding with the forces of heaven (Wagner).  It is the very breath of God (Michelangelo).

 

The Tango is neither a purely physical phenomenon nor purely a spiritual phenomenon.  The physical attributes of it can influence the spiritual attributes and the spiritual attributes can influence the physical attributes (Osborne, “Marx and Freud,” Elster “Making Sense of Marx,” and Engels on Marx) and each can interplay with the other in a myriad of nuanced and subtle ways.  The Tango is pure physics; to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton), combined with improvisation inspired by the primitive Id (Freud).  Think of “Summer breeze makes me feel fine/tangoing with the jasmine in my mind” (Seals & Crofts); “Dust in the wind/all we are, are tango partners in the wind” (Kansas); and “The answer, my friend, is tangoing in the wind/the answer is tangoing in the wind.” (Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary)

 

Tango is a most utilitarian form of dance, satisfying both the higher and lower pleasures, or the spirit and the body. (Stuart Mills)  It is both a Gemeinschaft, or community, and a Gesellschaft, or society. (Marx)  While the former is based on a relatively homogenous culture and tends to be intimate, informal, cooperative, and imbued with a sense of moral obligation to the group, the latter is more formal, goal-oriented, heterogeneous, and based on individual self-interest, competition, and complex division of labor. It is Japanese discipline, teamwork, and craftsmanship, (Toyota) combined with a pursuit of egotistical advantages. (Smith)) As such, it is subject to relativity or the influence of space and time. (Einstein)

 

Tango is art and the culture of love. Colorful and dream-like (Chagall) yet abstract, angular, and obtuse while being sensual and hypnotic (Modern and Impressionism), Tango captures the essence between two people or forces. It is Eros and Thanatos vying for predominance or the Ego reconciling with the Id. (Freud).  It is Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah, Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Maria and Tony, the King and I, and Captain Von Trapp and Maria.  Our daddies always said :”It takes two to tango.”. 

                     

Florida Garden

Huge thunderclaps and bolts of lightning.
A downpour that was mesmerizing.
Sheets of blowing rain.
Mike says let's walk to Florida Garden -1/2 block. I'll buy you breakfast.
Umbrella in hand we scurried across Florida and watched people going about their daily routines as if the sun were shining.
Our favorite waiter, Oca, brought the lagrimas and medialunas while we read the paper and chatted. As usual, the conversation turned to tango. Yesterday was a tango marathon. 4 1/2 hours at La Viruta with Noelia and Javier + the famous old timers Osvaldo and Coca. A great review of the basics.
I decided to strike up a conversation in Spanish with Oca who has no English. I told him about the tango lesson and how we had a chance to study with the greats- Osvaldo y Coca. In Spanish he said we should have had Osvaldo with "vino" instead of "Coka". Mike, as usual with is quick humor whispered in my ear, "Right about that. I guess he must have seen Coca."

Tango Skirts

We are tackling our postage-stamp size closet. First I started with the skirts. 30. 30 means I am crazy. It took me an hour to try them on and cut the amount in 1/2. The ones with the elastic waists are all back in the closet- too much pasta.
Mike started with his Levi's. He uses a marker to mark the 514 from the 511's. Some have no labels so he tries them on and models them before he decides where to stack them. He wonders how they could have shrunk when they sat in the closet for almost 6 months- too many medialunas?

ALBERTO PAZ R.I.P.

I wrote this post  as a distraction from the very sad news of a great loss to the tango world. Alberto, where are you? Please, I hope you made  plenty of time for small talk with Valorie before you went on your way to teach that tango lesson and  on your way to places beyond.
Attacking the Problem of “Small Talk”
Small talk is my weakness, I think. Mike doesn’t know where to start with it and my dear friend HS can’t make it.  I envy Sherry who makes small talk with total sincerity and finds interesting conversation with everyone.

Mike is sharing John Holt with me, a book called Instead of Education. He highlights portions for me to read  and  I write notes in the margin. We are both thinking and talking about the development of language and the purpose of communication. Holt says it’s to move people and get things done. Holt states, "Only in a place like S-chool where we are seldom allowed to talk, much less talk about anything interesting or real, and where our words seldom make anything important happen, and may only earn us humiliation and failure, does our growth in language slow to a stop."

Anyway I was sharing something I’d read years ago about conversation starters. It is something like this.

Picture the other person so you are NOT talking about yourself. How to start the conversation can come from a picture in your mind of the person’s house. So now ask “house”  questions -where they live or maybe about remodeling, ETC.  Next picture their family in front of the house. Here’s an opening for “How many children do you have? ETC. This leads to where they work, education, ETC.

Mike looks at me this morning and asks about this technique. He says dryly. I can picture the house and I can picture the family outside, but I see them standing in the rain.

I said, “So here is an opening to talk about the WEATHER”

His response was “Why would I want to talk to or know anything about  anyone who is too dumb to come in out of the rain.”
I LOVE MY HUSBAND
VALORIE LOVED HER HUSBAND
I hope Alberto talked to Valorie about the weather, about their silly plans for the day and gave her a huge hug and a huge kiss before he closed the door on the way to his last tango.

TANGO in Charlotte NC. THE BEST

Daniel Arredondo. We needed exercise after packing and getting on a last minute flight to Charlotte. The only tango lesson I could find  on Friday night was at the Metropolitan Ballroom at 6:30. What a surprise. Because we've studied with so many teachers here and in Buenos Aires, I didn't expect anything more than the needed exercise. SURPRISE! This is one of the best lessons we've had. Daniel built all of the exercises into the final simple 6 count step using torso, rock steps and a sequence of 10 movements to help us get there with fluidity and rhythm. What looks so simple is a challenge of walking the woman around the man OR side stepping the woman around the man. Mike was able to understand this and returned on Saturday for a private lesson with Daniel.
Maybe next winter we'll end up on Lake Norman to study more with Daniel.