Misia & Peter – tango blog

Thursday (November 27)

Despite the heatwave and sultry weather, we made it to three classes, two of them in a place without air conditioning! ;)

Tango 3 with Christian Duarte & Carolina Lafata (@DNI)
–We started with a rebote focusing on separating the pendulum movement of the hips versus chest staying forward with the partner. Then we played with a cute combination of gancho and following enganchada, focusing a lot again on the hip movement (down down down & a little bit backward!), using the adductors of the inner thigh plus keeping the chest forward with the ribcage closed and using the latissimus dorsi. Great class!

Tecnica with Carolina Lafata (@DNI)
– we continued working on the enganchada. After the regular warm-up exercises, we did an exercise in which we were projecting the leg without the weight, keeping the hip down, stretching the area around the hip and maintaining the chest forward and connection in the embrace.

Tango intermedio y avanzado with Mariela Sametband & Martin Gutierrez (@Tango brujo)
–the last class in the series of classes devoted to giro. This time we were working on the giro structure applied to the line and different variations – with suspension, double time, gancho and boleo etc.

Though terribly tired (partly because of dancing, but mostly due to the 40 degree (that’s Centigrade) heat and 70% humidity) we managed to find some energy and headed off to Salon Canning (Scalabrini Ortiz 1331, 18 pesos) for a milonga. Orquesta Sans Souci was supposed to play and Fabian Peralta and Virginia Pandolfi were to dance. To our disappointment, there was no electricity in Salon Canning (the power grid went down in several parts of the city due to overload from the air conditioners) and a storm was about to begin. We were directed by El Chino to the nearby La Viruta (Armenia 1366) (and warned that ‘the kids’ in the neigbourhood have guns + on the way there was no light and the storm was hanging in the air), where the classes were still going on at a quarter past midnight. We thought for a minute about staying, but seeing that the practica after the classes was scheduled only until 2 AM and that it was mostly local beginners we headed home. A few minutes after getting back to the apartment we realized that Practica Rara was supposed to be going on just a few blocks from us at J. D. Perón 1785, so we headed over there. The lights were on in the third floor windows, but we could not hear any music and no one answered the doorbell, so after several rings we finally called it a night. You can’t say we didn’t try.

Wednesday (November 26)

Tango 5/6 with Pablo Vilarazza & Dana Frigoli (@DNI)
–even though the temperature was around 32C and the humidity around 70% Pablo and Dana managed to catch the attention of their students by a difficult (for some really confusing) concept of density in the movement and applying in the presented movement (which i don’t know how to describe even). The second part of the class was more feasible – namely nice colgada with gancho.

In the evening we took a intermediate/advanced class in Tango brujo with Pablo Retamar & Anita Monteagudo, which was recommended to us. Despite the recommendations, we didn’t like it. The topic was boleos, linear and circular and different variations – and the teachers failed to explain some really important technical elements that are important (in our opinion) for these movements.

Tuesday (November 25)

As the heatwave took its toll on us we did two classes with Martin and then waited till the evening to cool down a little bit and went for Practica X (Medrano 476, 8 pesos) where Rodrigo Palacios and Augustina Berenstein were performing.

Educacion postural + tango nuevo with Martin Gutierrez (@Tango brujo)
–the class is normally taught by Martin and his partner – Carolina Pizzo, however, she’s away so it was only him and turned out into the technique class,of course, excellent one! :)

Tango intermedio y avanzado with Martin Gutierrez & Samantha Di Paolo (@Tango brujo)

In between the classes we saw World Press Photo 2008 in Centro Cultural Borges, which made us even happier then ever that we live in Europe…

Monday (November 24)

Private class with Maxi (@DNI, 80 pesos)
–Maxi is the yoga teacher at DNI and one of the specialist in the technique. Therefore, as a warm up we did some exercises to strengthen our feet and stretch the spine, open the chest etc. all in order to find the right posture for dancing. We were both convinced that after all our posture is quite good, yet, it appears there still things we need to work on and teach them as well. We continued with learning how to breathe properly, how to connect with your center and with your partner, doing connection exercises. For both of us it was really useful, for me particularly the part about connecting the embrace with the center and the technique of the hip movement in walk.

Milonga class with Oscar Casas (@El beso, 20 pesos)
–this two hour class was devoted to all the crosses in milonga… great as usual :)

Saturday – Sunday (November 22-23)

On Saturday we took a class with Carolina Lafata & Christian Duarte (@DNI) – tango nuevo in the closed embrace and we enjoyed it a lot, finally learning how to do a nice gancho (for a woman) backward in close embrace. As it was warm and sunny (almost 30degrees!) we were off to the Recoleta open-air fair straight after the class. Having bought lots of bombillas and calabash gourds for drinking mate (as well as few pairs of earings ;) ) we enjoyed delicious Freddo ice-cream – mascarpone with strawberries and chocolate with whole almonds…mmm…

As it was getting even hotter during Sunday, we decided to explore the Buenos Aires’ park, namely, Parque 3 de Febrero, which consists of many other parks… Our first destination were botanical gardens (Jardin Botanico) designed by Thays – the guy who introduced the beautiful jacarandaes in Buenos Aires. Jacarandaes’ blossoms are of delicate violet colour and are the most characterstic trees of Buenos Aires.

The second destination was the Japanese gardens (Jardin Japones) in which we had few moments of rest and we were lucky to see the exhibition of the orignal Japanese kimonos.
All the pictures from both gardens and Recoleta are here :)

On Sunday evening we went to the milonga Porteno y Bailarin (Riobamba 345, 20pesos) which was supposed to be the closing milonga of Pulpo’s Tango Week, however around 12:30 it was still dead and the music was inaudible due to huge fans, so we didn’t stay for long…

Friday (November 21)

Tango class with Oscar Casas (@El beso)
–another very good class, we played with low and high boleos for close embrace and sacadas with consecutive enganchadas.

Tecnica para tango, intermedio and avanzado with Martin Gutierrez & Samantha Di Paolo (@Tango brujo)
–soltadas, ganchos, piernazos and soltadas – that would be the best summary of the class. We were working mainly on the technique of these movements – having the stability in the supporting leg, appropriate density and relaxation in the free leg, appropriate hip position and the changes in the embrace during the soltadas. Uff.. hard, but great :)

After yesterday’s Nino Bien experience, we decided to call it a day after the classes and headed off to see the new James Bond – Quantum of Solace and enjoy Havanna’s alfajores =)

Thursday (November 20)

Milonga with Osky Casas (@El Beso, 20 pesos)
– Osky is the son of Oscar Casas. He calls his style as neo-milonguero. He’s regularly visiting Poland to give workshops together with Luiza Pasierowska… We played with different steps for milonga traspie (rock step, enganchadas etc.) – Osky was helpful and positive. Very good class for the leaders, not so good for followers as most of the tips and explanations offered were for leaders.

Tango intermedio & avanzado with Mariela Sametband & Martin Gutierrez (@Tango brujo)
– the class was a third one in a series devoted to giros. This particular class was devoted to the sacadas based on giro and playing with them – double times, backward sacadas, side sacadas in different combinations etc. Extremly clear technical explanation and commitment of the teachers really willing to help the students made the class excellent.

In the evening we went to a milonga – Nino Bien (Humberto primero 1462, 15 pesos). I’ve been there once so I knew what to expect and wasn’t surprised at all…nothing has changed since the last year.
Here’s Peter’s account on Nino Bien (with which I truly agree): It’s really more a place to see and be seen than one to have great dances. The DJ, Mario Orlando, is great, but the poor sound system, the acoustics of the room and the sound level from the conversations at the tables at times unfortunately makes for a barely audible or intelligible musical experience on the dance floor. It also does get crowded, and I mean really crowded. And not with people who have excellent navigation skills. There are the older Argentines — they’d be great at navigation, except that they tend to spend their time on the pista with their head buried in the chest of some foreign tanguera who could be their daughter, which means they can’t really see what’s going on around them. Then there are the younger Argentines and the foreigners who came here on a tango trip, possessed by some inexplicable desire to change lanes, plow into the couple just ahead of them, show off all the steps they’d just learned or leave at least 3 meters of free space between them and the couple in front of them, guaranteeing a pileup behind. The coup de grace is the dancers who decide to start dancing to a song about two minutes or so into it, when the whole floor is already moving, and adding another stationary couple is guaranteed to disrupt whatever flow there was.

The onlookers (the to be seen part) are just as fun. Imagine a mix of women [or men -- Misia], sitting with perfect posture, dressed to kill, trying to catch your gaze, then some local tango legends (or at least fossils) in a suit and a tie, having a conversation at the top of their voice (normal for New Yorkers, shouting for the rest of the world), discussing all the dancers on the floor and banging the table every few seconds for emphasis, then a bunch of young guys in jeans and an untucked t-shirt. Kinda like the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars, minus Luke, Han Solo and the droids. We danced until 1 AM with each other, then took a cab home.

In a way, the place is really a miniaturized version of a city where everything from designer labels to household appliances are sold on installments and everyone tries to appear more and better than what they really are and judges other by their appearance. Mala onda, as far as I’m concerned. It was really in stark contrast to the supportive, warm feeling of Tango Brujo, DNI and some other classes we’d taken here so far.

Anyway, we can now say: Nino Bien? Sure, we’ve danced there.

Wednesday (November 19)

Milonga con traspie, marcacion para hombres y adornos para mujeres with Gabriela Elias (@Escuela Argentina de Tango)
– very traditional class in a style: watch and repeat. Not too many technical comments, little interaction of the teacher with the students. Nevertheless, it was useful thanks to the steps used during it – useful for practice and for the further teaching purposes.

Tango class with Oscar Casas (@El Beso)
–another good class, even though there were 40 students alltogether! We worked on the concept of sacadas with turns, then we combined this with one enganchada and added a barrida. Very useful, detailed explanations of the technique of the movement, also a lot of attention was paid to the elegance and not compromising the posture while executing movements like barrida.

In the evening we saw a magical movie – The Fall by Tarsem Singh… It left us speechless because of its incredible plasticity, attention to detail, breathtaking pictures and impressive imagination of the director.

Tuesday (November 18)

Conceptos creativos with Santiago Dorkas & Cecilia Garcia (@Tango brujo)
– brainstorming class… attempting to reshape or even rebuild your way of thinking about dancing and movement in general. Energy, emotions, dancing with your whole body – connecting different body part – topic as much interesting as difficult to teach. However, Santiago and Cecilia dealt with it really well. Excellent but difficult class for which you need to come open-minded and be prepared for the challenge!

Tango intermedio & avanzado with Martin Gutierrez & Samantha Di Paolo (@Tango brujo)
– one of our favourite classes so far … this time devoted to soltadas and of course, there must have been a gancho as well (Martin calls himself “ganchofil”)

Before the classes we went for shoe shoping to Comme il faut (Arenales 1239) and later on to Delie shoes (Piedras 843). I wrote about Comme il faut before so only few words about Delie. They seem to specialize more in men’s shoes (we ended up buying two classic pairs for Peter, one at a really low promotional price) than women’s (they were on the kitschy side, with lots of glitter falling and not precise finishing).

After the classes we went to see a movie – even though we planned Practica X. We saw Burn After Reading by Ethan and Joel Cohen with the fantastic cast of George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt. We enjoyed it a lot thanks to a huge dose of the black humour and great acting.

Monday (November 17)

Another day busy with classes:

Milonga class with Oscar Casas (@El beso, Riobamba 416, 20 pesos)
– we started with the simple baldosa. The first idea was to learn how to control the speed and timing in the steps, so that we are able to do traspie in any moment. Then we moved on to different crosses in milonga and applying the same concept tried on different versions of traspie. Great class!

Tango intermedio & avanzado with Daniel Tuero & Cecilia Piccinni (@Tango Brujo)
– incredibly well structured class. It started with very simple ideas of overturned ochos and controlling the hip movement for the followers and chest for the leader, with lots of insightful tips. From the overturned position we develeped a cross and then volcada (option 1) or a cross and a gancho (option 2).

Tecnica corporal with Santiago Dorkas & Cecilia Garcia (@Tango Brujo)
–both Cecilia and Santiago are contemporary dancers and they incorporate modern technique to their teaching. The class is about _feeling_ things, developing body awarness, managing the energy of the movement etc. – mentally and emotionally at a very high level and difficult. I took lots of classes with Cecilia last year – her famous Entrenamiento corporal and even though it was connected with the tango technique loosly, it changed my dancing incredibly. Recommended for those who want to make a difference in their dancing and are open-minded.