Misia & Peter – tango blog

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.

Saturday – Sunday (November 15-16)

There’s not so much happening in terms of classes during the weekend, so we took it easy and did only two classes on Saturday.

Tango 5 Abrazo cerrado with Carolina Lafata & Christian Duarte @ DNI
–another great class with these teachers. We started with leading with quality ochos and ochitos with different speed finishing with small volcada and gancho. All in close embrace :)

Milonga class with Carolina Bonaventura & Francisco Forquera (Mariposita, Carlos Calvo 948/950, 1 class – 15 pesos, cheaper if you buy a pass)
– taught in a very traditional way – id est: watch and repeat. without any explanation when it comes to the technique. It was nice to see them doing the things with excellent precision and quality of the movement, however, the learning was much less efective than for example @DNI or Tango brujo where you get the explanation so detailed that you know which muscle you should use to lead/follow certain movement.

The rest of the weekend we spent walking around San Telmo – one of the oldest barrios and Recoleta – enjoying the local handicraft products’ fair. On Saturday there was muesums’ night (La noche de los museos) – we took the opportunity and went to see the puppets’ museum (Museo Argentino del Titere, Piedras 905) and the tango one (Museo Mundial del Tango de La Academia Nacional del Tango, Rivadavia 830, 1st floor), plus we visited famous Cafe Tortoni :) I hope to upload the pictures with commentaries soon! :)

Friday (November 14)

We had a short walk around El Once – the shopping district along Av. Corrientes – lots of Chinese stuff, but also some nice clothes likes dresses, skirts etc.  Then we were off for the first tango class in El Beso with Oscar Casas. Excellent class of tango milonguero/de salon. We started with the idea of controlling the cross – first the forward cross, weight change and the back cross. Developing the idea of controlling the crosses we used them in different steps and combinations, developing our improvisation and creativity skills. The class was very long – 2 hours, however with a short break in the middle. Even though the class was long it kept us alert and active as Oscar was very skillfuly managing the different levels of the students and adding for example volcadas from a bacward cross for us. In the second part of the class we applied all possible crosses into giro.

Afterwards we went to Tango Brujo for another two very good classes -

Tecnica para tango, intermedio y avanzado with Martin Gutierezz & Samantha Di Paolo
– as a week before we started with the exercises for the posture and walk, then for coordination. Afterwards we worked on our boleos – controling the movement, using the disassocation, learning how to make them high or low etc.  We ended up with the sequence of low and high boleo one after another, then gancho with tomada, another gancho, very interesting linear boleo combined later with the circular one and americana exit. A challenge for the balance and posture and precise lead :)

Tango intermedio y avanzado with Raul Masciocchi & Corina Herrera
– we started with the same idea as the last week – backward sacada for a man producing a turn for a woman. However, we didn’t continue with further sacadas and turns. We continued into the linear boleo and backward gancho for a woman… what we did later was too crazy to describe it ;) Anyway, lots of hard work and challenge!

Thursday (November 13)

Yoga 4 para bailarines @ DNI with Maxi
–a perfect start into a day full of classes, stretching, exercises for the feet and much more…

Tango 3 with Carolina Lafata and Christian Duarte @ DNI
–very well structured class about sacadas based on giros. Lots of people again, but even though we got help and corrections from the teachers.

Vals with Monica Linares (Escuela Argentina de Tango, Centro Cultural Borges, Viamonte esq. San Martin, 22 pesos / 1 class, 80 pesos / 4 classes, other passes also available)
– the first disappointing class. It was supposed to be also with Benjamin Grisoni, however, he didn’t appear. The class had no structure, no explanation, no technique aspects were mentioned. Monica Linaes is herself a very good dancer, but not at all a teacher…

Techniqe with Eugenia Eberhardt @ DNI
– unfortunately very crowded… so it was almost impossible to get the help of the teacher. Around 35 people at the class! We were dealing with the rebotes and working on the hips.

In the evening, we are planning to go to Salon Canning ( La Milonga Buenos Aires) – Colortango is going to play :)

Wednesday (November 12)

Tango 5/6 with Pablo Vilarazza & Dana Frigoli @ DNI
– extremly crowded (not only regular students but also whole DNI team took part in the class), but very nicely structured class.  The class itself was challenging – multiple ganchos with soltada and turns.

Milonga La Bruja (El beso, Riobamba 416, 13 pesos)
– for a description have a look at this post :)

Tuesday (November 11)

Yoga 3 @DNI
– this one was taught by Maxi – the assistant of Stella (Dana’s mum). More difficult and crowded, similiar to the power yoga classes that I took in Europe. Fantastic for stretching, builduing up the muscules of your feet (among others) and as a prepartion for any dance. As proof of that – half of the DNI team took part in the class.

Tango intermedios & avanzados with Martin Gutierezz & Samantha Di Paolo @ Tango brujo
– We started the class with the exercises preparing for the linear boleo, paying the attention to the appropriate hip movement, relaxation and balance. Then we started to build up a sequence with ganchos, linear boleos, patadas and other titbits, all the time concentrating on the technique and the quality of the movement. Another great class!

Practica X (Medrano 476, 8 pesos)
– already a cult place with lots of young dancers. A place to be – if you want meet here whole DNI, Tango brujo team and other fantastic dancers in one place and see them dancing, it’s here . The atmosphere is informal and welcoming, even though the dancefloor is full of high ganchos and boleos it’s a safe place to dance also traditional de salon. There’s always some performance – this week it’s was Federico Naveira and Ines Muzzopappa whose dance was greeted with neverending applause. (I’ll post the video later here)

Monday (November 10)

Yoga 1 (@ DNI, the price is the same as the tango classes – 15 pesos if you go the single class, 100 pesos if you buy the pass for the 10 classes)
– the class is taught by the mum of Dana Frigoli (whole DNI is a family business) who’s emanating with warmth and calmness. The moment you enter the class, you already feel relaxed ;) Yoga 1 is a yoga for everyone – the number indicates the level, the highest is 4. There were lots of exercises for the feet, the core muscules, keeping the right posture and breathing.

Tecnica corporal with Santiago Dorkas (@ Tango brujo)
–another great class, which felt almost like a private – 3 couples alltogether. Normally the class is taught both by Santiago Dorkas and Cecilia Garcia, however, she’s in Europe so he was teaching the class with the help of another girl. We started with finding the right sensation for the upper body (partner helping with certain moves), and then the lower body – hips and feet. We continued with walking and changing the direction by two different techniques- with the chest first or with the hip first. The next step was to understand the spirals (or how a woman works) so we did lots of exercises for the spirals to finish practicing the sequence of apertura, sacada for a man, then the spiral in one direction, after 3 steps in the other direction to finish with a sacada backward for a woman to a man, part of giro, sacada for a man combined with small volcada… sounds long and complicated, but in reality it was pretty simple and perfect for practicing the disasociation, the groundness of supporting leg and relaxation of the embrace.

El motivo (the tango school in which only women are teaching) practica (@ Villa Malcolm, Av. Cordoba 5064, 8 pesos)
–much less crowded than the Friday practica in the same place, friendly atmosphere. A place to dance tango nuevo rather than traditional salon or milonguero.

Parakultural milonga (@ Salon Canning, Scalabrini Ortiz 1331, 15 pesos)
–the milonga starts to warm up around midnight and then only becomes more and more crowded. Almost everyone is here on Monday. There’s no division for men and women, tables are mixed. Traditionally cabaceo works, however if you see your friends or you know someone well you can walk up to the table as well.