Oh, how I love Jorge Firpo. He's part of my tango crime-fighting team! In this clip, he's doing a class demo with one of his students, and as usual when Firpo dances, he's awesome.
This is what a weekend should feel like. Dance, my moustached pretty! Dance!
Second round of the Milonga division. I have my favorites; do you?
(I also have some least favorites that make me question how they managed to squeak through into the second round, though what I can find of the first round is inconclusive and so I can't see how good the pool was prior to this.)
(This is, of course, on the context of Best Milonga Couple in the World; any social leader could look like any one of these guys and that would be absolutely fine with me. Aaaaabsolutely fine.)
PS. My favorite couple won. Yay! (I had no idea what their names were, and had to identify them by their outfits. I am clearly very knowledgeable. They're the couple in tan/leopard.)
HAHAHAHAHAAHA how did they manage to even dance in front of that panel? If confronted with all those people, I would have a heart attack and die. And then worry they would critique my death technique. I am having a panic attack just looking at that list of names.
When I'm changing into my tango shoes, I take off a street shoe and grab the first tango shoe I can get hold of inside my bag. (It's a big bag, not your normal shoe bag.) No matter what street shoe I remove first, I pull out the tango shoe for the corresponding foot.
Magically.
I mean, sure, it's not levitation or anything, but being able to blindly change tango shoes in under thirty seconds is pretty cool when you're switching shoes all night. I consider it a power, much in the way there was an X-Men miniseries comic where Dazzler's powers overwhelm her in a huge metaphor for drug addiction, and she goes to mutant rehab after burning out, and some girl at rehab has the mutant power to change the color of a flower she's holding, and Dazzler thinks about how nice it is that not all mutants have destructive crazypants powers.
Yeah, I didn't leave the house much as a kid.
P.S. I think Dazzler, whose power was turning sound into light, should probably not have been quite so pensive about useless mutant powers, is all I'm saying.
Anyway, that awesome mutant tango power aside, the tangocoastercontinues to roll along. I have a great axis! Oops, I have no axis. I have steps like Corina! I step like a duck. My leading's amazing! Except when it's not. I'm totally awesome! Oh, wait, no, I'm The Suck.
That rhymes, but I didn't notice until I was finished with it and I'm not changing it. We'll all just pretend I'm Dr. Seuss.
It's been a little while since I posted, and there are two things in the Bastardy Grump category I feel I need to address:
Firstly. Followers, when you are doing a back ocho, you really need to collect your feet. If you don't collect your ankles and swing your straight leg backwards, you are not making an ocho but a shallow planeo. And if it's Pugliese, or space and the music allow, a nice shallow planeo looks beautiful. (A deep planeo looks like stage tango, or, if poorly executed, like you're ducking a low-level aircraft.) It's a very nice adornment. But I know you're not doing 16 planeos a tanda as adornments, and the people you're tripping know that, too. Ankles and insteps, followers. Take all my other snarking with a grain of salt, but you really can't go wrong with this one. Ankles and insteps.
Secondly. Leaders. I understand you know how to do twenty great moves. The thing is, you don't need to know twenty great moves. You know what a follower is fine with? This:
This is the best of both worlds. You get to look smooth and confident and still show off your cross-track and sacada skills. She gets to walk nicely, do a few little adornments, and feel like she's listening to the music with you, not just following because of you.
(Seriously, people, tango is not driving a car or directing a follower. Tango is a conversation. The language is music, and the topic is whatever you two decide. It's not a monologue with an audience. The follower is half the dance; don't forget her.)
This is a much calmer point than it could be, because I had the pleasure of thinking about this while appreciatively watching a leader with this style, as opposed to my normal M.O., which is watching (and wanting to strangle) guys who insist on gancho/sacada combinations all the time.
I'm traveling on business tomorrow, so there's no tango for me this weekend unless I can find some in Town. (Not the same Town. Town B, I guess. I'm bad at this game.) However, given my luck with finding tango in capital-T Towns, I'll probably just spend the weekend YouTubing.
What did sequestered tango people do before YouTube?
Recently I attended the New York Summer Tango & Film Festival; I wasn't going to say anything out of the ordinary about it, because while it's nice, it's not the kind of festival I would tell people to go out of their way for; I will be making the trip back if the rumors about the October festival are true (JULIO Y CORINA OMG), but otherwise New York can mind its own business.
However.
I took a few classes with Alejandra Arrue & Sergio Natario. They taught intermediate/advanced level classes in vals, milonga lisa, milonga traspie (eee!), and musicality. I didn't catch them all, because I'm stupid and I sleep late, but they are some of the best classes I've ever had. They yell at you, they kick your feet into the correct position, they call the class "children". They've been dancing tango together for years -- 22 years? 23 years? I didn't catch it, I was busy trying to place my foot before they came over and kicked me again -- and it shows.
If you are in Seattle, or going to Seattle, TAKE A PRIVATE WITH THEM. For my sake, if not for your own. They are taskmasters, they are passionate, and they have given me things that will change the way I dance. If I had known, I would have taken two hours a day with them, and I am not even kidding. It would have been worth the money three times over. I've already been complimented on the way I hold my axis now, after two days of group class. *kicks self for not taking privates, envies anyone in Seattle right now*
Here's them dancing Morena, and you guys - you know that Julio and Corina are my SVF (Stalking Victims Forevah!), but Alejandra and Sergio might be creeping up on them. Seriously.
(This isn't the version I saw during the Black and White Ball, but still! Morena!)
People who can dance actual Milonga instead of just Fast Tango are my double absolute favorite.
Women who can follow Milonga instead of just Fast Tango are my triple absolute favorite.
Men who can lead Milonga instead of just Fast Tango are my quadruple favorite. (There are, like, three in my community! THREE! WHITHER, you guys, seriously!)
People whose feet move like little hovercrafts are my favorite, favorite, favorite.
This is Flaco Dany and Silvina Valz. When I make it to Buenos Aires I'm totally taking his milonga classes as a leader. He allows it without fuss, which makes him a cool cat.
I've already taken a few classes with Silvina, and she's one of the few people in front of whom I got absolutley starstruck and tongue-tied. I mean, I'm a bastardy grump, we all know this, but usually I can summon a "Oh, hello!" if someone greets me. The first time I saw Silvina in a social setting after class went like this:
Silvina: Hi! Me: ...............
I just couldn't think of anything to say that didn't involve me leaping on her and shouting wildly, "SHOW ME THAT THING YOU DO WITH YOUR FEET!"
Not that it would make much difference; I think she could show me for the rest of her life and I wouldn't get it.
ANYWAY, ignoring my crippling social problems, here's the video.
I had a big long entry I was going to post about the difference between leading and leaders, but I'm sitting on it for the moment because it's a little grumpy even for me.
I have to remember sometimes that very few people are taking tango as seriously as I take it, so when they see a bad leader they think, "Man, he sucks," and go on with their day. Meanwhile, I feel physically pained that the guy is corrupting the dance with his awfulness and have to resist the urge to immediately eliminate him from the dance pool. Perforado, bitches!
I'm getting all worked up just thinking about it. *takes a deep breath*
Tango was supposed to be my therapy, not drive me to it. Hahahah WHOOPS.
In the meantime, enjoy Samantha Dispari and Andres Moreno as they prove that they are way better than you.
Still traveling, sending you this report from the field:
Alicia Pons has some of the most amazing feet in the world. (This means the expression of the two feet she was born with, and not some disembodied collection of feet in her basement or something, that's not what I'm implying.)
For women wondering about alternatives to the Geraldine style, check this out; just as skillful, and probably a lot easier to use on the social dance floor since a lot of it is about musicality and pointing the toes and not so much about the kicking. I love the kicking, don't get me wrong, but this stuff is a lot less risky, and it's so elegant. I mean, just look.
It's everyone's favorite victims-o-stalkin', Julio y Corina!
My favorite thing here is the musicality - with the exception of a few awesome back sacadas that Julio can do because he's Julio and you're not, it's all just walking/crossing/ochoing/giroing, but the way they both clearly know the song, they way he comes back to refrains in the steps, and the way he bobs his left hand around like he's having SO MUCH FUN he just can't hold still, which would make me want to smack anyone else, but since he's my BFF I'll let it go.
So, a gentleman posted in a comment to a video of two women dancing, qualifying women leaders on criteria other than "ability" and "body odor". And he had the very bad judgement to do so on my blog.
I think you'll agree with me when I say: Mistake!
For those who don't want to go scrolling all over, the comment in its entirety is pasted below:
"She leads very well, she have great musicality (in milonga!), and she is hot... I dont know if i have to feel threatened by her (and her kind of girls) or just excited about such dancers. But I know one thing: I REALLY want to dance with her sometime. Probably it will be a little difficult, because I find that women who often leads aren't "flexible" (I can think in a better word) in her follow. But it sure must be a pleasure =). I use to think that women who leads don look good, but some girls I knew, prove me wrong. Great video!"
Now, this gentleman commented to an earlier post and made it known he's Argentine, so I'm not going to ding him on grammar or anything, because let's face it, I can ding his content plenty.
2) Who else loves the idea that because she's hot, she's not as threatening as some more mannish women leaders? That's pretty awesome. (See #1.)
3) Women who lead aren't as "flexible" if they lead regularly. Interesting thought. I'm not going to conjecture the word he meant, because I think he means "pliable" and that would make me spitting mad, so we'll give him a pass here.
I would like to point out, however, that 99% of professional female tango dancers know how to lead, for teaching purposes if for nothing else, and they're probably flexible enough to suit most people. If this isn't enough, I'd like to refer the statement about "frequent female leading = bad following" to Fabienne Bongard, Sharna Fabiano, Rebecca Shulman, Valeria Solomonoff, andBrigitta Winkler, members of the all-female tango troupe Tango Mujer, and not bad as followers go.
Yeah, yeah, I'm all videos and no talk these days, I promise I have really haunting revelations soon that will change your life, mend the hole in the ozone, and get the red wine stains off your shirt. (You crazy klutz!)
But I had to post this, for obvious reasons. Pointed out to me on Fishnets and Fedoras by one of my favorite followers, who is now trying to get me to lead in heels. She's funny. And delusional.
I would have shown you earlier today, but I was in the fetal position crying because I will never, ever, ever be as good as THIS SIX YEAR OLD.
I mean, she can also probably read and build sand castles, which means I can't beat her in ANYTHING. This six-year-old has left me in the dust. Thanks a lot, small person!
I should have made this a shout-out on Father's Day, but my father never taught me to tango, so I'm all mad and don't want to wait.
You can pretty much name this clip "How to Take The Embrace, Walk to the Cross, and Look Good Doing It. And Some Other Stuff." Because that first thing is about twenty seconds, and the clip is longer than that. But really, this is Tango 101 type stuff. Plus, the longer it goes the better it gets; the elasticity from close embrace to slightly more open; the embellishments for her and him, the musicality...
...I seriously wish these guys would adopt me. Then together we could work on tango a lot. And fight crime! I'd end up being the snarky sidekick who gets captured a lot, I recognize that, but sometimes the snarky sidekick ends up getting her own comic book where she gets to explore her origin story at the hands of mad scientists and stuff! So that would be fun, too, if the tango part didn't work out.
Okay, so, sometimes a milonga comes on and people are like, "...the hell is this?", which means it's a canyengue.
Canyengue is the predecessor of milonga, which is the predecessor of tango, which is the predecessor of that scene in Moulin Rouge which was okay at the time but has become the background music for a thousand Smallville fanvids that clog my YouTube searches, and so now I think it's evil.
(Also, if you ever want a laugh, search for "tango roxanne music", and click on one of those random music videos. Look for: hilariously unlikely subject matter - anime, star wars, ice skating (!) - and even better if you get one with terrible spelling. "Kate luvs Sawyer + Jack who will she choose?? song is tango de roxanne from moulin rouge - TRUTH AND LOVE 4EVER!")
Ahem. Sorry about that. Back to my point - CANYENGUE!
Most people dance milonga to canyengue. That's okay. No negative points for doing that. However, if the lady turns her head so it's looking the same direction as the man's head, they drop their joined hands, and they catch the rhythm correctly, it's one million squillion positive Planchadora points.
Here's a demonstration of all the little beats and unique steps that make up a good canyengue. The camera also lingers on their upper bodies, and for two reasons:
1) Their upper bodies maintain the same structure and posture required of tango, milonga, and all the other dances. No shimmying!
2) He has a really kicky little chapeau going on.
So, the next time a canyengue comes on, now you know. Drop your hands, turn your heads, and ric-tic-tic.
The thing is, that's not an insult. It's beautiful BECAUSE it's nothing fancy. It's just two people and the music - no flying boleos or crazy flinging or over-the-head hand-tosses, just old-school tango milonguero.
This should be played in all beginner/intermediate tango classes when people start asking to learn figures, you know?
Here, past the wilderness of Patagonia, beyond the arid plains of the Obelisk, lives the most elusive of all creatures: the porteno. Usually glimpsed only in captivity, the porteno is a fabled creature whose full glory is rarely seen.
However, careful study rewards the devoted, and here, an amateur photographer has managed to capture two exquisite specimens in their natural habitat.
