13 enero 2008

Another weekend devoid of tango. The weather is gorgeous here in the Bay Area, unseasonably mild as the meteorologists describe it. Gives me a chance to recuperate. Right now I'm sitting in the Village Grounds café in Berkeley, one of my favorite wifi/java hotspots. Really wanted to go to the Turns/Lapiz workshops at La Pista with Marika & Avik, and to Roberto Riobo's workshops on Saturday but decided to pass to let my back heal. The cold is, fingers crossed, pretty much gone now. The back is better but still tender, especially when I sit for a while. When I get up I have to walk at a forward angle. Maybe I should consider this good exercise for apilado posture.

I did manage to get a few (very gentle) dances on Friday, when I visited Marcelo & Romina's milonga in Lafayette. They are good friends and mentors to me, and I credit Marcelo in particular as being the one who has most shaped my foundation and general philosophy of tango. They are freshly returned from BsAs, where they spent the holiday with family. In the meantime they squeezed in some performances at Salon Canning and La Ideal which I think showcase their current emphasis on elegance over flashiness (which they are also capable of).

Tomorrow (Monday the 14th) will be the Farewell Milonga for Roberto at the Slovenian Hall. Barring anything drastic I plan to be there. Whether or not I dance remains to be seen.

10 ene 2007

Recurrent maladies: this cold is like a loser trying to impress a date by attempting to scam his way into The French Laundry without a reservation.

"I made my reservation nine months ago, you must have lost it! No? Oh wait, that guy on the list, that's me, that's my code name. No? Come on, man, I'm really trying to impress this girl, I know she's the one, don't you believe in romance? No? Truth is, I'm dying, and before I go I want to experience the finest meal to be had on this cruel world..."

Also, I re-injured my back lifting a box yesterday, and now I teeter from an amorphous stiffness to sudden shooting bolts of electricity that make my knees buckle and my vision go white.

These are not ideal conditions for dancing :(

Ah well, they say you can practice by visualization. Here's something to visualize and aspire to. Perhaps the dancer who closest embodies the way I (try to) conceptualize my approach to the music. Gracias, maestro...

8 ene 2008

Didn't make it to The Beat, regrettably, especially after having told a few very good dancers we would meet there. One of whom I have never had the opportunity to dance with but whose style and poise I have long admired. But this is how it is with me. I have literally gone years with the intention of dancing with someone without ever having the right opportunity. Even now, there are several very prominent followers with whom I haven't had the pleasure of sharing a tanda. I don't think this is particularly the best way to go about it, it just builds the anticipation to a point where it would be difficult to live up to. Even so, I am rarely disappointed when we finally get together on the floor. Hopefully, it's the same on her end.

Had difficulty sleeping the night before, still had some residual pain in my back and had some odd rumblings in my belly. Woke up feeling like my guts were doing la ronda. Not severe, like a Troilo milonga tanda. Pretty mellow, say, a Canaro set. Good enough to go to work, but not good enough to plaster on a cheerful demeanor for my coworkers. Stomach slowly settled as the day wore on. Post work, had the intention of making it to the práctica--after a nap. We all know what a bad idea that is. Of course, I didn't get up in time. Ah well, the body needs what it needs and I've learned it's always best to listen because it will let you know.

Feeling better today but uncertain. It seems the m.o. for the currently circulating pathogen is to attack in waves. It's almost as if a bunch of different ones made a pact and have decided to back each other up. As such I'm not letting my guard down.

In the meantime, here is a link for a clip I've been much admiring lately. It's of a couple named Roxana Suarez and Sebastián Achaval doing a demo in Seoul. Disfruta!

7 ene 2008

My weekend:

Many hours in front of the tv under the covers in my sweats.

-Man, The Last Samurai is actually pretty bad, huh?

-So I guess triple axels are getting pretty routine in women's figure skating.

-I can't believe Jurassic Park is 15 years old. I remember the first time I saw The Graduate it was about 25 and that seemed ancient to me for some reason. Come to think of it, that was probably around the time that Jurassic Park was released. I am so old.

-Futurama rules.

Nighttimes I managed to tumble out of bed, hop in the shower and head to the call of the bandoneon. Saturday night was the inaugural Late Shift milonga at the Metronome, hosted by David and Mariana. I got there around 1, there was a good crowd circulating. D & M cozied up the place a bit by dragging a couple of couches to the sidelines and were serving hot pot stickers when I arrived. Everybody thought I had come from aMuse but no, I was just being cheap by waiting for the after 12:30 discount ($7, opposed to $10). Stayed until about a quarter past 3, later I would hear they ran about half an hour longer. Good music, good vibes. Plenty of space on the floor which assisted in a good flow.

Sunday to La Taza in Oakland, again a gathering I would describe as "intimate." Spent most of the time chatting with Mariana and got some insights into follower perspective, which always intrigues me. Danced my only dance of the weekend, one and a half milongas (D'Arienzo) with Elaine. Both of us were recuperating from something and taking it easy. Had a decaf and chocolate mousse which was decadent but perhaps a bit too rich and sweet for me, should have cut it with water or milk or something along those lines.

Tonight, will attempt The Beat, but will see how I feel...

5 ene 2008

Yesterday morning, the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge was dancing. Not so much a tango, though. More like a rumba, or maybe salsa. Lots of hip movement. Sitting at a standstill I watched the gray waves churning below, the waters of the bay leaping up towards the span like suicides in reverse. My head and stomach spun as the road shuddered and twisted beneath my car. Was late to work, sick from the motion as well as an impending cold which made my throat and sinuses feel like they had been dragged along asphalt, and also aggravated the tenacious back pain I've been nursing for a week. Much to my dismay, I found that even if I wanted to go home and recuperate I was stuck, as the bridge shut down in both directions shortly after I had disembarked. Not surprising, as I drove past an overturned big rig near the end of the westbound side--heard there were two in the other direction. Also, flooding all around me, in particular to the north which closed those roads. Got through the day with Airborne and Advil, then after clocking out I wend my way towards the East Bay by heading south, GGB to SF and then Bay Bridge east. Along the way, since it was convenient, stopped by Val 16 to pick up some dulce de leche and some alfajores. Later, would enjoy same with some nice hot maté (Taragüi, Sin Palos, which I feel is smoother than the regular kind and has much less powder). Today, feel significantly better, hopefully enough to attend the inaugural Late Shift milonga at the Metronome.

2 ene 2008

Well, that didn't take long.

Last night, the Hangover Milonga at La Pista, hosted by Ney, fresh from his travels eastward. A limited number of dancers in house, but he kept the chairs empty by evoking "Texas Rules": at least five couples dancing at all times, and since it was follower-heavy no leader gets to sit while a follower is waiting, else he calls last tanda. Was still coddling my back but felt much better about my dancing. I'm thinking perhaps the amount of free space affects my overall dance in a way that goes beyond the physical, that when I'm in a crowded room with difficult energy my mental focus gets stretched to the point where everything ends up functioning at a very low level. It's definitely a consequence of my reluctance to dance. You'd think I'd have accumulated enough experience to deal with tight spaces by now. Then again, it's not so much the amount of space as the consistency of flow. Give me a packed floor that moves well and I'm okay.

(Followers: unless you've had the chance to lead in a difficult space – though you may be sympathetic to the leaders' plight – you have no idea how difficult it can be. I know a top-notch follower who is of late devoting practice to leading, and after a night on a difficult floor she was flushed with exasperation as I've never seen her. "When you follow it's always so easy," she said. "Just close your eyes and dance. But leading... the middle of the floor is chaos, and the outer lanes don't move!")

But we all know leaders who can make the best of any situation, the ones who just seem to carve a path through the maelstrom and emerge as easily as through a fog. I don't know exactly how to do that, obviously. Some part of me suspects that you have to be willing to use your partner as a kind of wedge and that's not something I'd want to do. I've spoken to some leaders about this and voiced my concern about protecting my partner and being mindful of her space, and the responses I've gotten tend to indicate that they don't really worry about things like that. Which is not to say they don't take good care of their partners. They take responsibility for the couple primarily by dancing well, that's all. Simple, no?

1 ene 2008 - SATD (another tango neurosis).

Winter seems to be that magical time of year that saps the desire to tango. I've been feeling pretty burnt out lately, and in retrospect I have gone through tango funks during this season for the past few years. In conversation and in observation of noted absences it seems I'm not the only one. Also, when I was in BsAs this past June the tango scene was particularly slow. (I asked my friend Negracha, a prominent milonguera, if it was always like this at this time of year and she replied that while it's usually slower it was particularly bad this year). Porteño y Bailarin only had one of their dance floors open, and La Nacional had no more than ten people in attendance--including the performers--on the two separate occasions I visited.

What is it about winter? Is it that we're all just tired and cold and would rather stay at home? I think it must be more than that, because that wouldn't account for the blah feeling once we've--or at least for me--already made the effort to go out.

Right now, it's more than just an emotional/inspirational funk for me, though. Lately I've been having increased difficulty concentrating. Not just on my partner or even my own movements, but with the entire floor, the people around me, and even the music which I'm generally pretty familiar with. It's probably the last that is most troubling. My expression has trickled to a feeble vocabulary of utilitarian movements and my dance dynamic has been flatlining. I can't even remember most of the myriad possibilities that I've learned over the years, and what's worse I can't even seem to open myself up to exploring new possibilities, or even feel curious at transitional moments in the dance where ideally I'd think "what if?" And in milonga I can't play with the rhythm like I used to, I can't even seem to connect to the habanera on a basic level.

All I can do at this point is ride it out and trust that it will pass. But there is a part of me that wonders, do I even care all that much if it does, or does it really matter? (Obviously, the answer is yes to both if it's an issue at all, even if it's not for some part of my psyche). This part of me, the voice of apathy, has hindered me in just about everything I've ever gotten involved in. I'm sure it's the same story with everyone. I'll discover something and get really excited about it so I pursue it with brio, then all of a sudden the fire just peters out and I more or less just drop it. So far, tango has been one of the longest-lived of my passions and I guess that makes it more precious in a way, makes me more codependent on it. Because without tango I have no idea what I'd really feel passionate about. And a life without passion... well, the poets and the philosophers and the grand storytellers have expounded on that subject a lot better than I can right now.

***

So last night was the New Year's All-nighter at The Beat, and a grand time was had by all. Lots of ladies looking lovely, decked up in their fancy evening dresses and assassin heels. Dapper gents in their status wear. Me in my "once a year" suit, more for show than for practicality and comfort. Rina spiffed up the place with lots of little details, streamers at the entrance and various decorations hanging from the walls, and generally kept things functioning efficiently with that "Russian matron" energy of hers. Michelle kept the food stocked and presented with flavor and flair. The djs--Alli, Dan and Ben--keeping the energy moving in ways that were never predictable. Champagne at midnight, a somewhat timid rendition of Auld Lang Syne (assisted by a big poster of the lyrics put up by the always-thinking-ahead Dan), circulating kisses and best wishes. Coffee and cake at two for the ever grateful, fading diurnals. Me dancing relatively poorly with good partners and enjoying it nonetheless, just glad and appreciative for the sharing. I blame the aforementioned funk and the suit and the shoes and the fact that I did a leg workout the day before and my back was killing me. Those don't sound like excuses, do they?

At any rate, I wish everybody a great 2008, may your good tandas last five songs and your bad ones last two :)