Dancing Soul

Rude people on the dance floor

When annoying men try to teach on the dance floor (and yes, I know women do this too), I have found I have a limit to my politeness.  When one French man informed me that I had anticipated a step, I said nothing, but when he REPEATED it at the end of the tanda: "You anticipated one step."  One step in the tanda!!  I am afraid I told him that it was rude to criticize on the dance floor, and that I had not said anything about his mistakes, but rather, had fixed them. Grrr.

The other rude man--as opposed to those who are trying to be helpful--was at Nino Bien.  An awful Argentine dancer hauled me around the floor, and then suggested I go to La Viruta to learn that style of dance.  It was obvious he didn't care whether I was enjoying the dance, and he didn't bother try to adjust at all: he just pulled me in tighter and higher, until I could barely keep my feet on the floor.  I smiled at him and told him that good technique works with everyone, and walked away. Grrr.

I have taught dance for 25 years, and I would never dream of saying things like that to another dancer while dancing socially!!! Shame on them.

 

We really shouldn't go back to the shoestore . . .

Street fairs: San Telmo, Recoleta, and the non-existent Plaza Italia fair

After seventeen years in Eugene, I feel pretty much "done" with Saturday Market artesanal fair and street fairs in general. However, on a sunny day, wandering around the city by perusing blocks and blocks of street vendors is a nice way to spend some time.

San Telmo

Our first Sunday was sunny and warm: perfect for going to the street fair.The fair is a combination of artesanal objects for sale (clothing, jewelry, art), antiques, tourist gear (magnets, Tshirts, tango CDs)  and made-in-China things sold by Bolivians.

I didn't end up buying anything, but Gayle had a lot of fun with artwork. In fact, we had an epic search for a bank machine, as the only one I knew in the area (at Plaza de Mayo) was down for repairs. Even the sellers had no idea where to go for money, as they didn't live in the area. In the end, we identified several in walking distance of the fair with help from Gayle's iPhone; got money; and made several artists happy.

My favorite was Oscar Divito, from whom Gayle bought a beautiful painting (acrylic on canvas). Check out his work on his link. Warmhearted, gracious, nice person AND art. He is usually at Defensa and Alsina (a bit towards the Casa Rosada from Alsina).

This street fair is huge compared to ten years ago: it used to stretch a few blocks in all directions from Plaza Dorrego at Defensa and Humberto Primo. Now, it starts at Defensa where it meets the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada (the equivalent of the White House, but it's pink), and continues all the way to Plaza Dorrego. Wow!

Recoleta

Recoleta street fair is at Plaza Francia: it's not actually on a street. Instead, booths are set on winding paths starting in front of Recoleta Cemetary and stretching down the hill. This fair reminds me a lot of Saturday Market in Portland and Eugene: there were Brazilian drummers, a smell of pot, hippie girls, etc.

The offerings are similar to Saturday Market, too. I saw a LOT of crocheted tops, leather handbags, ceramic mugs and jewelry. However, there were some very beautiful handcrafts. The most beautiful were the handcrafted marionettes, which I would have bought to take home if I had had any money left by that time; after the bank search the weekend before, I didn't want to repeat the forced march around the neighborhood.

Sublime Cueros had a nice selection of leather boxes and knickknacks. They also very fun jewelry boxes shaped like mini chests of drawers in bright colors. Pretty! There were many other leather workers as well.

Plaza Italia

Ten years ago, Plaza Italia had a big street fair. I hadn't checked it out for ten years, so we hopped in a taxi and went across town to check it out. The other street fairs have decimated the population of this fair. Can you call something a street fair when there are only ten booths, and only five are populated? Very disappointing.

There is a street fair here, but it is only used books. If you are interested in used books, you could probably spend all afternoon wandering through the booths. It strikes me as much smaller than the book fair along the Seine in Paris, and it is not nearly as picturesque. However, if you want used books, there they are. Personally, I would choose to hit the used bookstores around the Corrientes and Callao area.

My friend Alejandro from college recommended a huge bookstore, El Ateneo for my buying pleasure, but as I found out about it Saturday night, and it was closed Sunday, and Monday was a holiday, I don't think I'm going to make it over there today :-(

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving 2011: The best night I've ever had in Bs As

Ok, that was the best night of dancing I've ever had in Buenos Aires, perhaps in my entire life in tango!!!  And at Niño Bien (Humberto 1, 1462)! We arrived at the beginning, right at 10:30. We didn't get good seats, but it didn't matter! Oh, dear, too many exclamation points, but that's how I feel: the good dancers finally found me! For Thanksgiving, I am thankful that people made up this awesome dance and spread it around the world.

I danced with a man with whom I had a great tanda of Pugliese the night before, plus a DiSarli set last night. I have no idea what we danced tonight, but we danced even better together. Then another guy in a suit grabbed me. He had only danced nine years, but nine years in Buenos Aires is like dog years are to human years. Then two younger guys who had been intently watching me asked me to dance over the course of the next few tandas, and they were great! I think I've forgoteen another good dancer who helped make my night.

It's not that I didn't have mediocre tandas: I did boy scout tandas with a few foreigners and one Argentine man. However, they didn't get in the way of the really good sets. No one was horrible; even the foreigners for the most part were musical, if beginners. Also, having led in Niño Bien myself, I know how crazy it gets to navigate between the old guard being pushy and the foreigners being clueless. I think that the fact that even this milonga is less crowded, made it danceable all night, whereas it used to become impossible for about an hour in the middle of the evening.

What made tonight memorable was musicality. All the good tandas were led with very few complex steps, but with high affinity for the music and intimate knowledge of the songs. One guy complimented me, saying that it was unusual for a woman to know the music (he apologized and said people, but I think he meant that people who don't lead don't listen to the music sometimes). The old milongueros called out "Esa!" when I nailed an ending right in front of a bunch of them (YES!).

It's almost 4 am and I need to go to sleep because I have a massage at 10 am, but I'm so jazzed up that I don't know if I can sleep. Happy, happy, happy.

Milongas: finishing out the first week

Things are different this year in Buenos Aires. The high inflation rate has made everyone tighten their belt a bit, especially the elderly. A few men who I danced with last year have told me this year that they no longer go out nightly. They now go out two or three times a week instead. The difference is obvious in some of the milongas that had been preserves of the older guys. There are more women per male dancer than before. There is a higher percentage of foreigners than before. Also, there are simply gaps in the ranks: empty tables at places that never had empty tables.

Monday

Monday at "Maipu" (La Nacional, Alsina 1465) was packed full, more than any other milonga so far. I have been used to all milongas looking like this. The organizers said that tons of tourists are here right now, making it difficult to seat everyone. We were seated way in the back because we got there late, but one of the organizers, Dany, took a liking to me and made sure that some guys headed our way. Over the course of the night, we got to dance more and more, and ended up dancing continously by the end of the evening. Still, the ratio of foreigners to locals was high, especially later in the evening.

The organizer took a picture of me posing with one of his friends. He told the guy that he was going to cut that part of the picture out and keep the part with me in it. His friend told him that the camera was going to break and other stuff like that. I like it when the guys get silly together.

Tuesday

Tuesday at El Beso (Riobamba 416) was a workout in terms of cabeceo. Again, we were put in the last row, with two rows of women in front of us; mostly foreigners. Luckily a few guys we knew already saw us, and came to get us to dance, because the male:female ratio was off. I think it is due to the higher cost of going dancing because the bar area was almost empty, and it used to be where all the guys stood who could not get tables; it used to be standing room only.

A little old Argentine guy got stuck back in the corner, and spent a lot of time mumbling about "how dare they do that to me, when they put the young guys up in front?" but the waiter told me he knew the guy couldn't dance. Ouch! Does that mean he thought WE couldn't dance? I'll show him.

I had a really special tanda with a guy called Eugenio. I had danced with him Saturday night. He is not an advanced dancer by any means, but has a really good sense of rhythm, nice musicality--and awful floorcraft. He asked me if I had a husband, and I told him I had a son and a boyfriend; and asked him the same questions. He said he had two grown children, but that his wife had passed away after 35 years of marriage. He told me that was ten years ago, and then pulled out his phone and showed me her picture: the wallpaper on his phone. I tried to tell him how lucky he was to have had the love of his life married to him for that long, and he answered, "Lucky? Lucky? She died!!" The next song of the set was really emotional, and so was our dance. It felt completely different from the other songs in the tanda. I almost burst into tears myself, and I could tell he was struggling. Wow.

I had seen a guy from California walk in, and had avoided a cabeceo because we didn't do well on the dance floor the night before. However, when the rock 'n roll set came on, he was standing up, bouncing around, so I figured he could dance that. Yes! We did a good swing, and then an awesome salsa. It felt good to cut loose a bit and shake it! Much as I love tango, I don't think I could ever abandon my other dancing because it gives me other things that tango does not.

Just before we left, Gayle had changed her shoes, and I was walking over to change my shoes, when a few guys gave us grief about leaving before the end of the milonga. After all, we hadn't even looked at them! I told them we'd been sitting there all night, and they hadn't invited us to dance. "That's not our fault! It's the woman's fault! You didn't look at us at all!" True: I hadn't seen them at all. He handed my shoes to Gayle and dragged me out on the dance floor for a tanda. Strange, but fun.

Wednesday

Wednesday at "Mi Refugio" (La Nacional, Alsina 1465), there were a quarter of the people who went last year. Last year, this was our favorite night at La Nacional. This time, we had danced with all the men who were not in partners by midnight and were on to repeating ourselves, but we waited for the exhibition. Most of the men left before the exhibition, too, leaving only the young kids (mostly beginners) at one table, some tourists, couples, and maybe six available men.

The woman next to me danced one dance the whole night, and I never saw her friend get up from the table. Gayle and I danced most of the time, but that included accepting a cabeceo from the not-very-good Argentine boy after he stalked me for part of a tanda; it's hard to say no when all the women around you are poking you, saying, "He's looking at YOU."

Our amusement for the evening was a young German girl who was seated with us. While I was dancing, she announced to Gayle that it was hard to find a teacher because she was "a very good dancer!" She preferred the awful dancer to good dancers, but sat most of the night because she was not a very good dancer. Young, yes. Skinny, yes. Beautiful, yes. Good dancer? Not yet.

Day Five and Six: Shopping!

Monday was an orgy of shopping. First, we went to Tango 8 (Lavalle 3101 near the Abasto). I think we tried on 10% of the store!

Tango 8 does not organize by size at all. Much of the tango clothing available here is "one size fits all" and the assumption is that stretchy fabric will accommodate to your body. Most of the clothes were divided into skirts, dresses, tops--but that was it. There was one section of plus sizes that was not there in 2010. I found that many of the clothes "fit" for here in Buenos Aires, but would be considered revealing in the United States. Also, I've learned to look at how great silver snakeskin lycra looks on me--and not to buy it.

The service is almost non-existent, despite the fact that we went early and had the shop to ourselves most of the time. in fact, the salesgirls stood at the counter and watched from a distance while we waded through all the clothes.

We made an appointment at Asignatura Pendiente (Corrientes y Junin). They no longer have a shop, but instead have a showroom where they can concentrate on clients one at a time. I don't think that made it more efficient for us, since we ending up trying on a LOT more clothes that way. We both found some nice clothes, and they are well-made and pretty. At the end, we spent an hour trying to see if my credit card had gone through because their machine acted up, and they couldn't get any technical support to address the problem. In the end, we left with the understanding that, if it had not gone through, they would call me and I would pay them in cash. A very frustrating experience, but I can't think of any business at home that would have trusted a complete stranger to give them email and check back later on $150 of clothing. Nice folks.

Neotango (Sarmiento 1938), visit #2 (or is it #3?). I went to buy shoes for my sweetie and amused the salesman by trying them on because we wear almost the same size. In the end, I bought two sizes and I'll sell the other pair. Same as the their shoes for women, I think these are well-made. The cost is the same, and I'm sure these take a lot more leather; perhaps the difference is in time to make the fancy strappy shoes?

Shoe repair (Sarmiento 1882): How convenient that the shoe repair place is a block from Neotango! We can buy shoes, drop them at the shoe repair to put suede on the bottoms, and go out for coffee, all in one block!

Euro Records (Lavalle 2039, piso 1) is also the home of the Buenos Aires Tango Club, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation and diffusion of traditional tango music. I got a tip from a British dancer who had been there when I told him that I couldn't locate Donato and Lomuto CDs in the stores. WOW! The music historian who runs it knows so much about the music, the orchestras, the history of each disc. His helper runs the computer side of things and also speaks English. I hadn't meant to buy any discs, but I bought five or six: Lomuto, Donato, Rodio, Buzon . . . I had to stop. If you are going to buy music, check this place out. They are open 12-6 Monday-Friday. It has a poorly marked door with a buzzer, and all you can see is a security door and stairs, but you are in the right place.

 

 

For my foodies (you know who you are!)

Friday night, we ate at La Americana (Bartolome Mitre y Callao), an empanada and pizza place. Arriving around 1 am, the place was PACKED with noisy friends and family groups. I ordered one of my favorites (veggie) Pascualina tart. Traditionally eaten during Lent (thus the name), this swiss chard and egg wrapped in pastry, has been a favorite of mine since my first day in Buenos Aires in 1999, when my friend Silvana made this for dinner. Gayle had a Gallego de atun, a tuna, tomatoes and onion pie. We both had a glass of wine and finished off dinner with a flan mixto, my favorite dessert of all time: flan custard covered with whipped cream and dulce de leche. That might explain why it is 2 am and I am still awake: sugar! Dinner tonight was more reasonable than last night: 80 pesos for two people, or around $10 each.

This restaurant would work for vegetarians if they eat eggs and cheese. There were many pizzas available without meat, and some empanadas as well. One empanada was a veggie medley, but I was set on the Pascualina tart, so I didn't try it.

Saturday lunch, we ate at Punta Cuore, 2000 Rivadavia (Rivadavia y Ayacucho). Gayle liked this one the best so far. I had grilled fish with steamed veggies (carrots, zucchini, winter squash and baby potatoes): 33 pesos. She had a big Caprese salad (tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil with black olives): 35 pesos. Trapiche malbec cost the same as the house red, so she ordered that: 16 pesos. With bottled water, 120 pesos for 2 people, plus tip. Nice service, nice and quiet, nearby . . . we will be back!

Sunday lunch, we went to the San Telmo street fair and ate at The Puerto Rico Cafe, Alsina 416, in San Telmo. They have a little tango show there in the afternoons which we did not stay for (free, I think they said). We had broccoli and mushroom tart, and ham/cheese tart, and coffee. The broccoli was amazingly good. The coffee was also really good.

After dancing Sunday night, we tried to go to La Espanol (Alsina y Rincon) in Congreso, but it was closing for the night at 12:30!! I had never noticed that a lot of places close early on Sundays before. Ten years ago, I used to go to La Espanol a lot because it was one of the few places my boyfriend could afford (Argentine men don't usually like women to pay for dates). It is the place where he and his friends dared me to eat various meat things, and afterwards told me what body part I was eating. Ugh.

SO, we wandered over to Cafe de los Angelitos (Av. Rivadavia 2100 (esq. Rincón). The kitchen was closed, but we were able to order a tostado mixto (toasted ham and cheese), a small bottle of wine and mineral water. The waiter told us about the tango show that happens every evening and gave us cards with reservation information on them. 80 pesos including tip.

I have abandoned my attempt to remain gluten-free in Buenos Aires, and I am enjoying the pastries!

 

 

Day three: Shopping, dancing and cab drivers

Shopping

Today we wandered over to Zival's (Corrientes y Callao). I wanted "Noche de Cabaret" with Varela's orchestra, which I found on a nice double CD. Gayle wanted Donato's "El Gato" milonga, which was not there. The guy at the information counter said, "It's not our fault we don't have it! If it isn't produced, it's not available." I already had the Donato CD that was there, and so did Gayle. No Lomuto at all :-(  We agreed today was not the day to browse in the store: we will save that for a rainy day when we have nothing to do.

We dropped our shoes off at the shoe repair to get cromo (suede) on the soles on two pair a piece. I have some plain and some with cromo, so if I go somewhere where the floor is sticky, I take leather soles, and for slippery floors, cromo. We will get them back by Tuesday, which is way better than the place I found last year that took a week. I forgot to photograph them before they were dropped off, but I promise to do that ASAP Tuesday.

Grr...I wrote six more paragraphs, and the internet went down when I pressed save.  Grr.

I bought practice shoes at Fabio Shoes for leading. My old men's ballroom shoes have finally worn through the leather after about fifteen years of use. These have a Cuban-style heel, but a bit higher than a man's Cuban heel. I am not sure if I like them; I may sell them. I am so used to using men's shoes for leading, that these seem a little frivolous!

Dancing

Tonight we went to Cachirulo, but in a new location. Last year, it was a short shot down Corrientes to get to Maipu. Now, it's a twenty-minute taxi ride (30 pesos) to the Villa Malcom Sports Club (Cordoba 5064). Since it was pouring rain, we abandoned our walk to the subte and grabbed a taxi.

When we arrived, the ration of men to women was perhaps 1:15 or 1:20, and it did not improve much. We were seated in the second row and on the end, where it was almost impossible to see the men for cabeceo. Given those odds, it's probably a miracle that we each danced six or seven tandas. There were a lot of women who we never saw get on the dance floor, and who left early, only to be replaced with more women.

The level of dancing was higher than at Nino Bien or Entre Tango y Tango. It wasn't that there were better dancers per se, because a lot of the same guys were at Friday and Saturday dances. However, there were fewer lower-level dancers, both male and female, so the entire room looked good dancing (apart from some scary dresses, but that's another story). The musicality was more evident because the whole room moved better together. A few guys crashed in the middle, but most danced competently in two rows around the outside.

When we left, a guy teased us about leaving early. Gayle decided to give him a hard time back, and made me tell him she had waited all night to dance with him. He promised to dance with us tomorrow, as we are going to the same place. Then, a salsa came on, and I danced in my street shoes right there in the back of the room with him. I needed that! I often play hooky from tango in Bs As and go salsa dancing one night while I'm here (Azucar Club is good).

Cab drivers in Bs As

I am fond of cab drivers here in Buenos Aires. I don't know if they are as well-spoken and educated in other places because I usually walk places or take the bus when I'm out of Portland. Here, get them talking, and watch them go!

On the way to the dance, we got a cab driver who talked about the traffic and how it's changed in the past ten years. On the way back, we hit a gold mine of economic information. It's amazing how commenting on the weather, or the traffic, or the temperature morphs into an interesting discussion.

On the way home, the cabbie sat in front of our destination for about five minutes, still talking about the past twenty years in Argentina. I tried valiantly to keep up the translation for Gayle while listening and converting it to English in my head. Here are the salient points for thought:

• Because of recent events in Argentine history, Argentines are realists. They don't live in a bubble that is going to explode and make them face reality, as he feels folks do in Europe and the USA.
• Since so many bad things happened to individuals in Argentina during the dictatorships, everyone knows that you need to work in solidarity with friends and family and other Argentines to fight for rights. He feels that Americans are concerned only with themselves, and can't work together like this because we haven't experienced enough crisis for us to mature yet.
• With the hyperinflation in the 1980s of 300-400% per month, the current 10-15% is nothing. He said they can get through this with no problem because everyone remembers how much worse it was before.
• He told us about how money was not circulating at all at one point, and people went to fairs and bartered goods in order to eat. He said only six people had work on his block, and each would get a different product and share, in order to survive.
• In 2008, the government took steps to inject money into the local economy. He feels that they have been "immunized" to withstand the current global slide, and suggested that if Argentina took a leadership role, we could reduce the global crisis.

I find this impressive, as an "immature" American who does not know statistics for my own country's economic state during my lifetime. It's time to get educated!

Day Two: Shoes!

Thanks for all the comments on FB about what you all want to hear. I've made a list. Alisan gets first dibs because we went shoe shopping. Between the two of us, we bought seven pairs of shoes today.

Neotango (Sarmiento 1938) is near where we are staying, so we went there first. In 2010, they didn't have any shoes that fit me the whole time I was here, so I tried on a bunch and bought two pair (the pewter ones to replace the same ones I had already), and turquoise, which was NOT on my list, but fit perfectly. Last year, shoes cost about 420 pesos a pair. This year? 590 pesos a pair. Oy!

What a clusteryouknowwhat! There were a dozen people all trying to buy shoes at the same time, but then it cleared out and we had the salesman to ourselves. They were helpful and friendly (not the case in 2010). I'm going back before I leave to buy at least one more pair.

Artesanal (Anchorena 537) near the Abasto, appeared to have fewer shoes than last year, but they said they had merely rearranged the shop. I only found one pair that fit with the heel I prefer: black patent leather with polkadots on the front. I'm not a polkadot girl, but when things fit this well, I go shopping for outfits after I get the shoes! There, Gayle found a pair on sale for 380 pesos, but my new models cost me 620 pesos for the pair; I forget if that was the cash discount or not.

The saleslady remembered me and my quest for shoes for wide feet last year; it's nice to be recognized, even if it's for fat feet.

So, shoes are around $130/pair, instead of $110/pair like last year. Sigh. Perhaps I will buy fewer pair than I had intended.

We are going to photograph our shoes tomorrow, and post them with another round on shopping, so stay tuned! I danced my lesson in my new pewter shoes, and went to the milonga in the turquoise ones. I am going to buy more shoes!!!!!

 

 

Day Two: Dancing

Another day spent with: "Come on, Ely! You used to know this!" and gentle scolding about not taking enough time to practice. It's nice when your teachers want you to become a better person as well as a better dancer ("Take time for yourself!"), so I am not complaining. I know that, by the time I leave, my dance will be better than ever before; but it's hard to do the tune-up part sometimes.

The focus today: finding just the right amount of stretch in the body while keeping the knees softer, so that all my pivots land on balance and don't ever lean toward the leader or move away. This is harder than it sounds, but I could feel the rightness of what they said, even though it took an hour and a half to really nail it. When I went to the milonga in the evening, I managed to dance correctly for about four tandas before I could no longer feel what was right. After that, it came and went for the rest of the evening.

I don't think it's cheating to go to the same place two nights in a row, especially when different folks inhabit the space. We went back to the Centro Cultural Leonesa (Humberto 1, 1462) for the late afternoon to evening milonga. Arriving at 8 PM, we missed the opportunity to sit across from most of the guys, and got put in a corner. However, as the guys had to walk past our corner if they wanted to get to the rest of the room, we were in a good space compared to where most tourists were stuck. I only sat out one tanda for the evening. After a lesson and 4.5 hours of dancing, my feet are tired, but I did all that in brand new shoes (more on that next post), so no complaints there.

Tonight made up for last night: mostly great dances, with the only not great dances being with folks from the USA and Europe. Another goal of mine: make North Americans dance musically!!! It was SO frustrating to feel more competent dancing than many of the old milongueros, but off the music. I prefer dancing the milongueros 4-5 steps, but really, really on the music.

My best musical tanda tonight was with a guy who kept grinning and saying, "Fun!" in between songs (kind of a goofball). However, we had danced one set before, and he told me he wanted to dance again. The music started, and I looked up, accepted his cabeceo from a distance far enough away that I could have said no, and got up to dance. It was Varela! I only started listening to Varela in the past few months (thanks, Vadym!), and I LOVED this tanda!

1. 1. Fueron Tres Años
2. Noche De Cabaret
3. Y Todavía Te Quiero
4. Y Te Parece Todavia

This made me feel wonderful because I knew what the orchestra was, and the old milonguero had no idea. Also, I played a set of Varela this summer when I was Djing, and I played two of these, so I really nailed the musicality for those. I had an amazingly musical set with an OK dancer who got into the energy/feeling of what I was feeling: wow again! I went up to the DJ when I left, and asked what he had played in the Varela set, because I had never heard #2 in the set. I think I like this better than Pugliese right now. I am going to buy some albums!

I missed out on chacarera because I forgot they played it at this milonga, and so did not set up a partner for it. However, I got a partner for part of the tropical set, and merengued my little heart out. I wish we played sets of salsa/cumbia/merengue and "rock 'n roll" (swing) at our milongas. Hmm.

A lovely evening out dancing!