La Nuit Blanche

The above is a Korean hair salon on 32nd Street, here in New York City. In Korean, it means: “Shall we cut?” As in, “Shall we dance?”

However, I have recently realized that, in Spanish, it means something else, entirely.

The revelations that descend upon you while walking the streets of Manhattan eating icecream, are simply amazing.

Children, you will have to forgive the enigmatic post prior.

What I like about blogging, is that I can write for many different kinds of readers. Friends and family… and penpals I have never actually met… and strangers… But most importantly, myself. Sometimes, I feel as if a great weight has been lifted off of me, just by putting something out there so intimate to my personal life, without explanation, without elaboration, understood only by myself and a very few people out there, for instance, my brother, who has known me most of my natural life, or perhaps, my mother, if she knew how to use a computer. And the fact that something was put out there makes me feel as if “it” has been exorcised. The nightmare. The nostalgia. The grump…

It is Spring, and I am cleaning out the swampy cobwebs.

I saw a major movie star make an impromptu appearance at my favorite milonga this past month. But true to New Yorker politesse, I will refrain from going ga-ga on my blog, and keep the name secret. And no, it wasn’t lame-o-Bullock…

I may have imagined it, but I thought I saw his face transformed as he watched the dancefloor, intently, his heart floating to Never Never Land, Chagall-style… Or it may have been the fairylights reflected in his eyes? I hear that he’s been taking private tango lessons. I wonder what sort of tanguero he would make?

We left him alone wth the music, and let him soak it all in. If he ever did become available on the dancefloor, there will be no fear of him getting ripped apart by ardent fans… It’ll take more than being a mere movie star for us saucy tangueras to be impressed by a man in the milongas. :-D

That’s what I love about being inside a milonga. I enter a completely different realm, away from MTV, away from Extreme Makeover Home Edition, away from bad electronically spliced R&B, away from Paris Hilton, Fashion Week, Michael Jackson’s nose, Takeshi Murakami LV bags. The grotesque glamour and plastic glitz of this city is silenced, painted over, made invisible, blotted out as non-entities.

The world is changed, and I can breathe again.

Music.
Floor.
Man.
Woman.
Tango.

It’s almost ridiculously child-like, don’t you think?

If the real world is like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, then the world of the milonga is like Lego…

…But memories are in color.

I know it comes maybe once in a lifetime.

And it has passed, for both of us, into nostalgia, mingled (always, don’t deny it) with regret.

(I saw it, the thing that encompasses the whole essence of you, that one thing that marks us unto death, the memories relived with the copies of copies of copies of people and places that we wish could replace the void it left inside of us when we realize it has gone away, irretrievably, into the past.)

Now I know I have never been your’s.

And someone else is here.

I think my seratonin levels must be so high right now, I am still floating about, daydreaming about the past weekend. I feel truly lucky to have been there, and to have had such a great experience during my first tango festival. I was dreading the first-timer’s hardships… The unfamiliar faces, the intimidating level of dancing, standing around not getting invitations, too shy to approach anyone… But thanks to some wonderful people (who are fast becoming friends), and a little bit of luck, I had an amazing time!

The trip wasn’t without its small mishaps: my temper flared once or twice… Then again, dear readers, you know what I’m like when something ticks me off. Ahem. In any case, I did feel spoiled… And so cared for… And so warmly welcomed… I shared some lovely moments with some beautiful people, talking about tango, about dance, about art, about shoes, jewelry, double-sided “dress” tape, having breakfast, taking cat naps, taking classes, sneaking liquor, squeezed between friends on the road trip… And all this with my Lover’s arms around me.

Some highlights of the festival for me, were (this is a personal Dear Diary list, so feel free to skip down to the end):

• Walking into the first milonga of the festival, and being awestruck by the high arched ceilings and wood panelling of Branford Dining Hall. Yale certainly provided us with a magnificent space to start out the weekend.

• Swallowing four orange seeds in my eagerness to accept a dance from a favorite tanguero M from my home city, and staring into his open mouth when he realized what I had done to hurry over. All the giggling made for a very playful tanda.

• Dancing to Di Sarli’s “Cornetín” (one of my favorite tangos of all time) with a beautiful tango goddess, my muse. She suddenly appeared before me, telling me I will dance with her now, because this is her favorite song, and no one else but Nuit will do. :) Dancing with her is like magic. And she was in 4-inch heels. Beat that, tangueros!

• I had a first time with a wonderful leader J from Michigan, and at the end of the set, I did not want to let go. My arms seem to have turned into velcro, and I kept hugging him with my eyes closed at the end of the song. I am surprised he didn’t feel compelled to peel my arms off from around his neck…

• You know the big tap after the high boleo in this video? I have always wanted to be able to do that, but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and also didn’t want to look like a dummy if it came out wrong. But the embellishment just came and happened, and to the music, and it felt incredible.

• Dancing with Sorin, at the afternoon practica, and being wowed. He taught me a Secret Trick, and I will be trying it on various tangueros at practica here in New York, hehe.

• I had my first real cabeceo from a tanguera, N, and she is truly delightful, not only as a follower (I just wish you could see her dance!), but as a leader. We even danced a milonga, and I can’t tell you how incredibly fun she is. This just confirms my suspicion that some of the best tango leaders in North America are women. She and my Lover were fighting over me after that first tanda, and I had a teeny tiny pleasureable moment of diva-liciousness.

• And oh yes… I danced two tandas with a tango master at the All Night Milonga. No, it was not a mistaken cabeceo, and no, I did not run towards him when he was walking in my general direction, which also happened to be the way to the bathroom. I was absolutely sure I was the one he asked, because he appeared out of no where from behind my chair, looked right at me from 3 feet away, and asked me if I was “going to just sit there, or dance with him tonight?” And I still couldn’t believe it. And ok, I’ll say it: he made me swoon. There was a wonderful buoyancy in the dance, like floating on liquid mercury… And I even left him with something to remember me by: a big purple mark on his beautiful white shoes, placed there by my stomping plum-colored Comme Il Fauts… and an accompanying big purple bruise on his toes. My very own special brand of Dance Hickey. :-D So it was incomprehensible to me that he invited me to dance again during the Brunch Milonga the next day.

In short, I danced so much I felt like a voodoo doll with pins and needles sticking into my feet and legs.

I felt an overwhelming swell of emotions during the last milonga at the end of the festival. When my Lover gave me a tender kiss on the nose during our last song together, I almost cried. I know… this may sound like one of my baroque exaggerations, but in truth… I was so glad just to be there, that I was there with him, that there was music, and a floor, and I felt thankful for everybody, for this festival…

For Tango.

For Love.

For my next festival:

Bring:

• Arnica gel (For painful feet, grace à lovely Debbi! – it totally works, niña!)
• Eat lots of bananas (For the potassium, which gives you energy – a wise tip, also from Debbi!)
• Dance sneakers (A must, unless you want to get your feet amputated.)
• A rolling suitcase vs. dufflebag (Go easy on your shoulders.)
• Sunglasses (For those mornings when the milonga ends at 7am.)
• Shoe hole punch (For stretching straps.)
• Band-aids

Do not bring:

• Nail polish (After 14 hours of dancing a day, you won’t care how your polish is looking, just how much your toes hurt!)
• Sleep mask (After 14 hours of dancing a day, you will be able to sleep like a mummy in direct sunlight.)
• Hairdryer (You will sweat so much after the first hour, that your hair will look like puppy fur after a rainstorm, anyway.)
• Book (Unless you’re travelling alone by train or plane.)