La Nuit Blanche

by Brian Winter

“Harem Pants”, from La Redoute

Ok. I must have been living under a rock this past season. It turns out that The Poopy Pant I mentioned in a previous post was an all-out crazed fashion fad this year.

Called “Harem Pants” or “Hammer Pants”, also known as “The Poopy Pant”, “The Diaper Pant”, and other interesting appellations, I present to you, all the variations I have seen off the catwalk, and on the floor of the milongas in Buenos Aires.

I just had to do this, if only to remember the stupefaction I felt upon seeing what I can only describe as a couple of Star Wars characters doing perfectly executed triple back sacadas at practica.

The horror….

La Redoute

H&M

Top Shop

Rick Owens

Unknown

The following examples are particularly interesting and incomprehensible, and yes, I did see tangueras sporting these.  I wonder…  Wouldn’t these bother the leader with the constant brushing against thick fabric?  Wouldn’t the follower feel like Barney the purple dinosaur during giros?

The Poopy Bell – Top Shop

The Poopy Bubble (on right)

The dinosaur in question:

And the following is not exactly a Poopy Pant, since the seat is fitted to where it should be, but are an interesting variation on the Tango Genie Pant, because it morphs into a triangle-shape during pivots and boleos:

The Flying Batwings

To each her own…

Ok, so back to the adorable non-poopy Tango Genie Pants, Elizabeth of Working Artist has skillfully made her own in 45 minutes, with a pair of knit pyjama bottoms from Target. Priced $14.

Bravo!

I haven’t seen Sally Potter’s “The Tango Lesson” since I saw it when it first came out.  Today, on revisiting a clip from the film (above) since starting tango a year and five months ago, and having just come back from Buenos Aires, I was surprised to find that I actually recognize most of the milongueros dancing with her.

:-D

But more than anything, I miss those spaces.

“In the theater of the past that is constituted by memory, the stage setting maintains the characters in their dominant rôles. At times we think we know ourselves in time, when all we know is a sequence of fixations in the spaces of the being’s stability — a being who does not want to melt away, and who, even in the past, when he sets out in search of things past, wants time to “suspend” its flight. In its countless alveoli space contains compressed time. That is what space is for.” – Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Going out to a milonga taking place at a dance studio, and going out to a milonga in a palatial 19th century café-mansion, with french windows opening onto stone balconies, feels so different.  For me, even a basketball court would be nicer than a dance studio.  It all comes down to what you’re used to, I guess.

My favorite milongas here in New York seem to take place in dance studios.  One of them is very pretty, albeit tiny, with a real mural painting along one wall, and a decadent silk kimono hanging in the bathroom — the others are pretty sterile, sometimes smelling of a week’s worth of sweat and lysol.  Countless times, I have wished that these milongas took place in a more beautiful space.

Then it’d be (almost) perfect…

Adam and Ciko, Coney Island, NYC 2008

The 6th Annual Mundial de Baile had an exhibition at Harrods on Avenida Florida this year. When my Lover and I chanced upon it, we scoured the old photographs and film stills of Gardel, Tita Merello, Troilo, Castillo, among others, on display in glass cabinets, and had fun watching a horrible live guitar performance on stage.

As we were walking out, I stopped dead in my tracks, and gasped. Gathered all in one place, from all around the gigantic city of Buenos Aires, were shop stands selling tango shoes and tango clothing. From Suipacha, Villa Crespo, San Telmo, Greta Flora, NeoTango, Mimi Pinzon, Tango Moda… they were all there together under a single roof.

Uh-oh…

I went straight for the tango pants, and bought 5 pairs at the drop of a hat, in all different colors.

I am really loving my genie pants. All those super-slinky, form-fitting, mini dresses I am too shy to wear with bare legs, can now be worn with these adorable, incredibly comfortable pants. Once you start wearing them, there is just no going back…

They cost about ARS$80 a pair, and if the shopkeeper happens to like you, and takes to calling you “mi querida, hermosa”, and you buy more than one pair, she’ll give you the special price of ARS$60. Which is US$20.

Lucky me…

On the way back home, on Avenida Cordoba, I found a small junior’s boutique called “Violet Violeta”. They sold the same genie pants there, except that it cost ARS$35. US$12.

I guess not so lucky me….

For those of you who can’t go to Buenos Aires, you can get your hands on a pair here: Tangoleva, or Tangodirect.  For men, I thought this was hilarious: CC Tango Pants

The prices, however, are unfortunately in US$.

P.S. Let me warn you, however, that there is a particular version of the genie pant that you do not want to mess with. A friend and I have dubbed it, “The Poopy Pants”. They ressemble the tango genie pants, except that the “seat” (or crotch area) extends down pass your knees.

Do not, I repeat, do not venture into this category of tango genie pant unless you are an incredibly good dancer (i.e. Eugenia Parrilla, Cecilia Garcia, etc. who can wear rainbow-colored plastic wrap, and still look good dancing), an ex-supermodel with a perfect body and passable technique and posture, or a current supermodel on the Yohji Yamamoto catwalk during Spring Fashion Week.

I beg you.

Tina and Sally and I made an afternoon excursion to this milonga, once, in BsAs (it already seems so far away!).  Lots of “funny” things happened that afternoon, in all senses of the word.  A highlight was going onto the balcony with Sally, and talking with a l-o-n-g line of people waiting to get tickets to a concert, two floors down on the street.

“Que estan esperando, ustedes??” screamed Sally.

“Madonna!!!” screamed the line of people.

“No way??” screamed Nuit.

“De donde sos?” yelled the line of people.

“London!” yelled Sally.

“Nueva York!” yelled Nuit.

“Long live Madonna!!!”

We were gleefully having an Eva Peron moment. I almost wanted to give them a Miss America wave.

Only in Buenos Aires….

Am I the only dork who has never seen or heard about this?

“LA CONFITERIA IDEAL: THE TANGO SALON”
that went on air at BBC Four channel on 8 April 2005

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Omar Vega was a regular in the New York tango scene. All I knew about him was that he was a famous, legendary milonguero, and I loved watching him dance milonga.

I saw him, you know, at Canning, a couple of weeks before his death. He was happy, and hugging a man whose birthday he was celebrating at his table. The birthday man looked really happy and honored to have him by his side.

He would rarely dance, though, at least here in New York… He would sit very quietly at the milongas with a funny expression, as if he were wondering why everyone was taking this tango thing so seriously.

So this is how I would like to remember him.

I think he really, really loved to dance.

In the beginning of my trip, I bought a Moleskine at a paper shop in Palermo, and began filling it with bits and pieces of Buenos Aires, cutting and pasting signature napkins, milonga entry tickets, small maps, museum passes, subte passes, boat ticket stubs, plane ticket stubs, cinema ticket stubs, colectívo receipts, restaurant bills, business cards, packets of azucar gathered at all the cafes, stickers given to me by gypsies, candy wrappers, tango flyers, doctor’s prescriptions, packets of Aspirina C, cigarette packs, dried jasmine flowers, tiny photos of naked ladies working on Corrientes, anything I could lay my hands on.

Around the edges, is written bits of poetry, funny doodles, addresses, phone numbers, new names, secret declarations, both mine and his. His are mostly hand-drawn maps, demonstrating where the cafe will be for our next rendez-vous…

For five weeks, everyday, I would cut and glue and paste and write. It became a nightly ritual before I went to bed.

The moleskine is about to explode, it absolutely refuses to stay shut… It looks like one of those Japanese paper-lanterns, having opened up into a full three-dimentional circle. When I lay it on the table, it opens itself up like a miniature bandoneon.

persicco
el cuartito
el gato negro
la viruta
1 viaje
marroc
la giralda
MALBA
villa malcolm
tango brujo
el federal
gaston y moira
il gran
kavanagh
mundial de baile
linea: 039
comme il faut
suipacha
papelera palermo
parakultural
control de mesa
facturas
medrano 476
boutique del libro
riobamba 416
niño bien
cheff iuseff
la briela
freddo
el imparcial
cafe de los angelitos
maipú 444
honduras 4912
armenia 1618
boleto oficial cinematográfico
restaurant pippoe
entrada no. 823
soler 4502
los immortales
clásica y moderna
zivales
anda a la milonga y bailá!
gran cafe tortoni
avd. de mayo
torquato tasso
colonia del sacramento
buquebus
el taller
aspirina C
caballeros
malasartes
9 de julio
salon de fiestas
cordoba
corrientes
el duende
a catedral de tango
radio taxi alo
bandoneones en extinción…

And this is only half-way through. The last entry was:

El Ultimo Beso

where I had a last cafe con leche with my Engish girls before I left for the airport.

Every few pages contain a memory of a day and a night in Buenos Aires.  And one in Uruguay.  Several conversations.  Hundreds of kisses.  A few tandas, a cab ride, a bus ride, a subte ride.  The faces of people I was introduced to, the mozos who served my table, voices rich with American, English, French, Australian accents, porteños lilting phrases in castellano.  The stairways and buildings I walked through, the echoing in the corridors, sounds that belong to another world.  I can jump into a wardrobe, and for a few seconds, close my eyes, and be there.

Did you know, the porteñas are not afraid to wear brightly-colored flowers in their hair on the city streets? At 2pm on a winter afternoon.

The men complained and sulked about my camera, not because they felt it was an invasion of their privacy, but because they couldn’t catch my eye to ask me for a dance.

Parakultural, Salon Canning

I didn’t go out this past weekend to a favorite NYC monthly milonga because I am going through a period of mourning.

No, it’s not the dancing that I miss. Superior or not, different or no in Argentina, the dancing, I am convinced, is beautiful here in New York. I myself am a New Yorker, and the porteños seemed to love the way I dance…? Maybe it’s because here at home, I am lucky to be partnering with the most amazing dancers, maybe it’s because so many of my friends have been spending so much time in Buenos Aires that they brought much of it back with them, perhaps it’s because some of them were porteños in a past life, I don’t know. But no, it’s not the dancing iself that I miss.

What I do miss, are the places. I miss the high arched ceilngs, the truly café-like atmosphere, the airy brightness of the milongas, the wood panels, the French windows opening onto stone balconies, smoking rooms, the professional mozos dressed in black and white. I miss that there were more tables surrounding the dancefloor than the dancefloor itself. I miss the permanence of these places, as if they were built just for dancing tango.

I miss the mood of the milongas. How they felt like they had been there forever. How the old places carried the weight of decades and decades of memories, how it seeps into your being and permeates the way you move, how the new places were feverishly vampiric with new young blood pumped into fresh new veins, adding an asbolutely modern aesthetic to this old dance.

I miss the hosts and hostesses who greeted me with open arms and warm hugs and kisses on the cheek, who remembered my name since the second time they saw me, who treated me like a darling of their milongas.

I miss the men who were dressed in impeccable suits, and beautiful hair, the really old milongueros, and the teenagers, alike. I miss how they smelled of citrus and cologne, as if they had prepared themselves earlier in the evening, just for me. I miss how they gazed at me, intently, from across the room, and respected the distance between us when I turned my eyes away. I miss how they would walk me back to my table after each tanda. I miss their ludicrously funny palabras.

And I miss, terribly miss, my new friends. I met a group of beautiful English girls during the last two weeks of my stay. Every night, we shared tables together, walked to and from the milongas through the streets of Palermo, Villa Urquiza, Constitution, Retiro, met for coffee in the afternoons, went to birthday dinners and the theatre, bought gifts for each other, took pictures of each other, took care of each other. We would nickname the milongueros with the names of movie stars, talk of love, of fear, of desire, of ambition, of art, of cities, laugh-lines deepening with the smoldering glow in our eyes. I miss Tina, her velvety eyes and silly laugh. I miss Sally, her sparkling wit and warm hugs.

I was blessed, particularly so, I think, in comparison to other turistas on their first visit to Buenos Aires. I was spoiled with everything I could wish for.

And now it’s just not the same…….

Salon Canning, Buenos Aires, 1am

It seems today is a video day for me.

So, in honor of all the porteños who sweet-talked their way into my laughter, inside and outside of the milongas…  Guess what?

I have my very own buen mozo who actually means what he says.  :-D

(Ok, I admit, I miss it).

Watch the original video here: Paroles Paroles, Alain Delon et Dalida, 1973.

I had a strange dream last night.

A friend of mine was playing the bandoneon, except it was made of paper cut-out, folded into origami…

“El Ultimo Bandoneon”
Fragmentos

Trailer

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 (featuring Geraldine Rojas y Javier Rodriguez)

Part 4