La Nuit Blanche

Mariana, 2008

In my five weeks in Buenos Aires, I didn’t take any classes, and didn’t schedule any privates. I took one workshop with Gaston and Moira at Tango Brujo on musicality (which was, by the way, extremely difficult and over my head!). And just danced in the milongas during the nights of my stay.

Coming back to New York, people have been telling me my dance has evolved to another level. Nothing specific… Technique? Posture? Footwork? Embrace? Play? Sensitivity? Connection? In terms of the above, the specifics probably haven’t changed much since I left and (reluctantly) returned to New York. But yes, I myself feel that something has changed.

Looking back to the last few days of my trip, sad that I was leaving so soon, I remember regretting not having taken more classes and workshops… That I could have scheduled at least one private with a celebrated teacher. :-( But Buenos Aires meant more to me than just dancing. Ofcourse, as a tango dancer on her first trip to the city of tango, the first thing I wanted to do as soon as I got off the plane was run, run, run to a milonga. But a huge, glimmering new city and a beautiful man beckoned… one thing led to another, and I didn’t have any time for dancing during the day.

It was the best thing that could have happened to me.

What I have realised in Buenos Aires during my short time there, is that tango is not about the dance. It sounds funny to say it, but tango is not about tango. What I have felt, and what I have understood from being there, is that tango is about being porteño. The dance is merely the means by which a man and a woman can live inside an intensified, heightened state of being for brief moments at a time. That state of existence is the state of being a man and a porteño, of being a woman and a porteña, of being Argentine in the city of Buenos Aires, in a wonderfully distilled form. The expression of (part of) the essence of being a man or a woman in Buenos Aires from its inception all the way through the years till the ever-present changeable Now — that is the tango.

The tango and the world of the milonga were made by something. And that something is the city of Buenos Aires itself, and all of its people, its experience within the context of the rest of the country, Latin America, the world. The experience of the city as an entity in itself — how its unique history has imprinted itself upon the gestures, walk, speech, emotion, joys, fears, suffering, poetry, music, dance, food, politics, geneology, buildings, dreams, life, death, collective memory, historical memory of its citizens — is the stuff that tango is made of. It was essential that I spent time away from the milonga, and inside the city that had created it. If it weren’t for Buenos Aires and its people that define this city and give it meaning, there would be no tango.

After a whirlwind day of spending time with my Lover’s family, his childhood friends, his university professor, with strangers I’ve approached to take their pictures leading to random conversations in broken castellano perched on the window-sills of cafes, with the gentlemen waiting for friends on the streets of every barrio, with the kids who helped me on the colectívos, with the shop-girls on pop music and fashion in the boutiques of Palermo, with the tiny old woman who stopped me and asked me to help her ring the buzzer of her daughter’s apartment, with the candy-men on weaving chocolate in the artesanal workshops, with the waiters at pizza parlours recounting the stories behind the pictures hanging on their walls, hanging high up from the lamp-posts with noisy students watching a parade of Okinawans celebrating the 100th anniversary of their immigration to Argentina, with the newspaper men swearing at the Bolivian demonstrators on Corrientes, the scent of the leather chairs in the cinema San Martín, the shade of pink on the old cracked walls of ancient local cafes, the light of the afternoon sun seeping through the blinds and onto my Lover’s nakedness as we made love in the wintery afternoon, the sight of mysterious hands of old women crouched on the pavement selling spices, the careful hesitation of a fruit-seller handpicking strawberries for me from his basket, the 6-year-old gypsy-boy obediently posing for me, his shining eyes patiently upon me as I set up my tripod to take his portrait…

After all that, I would spend a few hours at a milonga late at night… and I would finally understand. The city had touched me — seeped into me — and its touch manifested itself upon me in every way, including my tango.

I am not, and never can be porteña, because I have my own history, my own childhood imprinted upon me that cannot be changed, my own language I revert to when I talk in my sleep. But while I was there, I was being enfolded, embraced — lovingly — by Buenos Aires, and I was swooning in the sweetness of my first reception. That is what changed in my dance. That is what I brought back with me. That is what New York is lacking — what is absent in the tango and the milongas of the city I call home. That is what is (already!) fading from my dance. That is why I am still in mourning!

A little manifesto:

Art is not a world democracy.
There is no Right or Wrong in art.
Although there is Good Art, and Bad Art.
Then, apart from talent and movement, good or bad, there is also History and Experience. Which make up the Soul of a work of art.

Sure, there is a universality in Art, as in the Tango, which is the reason it is so appealing to the rest of the world, crossing enormous cultural boundaries. Themes like love, loss, injustice, beauty, the dispossessed, melancholy, longing, pain, lampposts, trumpets… in the form of a lovely song…  These things exist across the entire human universe.

However, a love song in the form of a tango, with those particular lyrics, with that particular melody, sung in this particular language, spoken with that particular accent? That is what makes this love song an Argentine love song, this is what makes it porteño. And the same goes for the dance, in the way it is danced in one particular city.

Many who have never been to Buenos Aires dance tango very well. A few of them are incredible dancers. But the soul they bring into their tango is not Argentine.  The city is not a part of their history. It has no place in their experience. It is absent from their dance, simply because they have never been there.

Photo: NYC City Hall Subway Station, National Park Service of the United States

I changed my shoes and walked onto the wooden floor in the last thirty minutes of the milonga.  Three tandas, three men.  A Spaniard, a Japanese, and a Russian.  The tanda of D’Arienzo started off with “Mandria”, and continued with “La Bruja”.  By the third song, I had lost my wits to the joy of the dance, the music, the exhilaration.  There are certain songs I can’t listen to now, without feeling a sharp pain, akin to the stormy calm that precedes tears.  They were played often in Buenos Aires, and belong to the soundtrack of my life there…

Then a quick walk through the rain with a friend to the subway station, and brushing off the droplets from my leather jacket on the station platform, only to find another tanguero and another tanguera waiting for the same train.  A moment later, yet another tanguero and yet another tanguera make their entrance into our station.  The latter draws out a portable stereo device out of her bag, plugs in her ipod, and listo!  Six dancers pair off into an impromptu Subte Milonga.  Like magic.

Then the train comes speeding along, and it’s all over in three seconds.

Incidentally, the song that came out of the stereo was “La Melodía del Corazón“.  Oh how I wished my beloved had stayed until the Cumparsita…

(I am liking New York more and more with each passing day.)

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

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.