After staying in an adequate, but less-than private hostel for my first week in Buenos Aires, I've found a shared apartment and moved in. The place is called La Casa de Marina, and it's run by a very generous and amicable lady named Marina. She's artsy and young at heart, which makes for relaxed and colorful household full of unique second hand furniture, exotic travel souvenirs, classic literature, and, of course, young travelers from all over. Currently there's me, a guy from Austrailia, a guy from the US, and a gal from Sweden. A young couple from Spain arrive in two weeks, my buddy Chris from the US will be here in February, and who knows what else the cat will drag in?
As it's in San Telmo, a historic part of Buenos Aires, the apartment is old and rough around the edges, but in in a cleaned up, hip, NY loft sort of way. Like all the other old dwellings in the city, the ceilings are really high, like 12 or 15 feet, so the whole apartment feels quite spacious (I think the high ceilings are for letting the oppressive heat and humidity rise just a little higher, maybe even where a breeze coming in through the balcony might carry them away). There's a big living room with two little balconies at one end of the apartment; in the middle are three rooms, a bathroom and a very long hallway; at the other end is the kitchen and another open air room. It's about four floors above the cobblestone street, so you ride a tiny little elevator up through the winding stairs to our door. If it's night time, the stairwell is completely dark and the only light is from a single bulb in the tiny cage that is the elevator. It's a bit eery, as if you're rising up through a mine shaft to go to bed.
Around the corner are tons of street cafes, little grocers and, of course, the ubiquitous Internet cafe, which, in Buenos Aires, you can't walk 100 feet without passing one. On Saturdays, as I found out this morning, a bunch of food vendors gather on our little Balcarce street to sell fresh vegetables, fish, bread, pastries, meats and eggs. I shopped there today, buying four tomatoes, a bushel of bananas, two onions, a head of lettuce and one peach, all for 5 peso. That's $1.70 in dollars! Ridiculous, isn't it?
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tango
Hello folks. I 've been in Buenos Aires now for a week and a few days. I came here to learn how to tango in the authentic Argentine style. At this point, it's a goal that certainly seems possible, but it won't be easy.
I have about a little more than four months here, which I think should be enough to master the basics. I hope to leave here with good technical habits and a foundation of skill on which to build for as long as I like. Of course, the point is the pleasure of dancing and moving, so I hope to acquire the technique, then make it disappear!
Buenos Aires is a city rife with tango opportunities--full productions, street shows, milongas (a milonga is a social dance event, the traditional place people go to dance tango in an informal, social context; it is also one style of tango, with it's own technique), and, of course, classes and schools, which are everywhere. Local dancers have quickly realized the economic value of teaching their unique dance. There is unquestionably a high demand for it, and people of all backgrounds and ages come from all corners of the world to learn the dance whose home is Buenos Aires. In any of the classes I have taken thus far, at least four or five countries are represented, if not more. While practicing steps in class with a partner, I find that when I switch partners, I very often switch countries--from Germany, to Japan, then Italy and Brazil, then back to another German. Of course, not all of these languages are spoken and if folks do not understand the instructor's Spanish, then, unsurprisingly, English is spoken.
I take classes at Escuela Argentina de Tango (EAT), which has a rather small studio in the Borges Cultural Center, and another slightly larger one elsewhere in the city at a theatre. It is probably the largest tango school around in terms of the number of classes and instructors it offers. This also makes it one of the best, because you simply can't experience the broad range of teachers and styles they offer at another place. Such offereings make for a busy schedule, with classes going in two studios everyday of the week from 11 in the morning to 10 at night. This is good for me though, and I've been taking two classes per day (three hourse of class) from EAT, and I want to keep that as my minimum from here on out. I would like to take class from other studios and teachers in the city sometime soon.
Tango is hard! It is especially hard if you are the man or the leader, because you're essentially totally responsible for the dance. The man alone initiates it and the man alone chooses the path it will take. The woman only follows; she never leads. She does not have a choice about what steps, combinations and techniques will be employed. She responds to them, and this I think is how she contributes to the dance. She expresses herself in the way she follows the male lead.
All this makes learning to lead the tango harder than learning how to follow it. I find that the instructors, as well as the more sympathetic female students, share this opinion. And I can't tell you the number of times in class the male instructor has used a random female beginner to show us some combination and almost effortlessly turned her into an expert. With a good lead, they give the illusion that she knows what she's doing, that she knows how to follow. Yet as soon as I try the same movement with the same woman, she is stumbling and tripping over her own feet, because I cannot lead her.
In the end though, the dance is nothing without two people! And there's no need to say what it takes two tango, is there? I mean, everyone knows that one.
I have about a little more than four months here, which I think should be enough to master the basics. I hope to leave here with good technical habits and a foundation of skill on which to build for as long as I like. Of course, the point is the pleasure of dancing and moving, so I hope to acquire the technique, then make it disappear!
Buenos Aires is a city rife with tango opportunities--full productions, street shows, milongas (a milonga is a social dance event, the traditional place people go to dance tango in an informal, social context; it is also one style of tango, with it's own technique), and, of course, classes and schools, which are everywhere. Local dancers have quickly realized the economic value of teaching their unique dance. There is unquestionably a high demand for it, and people of all backgrounds and ages come from all corners of the world to learn the dance whose home is Buenos Aires. In any of the classes I have taken thus far, at least four or five countries are represented, if not more. While practicing steps in class with a partner, I find that when I switch partners, I very often switch countries--from Germany, to Japan, then Italy and Brazil, then back to another German. Of course, not all of these languages are spoken and if folks do not understand the instructor's Spanish, then, unsurprisingly, English is spoken.
I take classes at Escuela Argentina de Tango (EAT), which has a rather small studio in the Borges Cultural Center, and another slightly larger one elsewhere in the city at a theatre. It is probably the largest tango school around in terms of the number of classes and instructors it offers. This also makes it one of the best, because you simply can't experience the broad range of teachers and styles they offer at another place. Such offereings make for a busy schedule, with classes going in two studios everyday of the week from 11 in the morning to 10 at night. This is good for me though, and I've been taking two classes per day (three hourse of class) from EAT, and I want to keep that as my minimum from here on out. I would like to take class from other studios and teachers in the city sometime soon.
Tango is hard! It is especially hard if you are the man or the leader, because you're essentially totally responsible for the dance. The man alone initiates it and the man alone chooses the path it will take. The woman only follows; she never leads. She does not have a choice about what steps, combinations and techniques will be employed. She responds to them, and this I think is how she contributes to the dance. She expresses herself in the way she follows the male lead.
All this makes learning to lead the tango harder than learning how to follow it. I find that the instructors, as well as the more sympathetic female students, share this opinion. And I can't tell you the number of times in class the male instructor has used a random female beginner to show us some combination and almost effortlessly turned her into an expert. With a good lead, they give the illusion that she knows what she's doing, that she knows how to follow. Yet as soon as I try the same movement with the same woman, she is stumbling and tripping over her own feet, because I cannot lead her.
In the end though, the dance is nothing without two people! And there's no need to say what it takes two tango, is there? I mean, everyone knows that one.
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