In the arms of the pilot

My last Sunday milonga in El Beso was a true ecstasy. It is always a question what an ecstasy is. To me it is a moment when I feel every molecule of my existence as well as wholeness and affiliation to the human world. Tango from time to time gives me this sensation and that is why I keep on dancing searching for more humanity.

That night was special for me. There was a man I wanted to dance with for few weeks. It never happened as he was usually sitting in very unfortunate places so I could not catch his eyes at all and once I did we were busy dancing with other partners.
This night I knew I have to dance with him.
I was super determined and no matter what I had to use all the possible power to give him a successful mirada.

I went to El Beso with Keith, Abdullah, Cathal, and my polish friends Joanna and Szymon. We got great seats in the front rows of the room. Unfortunately my great seat did not equal a great seat to catch this super wanted pair of eyes.

“Auuuuhhhhh!
Why? Again! He was sitting beside the wall, across the floor, behind three rows of hungry looking women and a pilar... Great! No chance! It does not matter how I will stretch my neck I have no way to give him a challenging mirada”.

I was talking to Joanna how much I want to dance with this lovely gentlemen and how impossible it is. I started to think out loud about the tactic to overcome all the obstacles. Using my floor craft awareness and scanning the room and dancers around there was actually a way to give him a mirada. I had to go out of the floor first before the hungry women come back to their seats and stretch, grow and expand my body so I can be over the chairs and reach diagonal from the pilar, then there is a slight chance that he has a good vision and he will notice me.

Well...
I did all the above...
And...

It happened that amazing HE had a great vision and gave me a cabaceo.
All the way across the floor, perfect, precise, and the most correct I have ever got. I accepted with a gentle nod and waited, waited, waited until he appears in front of me.
These few seconds were so long. They went on, and on forever. The time was still not moving at all.
I so wanted to jump out of my chair, but I could not.
Just in case it is not for me. “He” came straight to me, repeated the cabaceo in front of my table and then finally I could get up.
The tanda was wonderful, walz in the arms of the pilot. Ahhhhh....
I was flying. I have to say: his balance was super musical and the fact that he was finishing every song adding few extra notes to land me safely on my access and cool down like a plane which just arrived at the airport was a true experience.

While I was dancing with the pilot I knew he has everything under complete control. The floor, himself, my body, music, etc. On the other hand he gave me so much freedom and allow me to create anything I wanted giving me secure space and time. So much fun, so much clouds, so much connection and passionate-fun conversation.

El Beso does not exist anymore. These doors became closed to tangueros just after I left Buenos Aires. My last memory from this place will be the sky tango on the best wooden floor in whole Baires.

Opening The Wings

The wood under my feet
The sky above my head
I am opening my wings
Ready to fly again

Shoulder blades are expanding
For the freedom of embrace
The forehead does not carry unwanted thoughts anymore
The cheeks are warm and want to be close,  closer with every note

The chest is up tight
DI Sarli goes straight to the heart
The veins are boiling in motion
Because the feeling is back

Ohhh my sweet Tango life!!!
Eyes wide closed are seeing colours by energy painted
My body with everything in it belongs to the one
Which dances with me in this very moment

There is no need to hold anything back
To wait for better tanda to come
I have only this couple of minutes to hear
I want to be breath them into my lungs open my wings and fly with the music

The more I give in
The more happy I am
Tango is a masterpiece of sharing
The target is one-to FEEL...

Tango Cure

I cannot believe I have only five weeks left in Buenos Aires. I cannot believe that I am here already two and a half months. It went so quick, like a blink of an eye. I spend last few days at home completely zoned out due to the horrible cold after the air conditioner experience in Salon Canning. It was not fun at all. Everybody were dancing and I could barely move, only dreaming that I am stepping into the dance floor. Having an unwanted week off from tango put me in the position where I have to start everything from scratch again.  

I had a lot of time to think, evaluate and reflect on what I did so far and what more there is to be done. The balance is big. The questions I have are: Did I do enough? Could I do more? Could I do things differently? As I look back I did quite a bit and I think every moment was well spend.

I have met amazing people, danced at beautiful milongas embracing the music without limits, took very good workshops, unforgettable classes and learn a lot about the body as a whole. My way is not about Tango anymore but all the sort of supporting activities. Tango classes are important, but self-practice; deepening the knowledge about muscular and bones systems; as well as exercising the body in many different ways is my goal right now.

Most of the teachers I have met in Buenos Aires are doing other things such as Pilates, Yoga, Gyrotonic, Tai-Chi and different dances which is normal and I am sure most of the dancers are doing the same as it is impossible to live on Tango alone. It is pretty much like eating the same dish every day. After some time the body asks for more and diverse nutrition and vitamins. Never mind getting bored of the taste. The same way no matter how many technique classes I would take, they will not fix my Tango problems. I go for the classes with a particular dilemma. It is like a visit to a doctor. After examination I am getting an explanation what is the problem and the prescription with recommended exercises. Unfortunately, there is no instant remedy and exact date of being healthy.

Let’s take “ocho” for example. These for simple and round letters have been driving me a bit crazy recently. I took so many classes on this little particular thing and somehow I am still not using my full capacity. Somehow it doesn’t work perfectly. It is either upper body right or lower body. I still cannot synchronize two of them. Sounds weird and funny right? Especially, that ochos are one of the first things to be thought at tango lessons. And then it takes few years to get them right. Curing my ochos is the main objective of this trip.

I took fantastic workshops with Luis Bianchi and Daniela Pucci and to me it was all about the dissociation. Daniela discovered these tiny little muscles under my shoulder blades which help a lot to perform the movement. Then she positioned my belly button in the right direction so it aims as high as it can. She said that it took her few good years to choose which way of doing the ocho is the best for her body and pilates helped her to finally sort it out.

My other teachers Sandra Messina a Ricardo Calvo were focusing on my feet and shoulders. Sandra showed my shoulders circular movement which helps to give freedom to my arms and elongate them so they can mirror my partners body better. When I swim I am using my shoulders in the same way. I discovered that my feet are super powerful tool. Not without a reason they play such a big part in tango. On our feet are all the nerves responsible for every single organ in the body. Feet are carrying our well-being and that makes them special. Now while I am dancing, sometimes I can feel each toe, front, middle and heel. That is a nice feeling.

Mariana Dragone during female technique class used this nice visualisation to imagine that the feet are expanding, they are getting bigger and bigger and that helps them to carry the weight better, to position the body right in the center. Bigger feet more connection with the floor. More connection with floor and I can grow up higher with my spine and head. That is a very nice feeling. Mariana made a very important comment about perfect posture. She said that the posture changes all the time. It stands on its own but at the same time melts into the partner’s embrace, and responds to the music. That is a place where our ears are coming to the picture. These two little embryos hear and feel the music for to transfer the information further to the body. You can imagine the way music touches your ears and this touch spreads all over your skin, going deeper into your muscles, bones and veins. That is called feeling and there is joy, happiness and all sorts of delight sensations to come thereafter. This is like a cherry on top for all the efforts and the purpose of dancing Tango.

The same way you can not enjoy your life having cold, fever and being very weak, Tango is not as strong as it can be once the movement has wrong dynamics, weight, directions. Knowing where the problem is, getting the tools to fix it, using them and let it settle for a while that is the way I perceive my time in Buenos Aires so far.

Gabriel Glagovsky and his Tango vision

Interview with Gabriel Glagovsky-Tango teacher and organizer of one of the most popular milonga in Buenos Aires - "TANGOCOOL" in Villa Malcom. His Tango philosophy is simple: he wants people to feel free and dance Tango. His wish is to become the music one day. When he enters the pista the energy changes and the dance floor becomes full. He believes that Tango is complete unity with the partner and entire dancing circle.

KL: How did you start to dance Tango?

GG: I started dancing Tango in 1998. I went to different classes and everywhere they were teaching basic steps. I was trying for a while the basic step. It did not work for me as that made me tense and rigid. I knew how to dance as I danced Rock&Roll all my life. I didn’t want to learn the basic step but I wanted to understand how to move so I can feel the dance.

KL: Who is your biggest influence in Tango?

GG: Now it is Carlitos Perez whom I found many years after I took number of useless classes. It took me a lot of time to forget all the bad habits and steps which were detached from true dancing. I wanted to learn how, when, and why. Carlitos is a source of Tango inspiration for me right now and he makes Tango simple.

KL: Do you consider Tango being an art?

GG: For me the art is a scientific work. It is a process of combining the breath, the embrace, the walk. Dancing Tango is not an art b itself. Tango is Tango. The milonguero who is dancing Tango is not an artist, he is a dancer. Proper art takes time and effort. Calling yourself an artist takes many years and before that you need to know how to control your body; how to manage your movement and then express yourself. Art is a hard work.

KL: What do you think about the Tango scene right now?

GG: I think there is a fashion in Tango where everybody dances in the same way. There are few couples which set the trend and then everybody else is copying their style. There is very few people who want to develop their own style.

KL: What is your Tango challenge?

GG: I think the difficulty is to feel that you are the music. Not to follow the music, but to feel that the musicians are there for you. I see the dancers on the milongas for whom the music is everything. They don’t only dance, they stand and make one step and the music becomes them. I can feel it sometimes. This is my aim to become the music one day.

KL: Do you believe in unity in Tango or two separate beings dancing together?

GG: We are one on the dance floor. We are not one or the other. We work for the same. We dance as a couple for the music, with the music in the music. The aim is to become the music. We have to be a unit.

KL: Do you think Tango is difficult?

GG: I think Tango is simple. Everybody is moving in the same way. You should not make it too complex. It is natural. There is no point to put a label of difficulty on it. If you make something hard you need to think a lot. If you think a lot you don’t dance. If you don’t dance the Tango ends.

KL: What do you think about the technique in Tango?

GG: I think everybody is fixated about the technique right now. People are focusing on that too much. The technique does not make you dance. If you don’t dance the technique does not work. You can dance with the technique but not the technique itself. The technique is there to fix. I can show you the movement, you can learn the movement and the technique is there to make the movement better. You need to know the technique to be able to leave it. Once you forget the technique you start to dance.

KL: Do you think having other dancing background helps Tango?

GG: In a way it does but it can confuse people as well. Let’s take ballet as an example. The movement in Tango is completely different to the one in ballet. In ballet everything comes from the extension and works in two rotations out. Tango is more about circular rotation and the movement is three dimensional. The bones and muscles have completely different position. Tango is Tango and has completely different body anatomy.

KL: How is it possible that any time you step in the dance floor the energy changes and the pista becomes full?

GG: I don’t dance alone. I dance with the people. It is not only about my partner but also about people around me. I am happy when people are dancing and this is always my aim. I want people to dance and enjoy it.

KL: Are you a milonguero?

GG: No I am a tanguero and a Tango activist. To me it is very important to promote Tango culture everywhere I go. I take a taxi and I talk to the taxi driver about Tango. Then he is coming to the lessons and I give him tools to dance. I believe everybody can dance and Tango should be accessible.

KL: Do you think there is politics in Tango?

GG: Of course. Tango is a community and where there is a community there is politics. I am a rebel and I like revolution. That is my way to run my Tango events.

KL: What is your dream in Tango?

GG: My wish is to make people dance and to work on growing the Tango culture. I want to compose a Tango scene and help people develop. I like the process of creation and this is Tango to me. Tango is the walk and I enjoy this camino. In Tango I found a channel where I can use all my capabilities. I teach, I organize the events, I dance and I discover Tango secrets. It is not only logic, physics and movement to me. It is also the feeling, the social aspect and the continuous learning process.

KL: Do you have a teaching method in Tango?

GG: There is an approach with three different teaching methods. Formal,informal and non-formal. In the formal one all the information is given. That is the way you learn at school. Informal way is a way you learn how to walk, eat and talk. You learn because you need to. Non-formal way is the way to learn art. This is the way I teach. There is no patterns only things to explore. I do not give steps to copy but I encourage my students to choose what they need to learn. I work with the creativity and I give tools not the ready steps and sequences. I believe that Tango is organic and it derives from the movement, intuition and musical perception. Then it comes to the body awareness and physicality. At the end there is logic, mind and  memory. This way is natural, once Tango starts from the mind i becomes non-organic and the dance does not happen.

KL: What is the most important for you in teaching?

GG: Teaching is a big responsibility. When you teach only technique it is easy. When you teach Tango there are more challenges. Sometimes I need to change an attitude of  a student, the other time I need to liberate people’s emotions, sometimes it is about the body knowledge. I like to give people the tools for the game, so they can play their own Tango.

KL: If you could give one minute lesson to a newbie in Tango what would you say?

GG: Tango is simple but to become simple it  is not easy. It is the same way like when you want to paint the house for example. You buy all the tools and then you can start to paint the walls. You just need to get involved and start to collect the tools. It is always a surprise what will await at the end. Simplicity is the beauty of it.

ValenTango

There is no better day to write about Tango then Valentine’s Day. What is Tango? What is Love? What is this special fusion which makes Tango Love happening every minute, every hour, every day, night, week and finally all trough the life? Tango is life and embodies everything in it: passion, sensuality, sadness, happiness, challenges, disappointments, jealousy, betrayals, the will to fight for pleasure, adoptability, domination, sensitivity, lightness of being, relaxation, lost and finally sharing, loving and carrying. Tango can be all this and more. Different every minute, changing with time. Coming up and down. Showing its beautiful face one night to turn back in an eye blink.

If there is a love and this love is directed to Tango it will be there forever. I believe that once we love something or somebody these loves will always walk with us, in us. When we manage to awaken our hearts and feel, this is unstoppable process of discovering and growing more and more love. The feeling does not stay forever but once it appeared the memory is there to remain how it was and how it can be.

Last weekend I went to Misterio Tango Festival. It is such a coincidence especially that I cannot find anything more mysterious in life then Love and Tango. This is my main challenge and purpose of my being: to love and to tango. Did I discover Tango mystery? If I did that would be my last post.

After four days of workshops with the Masters I have much more to explore but I feel again. The format of the workshops was great as they were seminars with two teaching couples each day. I love the idea of Masters working in fusion. That adds an extra value to each meeting with them. I can choose if I want to valtz, tango, or milonga trough life or create a perfect choreography for each day. It is only up to me. I have a freedom of choice and there is always somebody to share the same will with me. Sometimes I can sit the music down. Wait. Pause or stop. Close my eyes, listen to what is happening around for to move once again. I can always find a mirror of myself in my partner. I can mirror him or her for a change too. But what is the main purpose of dancing Tango? Is it not to FEEL? How to feel?All workshops at Misterio were focused on feeling. This is why Tango came to the scene. People wanted to feel and express their feelings, share them with many or only the one. Tango allows us to do it.

Mariana Dragone said just live it: the music, your partner, the moment. You have only this in Tango: the note, the song, the tanda. Embrace it fully and open yourself completely. Javier Rodriguez could not stress any more how important it is to feel. This is Tango, to feel yourself and then to feel together. He explained that technique is there to help perform the movement but it does not make us dance. The dance lies in the ribcage. Your heart gives it an impulse. Your heart pumps the energy to all the other cells. That is where the step begins. The core must be strong to balance two opposite energies. One which goes down: gravity-reality that keeps us grounded and stable and the other which goes up: freedom and lightness to be able to embrace the one who is there and music per se. Moira Castellano thought us how to become a balloon in the upper body. That helps to pomp the air into the ribcage and become light up but still strong down. That is one of the secrets for perfect connection. It feels amazing. Perfect relaxation nearly Tango zen.

Now as I am thinking about Tango Love I go trough so many embraces which I will never be able to forget, so many intimate moments of union and freedom in the same time. I can hear the music which made me ecstatic at times and so much into moment that I felt timeless. These moments are not happening every night and usually come as a result of hard work beforehand. Working on technique, tango philosophy, understanding the codes and body awareness has to be paired up with developing deep emotions.

When your favorite embrace will tell you I don’t want to dance with you anymore your heart may break into thousand pieces and it can feel unbearable at first but do not give up on feeling. This is your only way to dance. Take every broken piece of heart from the pista, put it on the chair and go to dance again. Give yourself a space to breathe, to create something new; to open again and build your new tango story in another embrace and your previously favorite embrace may come back one night...

Sometimes there is a need to wait and stay alone for not to share emptiness. From my experience it is always better to come out from the comfort zone and get to the place where Tango is played to confront the fears and meet surprise at times. Tango is a space which allows me to dance my heart out. I am sure I am not the only tanguera which wants to open, lift, and share her heart with her partners. Tango like any other dance allows me to feel every heart bit and breath the same melody with the man. This is a magical experience and I can not imagine any better way to love. The mystery of Tango lies in each of us therefore we have a heart to discover and share it. It is a love relationship with its beauty and challenges. Even if I want to escape I will stay. I may go away at times but I will come back. Tango embrace is magnetic and I can not resist nor reject this energy. Love it without fear, make mistakes, learn how to feel deeper and Tango will become you one day the same way Love can be you not only hidden somewhere secretly. 

Tango reincarnation at the Recoleta Cemetary

Sometimes we need to burry certain things for the new ones to  be born in life. This transition can be painful, full of tears and hard, or light, sunny and calm. When I went to the Recoleta Cemetery I knew exactly what I wanted to leave there forever. Is saying “good bye” easy? Not to me... But what is the most important is to never look back afterwards.

Sun was full, round and high in the sky when I left for my meeting with death. The air was trembling from the heat and so did I. My mind was slow, the body even slower. I just walked getting lost more and more. Eventually, after a few blocks of confusion, I found the wall surrounding silent calmness. The angels and other beautiful creatures welcomed me showing their backs above the wall.

There must be a way to see their faces. The entrance has to be close…Ohhh! There it is.

Lovely gate, clean and spacious, cool and free.

Here I am in the heart of Recoleta. In one of the most poetic and romantic places I have been in Buenos Aires so far. I carried my heart under the arm: alive and full of things to be left behind. Where do I start? I’ll go left.

Close to the tombs so they can shadow my actions.

What goes first?

 

Let’s have ignorance and impatience as they are the worst enemies of an enjoyable tango. I wish I could get rid of all the ignorances and impatiences I have met in life. However, there is only one place for each-the personal ones which served me from time to time. Turning my eyes back or waiting for the tanda to be finished, or the move to be perfect in a blink of an eye, I can leave them here. Done and gone.

How long does it last for?

I have no idea. Only the hell knows.

I walk further. The graves which look like comfortable bedrooms are locked. Some of them are waived a bit letting dancing air in. One grave is open. Perfect!

Knock, knock... Miss Peron could I leave the stress to impress and attitudes with you? They are siblings and they need strong mother hand to keep them under control. They cannot live one without another. I believe it is fine with you. So chicos this is your new home! You stay here now and be good.

I feel much lighter but there are still stones around my ankles. These gorgeous marble tombs created with skilled human hand are asking for more excitement to come.

There you go. Tango illusions.

This is a big one. How to define, precise, finish with a dot? Endless list of these goes to spacious Sarmiento Collective tomb. There is a lot of space. Like that Tillusions can stay together, talk, argue, and resolve the issues without me carrying them around all the time.

I can see a women lamenting on the stone. She looks lonely and sad.

Are you crying or only resting your body?I want to give you my high expectations. You can use them as a pillow so the stone will be not that hard anymore. They are no use to me anymore.

She agrees, so I can go further.

There is a little girl sculpted as a guardian. She is on her own. I stop aside. Sit down and we start to talk. I share with her all my dreams, the big ones and the very little ones. She listens peacefully and remains still. Somehow she is not taking my dreams. She gives them back to me one by one filling my heart again. The music starts to play suavemente moving the air so I can breath. Cemetery is full of light, bright and warm. I feel great after my date with death in such romantic scenery. Confessions of a Tango dancer witnessed by angels and demons came to the end. What else more to ask for than Tango reincarnation?

Creativity and Thinking in Tango”- workshops with Eugenia Parilla, Raul Masciocchi and Mario Consiglieri

The weekend was quite intense. We took two days of workshops with three different teachers at the same time. Each of them was unique in their Tango style, philosophy and focus. They were talking about the same thing from three different angles highlighting details and complementing their visions. Eugenia Parilla, Raul Masciocchi and Mario Consiglieri created in fact a very creative trio and they made us think a lot. There were only four of us during the workshops and that gave us a  great opportunity for getting individual attention and the possibility to ask any questions we wanted.  First we worked a lot on opening the body, trying to locate the possibilities and limits of our bones, muscles and joints. Stretching, relaxing, performing different body figures and improvising movement. 

Then we went into the  idea of the step. There are so many areas of focus. Trying to open the hips, locate your pelvis in the right position so the back is comfortable and the legs can move better, relaxing the foot and the neck… There is so much to remember. There is so much to master. There is always something to work on.  Eugenia scanned my body up side down and she could spot every single miss-movement or miss-position of the muscles. She created a spiral image in my imagination. I imagine my spine and other bones surrounded by muscles as spirals now. I want to stretch them, turn and twist so they can perform circular movements. Eugenia translated anatomy of the body into Tango vocabulary. It was great. Raul gave the impulse to the dynamic and mechanic of the movement and Mario wrapped it up with open options for each activity. Walk in the line-think in circles. Think about yourself first and your partner will follow. There is an equal responsibility between Tango partners and they both need to be active and awake, this helps the moment to flow and stay present from the beginning till the end.  

Creativity involves much more effort then copying sequences and performing them on the dance floor. Usually while we dance we tend to do the same all over again. There is nothing bad about it once it s pleasant for both partners. But there is always something that could be improved changed or eliminated.  I am getting out of my comfort zone right now. Completely open to criticism and willing to exhibit my movement to understand it better and deeper. It is not easy. It feels I am doing less and less and less. I work on one tiny think for hours and the effect is not there yet. At least I am conscious right now of certain things and even if I can not change them right away I know with time it will benefit my Tango a lot. My daily Tango routine here is: changing habits, searching for new tango elements, adjusting the movement to suit my body, and then finding the connection, listening to the music, and feel. The first part happens in the morning the other in the evening. Finally I realize how I can work to create my own Tango-the personal Solo one, in order to connect with my partner at the end: a lot of conceptual work, drawings, listening, observing, following and exchanging of sensations.  

After eight hours of moving creativity and thinking I have months of homework to do. Great! I am glad I have my body companion which will serve me to its best I hope. I am sure having the teachers who open the brain and make you think is the most rewarding learning experience. We are lucky as there is few teachers like that here.