1646  Notes from Buenos Aires 17

Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2003 12:41:39 -0500
From: Rick McGarrey <RICKMCG@FLASH.NET>
Subject: Notes from Buenos Aires 17

(Part 2, continued from report #16, 'It's a
beautiful...')

We have been back in the clubs and enjoying the
dancing this week. Because we've been trying to avoid
the smoke we go early to avoid the big crowds, and
we've also been looking for places with larger rooms
and higher ceilings. Last Saturday night we went to
Circulo Trovador. This was our first night out at a
genuine BsAs milonga for couple of weeks. Circulo
Trovador is a relatively new milonga. While the big
Saturday night crowds are at Sunderland in the
suburbs, and at Celia's and Canning downtown, Circulo
Trovador has become popular with couples who are
looking primarily for a good place to dance with a
little extra space. It's held in a very large room
with a glass wall facing the street that makes it look
like a large modern car dealership. The milonga
location is new, but the rest of the club is very old,
dating from the 1800s. I like it because the large
room, plus another adjoining one, makes it possible to
avoid the smoke. The music was excellent, and while
there were a lot of people, there was also a lot of
floor space and skilled navigation by most couples.
It doesn't have the ambiance of the old clubs, but the
floor is less crowded (a bit slippery- use water or
resin on the shoes) and the air is reasonably
healthy. By the way, Cacho's milonga in Avellaneda on
Sunday night (the one I wrote about at 'Leales y
Pampeanos' with the picture of Carlos Gardel) has a
non-smoking area separated from the main floor by
clear plastic curtains, which has made it our favorite
spot. It's part of the bar area, it's visible from
the main floor, and it has good sound. It's close
enough to the action to feel like part of the milonga,
but the air is separate. The last time we went, 7 or
8 couples joined us dancing there, and several others
come over to watch.

There may be signs of change. Last week there was a
letter in La Nacion written by the most prominent
cardio pulmonary specialist in the country saying that
two-thirds of the Argentine population doesn't smoke,
and that many of them are having respiratory problems
from all the smoke in the air. He is calling for some
restrictions on public smoking.

We met Alberto and his novia at Circulo Trovador. He
is a great guy who writes some very interesting things
on the list, and he's been sending me all kinds of
helpful advice on everything from places to eat and
dance in Uruguay, to suggestions about staying
healthy. We were met with hugs and kisses, and he
gave us a decorated bag containing tango CDs he had
selected, and some special tea to help my cough. He
is not just an Argentine... he is 'Argentine'!. One
of the CDs was perfect for me. It's called 'Orquesta
Escuela de Tango'. It has a music professor who
discusses the style of each famous
musician/composer/orquestra, and then he has his
orchestra play a clear example of the style. The
music is very well performed, and it is a great way to
help identify and understand different tango music.
The tea he brought for my cough was a mix that
contained some manzanilla tea, anise, and also some
coca leaves. My first experience with coca leaves was
when we were in 'La Puna' last year, the otherworldly
valley in the Argentine Andes, in Provincia de Salta,
near Bolivia. The place reminds me of Northern Nevada
where I grew up, but instead of being at 5,000 feet of
altitude, it is at an incredible 15,000 feet... and
the mountains go up from there! The Indians that work
there at the mines and salt flats chew big gobs of
the leaves, along with a strange mix of ashes somehow
molded together with eggs to look like small ashtrays
made of pumice. They cram the leaves in, and take a
small bite of off of the 'ashtray' to go along with
it, to help cut the power of the leaves. The green
coca leaves are sold in large bags everywhere for a
few pesos, and we made tea out of them to prevent
altitude sickness. I also drank some of it before we
went to a milonga nearby in Salta, and it will
positively get you up dancin'. This was the strangest
and funniest milonga I've ever been to, and it was so
much fun we stayed over to hit it again the next
Saturday night. I had a bag of the leaves left when
we flew back to the U.S., and I almost stuck them in
my suitcase, until I came to my senses and gave them
away.

Alejandra and I have been renting practice rooms, as
well as dancing out. You can get them for about 5
pesos an hour, which is less than two dollars. They
usually have nice wooden floors, mirrors, and a CD
player for your music. Sometimes we just relax and
have a private milonga, really enjoying the music, but
my obsessive side also comes out, so we often end up
working a lot on posture, equilibrium, and walking.
For me tango walking is an almost impossibly
difficult endeavor, and sometimes I work on it to the
point where Alejandra gets tired and needs a break.
She says she has danced for years with the best in
BsAs, so sometimes she gets a little tired of a gringo
telling her she doesn't know how to walk. But she
does admit I have changed her style, and she thinks it
is a better and more musical way to move, although a
more difficult one. Our recent practicing prompted me
to write a report on what I have learned about
equilibrium and walking from all of my filming in the
clubs, and watching tapes of the old time dancers, but
after reading it through I'm not sure it's appropriate
for the list.

There is always a lot of talk and interest by new
people in tango about learning more steps. I'm very
reluctant to pile on new steps, but we found something
interesting in our practices. Without intentionally
adding anything, we are doing new 'steps' anyway.
That is, we are stepping in new directions, to new
cadences that we are apparently just absorbing from
our time in all of the different clubs. One of the
nice things about dancing down here is that while
there are all levels of dancing, almost everyone stays
in the compas, and everyone moves in a way that
supports your own feel of the music. They Step on the
beat, and then let the heels brush with a 'tic',
exactly on the half-beat. Step-tic-Step-tic-Step-
tic. Everyone in the pulse. There are rarely any
couples out on the floor dancing jarringly out of
tune.

One of the difficult things in tango for me is to
avoid falling into habits of repeating patterns, such
as sometimes doing the same thing after a giro, or
taking the same side step at a certain time. All of
the different clubs and music seem to have rearranged
and added things to our dancing. Even our giros are
breaking apart. Sometimes we start a giro, block it,
hesitate, back out, and start again. It's new and
interesting... and for me it feels very musical.
Start to wind up, unwind, and go again. It takes a
good connection to do it, but we both feel like we are
moving well together, and finding new cadences. Very
comfortable. We seem to be feeling the music at a
better level, and really just having a great time.
It's very nice, like a gift that came without classes
or without consciously working. We've both been in
tango for quite awhile, but we're both enjoying it
more than ever!

(End of part 2. Part 3 continues in report #18)