Dancing in the light

Interesting that the two best London milongas I've been to recently are in the afternoons, which are light at this time of year. Best in terms of general dance quality, general courtesy, and the pleasure of feeling comfortable in fairly crowded rooms.

Another pleasure of these afternoon milongas is that strangers seem to chat with each other much more readily towards the end. I guess that's partly the time of day: by midnight most of us might have other priorities, but at 6pm after a lot of pleasant dances the mind opens out to other people.

So it was that I started chatting with someone I know only by sight. 'Such good dancing!' I said. 'Yes', he replied, 'it was light!' 'It does make a difference, doesn't it?' 'I've seen it myself' he replied. 'People are dancing well, and then the lights get turned down and it all falls apart. I've seen it happen!' & I agree: in fact it's something I've written about from time to time. In the worst milongas the lighting is dramatic, deep shadows, bright patches. It's much more of an effort to stay aware of the couples around you. But worse, as we agreed, there seems to be a loss of inhibitions when the light levels go down. People can't see so clearly, and become more careless. Perhaps they know they are less conspicuous. & we tend to think of dance as abandoning inhibition, letting it all hang out, but dance has to be highly controlled, physically. The formality of the Buenos Aires milongas helps maintain awareness of that control.

Of course there are other considerations. People are less likely to drink when they dance at 3pm: it's more normal to have a glass or two at 10pm. Perhaps the time of day rather than the light level is responsible. But it's true that we are all more alert when the light is good: moreover, bluish light is said to make us more alert, and reddish light to reduce alertness. Perhaps we need tango umpires with light meters! 'Bad light stopped dance.'

Joking aside, I really think it's worth looking at the possibility that upping light levels in milongas can improve the general level of dance. As far as I'm aware shady lighting is a disco/club heritage, and historically it's never been associated with any partner dance. True, some of the Buenos Aires milongas have reduced light levels, but by and large the organisers seem to accept the lighting already there in the halls they use for milongas, with no attempt to make it sexy or dim.

'The last milonguero from Urquiza'

It's how 'El Chino Perico' Ricardo Ponce gets described, but in a wonderful Practimilongueros interview with Monica Paz he says he doesn't like being included with the wonderful dancers he's seen in his life.

I especially love his story of how when he was young his mates thought his posture wasn't that good; they tied a board to his back by ropes at the waist and neck, so every time his head flopped forward he nearly strangled himself. (Could use some of those at London practicas: in my mind's eye I saw a row of boards with ropes waiting at the entrance...) Standing straight and walking well are prerequisites, they need attention: all very well to stare at your partner's feet and twist her around so her legs fly up, like those cloth dolls they dance joke tangos with in the Buenos Aires streets. Dancing with good posture and feeling is something else altogether.

There's deep passion when he talks about tango: 'You're dancing tango and you know that you should be dancing your music with your heart... Tango is a piece of life that you can dance.' & his sense of tango as family is familiar if you go repeatedly to milongas.

I watch El Perico Chino dance and see an extraordinary attention and courtesy to his partner. This level of attention and respect as well as a total sense of the music make this a dance that seems incredibly personal, the momentary awareness of two people for each other and the music. Tango from the heart of Villa Urquiza.

From Practimilongueros.

Flamenco and tango

'Try to be good friends with the earth and with the sky. Feel the floor. Lift the arms very slowly, but only feeling the feet and the floor. With the whole body feel the floor.'

'When you do only one strong beat with the hand or with the feet, but just at the right moment – and there's only one right moment, you know it? – and with your whole being behind (if not, it's not enough) it can be like, like a beam of light to other people. That's true; I know it.'

'If you are healthy you can dance until you die. In flamenco we only dance because it is necessary, not because the curtain is there...'

In one of his wide-ranging monologues Pedro Sanchez said there's a flamenco influence in tango, and since then I've wanted to sit down with him to watch flamenco and find out where he saw this influence. I was reminded of this when I watched Flamenco at 5:15, an Oscar-winning short about a flamenco class taught to students at the National Ballet School of Canada. The (Spanish) teachers speak English. (It's on Openculture, along with 549 other films that are free to watch.)

The three quotes are from the teachers, and they reminded me of things tango dancers have said, or things I've watched. Tete talking about the importance of the floor, of being grounded, Cacho Dante making one precise, clear step at the end of a tango, Ricardo Vidort insisting on the urgency of dancing. If you don't dance because you must, don't dance.

It's interesting watching trained ballet students, their whole discipline based around being aerial, trying to get to grips with flamenco, which is resolutely earth-based, however much the arms reach up. I watched the Bolshoi a few weeks back: not only are their leaps phenomenal, it's the way they land, softly, as if they are as light as a feather.

They did well, the students; quickly mastering the rhythms and movements, but in the end flamenco looked like a style of dance, without the personal urgency you see in great flamenco. The old woman who taught them could create real shock just by moving. & when they danced, their eyes looked out, as if looking for applause, for reassurance. In the best flamenco I've seen the eyes are lost, inward-looking. But they are young, still very young.

Rubén Harymbat

Regarding Rubén Harymbat, Jantango kindly sent me a link to her video of him last November in Lo de Celia: it's on this page of Tango Chamuyo. Jantango comments: 'See Rubén dancing at a milonga. Milongueros dance best with others on the dance floor.'

It seems to be the only YouTube clip of Rubén actually in a milonga, and it's a whole Canaro tanda, so I wanted make a new post rather than leaving it buried in the comments. It's well worth checking out. Demonstrations might give a better view of what the dancers actually do, but clips of dance in Buenos Aires milongas give us a much better sense of the feel of social tango, which is after all what matters. It's easy to understand the reluctance of dancers to be filmed in the social dance, but clips like this are really the best way to appreciate what tango is – apart from actually going there and watching. There's nothing complicated, it's simple stuff but it's done with absolute attention, and it looks great. It's also a pleasure to watch a floor that's not too crowded, and is orderly and calm.

The sensuality of the dance comes across strongly in this clip. Partly the music, of course: early Canaro often suggests a slow, sensual dance.

Wildly off the point, perhaps, but after watching this I went downstairs, where Radio 3 was on. More Wagner: it's a centenary. Not music I like, and there was a laboured interval discussion about the painful conflicts between earthly and spiritual love. Perhaps if Wagner was really such a genius at words, song and movement he would have invented tango, and saved himself a lifetime of self-inflicted agony! It seemed to me that the sensuality of tango is somewhere between the sublime and the earthy: it's not an either/or, it's both! A middle way.

Tibetan teachers told me that there's nothing wrong in enjoyment: it's grasping that creates suffering. So following their advice I continue to enjoy tango, and try not to be too attached (it's tough). Leave the conflicts of earthly and spiritual love to the imagination of others!

Nobleza de Arrabal

Something wasn't working, and it puzzled me for days. Perhaps a clue was that I'd danced with a partner I don't meet with that often, but when I do, every time, I feel her heart beat distinctly. On this occasion not only did I not feel that magic heartbeat, I realised later that I hadn't even noticed its absence while we were dancing. Something definitely wasn't working. Well, it's been hot and humid and the music was excellent, and sometimes it's just not a good idea to be on the floor nearly every tanda. After all, one simply can't be a tango machine. Tango requires a certain discipline, awareness.

Then, digging deep into chingolito2008's clips on YouTube (there's quite an archive there) I came across this from June 2008.  

It affected me in a number of ways. First, it's a fabulous piece of music by the Di Sarli orquesta. & one of Di Sarli's daughters is present, which is why Rubén Harymbat abandons his partner at the end and dashes off to kiss her. Di Sarli's last performance was in 1959 so Rubén is of an age to have heard and danced to Di Sarli live. 

Then the dance: sometimes an intense emotional charge comes through these videos, and this is certainly one, brief as it is. As if Rubén's dance is a celebration of the past and also an acknowledgement of the loss of a great musician. & Rubén's partner is Adela Galeazzi: sometimes I watch clips of her and think she's too ornamental, just because she's so good she can do it all, but here she's so much part of the dance it seems just right.

& the place! That familiar floor! The old Plaza Bohemia on Maipu: not that I was ever there that often, but it feels like as close to tango heaven as I've ever been lucky to get. Strange to see it so empty: I can only wish my first visit had been a few months earlier.

Sadly I don't recall ever watching Rubén in the milongas, and jantango's note on him partly explains that: however, her photo of him shows a face that is familiar. He was teaching until a year or so ago: I think he made several tours of the US and there are videos on YouTube of class demonstrations. I'd love to read accounts of his teaching. Jantango's post has a link to a class demonstration: tangueros of his generation could dance with style and elegance, even in trainers.

But another reason this was a revelation was that it reminded me of something dancers I've had classes with in Buenos Aires tried to knock into me: the leg that steps should be straight. I watch Rubén and see how the stepping leg is almost always straight. The other leg flexes to push the torso, but the leg that steps comes down straight and emphatic. I've found this hard to adjust to: there are so many other things to get right, in addition to actually enjoying dancing. But it's something both Myriam Pincen and Cacho Dante insisted on very seriously. Myriam would glance into the mirror and stop me if my stepping leg was bent: it was a stop-start class. 

I think I needed to be reminded that if the stepping leg is bent, the posture is weak and the connection poor. A straight leg and an upright body, and an upright body makes good connection in the region of the solar plexus. & the width of two fingers above the solar plexus is the point at which you press if you want to get someone's heart to restart.

(That sounds good, but as first aiders know CPR is unlikely to restart the heart: it keeps the blood circulating temporarily. However, the area just above the solar plexus is very close to the heart.)

Disappearing documentaries

Tango documentaries – documentaries about the social dance of the milongas – don't seem to have it easy; no sooner do they appear than they vanish. In a paranoid moment I wonder if dancers of other kinds of tango have Friends in High Places. Catch a glimpse of a wonderful documentary about social tango, and it's gone.

It's happened several times recently, most recently with the Russian-made documentary featuring Pedro Sanchez. Jantango wrote about it and filmed a behind-the-scenes glimpse of filming in Lo de Celia: there's a link to her clip in the post. The documentary was on YouTube, and now 'This video is unavailable. Sorry about that.'

I'm glad I watched it while it was available. I skimmed through the first half, the tango tourist's visits to La Ideal, to La Boca. Then half-way through he, the Russian who wants to learn tango, rings the bell on an unremarkable door in Boedo – and Pedro, beaming as ever, opens it and invites us up the flights of stairs to his roof-top terrace, where the tango lesson begins in the wonderful late-summer afternoon light of Buenos Aires. Just the Russian and Pedro: for 10 minutes or more we watch a scene that could have taken place (less the CD player) 60 years ago, the older guy giving the newcomer an idea of tango. Imitate what I do, now let me push you so you get the feel of it, now push me. & above all, listen to the music! How it informs the way you move! The commentary is entirely in Russian: so what!

I should add that this one-to-one teaching wasn't familiar to me from my encounters with Pedro, who would always find a partner for me if I didn't have one. But the direct learning was always there. & I didn't intend to be impolite when I said that Pedro pushes: he firmly grabs your forearms and leaves you in no doubt what you have to do.

Then the scene shifts to Lo de Celia, where the Russian negotiates a milonga. It's well done: the failed efforts at cabeceo, and finally the nod that accepts his invitation, and the ensuing dances. & it's all disappeared. 

Other films I can think of that have vanished:

Maestros Milongueros, which has been shown occasionally in Buenos Aires.

There's a half-hour film by French film-maker (and architect) Odile Fillon about Tete Rusconi, which has an excellent sequence of Tete teaching in the Plaza Bohemia on Maipu: he's in great good humour, laughing, joking, flirting outrageously, and giving clear and useful advice. A couple of years since I saw it, and I'd dearly like to watch it again.

Ad Occhi Chiusi, Eyes Closed, is an Italian film, which exists as a trailer on YouTube.

Some months ago a tango documentary was shortlisted for a film festival (in Italy I think) and was available on the festival website and on YouTube – for a couple of days. It disappeared from the festival website, although other videos on the website remained visible, and since I can't remember what it was called I can't even start to see if it's available on YouTube, but I doubt it.

& that's just an off-the-top-of-my-head list. I'm sure there are more. Too bad, really: there must be around six that have appeared briefly and vanished. Of course the producers, the people who paid for them, will hardly rejoice that their product can be seen for free on YouTube, but I wish they'd get together and produce a DVD of all their wonderful short videos of social tango, of the older dancers at home and on the dance floor. (Same thing, really.) 

One documentary that has been around for a while is One Tango Moment, a charming and instructive documentary of how a couple who became Australian tango champions visit Buenos Aires to take part in the Mundial, the world championships. She goes out dancing one evening and discovers Argentine tango... After that, everything they do seems excessive, overblown. Their rehearsals of their choreography become fraught, and she wants to drop out of the Mundial altogether. They go through with it but get nowhere. (I guess from one point of view you could say it has a happy ending.)

The video was posted on YouTube by the director, Carla Thackrah, along with her other films. One Tango Moment is well filmed and put together; it has only the briefest moments of social tango but it's a revealing record of the experience of two quite different forms of tango.

Tango from an earlier time

Jantango just sent me this link and I've sat for 30 minutes, open-mouthed. Thanks Janis!

It's a playlist, 34 videos in all. (I noticed I was only the second view: Jantango was presumably the first.) First up, Tete on a fairly open floor in Canning in 2006: nice, I thought, always great to watch Tete dancing in a milonga rather than giving a demo. But then my jaw really hit the deck: two videos of Martha Anton dancing with El Petaca. Is this really Martha Anton many years ago, perhaps even as far back as the early 1970s? Extraordinary. & I'd never come across El Petaca. Two really wonderful compelling tracks of dance, just wonderful.

Then an unnamed couple. & then... Mingo Pugliese leading Antonio Todaro. Unbelievable, and great fun. What a treasure trove!

Then there's a tango from another un-named couple, another very intense dance, but undated too. After that, two tracks that must come from Marisa Galindo's show, La Milonga, in 1991: the first is Mingo and Esther Pugliese, and the second, Gerardo Portalea and partner (his wife I think), how to dance to Di Sarli by the best. After that, Gavito from 2001, followed by another un-named couple, then two dances by Pupy Castello and Graziela Gonzales.

After that we're into HD video, Sonia Marambie and Christian Henriquez filmed in 2013 in a studio decorated with rather dodgy paintings.

Some but not all of the dances in this sequence are quite elaborate, but despite the elaboration (the kind which probably wouldn't be too welcome on a crowded floor) there's still a real sense of feeling, the capacity to be moved by the music, an intense dance with some flashy moments, almost defiant flashy moments; I couldn't help thinking of this against a grim political background. But when we get to 2013... well, I don't think it's just the paintings, but at this point we seem to have reached a kind of dance I'm sadly too familiar with, great technique, but not a lot more by comparison with the earlier videos. The emotional intensity of the earlier dances draws me in, moves me, whereas the wonderful technique of the recent dances leaves me cold.

Many thanks to tangobravo6 for this sequence. Hopefully it'll be possible to identify some of the other dancers. Some wonderful tango from an earlier time. Just a pity there's nothing here from Ricardo Vidort! Then it really would be an epic find.

Comments

I discovered recently that comments sometimes don't get through to me: I know for sure that comments by two people have failed to arrive. I thought I should post about this: perhaps it happens more widely, perhaps I'm not the only one. Perhaps there's a simple fix for it. If you can shine any light on this, please do send a comment. One clue seems to be that sometimes the usual statement '...your comment is awaiting approval' does NOT appear when you post a comment.

Now this is a bit of a delicate matter. For most of its eventful life Tangocommuter has been unmoderated. I found that even the most irritatingly trivial comments could sometimes provoke useful discussions, and I liked the immediacy of it: it felt like a forum, open to all voices. But I began to get weary of what seemed like self-promotion. Tangoimmigrant published a wonderful piece about this, wording it with a delicate good humour that I can't match. Anyway, recently I've been moderating comments. I don't exclude anyone, but I have excluded comments (a few) that don't seem to me to contribute anything at all to the discussion. & that's included comments that are way off-subject.

But comments not reaching me, even perhaps your insight as to why this might be happening, that's a real problem. So I've switched off the moderating option for now. I'd be very grateful if you could contact me with any similar experiences you've had with Blogger, any solutions you know of, any queries as to whether I received comments you sent and which didn't appear. If this has been at all regular I need to try and get an answer from Blogger.

Paul has already suggested that Blogger was updated a while back, and that this blog started before then, but I've checked up on that, and the software is automatically updated just by logging in. I can't find a version number, as you usually can with software, but I'm reasonably sure it's up-to-date. I think it's unlikely to be a problem at either the sender's PC or mine, but you never know. Maybe there's some obscure bug. But I want to be confident that if you send a comment I will receive it. Possibly I might not publish it, but I want to read it. Thanks!