Cherie Magnus’ new book, The Church of Tango, is out now.

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin

The Church of Tango: a Memoir, published January 21, 2012

On July 1st 2001, Cherie Magnus’ short article, The Church of Tango was published here on the-vu. Now a full-length memoir with the same title is published and it’s the talk of the milongas around the world. Cherie writes on her blog:

“Finally.

I started writing this story at the time it began–in February of 1992, when I was so depressed after my husband’s death I wanted to swallow all of his left-over meds and follow him into the beyond. So what began in a way as a journal or diary became the chronicle of my road to survival in four countries. And once I made that decision to live no matter what tragedy came my way, I plugged on, through one tremendous loss after another, by dancing. No, not yet had the tango found me, but whatever dance there was at the time came to my rescue. I had always been a dancer, and now I knew dance could save me from despair.

As my adventures unfolded, the manuscript grew and grew. I had to make cuts in events, characters, reflections and realizations. That was the hardest part of bringing this story to fruition. There is so much left out. Who knows, maybe I’ll write The Daughter of the Church of Tango, or a prequel one day.

Our students come from all over the world: China, The Philippines, Australia, Viet Nam, New Zealand, Hawaii, South Africa, India, Nepal, Finland, Russia, Israel, Scandinavia, all over Europe, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada and the U.S. And one question almost all ask me is, how did I end up teaching tango in Argentina?

This book is my answer.

Lots of women have come to Buenos Aires for tango, stayed a while, and went home and wrote about their experiences. There are a couple of tango histories available in English, as well as a couple of Buenos Aires milonga guide books. There are self-help books using tango as a way to better interpersonal relationships. There are some novels about tango in Buenos Aires.

My memoir is not like any of them; it is not a “tango book,” but a story of survival that cuts across death, cancer, Alzheimer’s, loss of home and homeland and cherished heirlooms and possessions, loss of shared histories, of hope for one’s children, of hope for the future, of love. But it’s also about finding love and unexpected joy. And about listening to the music and dancing.”

It can be ordered from the printer online: https://www.createspace.com/3733773

Now available on Amazon and soon as an ebook for Kindle.

Taking the “A” Train

Posted on February 1, 2006 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

What is it about trains?

We all love them–the waiting, the leaving, the whistles. Who can hear the distant “woo-woo” of a train without feeling something’s longing, nostalgia, the urge to hop on and leave your old life behind? Literature abounds with romantic train symbols: The Polar Express, Streetcar Named Desire, Train to Nowhere, The Last Train Home.

The same for tunnels, which can be passages to somewhere mysterious and unknown. Aren’t the words, “secret tunnel” exciting? Tunnels are a metaphor of life and death? Mystery and secrets? The birth experience, with light and life at the end?

And when there are trains in tunnels, well, in the old movies Hollywood movies during the moral censorship days of the Hayes Code, when a train went into a tunnel, the audience knew the stars were having sex.

Most people don’t find the subway so romantic. But taking the A line of the Buenos Aires subway is usually an opportunity for me to be transported to realms other than the stations of Peru, Piedras and Pasco.

The “A” line is the oldest in the Buenos Aires subway system, or Supte. Construction began in 1911 and opened to the public in 1913. It’s a short line of only 13 stations, beginning from the Plaza de Mayo. There the President’s Pink House and the Cathedral sit at right angles around a plaza full of history, monuments, protests, and souvenir stands hawking blue and white Argentine flags.

A couple of cars have been replaced, but generally when I ride to my Castellano class or to church, I take one of the original wooden cars. At times it’s almost a mystical ride, especially early in the morning or late at night. As I sit on the wooden slat benches, the train rocks me from side to side, the rings hanging from the ceiling swing hypnotically. The original incandescent lighting is still in use in old-fashioned glass shades, and the light glows on the wood, brass and beveled mirrors. These original cars have windows at both ends so you can see right through to the next car or to the black tunnel you have just left or into the one you are entering. The world up top seems so far away.

During the day, cars passing over the grills on the street above, make daylight come and go as the train rumbles along in the dark tunnel.
Light in tunnels is a strong metaphor. During a series of site-specific dance performances in Los Angeles by Collage Dance Theater in the year 2000, abandoned subway tunnels from the 20′s were used in the work, SubVersions. A brilliant idea full of symbolism, dancers dug through rubble for lost hope, and waltzed as phantoms through the elegant art deco Terminal building. Finally they built a makeshift boat full of happy passengers waving goodbye, which was borne on shoulders, down the dark tunnel until its light disappeared.

Because tunnels are so appealing, wise businessmen around the world put the lure of exploring history underground to good use. In Seattle, Washington, a popular tourist attraction is a walking tour of the subterranean tunnels under Pioneer Square, once the main roadways and ground-floor storefronts of old downtown.

The abandoned silver mine shaft in Zacatecas, Mexico, was turned into an amusement park-type of attraction with an underground disco. Patrons take the old mine train from the entrance and pass the centuries old chapel with flowers and burning candles still honoring the miners who lost there lives there underground.

In Paris, tourists line up to explore the Catacombs, and not too long ago they also went on underground sewer tours. Here in Buenos Aires are forgotten old tunnels as well. El Zanjón de Granados, on Defensa in San Telmo, is 150 meters of tunnels, 4 meters wide, dating from the beginning of the 19th century. And under the Manzana de las Luces are Jesuit tunnels even older.

I’m not a spelunker, or cave explorer. I don’t belong to any narrow gauge or steam train club. I don’t search out the roller coasters of the world. I’m not about to climb into an old well or abandoned mineshaft.

I’m just going to keep on taking the A Train. It’s not hard to imagine, as the train appears from nowhere in the station, that the next stop is somewhere ethereal and strange. I take my seat and vanish into history.

Cherie Magnus (left, back to camera) now lives in Buenos Aires. She has written many articles and has contributed to the-vu for many years, from California, from Cuba, from Europe, from Mexico and now from Argentina. Follow her blog at http://tangocherie.blogspot.com/

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 12

Posted on July 5, 2004 by admin

Leaving San Miguel
By Cherie Magnus

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.
–Yogi Berra

That terrible ache and nostalgia for home when home is gone, and this isnt it. And the sun so white like an onion. And who the hell thought of placing a city here with no large body of water anyway! In less than three hours we could be at the border, but wheres the border to the past, I ask you, where? Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo

In the evening flocks of grackles wrote Vs against the mango sky. The setting sun shone through the dusty dome windows of Las Monjas one block west, and I could see the towers of five more colonial churches from my rooftop. Almost every day beneath the windows of my apartment passed processions of pilgrims, celebrants, or mourners. The Virgin sat on the back of a pickup truck or thirty schoolchildren carried an enormous Mexican flag or peppy tuba bands and old men, hats in hand, walked behind a hearse.

Even so, after two years in Mexico I had overdosed on the traditional fiestas that used to enchant me. As someone who enjoys the Latin passion in the cultures of France and Cuba, I couldnt find the same joie de vivre in Mexico. Mexican allegre was not a moving, pulsing force, but comfort and relaxationabundant good food, bright and happy music, flowing beer and tequila, family togetherness and church. The sole ecstasy I witnessed was in the many fervent religious activities. I missed the zest and energy on the street and in the music that I found so compelling elsewhere.

I enjoyed greeting friends and acquaintances whenever I stepped out my door, yet the population was transitory, and new friends were hard to keep, often leaving after a short stay to return home to Canada or the United States. Real relationships had little time to develop. My circle of friends had changed. My favorite bar had closed, and even before that I stopped going out in the evening. I found that without realizing it, I was drinking too much, too often, as a way to be with people. Lately I might go to Harry Bissetts on Martini Night, and after two Cosmos, the smoke and the cackling Texas laughter would drive me around the corner and home. I read, worked on the computer, wrote articles and emails to the world out there, and watched Mexican TV. The folks I counted on were the women in my cancer support group, my friends at church, the group of writers who met at my house weekly, my fellow flamenco students, as well as the two or three friends I made at the bars when I first arrived. I had some Mexican friends by now, too, yet somehow there was always a gap between us which wasnt a problem of language. I guess it was cultural differences, although I hated to think that was possible between people who cared about one another.

There were several different social groups in San Miguel, and I didnt fit into any of them: the cocktail party circuit; the landed house builders, remodelers and decorators who had inexhaustible discussions on whether to paint the sala saffron or aubergine; the old hippies in beads; the Texas Junior League women with perfectly streaked blond hair and chunky silver jewelry active in charity fundraisers; the gringa owners of boutiques and businesses; the newly reinvented artists; and of course the Mexicans who had little time to spare away from their work and families.

Where I felt empowered, at my best, and at home was with dancers. In San Miguel I had searched out dance in studios, schools, clubs, theaters, parties, and discos. I tried Sweat Your Prayers on Sunday mornings, folk dance at the Bellas Artes, contact improvisation, Mexican folklorico, salsa in classes and clubs, and took the bus to Mexico City in search of tango, the immigrants dance. More than a hundred years ago in Buenos Aires, the lonely porteno, far from his loved ones in Europe, was drawn to the connection and nostalgia of tango. In Mexico ones family is large and ubiquitous, and people live for the moment. Unlike me, the Mexican has no need to search for a family in a milonga, and Mexican tango is almost an oxymoron.

Finally it was flamenco that saved my body and spirit. And after a student flamenco recital in which I did a solo belly dance, opportunities presented themselves to teach La Danse Orientale, to perform, to collaborate creatively with the flamenco teacher and musicians. But then what? I couldnt afford to keep going in the financial hole every month and manufacturing my own artistic outlets. I knew I couldnt live forever in the expensive Brigadoon Gringolandia that was San Miguel. If I did, I’d soon be one of the crones sitting in doorways with knarled hands outstretched to passing tourists.

The view from Cherie’s roof
Much of the Happy Hour conversations now centered on how the town had changed and how expensive it had become. I had done my best to live within my budget, moving three times to cheaper and smaller San Miguel apartments, nevertheless from the beginning it had been an impossible dream in the most costly place to live in Mexico. I had increasingly gone into my savings, and soon they would be gone if I didnt do something drastic. San Miguel de Allende had been my home throughout three icy winters when I wore dance tights 24/7 and my electric throw over my shoulders on a long extension cord, heating my apartment with pots of water boiling on the stove. And during two hot and breathless springs, when dusty winds covered the town filling my lungs with desert sand, bus exhaust, and dried dog and burro dung. The weather-perfect months in between I revelled in the afternoon rains, the ideal temperature, and the dazzling colors of the bougainvillia-bejeweled colonial architecture. Now the pleasure I found in San Miguel was no longer enough, and not for the rest of my life.

I learned a lot in Mexico, I had made friends I cherished, I loved my apartment and the beauty of the town, where, like at Chateau Rodney in Los Angeles, I heard church bells and train whistles calling me to places far away. It was time to move onto someplace where the cost of living was less, where there was symphony and ballet and art museums, to someplace where I could dance more than solos. I yearned for the embrace of tango.

After more than a decade of searching, it looked like my future would be in other places, other hemispheres. I missed Los Angeles and the United States, and if wishes could make it so, I would still be living with my family in our house in Los Feliz under the Hollywood Sign. I had twice paddled in the River Styx, and now Ive been blessed with the chance of forging another life. I would have designed a different path for myself, but my life unfolded without consulting me.

Once again I had to bid a painful farewell to good friends, a mixed group of beloved people who had welcomed this stranger into their homes, lives and hearts. I was going to miss the man selling cigarettes and sodas on the corner, the flower seller who made the rounds of all the bars and restaurants every night, the girl who practiced her cello while working in the gallery below my apartment. I was worn-out from the partings and leave-takings of the last twelve years. But in Mexico, where nothing was as it seemed, manana didnt mean tomorrow, and Adios! was not goodbye.

View down from Cherie’s Balcony

Phoebe’s Tail at home in San Miguel

About this author: With degrees in English, Dance, and Library Science from UCLA, Cherie has published many articles in professional journals and magazines. Her solo travels to Europe and Latin America have inspired several pieces published in Skirt!, PassionFruit, Moxie, JourneyWoman, Dancing USA, GoNomad, Open Spaces, Porthole, The Cusco Weekly, the-vu, and various online magazines. She was the dance critic for the Cerritos News in Orange County, California before moving to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She is currently at work on a novel situated in France, when she’s not out dancing. Follow her blog at http://tangocherie.blogspot.com/

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 11

Posted on July 3, 2004 by admin

The Worlds of Xochimilco
By Cherie Magnus

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable. ~William Wordsworth

In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death. ~Sam Llewelyn

Xochimilco, the place of the flower fields (in Nahuatl), is at once an ancient Aztec dream, a modern Mexican fiesta, and an eccentric eerie nightmareall in one glorious experience and all in one day. Imagine in one short Mexico City afternoon floating between two cultures centuries apart, with the added fillip of a hidden island of ghosts and dead dolls.

Very little remains of Aztec daily life and splendor. Aside from the pyramids, and artifacts displayed in museums, we can only guess at the wonders of Tenochtitlan while we stand in the middle of Mexico Citys Zocalo and stare at the cathedral sinking slowly into the ooze of the primordial lake below.

In pre-Hispanic times the Xochimilcas built rectangular soil-covered rafts (chinampas) in Lake Xochimilco, which with time became islands rooted to the bottom and separated by water-filled canals. Perhaps because the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco were built on the eternal lake, they still exist. Thankfully they have been restored and reclaimed from the pollution and neglect that almost caused their extinction, and Xochimilco was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987. Not only do the floating gardens enthrall visitors and tourists, but they are still used today as they have been since the Tenth Centuryto grow plants, vegetables and flowers for central Mexico.

You feel like youre at the seaside as you enter one of Xochimilcos many embarcaderos filled with the colorful flat-bottomed boats called trajineras. Now duplicated in crepe paper, in times past the multicolored designs with girls names on the front and tops of the boats were made of fresh flowers. Still for special occasions, arrangements can be made in advance for real floral decorations to cover the boat and to spell out the name of the honoree. There are so many crafts waiting that you can walk from deck to deck all across the landing to the one of your choice. You hire a trajinera by the hour, and unfortunately most tourists opt for only one hour, imagining that they have seen what there is to see and rush off to the next attraction on their Mexico City list. For such an extraordinary historical, cultural, and natural site, there is little hype in the travel media. But the local Mexican people know how to party and enjoy themselves, and on weekends the smaller, higher section of the canals and gardens are jammed with vessels and competing floating mariachi bands, stern to port, starboard to starboard, at times resembling bump em boats at a carnival.

Like in Venice, the gondolas are propelled by one man (and here sometimes a strong woman) standing on the back with a long pole. Our boat with a long narrow table and twenty yellow straw-bottomed chairs, contained only my friend, myself, and a plastic bucket of iced beverages, but even when a boat is party packed, one person provides the power. The only mechanical sound on the canals is from the occasional police motor boat. The trajineras move in silence, but the happy people on them are loudly partying as Mexicans do better than anyone.

The fiesta boats generally have refreshments brought from home, but if anything is forgotten (and for the more casual cruiser who is less prepared) vendors conveniently drift by selling flowers, drinks, candy, souvenirs, fresh hot snacks and main dishes, blankets and rebozos, as well as floating photographers to commemorate the moment. There are boat after boatload of uniformed mariachis and vessels containing only a single mirimba, which tie up to the party boats during the short concerts paid for by the song. Our gondola barely squeezed by a flotilla of six tied together two by two, plus the required aquatic mariachi attachment. Women were dancing on the three feet of deck when we collided, spilling beer and flowers into the canal, but the fiesta continued with even more laughter as we passed them by. People wave and call out to each other. Several parties had family members regaling their captive partiers with jokes, and we laughed as well.

Homes and plant nurseries and green houses of roses line the upper canals; floating bridges are hauled by ropes into place when necessary for crossing. The islands have no cars, and there are small private gondolas used by residents for transportation. The Aztecs brought in everything to their city on boats such as these, and today the canals are used in much the same way.

Soon we arrive at the lock and descend to the lower and larger area of islands which are pastoral cornfields, farms and pasturelands of grazing animals. We pass indian children in green canoes filled with flowers, and two small boys paddling home with their bicycle on board. No mariachi boats, only the quiet kiss of the water as the gondolier poles us forward. Lazy trees lounge on the banks trailing their limbs in the water, bright red bougainvillea punctuates the green stillness, an occasional mudhen navigates through the waterlilies, a salamander suns on a rock, fish disturb the waters satin surface, insects and birds sing. Another worldmystical, serene, timeless. Our festive trajinera seems anachronistic, but we are too blissful to care.

The mood changes when we land at the Isla de las Munecas, the Island of the Dolls. Don Julian lived there for fifty years, and for the twenty-five before his death two years ago, sought to appease the ghost of a drowned child with the dolls he pulled up from the depths of the canals. Dead dolls of all kinds hang from the trees and vines and rafters, their eyes bewitching and disturbing the visitors who have come to gawk and photograph in this surreal sanctuary. There is an altar to Don Julian, and in an open shed, a kind of museum. As the fame of the Island of the Dolls spreads, people all over the world send their own dolls to be displayed and to disintegrate, covered by cobwebs and dust with all the rest. It can be disconcerting to see your favorite Betsy or Ginny naked, muddy, missing a limb, and hanging by the neck. While bizarre and off-putting for some (one woman tourist refused to get out of the boat), the island is in fact a kind of work of art in the realm of other one mans fantasy environmentsEdward James, Simon Rodia, even William Randolph Hurst come to mind.

Don Julians family is carrying on the tradition, and the creepy feel of wandering among childhood toys once beautiful and cherished now tainted by evil and death, is balanced by Don Julians jovial nephew barbecuing fresh corn under the palapa and laying out juicy limes and chili for the tequila he proudly serves us.

Even so, one journeys back to the lock and to the parties and festivities in the high canals and then to the busy embarcadero and home, wherever it is, changed. Some voyagesthe best onesare like that.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 10

Posted on July 2, 2004 by admin

Tango Magic in Oaxaca
By Cherie Magnus

Imagine a large leafy square with fountains and huge trees, surrounded on four sides by the colorful arcades of ancient colonial buildings. Imagine the kiss of a chocolate scented breeze on your skin. Imagine a concert band playing a classical concert with elderly couples rising casually from their benches to dance an elegant and sophisticated Danzon.

I didnt have to imagine it, because I was in Oaxaca, a state capital city in southern Mexico that is as breathtaking as everyone says it is. Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico but one of the richest in tradition, cuisine, culture, and natural beauty. I could have chosen no better vacation spot for the week I was away from my home in San Miguel de Allende, twelve hours north by bus.

Although a large city, it felt small and accessible, and it seemed I could walk anywhere I wanted to go. I did get into a car to visit the ancient ruins of Monte Alban on my second day. I booked a tour through my hotel, but it would have been just as easy to go the 6 km on the public bus. The guide, Guillermo, explained to our little group of four the history, poetry and romance of the sacred historical site from 500 B.C. His English was eloquent and his knowledge of Mexican pre-history vast, as he had studied archaeology and anthropology at the university.

I also wanted to visit the Monte Alban City of Death, or Mitla, which was 50 kilometers along the Tehuantepec road, plus some stops at craft villages. So the next day I wandered into a tourist office and talked to Jorge Jimenez Rodriguez about a trip for the following day. Jorge didnt have Guillermos expertise at explaining ancient archeology or even English, but he did have the gift of gab en espagnol.

Mitla is an unique archaeological site with Mixtec buildings of great artistic beauty. This is where the priests of Monte Alban lived and died, and some of the tombs may be visited.

After Mitla, we made an unscheduled stop at a mescal factory by the side of the road, and toured through the many steps from maguey to bottle, I tasted some of every kind. Who knew there was cappuccino and coconut flavored mescal? I bought what tasted the best to me, but also because of the worm in the bottom of the bottle.

The various craft villages all specialize, and you can meet and purchase directly from the artisans. San Martin Tilcajete in the Valley of Oaxaca is where you find the woodcarvers whose colorful fantasy animals are famous around the world.

At the weaving village, Teotitlan del Valle, the little shops of the many different weaversall women–were set cheek to jowl, meaning you didnt have to cover a lot of territory to do a lot of shopping. I wanted to buy everything just because it all was beautiful, the weavers themselves were so lovely, and the prices after good-natured bargaining, seemed like stealing.

One of the weavers I purchased from was a young girl with beautiful braided hair. When I asked her if I could take her picture, she requested copies and I took another picture of her writing down her address in my notebook. She spoke Zapotec, Spanish and English.

We also visited the Casa Rosa pottery factory in the village known for its black pottery, San Bartolo Coyotepec, and watched a demonstration by Rosas grandson, himself an old man, who made an exquisite jar of the local black pottery using the ancient Zapotec Wheel, meaning no wheel at all but a saucer turned by one hand as the other shaped the clay.

We had lunch in a restaurant near the Tule Tree, a immense cypress supposedly 2,000 years old. Its easy to disparage such a tourist attraction, but actually it was awesome. The entire town of Santa Maria del Tule appeared to have been built around the tree with tourism in mind, with flower beds and elegant walkways. Theres a fence around the tree, so that you must pay the 2 pesos entrance fee to get the closest look at the allegedly biggest tree in the world, at 53 meters around and a little more than 41 meters tall.

Thrilled by the gorgeous work of the local artisans I had seen in the villages, I found my way to the Mercado des Artesanias, just a few blocks from my hotel. It was hot and close inside, as well as dark, not like the cheerful outdoor shops in the villages. The wares were superb, and I shopped, but I remain haunted by the sight of a young boy of ten or eleven selling an armload of very wilted white flowers. He had exhaustion in his eyes as he shuffled through the stiffling airless mercado, slumped like an old man. His skin was blotchy with patches of white on his brown face, and his eyes were weary. How I regret not buying his flowers.

That night I went to El Sagrario, a three story café-restaurant-pizzeria-nightclub close to the zocalo. Good thing I got there early, because by ten thirty there was standing room only. Two live bands alternated, so there was constant music but little dancing until a group of three young men from Veracruz arrived. Luckily they sat near me, and once the band got their salsa groove, the three of them alternated dancing with me. Soon I was invited to join them at their table, and I thought I had died and gone back to Cuba. Juan Carlos, one of the most handsome men I ever met, danced like a Cuban.

Sunday I went to mass at the elegantly rococo Santo Domingo church. The inside is dazzling gold leaf, the outside a gorgeous green limestone. Later that evening I returned for an outdoor chamber music concert by the Mozart String Sextet with the full moon rising behind the church as a backdrop.

After mass, I headed back to the zocalo for the noon concert of the Oaxaca State Concert Band. I had attended the previous nights concert, and was impressed with the professional sound and lighting, as well as the musicianship and artistry of the performance.

Today they had set up under the large trees instead of in the art nouveau fantasy bandstand, the plazas centerpiece. The many folding chairs were already full of Sunday best elegant locals, European tourists, gringos, indigenous folk in their ethnic clothes, children and babies and grandmothers, teens and the many shoeshine men, who kept on working during the 90 minute concert on customers happy to listen as they sat in comfortable padded chairs on wheels. The eclectic program included Bolero, Granada, and Deep in the Heart of Texas.

A little boy selling Chiclets stops in his tracks, enthralled, a foot away from the first trombone player and appears hypnotized for the length of the piece. Another Chiclets vendor, a middle-aged indigenous woman, stops working the crowd when the band strikes up the Pineapple Dance from the local Gueleguetza folklore, and claps joyously with the music. Everyone jumps to their feet and sings the final piece, Oaxaca Linda, the state anthem, with love and pride. I had never seen such a magical blending of an audience, although I know music does that.

I was so filled with joy that after the concert I couldnt do anything but relish it. And so took a table at one of the many zocalo cafes and ordered a cup of chocolate and watched the parade going by my table.

Good natured vendors of small wooden toys plied their products to us sitting ducks at the outdoor cafes. To the contrary of being bothered by the vendors, it was a pleasure to sit in that lovely spot and have the wares come to me. And if I refused (how many chicken paddles can you use?), the sellers continued on with a smile.

A beautiful dark and slender young woman balanced a huge basket of red roses on her head as she crossed in front of me like a dancer. A candlelight peace vigil was making a presence in these last days before the Iraqi war. A mandolin quintet, with claves, was singing everyones favorite songs for a price.

The many colossal balloon clusters of invisible vendors seemed like eerie, silent witnesses to the life in the plaza. They bobbed, pulsed, breathed, appearing to me like living plastic and mylar beings of great wisdom. Zocalo life could come and go, but the balloons saw it all and werent telling.

Returning to my hotel, I glanced into the courtyard of an ancient building and saw dancers moving together without music. Stopping I looked harder because what they were doing reminded me of tango. A closer look told me it was tango, or was supposed to be.

Drawn like a magnet, I went in and asked a seated woman if this was a rehearsal for a dance performance. No, it seemed this was a tango class! Well, I said, I am a tourist here, but I am a professional tango dancer.

The class came to a sudden halt, and I was swept toward the teacher, a skinny toothless old man. Someone punched play on the boombox, and nothing would do but the old man and I had to dance a tango together for the camcorder! After what was a very painful experience because he hadnt a clue how to dance but must have picked up some choreography from Rudolf Valentino movies, they turned the video camera on me and asked me to dance solo! I danced a solo tango which is now preserved on video in Oaxaca, Mexico! I talked to some of the students, danced with young Alejandro and exchanged email addresses, and I sashayed on my way feeling like a movie star.

Sad to be leaving the next morning, and challenged to get all of my purchases packed for the bus, I put off thinking about it and went to an internet ice cream store. I ordered two scoops of nieveZapotec Dreams and Tamarindo with Chileto refresh me as I pounded out descriptive email to my friends who had never had the good fortune to visit Oaxaca. And I stayed for quite a while, having another iceMescal this timeas the internet cost only 8 pesos per hour (about $.75).

Maybe Ill postpone my return to San Miguel and go back to that fabulous museum in the Ex-Convento of Santo Domingo, and while Im at it, revisit the Tamayo Museum, too. And since there are seven types of mole and Ive only had two of them, some more meals on the zocalo also seem like a good idea. There is so much to see and doand eat!in Oaxaca.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 9

Posted on July 1, 2004 by admin

Dancing Down The Aisle
By Cherie Magnus

I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I dance down the aisle of Saint Pauls Anglican Church in San Miguel twice a month, carrying my cross. Like most people, Ive always had a cross to bear, except for that brief perfect time of my marriage. And now I have a literal one. Im a Crucifer.

The cross I carry is very beautiful, made of stained glass and Tiffany jewels. And I do dance with it, the processional step-pause of a wedding, and always in time to the hymn being sung. I wear a white alb, usually my San Miguel cocktail huaraches and a small ruby and silver cross made by a local jeweler.

It is such a blessing for me to serve in this way. I feel proud and humble and thankful. The Mexican people are accustomed to physically participating in their religion on a daily basis, unlike the Protestant gringo and Northern European. Ive felt so envious of all the processions and the full-blown, emotional festivals Ive witnessed here, longing to be a part of them. In my own quiet gringa way Ive built altars in my apartment, and lately in the business offices of my busy Mexican friends. Im always in the streets for the processions on feast days, I walked all night the 17 kilometers from Atotonilco at Easter time, and Ive gone alone late at midnight to the Panteon on Day of the Dead, wishing I could join a family celebration on the grave of a loved one.

What an exquisite and moving tradition to have a special day to honor ones dead with remembrances and fiestas. It is so healthy for the living to remember their loved ones and to contemplate their own mortality in a personal way. My husbands grave in France is a plot leased for only twenty more years, my mother is buried in an old graveyard in downtown Los Angeles, my fathers burial place is in the Valley with my grandfathers, and my grandmothers ashes were scattered at sea before she allowed me or my children to be notified of her death. No one visits, and certainly no one parties on their graves, bringing their favorite foods and drink and flowers to lure their spirits back for that night, unless its a Mexican familys overflow. But now Ive learned how to lure their spirits back to me once a year.

Here in Mexico religion is everywhere, and I am thankful I have one too. Maybe Im not a Catholic, but it doesnt matter. I understand the sufferings of Jesus, and his mother, Our Lady of Sorrows. I pray to the same God, and the complicated legends and stories that Mexicans grow up with now enrich my faith too. Im moved to touch the old beloved images the people kiss and adore even though it is not in my culture as a Lutheran, but I am blessed just the same. All the thousands of saints and the Hosts of Heaven and the Orishas of Cuba look after me too, and Im thankful I at last found out about them.

Last Easter season I made the midnight pilgrimage from Atononilco, a beautiful old church (called the Sistine Chapel of Mexico) in a village 17 km from San Miguel., an annual tradition for over 250 years–carrying a sacred image to San Miguel for the Easter season. About 6,000 people walk along in silence behind El Senor de la Columna in the light of torches, with rockets going off at the head of the procession to announce our arrival. Then at six on Sunday morning, when we entered San Miguel on Independencia, thousands more people lined the decorated streets in welcome, offering the pilgrims hot food and drink. We stopped there to unveil the images, and then continued on to the church of San Juan de Dios, walking through the mint and manzanilla and elaborate designs in colored sawdust covering the cobblestones, our footsteps scattering in an instant the beautiful patterns incorporating Catholic and indigenous designs that took all the previous day and night to make.

My personal cross has been heavy at times, with all the illness, death and loss of the past decade. But Ive always had help in carrying it, and now to lead the procession to worship in a beautiful little church in Mexico is my blessing and reward.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 8

Posted on May 5, 2003 by admin

Corpus Christi in San Miguel
By Cherie Magnus

My first day back in San Miguel de Allende after three weeks, I ran around doing errands, unpacking, organizing, but I wasnt too busy to notice the hanging of red and gold satin and velvet banners from balconies along the main streets. Thinking a weekend fiesta was in the making, I went about my business. I was tired and almost ate a quesadilla standing at the stove, which is my usual dinner fare. But I decided to go out for a margarita instead and see if I could find any of my friends, since I already was missing my Los Angeles people.

Noticing that the streets were covered in fragrant herbs like a lawn, I stood and stared at the cobblestones for a while as if the green were a mirage in the dusk. My eyes just couldnt process what they were seeing. Then I noticed large bouquets of crimson and gold flowers placed on the sidewalks outside several grand colonial doorways, openings that ordinarily are entrances to apartment buildings, shops, and restaurants.

Peering inside one such doorway, and not wishing to disturb the silent worshippers there, I saw a glorious altar, all in red, gold and white, with God the Father reaching down from a cloud. In another doorway-turned-chapel, was a tiny girl dressed as an angel sitting on a white satin stool in front of the altar. As my eyes got used to what to look for, I saw many altars, all different, in the center of town.

Soon, naturally, a procession began to wend its way from the Parroquia and down the mint-and-flower-strewn streets. Stopping at every altar, the men carrying the litter with the Sacraments kneel, a priest takes it inside, and a prayer is read for that family, amplified by the speaker one man carries over his shoulder. The people on the street often kneel too and make the sign of the cross and the men remove their hats. And then a rocket is shot off into the sky and explodes, either to scare away evil spirits or to alert God of whats going on here in San Miguel de Allende.

The procession moves slowly forward along the proscribed route of crimson banners while a choir sings behind the accompanist who plays a Casio keyboard carried by four boys. Fresh bread rolls, flowers, and herbs are given to the people at every altar. Sometimes the rocket frightens the roosting pigeons, which scatter, fluttering, as if they were released for effect on cue.

The small official procession is enlarged with hundreds of the faithful following behind, who respond to the liturgy with attentive Amens. The air is perfumed with incense and the streets become the church, the Body of Christ is literarlly brought to the people. Corpus Christi is more than a town in Texas, it is a holy festival day nowhere more celebrated than in Mexico.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 7

Posted on April 1, 2003 by admin

The Field Trip
By Cherie Magnus

Early on Saturday morning, I climbed into the minivan, found the last seat, and introduced myself to the seven women and one man filling the cramped interior. Buenos dias! Wont it be fun to see another state, archeological ruins, a lake? All of us on the tour to Michoacan were language students at the Academia and had little opportunity to get out of San Miguel de Allende. But we really didnt know each other, besides seeing each other in classes.

Arent you in the Modern Indigenous Peoples class with Sergio? I leaned across my seatmate to ask a hulking man in shorts squashed up against the window of the van. My name is Cherie, or Cherry in Spanish. I didnt get yours? I stuck out my hand.

Ignoring my hand, he mumbled, Dr. Larry. Two girls in the front seat turned around. Oh, wow, what kind of doctor?

Im on vacation, was the rude and gruff answer, as Dr Larry continued to stare out the window at the traffic. OK, we other nine people in the van looked at each other and shrugged, some tittered uncomfortably, there were a few pointed comments about manners.

Being excited about the excursion and because I knew the driver/guide Jaime, I started chatting in my best Spanish about the trip with him as we ascended the highway out of town. So are we going to Tzinzuntzan to see the pyramids, and can we go to the island in Lake Patzcuaro, and will there be time to shop for copper in Santa Clara del Cobre, and Immediately came a voice from the back, Please dont talk to the driver; its too dangerous, and I cant find my seatbelt.

Instead of hearing Jaime explain about the ruined chapels, the crumbling haciendas, the bull ranches, and the gorgeous countryside of ancient volcanoes and twisted cactus, the group (and me, Jaime too, I suppose) was sufficiently chastised and remained silent for most of the three-hour drive to Morelia, the state capital of Michoacan.

Once there we visited the superb cathedral, the Museum of Masks, the candy market, the House of Handicrafts in the cloister of the Ex-Convento de San Francisco, the magnificient ancient aquaduct of 253 arches, and werent bothered by Dr. Terry as he wandered off by himself.

Since this trip was designed to be Spanish only and the level of skill varied with each person, it was generally only the good speakers who had anything to say. Or it would have been better that way. Sure, I was intimidated; I understood almost everything but didnt speak that well. But the three most talkative people made glaring grammatical mistakes, their bad accents were even worse, and without a teacher on board, there were no corrections and no one to slow them down. The only Mexican and fluent Spanish speaker was Jaime, who had been ordered not to talk while driving. Anyway it was enough, I thought, that he was driving and guiding us. I didnt envy him.

At lunch, which was provided in a charming sidewalk café, Jaime recommended Victoria Beer, and so Judy from Seattle, sitting across from me, ordered one in between highpitched giggles that never seemed to have a cause. I had a sangria, which is half red wine and half lemonade here in Mexico. She tasted my sangria and decided shed rather have that, but when the sangria arrived, she pushed it away, asking for coffee and bottled water. When it came time to settle up for the drinks, she tossed aside her cuenta and trilled, Oh, I have no money. So guess who paid?

Nevertheless this womanbrand new middleaged blond divorcee in low slung jeans revealing her belly buttonbought bubbles which she blew at men across the street, cigarettes, a museum poster. Whenever the group paused, she was found crosslegged on the ground playing with her bubbles or cigarettes and giggling her ear-piercing silly laugh.

A group of teachers from Texas were traveling together on our trip. They were all proud of the permanent eyeliner they had just had tattooed a couple of days previously. One was an eighty-year-old woman who looked sixty and could keep up with everybody, even trampling over the ruined pyramids in Tzinzuntzan. Her daughter Stephanie was over six feet tall with a deep loud voice, huge shoulders and hands, and probably used to be a man. Another of these ladies had had a terrible reaction to the tattooing and her eyes were almost swollen shut, but she maintained a cheerful good humor. She and the mother were first-class sports.

One of the most militant in the group regarding the necessity to speak Spanish 100% of the time at all costs, spoke well but so quietly we were always asking, Mande? whenever she said anything. Back in the States she was a psychiatrist (who didnt insist on being addressed as Doctor, thankfully) and she looked like a nun.

Mina was the most difficult to take, thoughand after all, this was a two day trip. Between passing around a photo album of her wedding and pictures of her son, she flirted like crazy with the guide. A fairly good Spanish accent, nevertheless her voice was like the scrape of a fingernail on a blackboard.

The woman who was afraid for the driver to converse while he drove the roads hes driven a million times in the past, was also afraid of everything else. While not carrying these things herself, she constantly attempted to borrow sunscreen, chemical hand sterilyzer gel, tissue, a sun hat, and her conversation consisted of travelers tales of woe. Jaime almost had to take her hand to cross the street in busy Morelia.

There was a tall woman dressed in a tank top and short shorts next to me in the van, and I couldnt help inquiring if she had brought some other clothes in which to visit the churches and convents. She looked at me like I was crazy and boldly sashayed right past all of the signs posted at church entrances requesting, Por favor, please respect our faith. No shorts. Gracias.

Out of all these people, Saturday night in Patzcuaro only three went to see the performance of Los Viejitos, a wildly popular and well-known indigenous dance of the Purepecha indians, in which young people, often children, wear the masks, native clothing and posture of old people. Bent over and supporting themselves on canes, they nevertheless did a lively, footstomping, humorous dance accompanied by their musicians in equally colorful outfits. Some say they are making fun of the Spaniards, but others say they dance to honor the old folks and their wisdom.

But two of our little group went to Mass instead, and the rest stayed in their rooms ironically studying Spanish from their textbooks. Here was Mexican culture in full bloom all around them, with lots of correct and colorful Spanish in the air, and they were closeted with their books, each other, and their gringo accents in hotel rooms with moldy bathrooms. Go figure.

The best thing about our outing besides the sites themselves, was the surprise stop on the highway on the way home. Jaime had planned a tailgate margarita party out there with the cows and a view of green fields, exotic cactus, ancient distant craggy mountains.

The bubbleblower stood next to the truckers and blew bubbles at truckdrivers, the flirt did her best to monopolize Jaime as usual with personal questions, the Doctor wandered off on his own and made us all wait in the van while he took some more photos, the four teachers clustered tightly together discussing which is the best spa in San Miguel, the scared one put on more sunscreen even though it was going to rain any second, and I enjoyed my margarita.

The postscript to this weekend is that once back in San Miguel, the group went to a very fine Italian restaurant as part of the tour package. It had stopped raining and we all sat on the roof enjoying the beautiful sky and a nice glass of Italian red, and I started to relax and remember the wondrous things I had seen in the past 36 hours.

Suddenly from nowhere the wind whipped up and the pool of rainwater collected on the canvas roof an hour earlier swept over our table and drowned us, our wine, and our tasty Italian bread. I knew when enough was enough, and I walked home, planning in my head as I navigated the dark cobblestoned streets. I didnt know when or how I was going back to Michoacan, but I knew I would go alone.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 6

Posted on July 1, 2002 by admin

The Monarch Milagro
By Cherie Magnus

Dear Ones Back Home,

Well you know me, a real Type A. Hopefully I will eventually learn to take it easy and be on Mexican Time. Thats one of the benefits of living here and one of my goals.

But in the meantime, I like to accomplish things, quickly and easily, just like I always did back home. I love seeing and learning about new things here in Colonial Mexico, and I hate driving, another reason Im here and my car is in L.A.

I hate those big bus tours, doesnt everybody? Yet often an experienced guide and driver allows you to see and do more in less time. What got my attention last February was the sidewalk sign under the colonial arcade next to the Jardin: BUTTERFLIES. Curiosity made me climb the stairs to Tours Mexico Colonial, where Jaime, the handsome young Mexican owner of the company, was sitting behind his desk. Hola, Jaime! Whats with the sign about butterflies? Its freezing and the middle of winter.

Si, si, thats why we have the Monarch Butterfly Tour, to see them in their winter home before their migration back north. We can only visit them from November to March.

I had heard about the Monarchs resting in a particular tree the same time every year in Monterrey, California, but I hadnt ever seen them. OK, sign me up, I said. No matter where, I always loved Jaimes tours so personal, professional, informative and fun.

Because it was a three hour drive to the 10,400 foot high alpine forest where the butterflies hibernate in the state of Michoacan, Jaime came by to pick me up at 7 Sunday morning. It was bucketing rain, a gigantic storm, and even at that early hour, the fireplace was burning high and I had almost set my slippers ablaze while sipping my coffee.

When I hear the toot of Jaimes horn, I grab all the winter clothes I had brought with me (darn, left my parka in L.A.) and a mug of coffee for Jaime, and jump into the car. And so we zoom off in the deluge to the local trailer park to pick up a couple from Canada who had also reserved the butterfly tour. But when we get there, they come out in the pouring rain and say, Are you crazy?

And so we postpone the trip. A few days later the morning dawns cold but bright, and so the four of us set off for the state of Michoacan. As we climb high in the Sierra Cinqua mountains, we pass through the old silver mining town of Angangeo, hung copiously with festive flags of laundry, since today is the first dry day in a long time.

No one really knows exactly why the Monarchs come to this part of the world every year to hibernate, but some people think that the butterflies are drawn to Sierra Cinqua because of genetics, and others believe they come drawn by a kind of magnetism due to the minerals still in the earth there even after centuries of mining.

Finally we arrive at the El Rosario Sanctuary, owned and operated by indigenous groups with the mandate to protect and preserve. The biggest problem facing the conservation of the winter home of the Monarchs here in Mexico is the prevention of clandestine logging and deforestation.

Jaime pays to park in what I suppose is a parking lot, but today it is just our one car in a field of mud. As soon as we get out of the car and look around, just like in the old western movies, a posse of horses and riders crests the hill. Not needing to circle the wagons, these horses (and their owners) are for rent in case we dont feel up to the long trek to the Monarchs sanctuary way up in the pines.

But instead, we set off on foot with our guide, Marie Elena Mondragon Chavez, a tiny indigenous woman of 68, who leads us up the hill, through the piney woods, and over the snow for hours. A guide is necessary because the butterflies refuge changes according to the sun and winds, and it takes a specialist to find them. The insects have their favorite trees and foods (milkweed) and are carried from area to area in the forests by warm thermals.

Marie Elena Mondragon

Long before we see a glint of their orange wings, we hear them, hundreds of millions of them. What appear to be acres of trees in brilliant autumn foliage is instead the multitudes of butterflies roosting so thickly as to entirely hide the trees. Because it is warm and sunny at that moment, they are beginning to move and fly and fill the air, thousands mating as they are mysteriously drawn here to do every year.

But millions are dead in the snow at our feet, creating a sad frozen carpet of orange and black. Sundays storm three days ago had caused such extreme weather conditions of snow and cold and tree limbs breaking that havoc had been wrecked, only at that moment I dont know that. I only see the butterflies everywhere, surrounding me below and above me and filling the sky, and the world is a magical orange and black of movement.

Guides are there to insure that visitors dont damage either the insects or any part of their haven. But our silence and awe and the quiet sound of millions and millions of wings beating turns the forest into a church, a holy mystic place of wonder, with tiny living fragments of stained glass which know something that we dont. Here was something no one really understands, a mystery taking place each year for millennia that even scientists cant figure out.

In another couple of months, the Monarchs will begin their annual 3,000 mile return flight north to their summer homes in Canada and the United States.

But for now they hang like clusters of Spanish moss from the fir trees high up in the mountains of Mexico, and then, when warmed by the sun, mate in the snow. The males die, the females live to lay the eggs in the milkweed that sustains the Monarchs, and the caterpillars hatch to begin the cycle again with the flight north.

The ancient peoples of Mexico believed, and many still do, that each Monarch butterfly is the soul of a dead child, and the butterfly is also a common Christian symbol for the Resurrection. Theres no doubt that their yearly 6,000 mile roundtrip migration to the same forests in highest Mexico are a mysteryand a milagro.

And the vaceros with the horses miraculously appear through the trees just as we, drained and weary, begin our descent. Jaime hikes down on foot with Maria Elena, but the Canadians and I mount our horses and set off through the snow, surrounded and serenaded by beating wings.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 5

Posted on May 1, 2002 by admin

Not All Mariachis and Margaritas
By Cherie Magnus

Many people come to San Miguel de Allende for a vacation and end up buying a house. Folks fall in love with this place, ardently, illogically, hopelessly. Its that kind of town.

I decided to move to San Miguel, a colonial city of 50,000 in the heart of Mexico, with my head and not my heart, and maybe thats why Im often reminded that life for me here isnt quite the paradise I had hoped for, or thought to find. From the mundane and profane to the urbane, its not exactly what I expected.

I came south where the living was supposed to be easier, cheaper, and more romantically beautiful. But after four months I have to say, maybe, maybe not. Easy things are more difficult, prices are about the same as in the States (at least here, the costliest town in Mexico), but it sure is more romantic, sometimes unbearably so. (People with plenty of money, of course, only have to worry about finding the romance.)

So as petty as it may sound, the little annoyances of daily life can add up to maddening frustration for those of us who cant hire things done. Errands take an inordinate amount of time and trudging about the steep stony streets under the hot sun, schlepping laundry, groceries, shoes to be repaired, packages and mail. Everyone is carrying something in San Miguel, and the gringos are also carrying cash.

All bills must be paid in person with cash. There is the regular need to change dollars into pesos and so constant attention to the handwritten exchange rate posted at the Cambios is a part of life.

Because fresh fruits and vegetables must be disinfected before using and gringos have to be extra careful about water, shopping and food preparation is more complicated. Few convenience foods and pre-prepared items are available, and absolutely no frozen entrees or TV dinners. Whats in the frozen section of the supermarket? Ice cream, bags of vegetables, shrimp, and ice.

Its also harder to stay clean and well-groomed. There are no self-service laundromats, but lots of fluff n fold type establishments, which, after a few times through their machines, tend to gray and dinge your clothes.

On the sidewalk, large birds and cascades from roof runoff pipes assault you from above. If the dog poop and water puddles dont get you from below, smoke-belching vehicles splash your white pants or bare legs while they foul the air of the narrow streets.

The constant dust gets all over your clothes, skin, hair and in your nose, lungs and pores. Almost no one has a bathtub or enough hot water to fill one, and showers are always short. The huge U.S. selection of beauty aids and products just isnt available here, and so one makes do with generics.

Walking the streets can be dangerous as well. If you dont watch your feet instead of the local color and the historic buildings, you can easily slip or trip on the undulating, uneven sidewalks of slippery stones. Gringas soon learn to wear only shoes with rubber treads, or they easily fall. Newcomers with scabs and ankle bandages abound.

If you dont watch your head, especially if you are tall like I am, you can bang it into a protruding stone windowsill with iron bars, or a bus or trucks side-view mirrors can take you out.

In Mexico it isnt respectable for women to wander around alone in the dark, which makes it difficult to go anywhere in the evening without an escort, and especially to return. Taxis are not easy to find at night, and sometimes the drivers come on to women unaccompanied by a man. In a macho country, every woman by herself is assumed to be looking for a man – isnt it only natural? This can be daunting for independent women used to going solo wherever they wish.

Its also almost impossible to get in or out of town, which has a lot of charm in a Brigadoon sort of way. Its tough to get here, and hard to leave. Leaving the country includes many taxis, buses, and planes (no trains), and its not so great for people like me who travel frequently.

As someone who enjoys the passion in the culture of latin countries such as France, Cuba, Argentina, I dont see the same joie de vivre in Mexico. Joy here is not a moving, pulsing force, but something to relax in. Good food, fun and peppy music, lots of beer and tequila, family togetherness and church. The only ecstasy I witness is in the many fervent religious activities. I miss the zest and energy on the street and in the music that I have found so compelling elsewhere. Or maybe I just havent found it yet in Mexico.

And dance, well Ive tried everything dance-wise in San Miguel with no satisfaction. Ive searched it out in studios, schools, clubs, theaters, parties, and discos. Ive tried Sweat Your Prayers on Sunday mornings, folk dance at the Bellas Artes, contact improvisation, Mexican folklorico, salsa in classes and clubs, and gone as far as Mexico City in search of Argentine Tango. Who knew?

I can live without much hot water, a car, or a telephone. But I cant live without dancing.

San Miguel is famous for its many fiestas, but in lieu of dancing in the streets, there are fireworks and church bells at all hours of the night, and related non-stop barking of the ubiquitous roofdogs. The many roosters crow all day and all night.

In addition to this festival of sound is the incessant noise of construction going on six days a week next door to no matter where you live: the chink chink pound pound sounds of one- and two-man teams of workers laboriously either tearing down or building up.

In every country where there is tremendous poverty, tourists are looked upon as rich. The attitude in San Miguel is perhaps even more so due to the large percentage of gringos whose presence has inflated the local economy. And so sometimes foreigners are taken advantage of, shortchanged, pickpocketed, and objects often just seem to disappear. San Miguel de Allende is very safe with little violent crime, but the small stuff is constant and usually unreported. Well maybe I really didnt have as much money as I thought. Or its possible I left my watch at home. Or didnt bring those pretty gold earrings after all.

There are two very distinct cultures in San Miguel: the Mexican and the gringo. For that reason many norteamericanos find it easier to live here than in perhaps more Mexican towns. Most businesses with services and products appealing to gringos speak English, the tourist restaurants serve disinfected food, the lectures and movies at the library are in English or have English subtitles, and the plays at the Teatro Angela Peralta are in English. There are norteamericanos who have lived here for thirty years and dont speak Spanish; they dont have to.

However all of this convenience comes at a price.

There is even a kind of gringo ghetto, the Jardin, where the tall pale visitors in shorts and jogging suits sit in front of the Parroquia and meet their friends in the bright sunlight. The Mexicans sit on the opposite side of the Jardin, in front of the police station and in the shade.

Despite the myths, living in Mexico isnt much cheaper than in Los Angeles, except for apartment rentals and food shopping, which are somewhat less. When planning on moving to Mexico, many people such as I dont think about hidden costs like computer/internet access, storage fees in the hometown, transportation costs (all those taxis and buses), medical/dental care without insurance, high telephone bills, Spanish classes. Just like at home, there are cover charges to listen to music, and you wont hear any mariachis unless someone is paying them $6.00 per song.

If you dont want to be a part of the ghettoized, and are not fluent in Spanish, you might also feel a bit on the fringe. Being a small town, anything you do is noticed in San Miguel, any visitor you receive, every companion on a bench in the Jardin. But because the population is so transitory, when you do meet people you like and want to be friends with, they often leave.

And if someone doesnt happen to have a romantic partner, it can be painful to live in one of the most romantically beautiful places on earth. As there are thirteen women to every man in San Miguel, probably many women are home alone tonight as Im writing this, looking out their windows with longing at the gorgeous sky and the lights of the Churrigueresque skyline of San Miguel de Allende twinkling below.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 4

Posted on April 4, 2002 by admin

Semana Santa in San Miguel
By Cherie Magnus

I can’t think of a better place for a practicing Christian to be for Holy Week than San Miguel de Allende–except maybe for Rome, but I’ve never been there, and here I am in Mexico. (Who knew?)
Even for those not Christian or Catholic, the cultural expressions of this, the holiest of times on the Christian calendar, is an amazing experience in San Miguel.

The week is so packed with things, that it actually starts on the preceding weekend, one week prior to Palm Sunday when there is an all-night procession from the church at Atontonilco to San Miguel (17 k), carrying the celebrated, venerated and beloved El Senor de la Columna.

Made out of corn meal, orchids, and other exotic materials rather than carved from wood, so it’s not so heavy and looks more lifelike. In the Mexican bloody tradition, this statue of Christ after being whipped, is pretty graphic. But Mexicans really get into the Passion, and maybe the violent reality of their religious art help them to feel their religion more.

Then the Friday before Palm Sunday is the Day of Our Lady of Sorrows, and families and communities work all night creating beautiful altars in their homes and windows, and in the many neighborhood fountains scattered around town.

I was lucky in that the family owning the building in which I live created the most beautiful one I saw right in my own entryway. There are certain symbolic requirements to these altars, and the one made by Jorge and Sandra had everything: purple pots of growing wheat, white lilies, statues of Mary weeping at the foot of the Cross, bitter oranges, purple and white flags, tons of fresh chamomile, white candles, and then most amazing, a purple carpet made of sawdust with different designs stenciled in natural sawdust.

The whole family, friends, tenants, and maids worked for hours creating this altar in the entranceway and on the sidewalk in front of our building. Then at night people visit the various altars and are given frozen fruit ices and hot rice pudding. And the next day they were all gone, taken down as quickly as they were put up.

The jacaranda trees here cooperate and bloom in perfect purple timing with the color of Lent, unlike the trees in Los Angeles where I am from, which get dressed in May. In San Miguel it seems divinely coordinated with the holy season.

The next night happened to be my birthday, and in a weak moment I had invited lots of people to a party. I heard the best tamales were made by the cloistered nuns in the convent, but when I went to order some in the church at the little curtained window, the sister told me that because of Santa Semana they were not cooking. My friends and I partied up on the and ate the tamales I had bought from the tamale lady in front of the Oratorio, and drank cerveza and generally had a fine time. Unfortunately the only dancing was by me and Adrian, a young Mexican artist who had spent some salsa time in L.A. But the music was great (my CDs from Cuba), and the gringos and Mexicans all mixed together in both languages and so I became 39, again.

Palm Sunday at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, which I attend, was very nice, and also very familiar, since the liturgy is so similar to the Lutheran. However I couldn’t help but feel the Mexicans were doing it up so much better. In front of every Catholic Church (and believe me, there are a lot in this town!) and on the Jardin were artisans who had woven elaborate designs out of fresh palm fronds–flower baskets holding purple flowers, shields, angels, crosses, bouquets–as many designs as there were designers. The palm art were all about 14″ or so high, cost 5 pesos (50 cents), and many people took them home as bouquets after the service.

By contrast, at St. Paul’s we were given dinky little skinny palm leaves about an inch wide that felt quite lacking as we processed into the church. Why not make a deal next year with the Mexican artisans to sell their designs in front of the gringo church too?

The Blood of Christ and Blood and Sand

Wednesday in the late afternoon a crowd gathered in front of the baroque Oratorio. The sun was setting, colors streaked the sky and turned the acolytes white garments rose as they waited patiently with their incense, tall candlesticks and golden crosses at the top of the church stairs. Behind them were a hundred women of all ages in formal black, from cocktail dresses and sequins to simple cotton, some carrying their shoes as well as symbols of the crucifixion.

Two little girls yanked on my sleeve and we started a conversation, and I took their pictures. Sisters there with their father, we admired each others clothing and exchanged names and ages (they were 7 and 8). Oh if only my Spanish were better!

Way up high in the tower were more teenaged boys in white, fooling around while waiting for the time to peal the huge bells.

Finally the traffic was stopped and the procession began, with angels and Roman soldiers and solemn drummers and THEN when the beloved statues were hand carried on flower bedecked litters out of the church, I couldnt help but catch my breath. Men in crisp white shirts and formal black slacks carried Christ with his cross, but it was WOMEN who carried the othersMary, Magdalene, John, Veronicatiny women all in black, most barefoot, with the heavy wooden stretchers over their shoulders. There wasnt a cleric in sight. This was a peoples procession.

So when the crowd fell in behind the procession as it wended its way up the hill and on to the Stations of the Cross, I cut out and ran over to the Bibliotecas theater where Jesus Christ Superstar was just beginning. Afterwards I found myself drawn back at the Oratorio, just in time to see the procession return to the church. There had been a downpour during the movie, I had heard it on the roof. Now two hours later the procession was damp, weary, still proud. Even more of the ladies in black were barefoot, but the teenagers wore their high platforms with pride after hours of walking the rough streets of San Miguel. The little girls in white still held forth their bread, the prom-queen angel still held out her full tulle skirts, but everyone looked tired. Then up the hill in the distance appeared the moving lanterns, candlelight progressing slowly in the dark, lighting the way for the venerated statues. By the time the last of the procession entered the church, I was emotionally exhausted, and I turned to the picnicking families, the candy and tamale vendors, the balloon men with relief.

Holy Thursday I attended a gringo lecture on Rabbits, Eggs, and The Blood of Christ And then I visited the churches, which were all open as is traditional this night. One is supposed to visit seven, but in San Miguel the churches are so many and so close together I actually did eight in short order. People file quietly in, pray, touch the statues, receive manzanilla flowers, a roll of bread, a purple palm cross for a donation at the many tables set up by teenagers in the sanctuaries. There is a great suspense in all the churches, altars are covered, people are awaiting the Eucharist, the bread and wine.

The town was jumping, packed with tourists and residents, no one was home. Some shops were open, singing poured out of the cantinas swinging doors, there was no place to sit in the Jardin. Vendors were selling everything everywhere. A friend from Canada invited me to join her group at Mama Mias for drinks, but I just wanted to go home alone. I did flick on the tube, though, and almost every channel had Bible movies or film of Holy Week parades and appearances of the Pope.

But all of this pales in comparison with Good Friday. There were three processions, the last one in the evening consisting of hundreds and hundreds of participants, including two choirs and a real orchestra with accordions, violins, and lots of dark brass, carrying their music stands. All of the women litter bearers wore black with white gloves and black lace mantillas, the men all in black suits, white shirts, and black ties. A real funeral cortege, men wearing hats along the sidewalks were asked to remove them, and the crowd watched the procession with respectful silence, even the children. Right before the arrival of the glass coffin with the body of Jesus, little girls spread manzanilla over the cobblestones, and the air was fragrant with perfume as the flowers were trod upon.

Nothing mechanical or electronic, no Animatronic giant moving floats, only people power, and it was powerful. This was the church brought out into the streets and into the lives of the people.

Saturday, instead of the Blood of Christ, there was blood and sand at the bullfight arena in the center of town. A charity event to raise money for the orphanage, it seemed somehow a fitting activity for Holy Week. Though averting my eyes on occasion, I had to appreciate the color, courage, and grace of men and beasts in the ring. At night the churches held candlelit Easter Vigils, but I went dancing at la Cava de la Princessa with a group of crazy artists from Calgary.

Easter Sunday is the day that life-sized effigies of Judas, other bad characters, and politicians are strung up in front of the government buildings along the Jardin, and blown to bits one by one at noon after church services. Its a great catharsis and a fitting end to an intense week of passion, emotion, blood and death, and resurrection.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 3

Posted on April 3, 2002 by admin

Auto Mexico
By Cherie Magnus

After a mind-expanding long day with ghosts, pyramids, and mysterious ancient art in Teotihuacan, our little tour group cruise along the Autopista with just two hours to go before hitting San Miguel de Allende and home.

Gene, an archeologist from the University of Texas, Jaime, our Mexican guide/driver, and me, a transplant from Los Angeles, are basking in the afterglow of history and art when the ´95 Oldsmobile’s engine suddenly quits as we tool along in the fast lane. Luckily we are coasting down hill, and Jaime gets it started after repeated tries, and the three of us breathe sighs of relief as the car chugs forward.

Then the engine quits again, and with skillful maneuvering through the trucks and rush hour traffic, Jaime is able to get us on the right shoulder where we roll to a stop.

When the car starts once more , we exit at the next off-ramp and inch into a tiny town that seems to have nothing more than a little tienda, a big cemetery, and, thank goodness, a garage. It’s dark by now, and the mechanic rigs up a light to check under the hood. Three other men and a boy playing with valeros (those 2 clacking balls on a string)–and Jaime, of course–watch him do it. Gene and I observe the animated discussion and gesturing of all six of them through the windshield.

Gene mumbles in the back seat that the problem is a speck of dirt from bad gasoline clogging up the fuel filter, but the committee under the hood thinks it’s the fuel injection. They fiddle with that, the sparkplugs, and the engine–which before had a smooth and quiet idle–now sounds like a threshing machine. When they give up on the front, they jack up the rear and change the filter. Gene and I are still in the car as it lurches upward. The street is totally black but for the light bulb on a cord dangling from one man’s hand.

I have to go to the bathroom. Gene says that he doesn’t want to sound like a chauvinist, but I am the only woman here, so I shouldn’t get out of the car. I have no fear, but I can’t imagine any toilet anywhere near. So I stay put.

Gene had forgone a fabulous lunch at the La Gruta Restaurant in order to see more of the Teotihuacan pyramids, and even though I had been plying him with snacks from my bag, I worry about him. He seems to have low blood sugar or something. I thought there was nothing left, but I find a tangerine from the previous night’s Posada. He gives me back half and I give half of that to Jaime out the window. Jaime retains an air of cheerfulness and confidence. Because I had taken a previous tour with him, and because of our wonderful day today, Im not at all worried about how we would get back to San Miguel. Jaime will take care of us. Hes young, but smart and inspires confidence. At least in me.

Not so with Gene. He frets about the different mechanical possibilities of the car trouble, and tries to figure out plans B and C if we are indeed stuck. He has good reason to worry as he is scheduled to leave tomorrow for Texas at 6 a.m.

Finally the car won’t even start, it is now after nine, and all six surrounding the car agree no more can be done tonight. Gene and I confer that we think there are too many cooks under the hood. Jaime talks to a tow-truck guy who is flat bedding a car to Queretero, half way home for us. But we would have to sit inside the car on the truck. Gene and I don’t like it, but we say what the heck and get out of the Oldsmobile, stiff after so many hours of sitting there. But the driver reneges, it seems it is illegal to do that. One of the kibbitzers then agrees to take us up to the Autopista toll booth. By this time, Gene and I don’t ask any questions, we just get in the car with Jaime.

Up at the toll gate, Jaime talks to the policeman parked in his unit, I guess he was explaining why we were up there. Then along comes a bus marked “San Miguel de Allende.” Jaime flags it down, and–a miracle–the bus stops. We run, and climb on board. Incredulously sinking into seats, we can’t believe our luck: very few buses to SMA at all, and we got one! We flagged down a bus on the autoroute and it stopped! Gene and I laugh, only in Mexico!

At Queretero, everyone but us three and a snoring guy across the aisle get off, and a woman carrying a decorated snack tray gets on. Jaime hops up and takes orders from us, water for me, Coke for Gene (the sugar thing, I think), and Coke and chips for Jaime. We all debate about telling the sleeper we are at Queretero in case it is his destination, but no one does. Almost immediately on the road again, Jaime asks me for a plastic bag, which he uses in the back of the dark bus as a urinal, and then tosses out the window. The cars behind the bus must think its raining. My problem isn’t so handily solved and I try not to think about it.

When we drag off the bus at last in San Miguel, Jaime finds us one taxi and he takes another. Kisses all around, handshaking, muchas gracias. adios.

Gene and I agree as we part at his hotel that the pyramids were incredible, but our car trouble was a fascinating Mexican experience of its own.

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 2

Posted on April 2, 2002 by admin

Heart of Fire
By Cherie Magnus

Dear Ones Back Home,

When I searched the Internet last summer for a San Miguel apartment, I only had five requirements–reasonable price, quiet, accepts Phoebe the Cat, no more than a fifteen minute walk into town, and a wood-burning fireplace. I soon found one which had everything on my list (well ok, not the inexpensive rent part.) God bless the Internet.

Some landlords in my search told me via email that it´s not P.C. to burn wood here because there is so little of it and so their fireplaces are gas or they don’t have them at all, only electric heaters. But I rationalize that a few logs from dead trees burned to help me keep my sanity is less damaging to the S.M. environment than a big American car driving around El Centro and I had left mine in L.A. Or a gringa run amok!

A fireplace is important because I live alone (except for Phoebe) and I know from past experience that a real fire is a living presence and company on lonely nights. I stare into it, adjust the logs, watch the color of the flames, smell the soul of the burning wood. Gas logs just don´t cut it for emotional warmth. So I reserved the apartment for the winter, and enjoy the occasional log fire those nights when I read or study Spanish. But in the middle of January the cold snap hit, with two days of icy rain. Hey, I´m from L.A., I know what it´s like to be cold in the house during the winter.

But one small fireplace to heat a whole apartment on several levels when the temperature is below 35? Sure, I know people have lived here for thousands of years without heat, but they perhaps became acclimatized. After only a couple of weeks in Mexico, I wasn´t.

When I asked my landlady for a small electric heater to use in the bedroom and the bath, she refused on the basis of the electric bill, and had the gardener bring in more wood, lots more. At the same time, the gas ran out and I had no hot water or cooking facilities. So now as I write this I am sitting (with Phoebe on my lap, she who never saw fire until we moved here), my feet on the hearth, and am enjoying the flames and embers for more than aesthetic and emotional reasons. More in touch with the reality of what is primarily important. I need the fire to warm my cold body–as well as my soul.

And another of my requirements, the one about the 15 minute walk to town? I got that too, but didn’t know it is 15 minutes straight up! Which now is OK, too, because my body is in better shape and I can eat all those enchiladas and guacamole with impunity! And the hike keeps me warm.

Warmly yours (at least for the moment)

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 1

Posted on April 1, 2002 by admin

Mexico, Christmas Milagros, and Me
By Cherie Magnus

Well I made it! After leaving work and selling my furniture as so many have done before me, Phoebe the Cat and I arrived in San Miguel de Allende to begin a new life.

It had been a difficult time these past three months, having garage sales, getting rid of my collections on eBay, packing and storing, saying goodbye to Los Angeles where I had been born, raised and lived all my life, saying farewell to my job, friends, and the tiny family I still had since my husband died a few years before.

A Mexican Xmas Tree

However, my carryon bags never made it out of the Leon Airport in Mexico. You know, the bags where I put everything too important to be checked– camera, address book, eyeglasses, jewelry, medication, computer cables, software, family photos, business papers and bills, Phoebes favorite toy rat, my tango shoes? I don´t know exactly what happened, you cant relax your vigilance for one second in life. I turned my attention to Phoebe, and poof, everything changed. And the timing couldnt have been more poignant–it was right before Christmas!

After getting Phoebe organized in our new place and searching endlessly through my two remaining bags, I couldnt sleep. I only tossed and turned with worry about the loss of my irreplaceable belongings. I pictured someone picking up the bags, searching them for things to sell (my jewelry items only, probably), and tossing the rest out the window of a pickup truck on some dusty Mexican road. The image of my family photos blowing through the cactus just made me sick.

The next day my new landlady called the airport for me because as yet I had no Spanish. But the news was bad: no found purple bags. She counseled me to forget it and move on. Easy for her to say in the middle of her Texas mansion plunked down in a garden in a beautiful, small central highland town in Colonial Mexico. Not only did she own her huge hacienda and my apartment, she also had built and rented out a casa and a casita all constructed in the same walled compound. And of course all four dwellings were full of her things. I only had a cat and four suitcases, and now the two most important bags were missing.

This new loss after so many recent losses in my life caused me to mourn for days. I went to lovely St Paul´s, the gringo Protestant church, and prayed to accept the inevitable. The day of Christmas Eve, the town was full of people carrying baby Jesuses hurriedly through the streets on their way to all the Nativities where the Holy Child would later appear. That night I went to a party given by a friend of a friend, and like seems to happen so often in San Miguel, in talking about a problem, help happens. I am learning that serendipity is the way here.

At the party I met someone who was leaving the next day for New York from Leon, and she offered to inquire at the airport for me about my bags. I hadnt gone back myself because of the transportation difficultyone hour, forty-five minute taxi ride and $70– and my lack of hope in finding them.

These past few days since my arrival I had been really lonely and depressed. I had taken the bus up to the supermercado on the hill and bought some new underwear and a little bit of makeup, although all of the shades were too dark for me. I wore the same pair of earrings every day, but had purchased a beaded bracelet and necklace from an indigenous woman hawking them over her arm in a restaurant next to the Jardin.

Thank goodness at least I had Phoebe. I certainly would not have traded her for the missing bags, or anything else I didnt have. After five days, acceptance was growing. I figured this was just another lesson in how we dont need things, how we are here not to accumulate but to live and do. Looking at the poverty around me of the Mexican and indigenous peoples gave me a new perspective. I didnt really need so many pairs of earrings, how often did I look at those photos anyway, and if my friends wanted to contact me they had my address, even if I didnt have theirs. It would all work out, and I would be a better person for it.

Recently I had lost my husband, our family home and furniture, my mother, my job, and my own physical health. I was sick and tired of loss, but wasnt this just another lesson in how to live on my own? We come with nothing, we leave with nothing; we cant take it with us, possessions are just a burden, etc. All the helpful cliches spun around in my head actually making me feel better.

Early Christmas morning the phone rang: “Cherie, your bags are here!” It was the lady from the party, calling from the airport on her way to New York.

I immediately called Vicente the taxi driver who had originally picked me up and brought me to San Miguel, and woke him too. “I´ll be right there!” He felt terrible and unnecessarily guilty about the loss of my luggage. It was my responsibility, my job, he moaned in Spanish.

Twenty minutes later we were tearing along the empty Christmas morning road to Leon. At the airport we searched through the lost luggage and my bags weren´t there, although there was a similar purple one and I thought probably that was the one my new friend saw. But Vicente also wanted to check in Customs up by the gate. And when we approached, we saw my orphaned bags behind locked doors. There they sat, both of them, like my oldest friends in the world. Traveling unlocked with me on the plane, now they sported plastic security seals.

I offered a tip, but the officials waved it away, smiling at the tearful reunion of a gringa and her stuff. Gracias, muchas gracias, Feliz Navidad! I called, walking through the airport hugging my luggage. Vicente and I laughed all the way back to San Miguel where, after cutting off the plastic locks, I found everything completely untouched. I was thrilled to see my jewelrysome of it last gifts from my husband, and inherited pieces from my mothermy medications, my family photos, my precious address book which was my connection to my old life.

Getting my things back was a true milagro and the best Christmas present I ever received. But those five days without the security blanket of the cherished contents of my bags gave me perspective. I could have managed without them, I had been managing. And it had not been the end of the world. I had even learned something about myself.

Nevertheless because of the kindness of strangers and a miracle of good luck, I had a very Feliz Navidad in my new home town, and an incredible Bienvenidos a Mexico. And Vicente invited me to his extended family´s Christmas celebration that night. But that is another story of milagros, magical realism, and me in Mexico.

The Church of Tango

Posted on July 1, 2001 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

It was known as La Cat’dral. Not easy to find in Buenos Aires’ dark side streets at three in the morning–no signs, no cars, no people in front. But once I climbed the stairs to the second floor of the old warehouse, I could hear the siren call of music. It was eerie and scary, mounting those stairs alone, but I was helpless to do otherwise, a pilgrim drawn to the altar of Tango.

The room was huge, like the inside of a barn, all wood. It was barely lit by large candelabra with most of the candles melted into pools of silky wax, some votive flames, and a few strings of fairy lights. It smelled of cat piss and dusky marijuana. A bar ran the width of the room in back, with gigantic paintings hanging over it all the way to the rafters. Shadowy figures were sitting around the room on the lumpy funky old couches and broken chairs, their conversations punctuated by the smoldering ends of their cigarettes moving in the dark.

At first I could only see the silhouettes of dancers through the smoke. Three or four couples on the warped, uneven wooden dance floor, moved, not to Pugliese or Tanturi, but to Louis Armstrong’s “Kiss of Fire.” A tall figure approached out of the gloom. “Quieres bailar?” He was young, muscular, handsome, with black rimmed glasses framing eyes that sparkled with cocaine excitement. He was so tall I had to reach up very high to wrap my left arm around his neck. He held me tight and led me with brute machismo, so unlike the subtle leads of the old milongeuros I had danced with at Club Almagro earlier that night. When I leaned against him in the traditional tango pose of female trust, he dragged me across the floor, lifted me back on my feet, turned and twisted me, giving me no opportunity to embellish or decorate his steps. I simply obeyed the movements his body ordered. It was different, exhilarating, exhausting.

“You don’t really need to work out at the gym, do you?” I asked during a break in the music. “No, I eat red Argentine beef full of blood! Blood! To make me strong!”

His eyes glittered, muscles rippled under his tight tee shirt, testosterone energy creating an almost visible aura around him. Breathless, I had to sit out the next set and recover on an old velvet sofa. I watched people arriving and leaving in the candlelight, with their high heeled tango shoes and backpacks. The informality of the setting and the dancers’ attire and attitude clashed with the formal tango they danced so seriously. It was like watching a play: pure mesmerizing theatre.

Armed with two years of tango experience in Los Angeles, New York and Amsterdam, and with knowledge gleaned from a trip to Argentina last year, I had flown off to Buenos Aires alone. I had no plans to connect with a group or to take any lessons. I simply went to dance tango.

I rented a room in the middle-class neighborhood of Caballito. Three other rooms in the apartment were rented to dancers, and the vivacious landlady, Maria Teresa, was a tanguera too. So whenever we met up with each other in the kitchen or the lone bathroom, we had plenty to talk about.

You can dance in Buenos Aires from after lunch until five in the morning. In the afternoon, the tables in the Confiteria Ideal–an elegant Belle Epoque ballroom of marble and mirrors–are littered with the cell phones of businessmen and housewives, also frosty ice buckets with bottles of sparkling sidra, the Argentine apple-cider champagne. Evenings you can go to practicas or take lessons until midnight. Then everyone hits the tango halls until the sun comes up. Repeatedly I went to bed with birds chirping and sunlight brightening the curtains of my room.

Every day, my friends and I discussed who danced where and with whom as if tango were the most important subject on earth. If I lived in Argentina, I would never work. I surmised that the dancers of Buenos Aires don’t keep a 9-5 schedule. Either that or they never sleep.

One night Maria Teresa drove us to Sin Rumbo. The historic milonga is far out of town, but famous as the “birthplace of tango.” Maria Teresa called it the “church of tango,” the genuine tango cathedral.

It was very different from La Cat’dral The harsh overhead florescent lighting illuminated a dozen people seated at tables and a few couples on the small, black and white checkered floor. The dancing style was more open, less crowded than in the packed town clubs. One couple caught my eye: a middle-aged pair a foot apart performing complicated figures with bored faces. “Married too long,” observed Maria Teresa, whose day job was as a psychologist.

Torquato Tasso was another small, cramped, inelegant tango hall, yet famous nevertheless. At first I couldn’t see why. Jetlagged and tired, I wanted to leave by two a.m. But when twelve white-haired portly men in tuxedos took the small stage, I hung around. Luckily for me, because they were the original members of the famous D’Arienzo Orchestra. With five bandoneons (Argentine accordions), a piano, violins, and double bass, they recreated the fabulous music of the 40′s and 50′s that all tango aficionados cherish.

I asked Maria Teresa, “Do you agree that the bandoneon is the sexiest instrument a man can play?” “Ooh yes!”she laughed. “Just look where they hold it!”

Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I went to Pavadita on Avenida Corrientes. It too was upstairs, and after parting the velvet draperies at the top, I smelled the incense, burning to mask the musky stale odors of the windowless hall. At Pavadita, the men sit on a kind of stage at little tables, and the women sit in front of the bar and scattered around the room. Each time the music begins, men and women stare at each other across the empty dance floor. The women select the men they want as partners, and the men respond–or not–with raised eyebrows and inquisitive looks. After a woman nods affirmatively, the man gets up, crosses the room, and, when he’s close to her, she stands up and meets him ready to dance. These negotiations are invisible to all but the participants, and serve to prevent the embarrassment of public refusal. It’s a heady thing for us female tango tourists who are not used to it.

We catch the eye of a man who has just lit a cigarette and crossed his legs in a pose of relaxation…but suddenly he stubs it out and arrives in front of us to dance just because we looked at him.

I had already learned the infamous Code of Tango, and so I knew what was expected of me and how to behave. It’s all about invitation, wanting, rejection, needing, appearance, sensuality, attitude, sex.

I saw that young women are always invited to dance, no matter their skill levels, and old women hardly ever receive invitations, unless it is as favors from a friend or husband. And all the men wishing to dance, no matter their age, looks, or status, can tango as much as they liked.

Men wanted good-looking women; women cared more about the tango skills of their partner. That’s unfair, but it is a man’s world on the tango floor, always.

It is difficult to sit at a table with a man you like while he’s searching the room for prospective dance partners. Too, if you sit with a man, other dancers will ignore you, not wanting to infiltrate another guy’s “territory.” But the fellow at your table can catch the eye of any woman in the room and leave you to dance with her. That’s the Code.

The milongueros (tango hall habitues) of Buenos Aires are not young. They have had many years to perfect their art, are always formally dressed in wool suits and ties no matter the weather, and invariably smell of soap and French cologne. I love dancing in their traditional close embrace. For the milongueros there is only the milonguero style.

On my first trip I was absolutely petrified every time I was asked to dance. This year Carlos Gavito, Omar Vega, and other tango superstars approached me as if they were just anybody–or I was really someone.

At Club Gricel, I was afraid to look at Gavito for fear that he would think me too aggressive. I had taken a few lessons from him in Los Angeles when he was on tour with “Forever Tango,” so we knew each other a little. At the milongas, Gavito only danced with the best and the youngest women. Yet, from the corner of my eye, I saw him stand up, button his jacket, and walk around the dance floor to my table. Oh my gosh, I thought, glancing behind me in vain for the woman who was the object of his invitation. When he returned me to my table ten minutes later, the local women sitting with me were astonished. I could just hear the buzz: “Who is she?”

On my last day in Buenos Aires I danced an impromptu demonstration in the park with Antonio, a handsome milonguero who owned only the elegant suit of clothes on his back. We tangoed beneath a huge fig tree to music from a boombox tied to the bicycle of a grizzled old man. Elderly couples, young children, even a woman in a wheelchair, all cheered and threw money and candy at us while we danced. It was a miracle that I could glide so gracefully over the rough bricks in backless high wedgies with rubber soles.

Thank goodness I had prayed at La Cat’dral.

With degrees in English, Dance, and Library Science from UCLA, Cherie has published many articles in professional journals and magazines. Her solo travels to Europe and Latin America have inspired several pieces published in Skirt!, PassionFruit, Moxie, JourneyWoman, Dancing USA, GoNomad, Open Spaces, Porthole, The Cusco Weekly, the-vu, and various online magazines. She was the dance critic for the Cerritos News in Orange County, California before moving to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She is currently at work on a novel situated in France, when she’s not out dancing. Follow her blog at http://tangocherie.blogspot.com/

La Salsa Cubana Experience

Posted on June 1, 2001 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

These days ladies alone do pretty well anywhere in the world they travel. The world has gotten used to women on their own in airports and hotels due to business traveling, and more recently, vacationing.

I’ve traveled alone in many countries and I wholeheartedly recommend it for those decisive independents who don’t get too lonesome at dinner. I’ve wandered by myself through Paris, Florence, Buenos Aires, as well as all over the United States.

But the one country where it doesn’t work out well is Cuba.

I had fallen in love with the country and its people in January on a cultural exchange in a group of about forty people. Not wanting to wait until it got too hot or until the end of the rainy season which would soon begin, I went back on my own in April. (To be sure I had my U.S. Treasury License to do research with me.) Wanting to avoid both the high cost and tourist ambiance of the big hotels, I rented a room in a crumbling 18th c. palacio on the Malecon, with a balcony overlooking the sea and the lighthouse across the bay.

The owner was friendly and accommodating, the location was fantastic, I had maps and a list of phone numbers of people I had met in January. Oh and the weather was perfect.

But I had a problem. I was an American woman. A tall, pale-skinned redhead, there was no way I could blend in as I always try to do wherever I go. It is impossible to walk down any street in Havana day or night without every man on it calling out to a female tourist. It isn’t dangerous, just not comfortable. Mostly of course it’s the younger men, and I suppose it’s equivalent to U.S. construction workers–just part of their macho roles as men. The older Cubanos’ machismo translates into courtliness.

I took a bicitaxi one afternoon from the Cathedral clear across town to calle San Miguel to deliver a letter from the States. The little old man cycled me over potholes and around pedistrians and trucks to the remains of an old hotel. Without comment, he chained up his bicycle and led me into the lobby, inquiring of several people the correct room. I could tell that there was no way he was going to let me fend for myself in that dark warren of habitacions, like a medina in Cairo. He was only satisfied when we found the correct room, which was divided into three tiny windowless areas altogether no bigger than a broom closet.

Two men were playing chess in the middle space in the front of the open door. When they didn’t understand my explanation of why I was there, the woman across the hall came over and instantly got a handle on the situation, and I delivered my letter.

The taxista was sitting in the shade by his bicycle when I came out into the sunshine, as I had asked him to wait for me. From there he pedaled me back across the square and plazas to El Floridita, where I had to change my $20 bill in order to pay him. Then I joined all the tourists drinking daiquiris and flashing their pocket cameras while posing in front of the Hemingway memoribilia on the walls. I joined a table of Belgian girls and we talked about Jacques Brel and sang some of his lyrics together. It felt good to be in a group of women.

A tourist woman alone feels vulnerable in Cuba wherever she goes, despite the policeman on nearly every corner day and night. She can’t lose herself shopping, because there isn’t any. People-watching on the Malecon or Prado is an open invitation to be hassled or hustled.

She’s more comfortable in the bars, lobbies and dining rooms of the tourist hotels because there is a security person for every few guests. But then she’s just meeting other tourists, and probably those from her own country. Cubans aren’t allowed in the tourist hotels, except in the public areas by special invitation.

This is the one country where I suggest going in a group. Especially if you are a dancer like me. In Buenos Aires I boldly go alone each night to the tango halls where I dance until dawn with no problems. There is a strict formal code of behavior there, and in my six trips to Argentina, I never once had any sort of difficulty.

Cuba doesn’t work like that. There are very few salsa clubs per se, and I wouldn’t recommend a woman entering them alone, hoping to dance, as she might in Buenos Aires.

The Cubans dance all the time, but informally at parties and casual gatherings. They can’t afford the clubs which are very expensive. And so it’s mostly other tourists who are at the clubs anyway.

So unless you meet local people who invite you to their fiestas, a Havana trip will not usually provide hours of salsa dance experiences.

Live musical groups perform in bars and cafes everywhere so you can listen to some great stuff, but in order to dance, you must bring your partner.

Women who want to dance salsa or to study folklore and religion or education or medical care in Cuba will learn more and have more fun in a group of like-minded individuals.

And as a matter of fact, I will be taking a small group of salsa dancers from Los Angeles in November 2001 to study Cuban music and dance, “The Salsa Cubana Experience.” Now that I know the ropes, I want to share what I learned about where and how to dance in Havana with other dancers, and to have fun in a mixed group of Americans and Cubans together. Also to help foster understand between our two cultures, where there is so much misunderstanding and misinformation. Let the music and dance bring us together.

Bodies, Monks and Mourners, On Stage!

Posted on May 1, 2001 by admin

Bodies, Monks and Mourners, On Stage! (Backstage call for Act III “Romeo and Juliet.”)
By Cherie Magnus

I’m in an elaborate costume on stage in front of 6,000 people, there ‘s a full orchestra playing Prokovief in the pit, my teenaged son, dressed as a Renaissance servant, is standing next to Natalia Makarova, Barishnikov is watching from the wings. Am I dreaming? No, I’m a ballet mother and a Supernumerary for American Ballet Theatre’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

The Shrine Auditorium, cavernous, ornate, rarely used except for the Academy Awards, was ABT’s usual home when in L.A. While the company proper was off at a gala fete and fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a motley crew of thirty men and women hoping to make the Super cut lined up for appraisal in the Shrine’s freezing rehearsal hall on a cold Sunday in March, 1985.

We were all types, sizes and ages, not just the “tall, ballet type” advertised for on the bullet board at my son Jason’s ballet school. We all took off our jackets and sweaters and lined up according to height in front of a seated panel of three.

I had dressed for warmth and comfort not beauty, and I felt strangely vulnerable, fat and naked in the lineup. I’m too old for this, I thought. Immediately I was asked to step forward along with two other middle-aged women. They’re eliminating me at once because I’m not right, not what they want, I thought. The old insecurity and fear of rejection was lurking close to the surface.

But it was just that we three had been pre-selected to be “Market Ladies” because of our height. At first I was disappointed that I was not to be an “Elegant Lady” (due to my bust size–the first time 36A was ever too large) Our roles were determined by what costumes we fit, that’s all.

We Market Ladies had fun mixing with the company on stage, walk around acting naturally, participate in the action first hand. Some of us treated the dancers by sprinkling candy in our market baskets among the plastic products. I put M&M’s in with my grapes.

We wore different multi-layered costumes weighing perhaps twenty pounds each. Underneath was a full-length heavy petticoat with a ruffle. Then, in my case, a dress of heavy beige upholstery-like fabric with slit sleeves and lacing up the front and back, plus a long tunic of another beige fabric laced up the front and sides. My headdress, of faded-looking beige and violet muslin, had an Arabic flair and a wimple fastening under the chin. Each of us wore similar but differently detailed costumes.

Since there was only one professional union dresser, it was necessary for us Supers to help each other in and out of the difficult hooks and laces-no zippers! We formed a costume daisy-chain before and after each act with the dresser at the end. In this way we got our laborious changes down quickly, and I got an amusing snapshot of eight people concentrating hard on lacing each other up.

Jason was cast as a Green Little Bearer for the ball in Act I, and a monk in the Capulet tomb in Act III.

When the Supers arrived for our first rehearsal, the company class was just winding up. Dancers familiar to us from photographs and the stage looked like typical ballet students in their colorful and eccentric rehearsal clothes. But a sight unfamiliar in a ballet studio was the several animals stationed around the outside of the practice floor, tethered to the barres with leashes.

At that time, there were about twelve dogs and eight cats which traveled with the dancers, and the dogs usually attend class and rehearsals with their owners. There’s even a dog walk-on in “Giselle” and “Swan Lake, so often the larger animals get a chance to be on stage.

In the meantime, the pets add love, comfort, and companionship to the dancers’ life on the road. There were so many animals backstage (they were always polite and well-behaved) that a dog and a large bag came to mean “dancer” to the fans at the stage door. Opening night there was a black-tie reception after the performance in the rehearsal hall for the Friends of ABT–those who contributed substantially.

All during dress rehearsal and the performance afterwards, the caters were setting up. Topiary trees with fairy lights surrounded white tables topped with Cinzano umbrellas around a small dance floor. Festive tents covered the bar areas and the disc jockey’s equipment, which included Italian popular songs.

There were white flower carts filled with fruits and cheeses, an Italian ice pushcart dispensing zabaglione, chocolate-hazelnut, and wild-blueberry ices in little paper cups, and a long buffet of hot and cold pasta dishes. The preparations went on for hours before and during the performance, and as we hurried back and forth between dressing rooms and the stage, we Supers eyed the food and drink being set out. After the second act the lighted Italian fountain was turned on and we were ready to run over and stick a paper cup under it, hoping it was champagne.

The word went around that the cast was invited to the party and that the Supers were considered part of the cast! This was an unexpected perk to our $10 per performance with free parking, and one we enthusiastically appreciated; by that time we had been in the Shrine for ten hours.

Jason dashed over and grabbed a glass of champagne, and began a conversation with the late principal dancer Patrick Bissell. (“Loved your double cabrioles last night in “Raymonda!”)

But I didn’t know what to do; i.e., On the one hand, I love gala parties like this under normal conditions; On the other, I was dressed in a red corduroy jumpsuit and sneakers, not the latest word among the sequin-and-fur set now streaming through the doors from the auditorium.

On the one hand, many of the company dancers were wearing warm-up clothes; On the other, obviously I was not a skinny young company ballet dancer. But I was hungry, thirsty and excited, and so I sidled over and got some champagne (Italian, too, I supposed) and tried to look natural.

I got a plate of pasta and retreated from the glittering garden back over to a circle of metal folding chairs near the Supers’ makeshift dressing rooms, where several Supers were sitting like happy outcasts. Occasionally some of the regal people seated at the white tables inside the circle of lighted fichus trees would turn their heads and glance in our direction, not actually seeing us at all.

Most of the guests were looking for celebrities, of course, and Baryshnikov was there at one of the umbrella tables, as were most of the company dancers.
One of the little boys playing pages ran around asking the dancers to sign his program. Even Jason felt too much a part of the adult world, of the dance world, to ask, though he too would like the souvenirs.

Asking for autographs definitely divides the pros from the amateurs. There’s them and then there’s us, and for the duration of “Romeo and Juliet” the illusion of being part of American Ballet Theatre was worth more than autographs of the stars.

People were raving about the Italian ices, and so Jason grabbed me and pulled me over to join the short line in front of the cart.

Behind us stood two tall, black-tied men, who assumed we were ABT members and politely asked us questions as if we knew the inside stuff.
We ate our ices and faded into the background, and eventually out the stage door into the cold night, trailing stardust and fatigue.

After a few performances we felt like true professional company members as we hurried to sign in, put on our makeup, and prepared to wear our heavy, uncomfortable costumes.

It was difficult even to walk in those outfits, and we Market Ladies didn’t mind at all when we were ordered to remove them immediately upon exiting the stage and put them on again right before Act II. We were not allowed to sit down in them or eat, drink or smoke in them. I wondered about going to the bathroom, but knew it would be impossible to lift those heavy skirts anyway. Luckily the subject never came up for me.

By this time we had learned to quickly dress into our street clothes after coming offstage and sneak into the box right next to the wings. You could only see half of the stage from there, but it was better than standing in the wings where we were in the way. The large orchestra rendering Prokofiev’s powerful score sounded fuller and more immediate from the audience, too.
While onstage, we Supers were to react to the events taking place and join in with the company at certain times, acting and interacting.

We didn’t have to feign fear in Act I when the Capulets and the Montagues whipped out their swords and set about killing each other. The stage was crowded with people and the large set, and each performance of the fight got more wild.

Twenty men thrusted and parried with real swords (with tiny rubber tips), jumping from landings, leaping through doorways. It was different every time, but always skilled and exciting, and the supers didn’t always know where to stand to get out of their way.

As the bodies piled up, the “dead” Capulets and Montagues made jokes and funny faces to those onstage who could see them. They seemed to have a wonderful time.

Nor did I have to pretend sorrow and horror in Act II at the death of Tybalt. I was moved to tears every time Lady Capulet (Georgina Parkinson) rushed down the stairs to Tybalt’s body and seized the sword in a frenzy to attack the remorseful Romeo. Then, convulsed with grief, she sank agonizingly to the floor and rocked the dead Tybalt in her arms to the wailing of French horns, trombones, trumpets and the pounding of the tympani. It was incredibly powerful, indelible. (She always gave him a friendly pat after the curtain fell.)
The last performance was danced by Natalia Makarova and the house was packed, 6,000 people. I couldn’t believe she could be better than the other Juliets I saw, but she was.

When she died in the tomb to that poignant minor theme, the audience was on their third Kleenex. Even Martin Bernheimer, the Los Angeles Times’ Critic Terrible at the time, praised her performance, saying that “Makarova is Juliet!”

Fourteen-year-old Autumn, Jason’s ballet classmate who was playing an Elegant Lady super, pressed a beaded bracelet she had made into Makarova’s hands in the wings after the many curtain calls. Overcome by emotion from the performance, Autumn couldn’t stop her tears. We were all aware that Makarova, at 44, was nearing retirement by her own admission and that we may not see this Juliet again.

In seven performances with seven different casts, including six Romeos and six Juliets, we saw seven different ballets. The choreography was the same and was always danced at a high technical level. But this proved to us the importance of acting, personality, drama, interpretation beyond technique. When Danilo Radojivic’s Mercutio felt his wound in his death scene, I actually “saw” blood on his hand, and I was six feet away from him!

It was “our” last performance, the next ABT “Romeo and Juliet” would be danced in Detroit. Supers were frantically snapping instamatics on the “Cinderella” set which was being assembled near our dressing rooms, as that was the next full-length ballet planned for Los Angeles. We all wanted to see how we looked (no full-length mirrors in the ladies’ dressing room, no mirror at all in the men’s) and to record our moment of glory for scrapbook posterity.

As each costume came off after a scene, it was packed away, and by the end of the ballet, nothing remained of “Romeo and Juliet” in the dressing rooms but huge labeled and sealed cardboard boxes ready for loading onto the trucks.

Most of the supers were anxious to see Superstar Himself, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and since he wasn’t dancing at all during this Los Angeles season, we wondered if we would.

But we did see him, several times in fact, the first week. (What a shock to see my fifteen-year-old son Jason tower a good three inches over this bigger-than-life man!) Misha was there opening night, the next night for the party, and the night Makarova danced.

That night, during Act III, Jason and the other Supers playing monks were waiting in the wings for their cue, many still transfixed from watching Makarova. The monks were to enter the Capulet Tomb carrying huge lighted candlesticks. Seven monks on the right, eight on the left (the last one being the disguised Romeo sneaking into the tomb), circle the biers and exit up long flights of stairs on each side.

From my seat in the box, I saw the eight left-hand monks enter, but only three right-hand monks–Jason’s side. It looked strange and off-balance, and Romeo’s significance as an extra monk was lost. Jason and three other monks were waiting in the wings for their cue as they had the previous nights, but somehow missed it tonight. Suddenly they saw the lighted candles of the rest of the monks moving across the stage, too late for them to catch up.

“Great, that’s just great!” uttered sarcastically in a Russian accent caused Jason to look to his left and see the great Baryshnikov himself watching this blunder from the wings. Pulling his cowl down over his head, Jason slunk away in shame to take off his robe and to remain anonymous!

Afterwards, Baryshnikov was hounded for autographs inside the stage door by audience members who had found their way backstage. Jason and I made our way through the crowd with our shoulder bags as people stared at us, hoping we were somebody.

By the time we got into our cars and were slowly inching by the stage door on Exposition Blvd., we were just in time to see Baryshnikov gleefully carrying a cello case quickly through the crowd which was not on the lookout for a musician.

He nearly made a successful escape until the crowd as one body recognized him and took off after him into the parking lot like a swarm of bees. That was the last we, too, saw of the legendary artist during our ABT season. And for this whole two-week wonderful adventure, we had to say a most super enthusiastic, Great, just great!

Disenchanted September

Posted on December 1, 2000 by admin

By Cherie Magnus
August 8, 2000

Tired of going to Europe alone and inspired by romantic films of the Edwardian Grand Tour, I asked all my friends one April, “Want to rent a villa in Tuscany?” And several did.

Because it was spring, we had time for monthly planning get-togethers where we decided on which villa, what and how many cars, personal travel styles, airline tickets. We watched “Enchanted April” on video and had potlucks of Tuscan food.

We six women had all known each other for years, working in different departments of the same library system. All of us single, we frequently got together at gourmet restaurants and chowed down, bonding through food.

People turned envious when they heard our plans, “Wow, a villa near Florence for two weeks, how fabulous!” I too was exhilarated about having a home base in Italy, and a group of women to see Tuscany with. I enjoyed solo travel, but now I’d have a different perspective, plus the relief of not eating alone in restaurants all the time.

On the flight to Florence the six of us were high on excitement, sitting in one row in the middle of the 747, laughing over the idea of it really happening.

Things first started to go wrong at the Florence airport. Monica’s bags were lost, maybe due to her late check-in at the curb at LAX, and the dark cloud of missing luggage pursued us. We got our two rental cars, and 3 by 3, we found our way out of town and up into the hills to the northwest.

We picked up our keys at the big manor house surrounded by vineyards where the Contessa, our landlady, lived and directed her family’s winery business. Then our two little European Fords convoyed higher up the green hills, through more vineyards heavy with grapes, by a lake, over a bridge, past a chapel, to our villa, Frantoia.

It was just like the photo in the catalog: stone, two stories, old, with a swimming pool. There were five bedrooms, three baths, a living room, a big kitchen with a walk-in fireplace and an ancient stone sink. The largest room was the dining room with a huge trestle table and benches. No modern conveniences, but for very erratic and undependable water heaters that had to be switched on and off. There was no extra charge for the resident bat.

We pulled names for room assignments, two of us doubling up, the other four in their own bedrooms. The first morning I threw open the old wooden shutters to a flock of sheep grazing below the window, the weathered shepherd and his two dogs silhouetted against the morning sun. The mist-touched Tuscan hills behind them seemed to go on forever.

An excursion to the town of Arrezo was today’s agenda due to the annual medieval jousting fair like the Palio of Sienna, but less touristy. We stood at the edge of narrow cobbled streets watching the colorful pageantry that has stayed the same since the middle ages.

Lunch was outdoors on the square, and even though we had gone to the market and loaded up with provisions for the house, I hadn’t eaten much. Now I was starving and ordered a salad and a pasta course, plus desert and cappuccino. I rejoiced at the food. We were in Italy!

Our money plan was a kitty for household expenses, and splitting restaurant checks equally. Now at our first restaurant meal there was a problem. Instead of merely dividing the check, there was the “ladies at lunch” syndrome of, “Well, I only had the soup, so mine is…” Never mind what people ate at the villa from the communal provisions. This was the second clue that things were not going as we had planned in L.A.

Another big issue was the two cars. Even though we all paid equally for their rental, and we were all listed on the insurance, the two women who put them on their credit cards became selfishly possessive and wanted to determine who and where and how the cars went. Furthermore even though we were six, one had left her license at home, another just hurt her foot, a third couldn’t drive at night.

As the ranks of drivers shrank, power struggles emerged, with sides chosen: there were the red car people and the green car team, a bit like the jousting at Arezzo only less friendly. The whole idea of two small cars was that we would have more freedom to each do what we wanted with whom we chose. But somehow it didn’t work that way.

The culmination of the Car Wars was one early morning when the three who were going to Rome for the day to see the Pope, drove off the cliff in front of the house in the dark. Luckily no one was hurt, but the green car was marooned. The Rome-goers then took the red car, and the other three women waited around the villa all day until the farmer showed up at sunset on his tractor to yank the car back from the brink and onto the road.

The food issue deteriorated quickly into petty lists of who bought what, who owed how much, and going to the market or a restaurant became a nightmare.

By our final “gala” dinner at a hotel in the nearby village of Ruffina, instead of celebrating our two weeks together in Italy, plus the two birthdays that occurred, we celebrated the end, that the togetherness was finally finito. We all were tense, and rude, and over the birthday cake, even foul language erupted. In fact the six middle-aged American librarians made a scene in this little Italian hotel’s dining room.

The next morning we all went our separate ways, two to Venice, me to Slovenia, the other three back to L.A., where even now, a year later, the red team and the green team no longer socialize.

The bat? Well one night when Jennifer turned on the electric oven to dry some lingerie, the whole house fell into darkness. We had blown a fuse. We managed to light candles, but a call to the Contessa revealed the necessity of finding our way through the dark to the fuse box in an unused part of the house. “Don’t worry about the bat,” the Contessa said. “He is harmless.” A BAT! Sure enough, as the three women bravest among us took a candle and went to the unremodeled back of the ancient house, there was the bat on a rafter! He swooped, there were screams, and then the candle went out.

The fuse waited for Mario the next day.
Between the lost luggage, different food priorities, power struggles over the cars, and the bat, our romantic sojourn in the Tuscan hills didn’t turn out quite as planned or hoped. Not the fault of Italy, which regarded the American ladies’ folly with the wisdom of centuries. Not the fault of the beautiful and warm Italian people, who looked like they had stepped down from the Renaissance paintings in the Uffizi Museum. And not the fault of the Contessa’s old stone farmhouse.

This article has been previously published in Skirt! and Moxie.

Solo Tango in Buenos Aires

Posted on November 1, 2000 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

It’s just before dawn, and our small group of Argentines and Americans are tired and filled with reverie after a night of tango. We’re drooped over cafes con leche on an old wooden table in a run-down nineteenth-century coffee shop. The large party over by the dark windows also look like they’ve been up all night having a good time. The men are wearing jackets, the women decolletage,all somewhat portly and of a certain age.

Suddenly one of the men stands up and begins to sing, loudly, proudly, passionately. Heads nod with approval. A woman in gold beads joins in.

Several others, our table included, brighten with the music and begin to clap along. I don’t understand the words, but I know it is Tango–love, life, disappointment, desire, joy and sadness.

Marcello can not resist the siren call of the emotional song, even after dancing all night. He’s an Argentine. He looks at me purposefully, and we tango on the cracked black and white marble floor around the men having breakfast with their newspapers on their way to work.

It’s a normal morning in Buenos Aires.
What is tango, anyway? I had danced other dances all my life, both social and theatrical, but I really didn’t know the answer to that question. I knew Tango meant more than a dance, certainly more than a (slow slow quick quick slow) ballroom exhibition, a campy movie moment, or a Broadway show. Because I wanted to experience the legendary dancers’ dance and all that Tango meant, I made a pilgrimage to Buenos Aires.

Knowing no one in Argentina and no Spanish, I was lucky enough to hook up with a tour of dancers who I found on the Internet. But it didn’t matter, I would have gone anyway. Tango is addictive and I already was a junkie after only three months of tango dance classes in L.A.

Tango permeates the air of BuenosAires–tango art and history, the dance of politics, the music of extinct German bandoneons, a 24 hour Tango TV channel, tango dancers on the streets, tango clubs two per block, curios and postcards, altars to Carlos Gardel. The city could just as easily be called Tango Aires. For a tanguera wanna-be like me and the other American women I met on the trip, it was paradise.

Buenos Aires is often called the Paris of South America, perhaps because a lot of the city’s architecture emulates La Belle Epoque and if you squint your eyes it is possible you could be in Paris: the French windows, balconies, wrought iron, sculptures of large buxom women over doorways. Elegant cupolas pop up on rooftops all over the city’s skyline, stamping the city as somewhat European and indefinably Buenos Aires.

But the Argentines are not sitting for hours in sidewalk cafes discussing and arguing and philosophizing like the French so love. Despite the city’s mild and sunny weather, Buenos Aires has few sidewalk cafes in which to have a cafe con leche and people-watch, to observe that the Argentines are slim, stunningly beautiful, well-dressed, and have perfect posture (due perhaps to their dance-charged culture.)

Instead of sitting and talking, the people of Buenos Aires are dancing. They go to practicas and even milongas (tango clubs) by day, and fill the dance halls from midnight till dawn every night of the week.

During my stay, I didn’t shop, sightsee or sleep more than an occasional nap. I lived on caf?s con leche, little croissants called medialunas, chicken empanadas, and vino tinto, all on the run. At midnight I would wrap my feet and pad my toes before stuffing them into spike-heeled pointy-toed tango shoes, and then hobble down the hall to the elevator. I suffered until blessed numbness set in an hour later. Then once the music began, I would float on air across the hard cement and tile floors of the tango halls. After one milonga closed, I went to another one, and when it closed, I had breakfast. Then I soaked my bloody feet in the huge lavender bathtub of my room at the Hotel Continental, throwing in as much salt as I could beg from the kitchen. I fell into bed each day at 6:00 a.m., smelling of men’s cologne. I was deliriously happy.

Why is this city dancing? Tango was born a hundred years ago in Buenos Aires, its direct lineage a bit mysterious. The name may be derived from “tangle,” as the couples’ legs seem to indeed. Tango, by its nature of leading and following, could only have originated in a country of overtly macho, strong men and responsive women.

There are no real “steps” in Argentine tango, but a walk forward, back and side. It is improvised. The man leads with his mind and body, and the woman follows with hers. She does have the choice of adding adornments and embellishments, but the control and responsibility are the man’s. The couple dance as one in a tight embrace, cheek to cheek, chest to chest, but their legs do different things.

I had to learn not to avert my eyes from a man’s direct gaze if I wanted to dance at the Buenos Aires milongas. It wasn’t easy for me at first to stare at a man from across the room, too forward for women here in the U.S. But it is considered rude in Argentina for a man to approach a woman’s table without permission, and so a woman gives her permission silently with her eyes. Often that’s all that passes between a man and a woman before meeting on the dance floor, simply a look that says, let’s dance together.

Then after the man opens his arms and the woman walks into them, they hold each other wordlessly for a moment before beginning to dance. One of my teachers there said, “The way a woman walks to me when I ask her to dance tells me if it will be a good tango or not. And at the moment when I first embrace her, I know all I need to know.”

Argentine Eduardo Arquimbau confided, “I decided when I was young that I had to be a good dancer so that women would dance with me.” The pioneering dancer, choreographer and international stage star who gave our American group a Master class, continued, “I look at a woman in the street and compliment her and she won’t even return my gaze, but at a milonga I can ask her to dance with my eyes. Then I can hold her in a deep embrace, our breath mingling, our faces touching.”

American women, myself included, flock in droves to the romantic allure of the tango and the macho men who dance it in milongas all over the world. The deep embrace, which is the norm in Buenos Aires, both seduces and frightens us.

We are so thrilled to be held in a close embrace and led strongly around the dance floor in a dance of beauty and passion, that sometimes we confuse the dancer with the dance. It is easy for many of us to fall in love with the dancer. However the sensuous communication and intimacy of the Tango is traditionally over once you leave the floor. Argentines know this, but
Americans can be disoriented and befuddled after a sexually-charged dance.

I saw how attractive are strong men who know where they are going and what they want and who never doubt themselves–even if they are old with missing teeth (often due to dance hall brawls in their youth), or are young and skinny boys just out of their teens.

American men are different, unsure of their place in the world and with women. It’s a cultural thing. Perhaps we American women have brought it on ourselves with our race to equality.

All of this naturally in both cultures, translates to the dance floor–and perhaps the bedroom.

It’s possible that American women don’t really want a romantic relationship with a macho man, but many are starving to give up control, at least for the time it takes to dance two or three tangos. And to be held so close that your breath combines and your legs tangle and you dance as one… well, some of us lust for that in our lives, not just for ten minutes. On my trip there were a lot of tears shed by my American traveling companions in the Ladies’ Rooms of the tango halls. And I admit, even though I knew better, to having a crush on one of the teaching assistants and being disappointed that all he did was dance with me.

It’s more comfortable to have our personal space, to keep a lack of commitment that prevents our being hurt, to not press our breasts against the chest of a stranger who we may never see again and whose name is unknown.

It takes courage for Americans to be close physically, and to embrace a stranger with no expectations.

Holding someone “at arm’s length” is a lot easier, after all.

It’s just not Tango.

Juan Bruno, another Master teacher I studied with, described the physiology of Tango as “the brain sending a message to your feet through your heart.” And el corazon, the dominant phrase of tango song lyrics, is also the soul of Tango as well as the heart of its dancers.

I learned that Tango is music, a mystique, a way of life, a people, not only a dance. My dancing improved after dancing twelve hours a day with strong leaders, and now that I’m back home again, I’m haunting the milongas of Los Angeles looking for the perfect dance experience as I found it in Buenos Aires. And if I also find tremendous pleasure from a man’s deep embrace with no strings attached, well, who can blame me?

However, along with all of its other qualities, a tango can also be just a dance. At a milonga I remind myself of that each time a man takes me in his arms to dance, and before I go home, alone.

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An Original Internet Magazine – Online Every Day Since July 1st ,2000, at the-vu.com

Category Archives: Cherie Magnus

Cherie Magnus’ new book, The Church of Tango, is out now.

The Church of Tango: a Memoir, published January 21, 2012

Taking the “A” Train

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 12

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 11

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 10

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 9

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 8

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 7

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 6

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 5

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 4

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 3

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 2

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 1

The Church of Tango

La Salsa Cubana Experience

Bodies, Monks and Mourners, On Stage!

Disenchanted September

Solo Tango in Buenos Aires