Tag Archives: Tango

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

Posted on by
Reply

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 by
Reply

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/

The Plugged-in Fetish Auto Show

Posted on by
Reply

The Greater L.A. AutoShow 2005
By Jeffrey the Barak

Fetish

Do electric cars have to be boring mutations of golf carts? Not if they are made in Monaco and cost more than, well almost anything.

One shining star at this year’s Greater Los Angeles Auto Show is the Venturi Fetish. If this two-seater, rear-drive roadster doesn’t catch your eye too quickly, the sound from the nearby giant video screen surely will. This car is no gasoline hybrid, it’s all battery and motor tucked into a beautiful carbon fiber shell.

This is a car that emits a sound as beautiful as a Lambourghini growl, but completely different, and if you live somewhere that gets it’s electricity from solar or hydroelectric power stations, it’s a nonpolluting vehicle.

It accelerates from 0-60MPH in 4.35 seconds and reaches a top speed of a respectable 105.6MPH, while achieving a range of 217 miles between charges. Charging under 80 Amps takes 3.5 hours, and charging slowly under 16 Amps takes 16.5 hours, but extends the life of the power packs.

The car is available in California for around $337,500 plus taxes etc., which is not exactly affordable, but if you want to own today’s most amazing electric vehicle, that’s the price you have to pay.

Tango

Another noteworthy electric car has a footprint smaller than some touring motorcycles. The Tango by Commuter Cars Corporation looks as if it might tip over, but they have demonstrated that it never does by having their vice-president Bryan Woodbury tear around a road coarse that could tip a go-cart.

According to CCC, “With over 1,000 ft-lbs. of torque, the Tango can accelerate to over 130MPH in one gear. Without needing an energy robbing transmission or differential, it accelerates from zero to 60MPH in about 4 seconds and finishes the standing quarter mile in about 12 seconds at over 100MPH”

The $85,000 T600 carbon fiber Tango is hardly cheap, but the makers claim the price becomes zero over time as there’s no fuel to buy, time is saved in heavy traffic by lane-splitting, and it can be parked as a motorcycle, facing right towards or away from the curb. Future production models may go for $85,000 (the T200) and $18,700, (the T100), but the T100 will not feature the insane performance of the racy T600.

Of all the cars on display at this year’s show, only two were electric and fast. They have taken very different routes to this unique place.

Jeffrey the Barak is the publisher of the-vu

An American Diary from Mexico – Episode 10

Posted on by
Reply

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 didn’t 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 didn’t have Guillermo’s 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 weavers—all women–were set cheek to jowl, meaning you didn’t 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 Rosa’s 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. It’s 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. There’s 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 night’s 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 plaza’s 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 couldn’t 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 everyone’s 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 weren’t 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 hadn’t 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 nieve—Zapotec Dreams and Tamarindo with Chile—to 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 ice—Mescal this time—as the internet cost only 8 pesos per hour (about $.75).

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

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/

The Church of Tango

Posted on by
1

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/

Drunk on Tango in Argentina

Posted on by
Reply

By Kim Knode

Award-winning filmmaker, Adam Boucher declares, “I like to make documentaries like Tango: The Obsession as a discovery process which I can share with the audience.” Apparently audiences take pleasure in exploring subjects such as tango in Argentina together with Boucher. After a showing at the Smithsonian Institute in 1999, the Argentine Embassy was moved to declare Boucher’s documentary, “a significant film.” (Also, in the April of 2001, a representative from Jungle Films reports that recently a request for two thousand video versions of the film came in from Germany.)

The 1999 Marin County Film Festival also acknowledged the significance of the “Tango” and awarded Boucher first place. In the same year, at an Orlando, Florida film festival, despite the sold-out performances, Tango: The Obsession took second place. (The opinion poll after each screening may have influenced the ranking.)

The thirty-something director shifts his slight five-foot nine frame in a black easy chair as he starts to tell me about Orlando. (Outside, the twilight shadows fall on the streets of Santa Monica.) Inside my brightly lit office, I can see Boucher slightly blush. He grins and his green eyes flash as he confesses; “I got in an argument with a guy in the audience about tango.”

Boucher strikes me as a sweet, mild-mannered man. (He chose Argentine tango as a topic for his first film because he wanted to learn about the dance that “made my mom’s life happier and better.”  Boucher also dedicated the movie to his mother.) So I am momentarily surprised by a streak of the confrontational in Boucher. But then I remember that everyone has an opinion about the Argentine dance. (Not one dancer that Boucher interviews in Tango: The Obsession is neutral on the subject.)

Carlos Copello of The Tango Lesson (film) and Forever Tango (stage) fame compares tango to a drug.  In Boucher’s documentary, the Nureyev of tango mimes a drug addict shooting up. “It’s like you start to give yourself tango injections – continuous tango injections,” he says.

Despite the best efforts of his teacher, Boucher did not get addicted to the Argentine dance.  His  instructor?  Ten-year old, Geraldine Rejas, (featured in the film) started lessons at age four.

“Why did you choose a child?” I ask.

“She picked me,” he replies. “Geraldine was a good teacher. And there wasn’t the sexual tension of being in the arms of a woman.” He explains that tango with contemporaries is a little intimidating. “I mean what usually takes two or three dates (in North America)…You’re doing on the dance floor!”

Seduction and sexual tension is a part of the tango.  However, Boucher and his movie embrace a larger truth about the scintillating dance. “It is like a meditation,” says the documentary filmmaker. “There is no talking. And you can almost hear each other’s heart beat.” Boucher takes a sip of water and continues, “I experienced many of my ‘moments’ (of epiphany) dancing to “La Mariposa” – “The Butterfly” by Osvaldo Pugliese.”

“I get transformed because I get absorbed in what I’m doing. I don’t think about this or that. I just think about what I’m doing,” is how Margarita in Tango answers Boucher’s questions about the impact of the Latin dance on her life.

The swarthy, middle-aged Margarita matter-of-factly states in the film: “I was taught to dance by my mom’s brother.” (When she was six and seven years of age, she practiced her steps with a broomstick.)

Another lady in her forties, Boucher interviews in Tango: The Obsession whispers that daughters from good homes were not permitted to attend the late night tangos. So the younger girls picked up steps from older cousins. And then practiced with one another at home.

Besides the class restrictions to enter the milongas (dance salons), in tango’s earlier days in Argentina, only adults were allowed in. One man with a huge smile and gaps between his teeth sips espresso and elaborates on the details of his youth with delight into Boucher’s camera. He speaks of sneaking in with other little boys to watch Argentina’s experts twist, tangle and turn with ladies in stiletto heels. “We would hide and then do what they did.” (His initial tango training also started at home with older relatives.)

Thanks to his dancing mother’s connections to Copello, Boucher was granted entrance and access into the authentic (no-tourists-type) Argentine tango clubs.  However, all the credit goes to Boucher for his ability to create intimate conversations on camera while delving into the heart of the tango dancer.

He tells me he spent hours “hanging out” with lovers of tango to gain their trust. (In and out of the dance halls, time was spent munching media lunas (a half moon croissant) and downing “watered down versions of Italian espresso.”) He says, “In Argentina, it is common to share espresso with a fellow tanguero. In fact, they drink one after another.” Boucher states, “I am not particularly a coffee man. However, friends are treated like family. And quality time like drinking a coffee together is cherished.”  The filmmaker smiles and says, “So under those conditions how could someone not love coffee?”

Boucher may also have needed the extra boost from the caffeine. It is evident that the director did hours of homework on the history of the dance. Countless frames of black and white footage and sepia tone prints illustrate the emergence of tango. In addition, interviews with historians illuminate the beginnings of Argentine tango.  (Boucher’s clips with the so-called intellectuals of society – the historians – also take on the tone of a friendly chat on a street corner.)

One of the attention-grabbing moments of Tango: The Obsession was the proclamation that Italian immigrants were instrumental in the development of the dance.  Photos of the European men arriving in Argentina – a land of opportunity – exemplify some of the strains of melancholy, which filtered into the tango.

Tango: The Obsession demonstrates that Italians were not the only ones who needed a dance to deal with the blues. The early blacks of South America, the solitary gaucho, the stressed out citizen living in a high-tech society are all featured in the film.  Boucher’s probing camera lens provides insight (with his interviews and photographs) into why tango becomes an obsession. He gives us a glimpse into the lives of tango dancers who answer the call to touch and hear each other’s heart beat.

To order the film in VHS or PAL format or simply to learn more about Tango: The Obsession:
On the web: go to http://www.tangovideos.com/ or Amazon.com. You can also directly contact the distributor, Jungle Films: Jungle Films 11271 Ventura Boulevard, PMB512 Studio City, CA 91604 Tel: 818-771-8668 Fax: 818-753-8305

Kim Knode’s interview articles focusing on artists, celebrities and dance champions have been published in various print and on-line publications.

Tango in the Twilight

Posted on by
Reply

By Kim Knode

At a recent Southern California United States Amateur Ballroom Dancers (USABDA) competition (held at the Glendale Civic Auditorium), I caught up with Dr. James Kleinrath.  The good doctor, a retired dentist, is the reigning three-time National Senior Smooth Champion along with his dance partner and love of four years, Melody Singleton. (They will defend their title in Salt Lake City in August at the USABDA National DanceSport Championship 2001.)

I arrived in time to see the couple whirling around the dance floor with a vigorous Viennese waltz, a snappy Astaire-Rogers foxtrot and a tango with sharp hairpin turns. I watched almost in a state of disbelief.  “This is the Championship Senior American Smooth division?” I had to double check. “This division is reserved for seniors, right?”

In the USABDA arena, a senior is someone who is fifty-plus. The athletic ability of the older dancers is remarkable. The lifts, spins and all the other steps the younger kids are doing are demonstrated with pleasure filled eyes and smiles.

After stepping off the floor, Singleton keeps her adrenalin going by running! The statuesque brunette (looking like an advertisement for Jane Fonda workout videos) sprints off to change costumes for the next event.  (The confident senior champions have entered another event featuring competition between ballroom dancers aged thirty-five and up.)

Kleinrath needs no change of apparel. He is dressed in a tuxedo that serves as a standard outfit for men competing in the “smooth dances” like the waltz, tango and foxtrot. I tap him on the shoulder and ask for an interview. Despite the tails, he still gives the appearance of an eagle scout. Kleinrath stretches every inch of his 5’10” skyward.  His chestnut colored hair is combed flat. And his brown eyes dance with delight. Kleinrath’s boyish grin also reveals an eagerness to do his duty – to share the joy of ballroom dancing after fifty.

His energetic voice matches the youthful appearance. “What do I love about ballroom dancing? Well, It’s wonderful to move to music!” declares Kleinrath.  Like a delighted schoolboy he continues, “I particularly enjoy the lead and follow aspect of ballroom dancing.”

Indeed, ballroom dancing (also called DanceSport) takes two to tango and maneuver one response to the stimulus on the dance floor.  The wildcard elements of the traffic created by the patterns other couples weave on the dance floor in addition to the music all ensconce ballroom dancing in a bit of mystery.  And Kleinrath loves it because, “A new dance is created every time!”

Did the former dentist always dance?  He chuckles and shakes his head. “No. Twelve years ago, after a divorce, I went to my first ballroom dance class to meet women.” He may not have encountered the female fantasy of his dreams; but Kleinrath fell head over heels in love with ballroom dancing!

For Kleinrath the pastime quickly transformed into a preoccupation.  Presently, “Melody and I spend about fifteen to twenty hours training in the studio,” says the dentist turned dancer.  “Plus, we train with two professional dancers in San Francisco.” The senior champion acknowledges that, “Dancing at the competitive level requires a great time commitment.”

“I am grateful that I found the profession of dentistry when I was younger because it gave me something useful and important to do.  Today, it gives me the financial means to pursue competitive dancing.” Flashing his pearly whites, the former dentist says, “There are many times I stand in the dance studio thinking there is nowhere else I would rather be.”

I ask if his food and fitness routines changed after he took up dancing. “Not much,”  he says. “I decided many years ago that regular exercise and weight control are important no matter what else is going on in my life. And both Melody and I are runners, we both have been running over twenty years.”

Surely with all the time in the dance studio they do not run now?  “Oh yes.  We do about fifteen miles a week. I also do a one-hour workout in the gym with weight (lifting) machines three times a week. And Melody does stretches.”

Do they ever relax? “Both of us like theatre, music and dance performances,” replies Kleinrath.  (My mind flips to the articles I have read on professional basketball players closing their eyes and visualizing perfect free throws. Sounds to me like more preparatory material and memorization of winning moves for the dance floor!)

The champion dancer continues, “We do like movies. And Melody likes to cook up low-fat meals with interesting sauces for us.” (He adds, “Actually she likes cooking more than eating.”)

Singleton may whip up an irresistible béarnaise in the kitchen. But on the floor the duo really cook! By evening’s end, the couple cleans up with a first place trophy in the Championship Senior American Smooth (waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, foxtrot) category.  When competing with the thirty-somethings in Division B of the International Standards (which includes quickstep and the American Smooth dances with different rules about footwork and “frame”), the duo pick up a second place trophy.

The marks of the DanceSport judges are easy to understand. Trying to watch other couples when Kleinrath and Singleton are on the dance floor is a challenge.  There is something about people in love.  One cannot help but watch the exchange of smiles between the partners as they playfully interact with the audience.  (Kleinrath will send Singleton reeling very close to the lap of a seated audience member only to retrieve her to his side ever so smoothly.)

Also, the team’s choreography is unforgettable. In the middle of a waltz, Kleinrath will lift his lady into the air like an older Baryshnikov.  During a tango, Singleton flicks the skirt of her burgundy velvet gown (with a river of silver running through it – reminiscent of a Z) to create a Zorro-esque sweeping action.

Kleinrath confesses that the electricity audiences see on the dance floor sometimes turns into static off the competition stage. He admits that, “Competing together is very hard on a relationship. It’s so easy to fall into the ‘it’s your fault’ trap.”

He quietly states, “I have to give Melody a lot of credit here. She is very good at forgiving. With Melody I feel great acceptance.”

“And I think the main difference for me regarding relationships after fifty is also acceptance.  I don’t feel the need to make everything perfect.” Kleinrath explains, “So many times in past relationships I have felt great pressure to change my partner and/or myself.”

The dancer also confesses that in the area of diet he is not flawless either. “My favorite food is Mexican. When Melody and I are in a hurry, it’s usually Taco Bell!”

Neither Kleinrath nor Singleton are big on alcohol (a clear head is a must for maneuvering effectively around the dance floor).  However, “When I drink – which is seldom,” says Kleinrath, “I like mixed drinks. Melody enjoys sampling lesser known California and Australian wines.”

I ask Kleinrath about the champion-winning couple’s first dance together.  The first dance was apparently a smooth-as-silk Strauss waltz at a “large local dance.”  However, Kleinrath laughs as he recalls, “Our second dance together, we managed to entangle feet in a quickstep and fall down in front of four hundred people!”

From divorce to doing the tango with a devastatingly dazzling brunette and from novice to national dance champion, James Kleinrath proves there is wisdom in the adage, “Practice makes perfect” in the twilight years.

Kim Knode’s interview articles focusing on artists, celebrities and dance champions have been published in various print and on-line publications.

Solo Tango in Buenos Aires

Posted on by
Reply

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.

(c) Copyright 2000 Cherie Magnus

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/