Sunday, October 2, 2011

Some videos of us dancing from our last visit to Buenos Aires (April 10, 2011)

Man Yung was reading our blog yesterday when he realized - we're taking forever to write what happened in 2009!  "You have been so distracted and there has been so many diversions [Come on, could anyone resist writing about such enthralling topics such as Donkey Kong, Aural Indigestion and Weiners? - Irene], I'm predicting that people won't get to read about what happened in 2011 until... 2025!"

Uh oh....that means that the one or two faithful readers of this blog (okay, four or five) will never get to watch the amazing video footage we took on our most recent trip.  In fact, by 2025, I'd think most Tangueros and Tangueras will have actually abandoned Tango out of sheer frustration for other more exciting pastimes such as pole dancing, camel racing, backgammon - or even the polka.  There's already not much reason now  for anyone to watch any of our videos - by then there will be absolutely no reason!

So, for no good reason whatsoever except to pollute El Mundo de Tango en el Internet with more tango videos that nobody wants to watch (remember the times not that long ago when every new Tango video on Youtube would get 100,000+ views?  Now it's jackpot time if anybody gets 10+ views), we present to you:

Irene and Man Yung's vacation videos from the the second time they went to Pinar de Rocha, April 10, 2011 (yawn)

We never dreamed that we would go to Pinar de Rocha again.  It was FAR.  It was a little too close to Fuerte Apache.  And could we withstand Alberto and Paulina laughing at us again for traveling to and hanging out at all these out of the way milongas de barrio with no car ride back?  Unfortunately (or fortunately) we were presented with the opportunity to go there again - when we bumped into the Pinar de Rocha's organizer at Salon Canning when we were there with Osvaldo and Coca.  The organizer asked Osvaldo and Coca to go the following Sunday... and so we went again with them.  At least we were guaranteed a ride there and back!

When we got there, we met Julio Cesar Cordi again.  He is the DJ at the milonga at Pinar de Rocha.  We had been worried about him - he had major heart surgery since the last time we saw him.  We were glad to see him, looking well and rested.  He invited me to dance just as the milonga began - here we are dancing to Donato's La Tablada:




We had a special treat that night - Jorge Garcia and Susana Soar, Osvaldo and Coca's friends, came to join us!  Apart from being great maestros and dancers, they are also great fun.  They would be sedately eating their salad - and then some music that they liked would start playing.  Then they would abruptly stop eating, look up at each other - and rush off to the dance floor!  It was like a scene from a movie - too bad we didn't film these moments (and the moment when Osvaldo danced rock n' roll with Susana!  Although that was only half a song because Osvaldo gets out of breath easily, it was CLASSIC, wish you were all there to see it).

We'll cut to the chase - of course Osvaldo and Coca ambushed us again by making us perform.  We had all sorts of ideas as to what we would like to dance to, and Osvaldo kept on going to Julio to ask him whether he had the track... but he didn't have anything we or Osvaldo asked for!  Osvaldo finally gave up.  "Play whatever, " he said, and we didn't know which "whatever" until we were herded onto the dance floor and music started to play.  We ended up dancing to D'Arienzo's "Lilian":




What's interesting about the video is not our dancing.  We always dance like that no matter where we are, "performance" notwithstanding (we are only social dancers, not jumping spinning sequin-bedecked stage artistes) - and besides, you have been warned about the health hazards of watching us dance!  No, what's interesting is the gentleman sitting with his girlfriend on the other side of the room.  His body language says: "No way, I'm not going to clap for these strange little chinese people.  I'M NOT GOING TO CLAP!  GODDAMMIT I WILL NOT CLAP (even though other people are clapping)!... Darn, I started clapping, but it's in the wrong place and I had to stop half-way because I feel silly... Oh heck, who am I kidding - I'll clap, these little chinese people are doing ok."*

*Man Yung would like to point out that this gentleman knows Osvaldo and Coca - he was in the car that had just parked when we arrived, and he and his girlfriend were kind of excited to see them.  I would like to point out that everyone knows Osvaldo and Coca, it's not that unusual!

Then the organizer asked everyone whether they'd like to see us dance milonga - so we did:




I don't know whether we did well or not as it was totally unexpected and improvised (I hardly ever dance milonga at the milonga because I am usually too tired to move that fast), but everybody was smiling at us and seemed very happy. In fact, after we performed, at least TWO ladies came over, without cabeceo, to ask Man Yung to dance!

Man Yung also got to dance with Coca again:




And I (and this is the exciting part) - got to dance with Jorge Garcia!  Yippee!



The second milonga in this video is exactly the same one I just performed to with Man Yung!  Of course Jorge Garcia is much better (sorry Man Yung!)




I wish I was wearing higher heels - I have a sneaking suspicion the 3 inch heels make me look kind of stumpy.  If only I had feet like a ballerina and the posture of a marsh-wading Great White Stork!

"I think it is time you faced the truth, Irene," said Man Yung.  "No matter what shoes you wear, you will still dance like a little old lady."

Oh well, I won't mind - so long the little old lady is Carmencita Calderon!

* Man Yung says: I hope that our readers will not have to wash out their eyes after watching all these videos of us dancing.

** I say: No need to hope - I BET that our readers will have to wash out their eyes after watching all these videos of us dancing.

3 comments:

jessiechung said...

Dear Irene and Man Yung,

Big hands to the superb dancing in the videos. Your dancing is smooth and musical that flows perfectly with the music. Why washing our eyes? We glued our eyes to the minitor screen, that is. Please post more videos when you have the time. Bon voyage and safe trip home.

Jessie and Dorian

Laurie said...

Irene and Man Yung,

Thanks for posting these videos... you know how i start my week with your blog. Irene I'm not the only one who thinks you are the most elegant of toronto tangueras and how we will miss dancing with Man Yung while you are away. Hope we don't have to wait until 2028 for posts about this trip.. no pressure!
Bon Voyage,
Laurie

Irene and Man Yung said...

Dear Jessie and Dorian and Laurie,

Thank you very much for the good wishes for our trip. We just arrived (more or less in one piece)! Taxi from airport to downtown is now...180 pesos! Can't believe that in 2007 it was just 50 pesos.

You are friends indeed not to object to the horror of the videos of our dancing - this has given our a perverse desire to flood the internet with more! P.S. Jessie & Dorian, would you regret that you were so kind to send us the music file for Orquesta Tipica Victor's "Secreto"? - because we have now filmed ourselves dancing to it and we're going to post it...mwah ha ha ha! We're too tired after our flight to actually write anything original!

Thanks everybody!

Irene and Man Yung

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