Dream

If I remember correctly, the last time we danced tango before the pandemic was in February of 2020.  News just broke of some Polish guy who went to a tango festival in Europe and infected like, a hundred people with COVID.  It was a scary time and the tango organizer at our last milonga in Toronto went to great lengths and great costs to temperature check us at the door and put hand sanitizer on every table.  I’m not one of those people who didn’t care - I was and still am gut wrenchingly fearful of germs and getting sick (yes, in that way I’m a pussy) - and every hug and kiss with all you lovely people of Toronto Tango gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Then everything shut down. No Tango, and not only for just a couple of weeks. And this went on, and on, and on.  For almost FOUR YEARS.

Yippee!  I was free!  No more freaking studio practice sessions with Man Yung cracking the whip and turning me into a multi enganche gancho back sacada parada colgada performing tango monkey in heels!  No more “You got to be kidding me, in public??!?!” loud Tango arguments about steps with Man Yung at the milonga!  No more “Look Ma! I’ve turned into a zombie!” Mondays (or Wednesdays, or Thursdays, or Fridays) at work after a late night at a milonga.  

They say you look back at times of great trouble and stress and all you remember are the good times.  And yes, it was easy for me to forget the constant fear of getting sick, watching frightening COVID related news on a loop until I was actually sick (and not yet with COVID), lining up forever at the grocery store wearing a mask in the cold with my glasses fogging up and not being able to see a damn thing, and of course, ALMOST RUNNING OUT OF TOILET PAPER.

What I remember most happily about 2020 - 2023 was:  

Drinking lots of Gin and Tonic!  

Driving in Toronto and being the only car on the road and not in constant gridlock!  

Watching Downton Abbey 4 times!

Eating a whole lot of Lobster and Crab (because suddenly it got cheap - lockdown in China meant that mainland Chinese people weren’t buying all the seafood in the world and driving up the prices!)

Spending time with cat! 

Becoming a proficient artist of heads and fully clothed torsos!

(But not of arms and legs, but I craftily circumvented that particular problem by drawing people kneeling with hands hiding under cats or out of the frame.  Here I did do hands, but as you can see, the fingers look like sausages)

And of course:

NOT DANCING TANGO.

People would be amazed to learn that we only danced Tango once during the pandemic, in our kitchen which is the only place (apart from the bathroom) which had tiled flooring in our condo.  Just One Tango in which Man Yung knocked me into several cupboards due to there not being any space.  I was glad that we didn’t try in the bathroom, because it would mean being knocked into the toilet, and we didn’t exactly want to have a plumber come to our place because to fix stuff because, you know, COVID.

I was absolutely fine with not dancing ever again.  In fact, along with my newly acquired phobia of running out of toilet paper, I developed a phobia of going to milonga.  Whenever Man Yung would even think of dancing (he may not actually say anything but I could smell it on him) I would have terrible nightmares of going to milongas where no-one wore a face mask and wake up in a cold sweat.  

So, finally, after actually getting COVID (and thankfully, not dying) and what must be our hundredth COVID booster shot, we went to our first milonga after the pandemic in December of 2023.**  A Christmas Milonga, in fact - at the location closest to home, and where the lights were turned down so dim you could hardly even cabeceo…Just in case we had forgotten how to dance and look real stupid on the dance floor.  Because four years of not dancing tango, not listening to tango music, not talking about tango and not even thinking about tango (well, that’s me, I can’t speak for Man Yung) should really do a number on your tango skills.

Guess what?  We took to that slippery dark dance floor with lots of trepidation… and discovered that we could still dance! I could still follow (but as Man Yung would say, “It’s easy to follow - you don’t actually have to do anything, so stop bragging about it”) and Man Yung can still do a million (out of his pre-pandemic million billion gazillion) steps.  

It was amazing, it was like stepping into a foreign country for the first time (or after decades) and finding out you can still speak the language (somewhat) fluently.

We returned to Tango in full force (well, almost - I draw the line at practicing in a studio by ourselves, going to a milonga on a night before or after a workday, arguing about steps, and having to lead a very heavy Man Yung unless absolutely necessary - because hey, following is NOT not doing anything and doing your best impression of a truck with square wheels) and the rest is post-pandemic history.***

** Just for the record, I still didn’t want to.  Man Yung may still be spritely at his advanced age, but let’s face facts - old is old.  “Man Yung, why can’t you take more precautions and be the guy in Germany who had 217 COVID booster shots? That’s how safe you should be before you dance with every single germy woman at the milonga,” I said. 

***…waiting to be written on this blog to an audience of absolute zero.  This is what happens if you haven’t blogged since 2020!  Thank god I have a day job and don’t need this pile of tango blogging crap to make a living.

COVID-19 and Tango

The last milonga we attended must have been back in February before the lockdown.  We had just received news on Facebook before we went to the milonga that a dancer with the coronavirus attended a festival in Italy and many people fell ill after contact with that dancer.

The atmosphere at the milonga was quite tense.  Many people stayed away, there were temperature checks at the door and a box of anti-septic wipes on each table.  The organizers were doing their best to keep the attendees safe from what they knew about the coronavirus at the time, and, to try and keep tango going in our city. People tried to be calm but there was a lot less hugging and kissing hello for sure.

In fact, we had been afraid since November/December last year hearing the news and rumours coming from Hong Kong and China (Man Yung always keeps abreast of the news from that region) about the mysterious and deadly coronavirus.  The Chinese Government can't be trusted to be transparent about what is actually happening.  It was just a matter of time before the threat reached our shores.

I felt extremely relieved that after that milonga, all the milonga organizers in Toronto decided to shut down their milongas due to the coronavirus.  This was before the government mandated lockdown, before everyone was ordered to social distance and to stop gathering in groups larger than 5 people.  Close proximity and close contact in Tango is just too dangerous, it takes just one sick person to attend a milonga and so many others will also fall sick.  I really applaud the tango organizers in our City for taking that difficult step of closing down quickly.  It shows how much they care for the safety and wellbeing of the tango community and the public.

I don't think Tango will start up in earnest again until a vaccine can be found.  Well, maybe some people may try to get milongas started up before a vaccine is available but we won't be going to any Tango events until that time.  From what we know, washing hands often, checking temperatures, wearing a mask, dancing outside, head-to-toe disinfection etc. etc. reduces coronavirus transmission rates but they are not foolproof, people can still get sick if they get in contact with someone who has it.  Man Yung is a senior citizen with "pre-existing" medical conditions and I am no spring chicken.  We aren't going to risk it.  We won't even be going to practice in the dance studio we usually rent each week by ourselves. People using that studio will be exerting themselves physically during exercise/dance and if they have coronavirus, they will aerosol it into the air with every breath.

I know it is very tough for all the Tango organizers and teachers right now.  We hope they will be able to pull through and that the vaccine is only months away rather than years away.  As for us, we have been very lucky. Man Yung is retired and can stay at home and even though I have to go to work (the nature of my work doesn't let me work from home), my office is taking all precautions by making all staff wear facial masks and not allowing any outsiders into our office.

Yes, there is no tango dancing but we are comfortable, we can stay home and watch Netflix and drink more alcohol than we would normally drink.  I've gained 4 pounds since the lockdown started and it's all from gin and tonic.

Man Yung listens to tango music every evening on Youtube. I think he is practicing a million steps whenever he closes his eyes. He told a friend on the phone that he would be "fine" if he doesn't dance tango again but I think he is just putting on a brave front.

I have been having several bad dreams in which Man Yung drags me to a milonga while COVID-19 is still raging.  People are dancing without any face masks.  I have also had several dreams of finding myself in a supermarket and people are shopping without any face masks.  I just had a dream last night in which a horde of angry clients (without face masks) burst into our office and we have to call security to remove them.  I think this is becoming a recurring nightmare and phobia.  Instead of crowds of zombies I'm afraid of crowds of people without face masks.

As far as we know, our friends in Buenos Aires have also been in lockdown.  They aren't dancing, they aren't going out.  But that's ok, they are healthy and keeping safe and they assure us through email and Facebook that they are prudent and listening to what the government is telling them to do.  They are also quite hopeful we will all return to dancing soon.  The most important things right now are health and family and they are making sure to maintain their health and to keep their families safe and we totally agree.

Study

Some people like to study with championship tango dancers and watch videos of championship tango dancers dancing tango so some day they may also win a championship.  And if you don't win this time, try, try, try again!

Some people like to study stage tango movements because if they can't get people to pay attention to their low key, boring social dancing, they can kick it up a notch by flinging their partner into outer space (and other people)!  

Does anybody really want to study how to dance well on a crowded dance floor anymore?  Where the best dancers can express the music with the simplest movements while they are shoulder to shoulder with the couples around them?

Maestros Blas Catrenau and Myriam Pincen dancing on a VERY crowded dance floor.  Perfection!

I don't know about others, but I think this is the highest form of Tango expression.  I leave ambitions about winning championships and showing off for other people!