We couldn't be there in Buenos Aires to spend time with Manolo on his 81st birthday - but we did call him to wish him the best of health and happiness, and to have a great time at his birthday party at Yira Yira that night!
Through the magic of Youtube, we finally got to see Martha and Manolo's exhibition at Yira Yira today. As usual, they brought down the house with their performances. Just watching the amazing milonga exhibition at the end, could you believe that Manolo is 81 years old?
Martha and Manolo, we love you!
Showing posts with label Canyengue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canyengue. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Martha and Manolo exhibition at Porteño y Bailarin, Sunday October 14, 2012
...Enough about us! It's time for a real show by our Maestros, Martha and Manolo! Here are the videos we took at Porteño y Bailarin of their exhibitions of Canyengue, Tango and Milonga. They were so electrifying, the crowd couldn't stop clapping and there was a standing ovation at the end:
Osvaldo and Coca arrived just in time to catch the last part of the exhibition! Here is the photo of us all together after the show!
Osvaldo and Coca arrived just in time to catch the last part of the exhibition! Here is the photo of us all together after the show!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Martha and Manolo in Toronto, April 2006
Martha and Manolo (and us!) in Detroit in 2007. We had a great time attending Martha and Manolo's workshops at Lori Burton's Argentine Tango Detroit studios, and also their workshops at the Camicando festival in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Last post we talked about ordinary dancers from your local community traveling to Buenos Aires to bring back The Tango. Although there's nothing quite like being in the city itself and steeping yourself in its unique culture, those who couldn't make it to Buenos Aires can still have a chance to experience it by learning from traveling Porteño teachers - especially those who have lived and danced in the Golden Age of Tango.
That's why we were so excited when we first learned Martha and Manolo were coming to Toronto, way back in our Tango infancy in 2006. We didn't have Youtube (or, Youtube had only two or three rather poor quality Tango videos) back then - we only had a few precious and rare tango instruction videos ordered over the phone (Online Tango shopping was not yet a biggie). One of these videos was a video about Canyengue, and had Martha Anton teaching with her previous partner, Luis Grodona - and one other video we had was of Manolo with his former partner Coca (not to be confused with Coca of Osvaldo and Coca), teaching his unique style of milonga. And now, both Martha and Manolo were coming to Toronto!
Here's the story of how we first met Martha and Manolo. But that's only part of the story. Let us tell you about the amazing month we spent learning from Martha and Manolo!
Martha and Manolo had a LOT of material to teach - they are experts in Tango Salon from the Fifties, Canyengue, Milonga and Milonga Fantasia (being Milonga but in the very tricky reverse position) - and they were totally generous about it. They had literally the fullest schedule of classes, ever - two classes every weeknight, six classes on Saturday and on Sunday too. When we took a look at the schedule, we look at each other aghast, and wondered out aloud, "Who would possibly be able to take so many classes?"
After taking just one class with Martha and Manolo, we found out.
WE WERE THE ONES WHO WERE GOING TO TAKE ALL THE CLASSES.
It was the best investment of time and money we ever made in Tango. After learning intensively from Martha and Manolo for 52 hours, we had an unbeatable foundation in Tango, Canyengue and Milonga. The things we learned we would be able to keep with us for the rest of our dancing lives.
When we look back to those times, we don't know how we made it - and we're pretty sure we couldn't do it again (being pretty old and tired now). I had to leave work an hour early every day to rush home, have a bite to eat - and then we would drive all the way downtown in heavy traffic to Lisandro and Tatiana's Tango Sur studio to take classes. We were often late for class, but luckily Martha and Manolo are patient and kind (and they knew beforehand about my scheduling) and were never angry about the tardiness!
Classes were intense - Martha and Manolo were always going around to each student giving individual attention, explaining the material and demonstrating, working out the kinks. We've heard horror stories about unprofessional Tango Teachers - demonstrating a step here or there and then GOING OFF somewhere to drink a mate, smoke a cigarette, chat with their mates or girlfriend - while their students floundered helplessly. Martha and Manolo gave the class their undivided attention - they expected everyone to work hard, and they worked harder than anyone else. Martha and Manolo put their heart and soul into teaching, and everyone who took their classes felt it. They wanted us to learn, and would do everything in their power to make sure that we did.
Classes on weekdays would last until 10, 10:30 p.m. - and then we would have to rush home, have another bite to eat, sleep - and then the same for the next day until the weekend rolled around. The weekend was so full of classes it was hard to fit in lunch or dinner (or even laundry, or sleep)! We'd be so tired we'd stop practicing and Martha and Manolo would catch us slacking off. "But we are so exhausted and Man Yung is old!" I'd protest. Martha and Manolo would smile and say, "We're much older than either of you and we have been on our feet teaching private classes even before your group class started! Come on, keep on practicing!" Martha and Manolo are tireless like that.
We only had a crappy Canon PowerShot A400 those days (Man Yung was too embarrassed to use it when we went on our trip to Montreal because it was SOOOOO outdated compared to the cameras of the Mainland Chinese Tourists from the China wrestling Olympic team who were on the same tour bus - another story, another time) and it only took three minutes of video at a time, but what memories we have preserved of Martha and Manolo's classes!
Here's Martha and Manolo demonstrating their Milonga Fantasia after class:
Here's a sample of their Canyengue:
Here's their Tango Salon of the Fifties:
And here's Milonga by Manolo - the Maestro's unique style:
If not for Martha and Manolo, we would have never made it Buenos Aires. Part of it was from their patient teaching - because of them, we improved exponentially. Part of it was from their endless encouragement - because of them, we started to have faith in the way that we danced. And part of it was from their love and friendship. "Come visit us in Buenos Aires, we want to see you again and we're having a festival!" Martha said in her email to us a few months after they had returned to Buenos Aires.
After meeting Martha and Manolo in Toronto, we knew that we will have them as lifelong friends in Buenos Aires - and so we took the leap, booked our flights, and went. And started writing this blog. And the rest is history.
Here are videos of two more demos by Martha and Manolo in Toronto - first, a Tango Salon (they are demonstrating to Di Sarli's "La Cachila") and a Milonga (this time, "Milonga Sentimental" by Canaro):
Martha and Manolo - Muchissimas Gracias and we love you!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Buenos Aires 2009 - Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Saraza - beginning of the milonga
Tuesday March 3, 2009
Dear V,
More Camicando. More classes. Unfortunately, the big egos in some of our fellow students continue their rampage.
The second floor in Salon Victorial is divided into small, interlinked and doorless rooms - there's not enough space to have all the students in one room so we kind of branch off to practice wherever there is space. There was a couple hogging the larger central vestibule next to the stairs. Since there was more than enough space for twenty couples (and better ventilation - yes, it is hot again) we started practicing in the vestibule. This apparently annoyed the couple who was already there.
They stopped practicing to glare at us. "Can't you FOLLOW THE LINE OF DANCE?" they said.
We looked around to ascertain the "ronda" they were so adamantly insistent upon. It was as we thought - the place was empty except for the four of us and the sound of crickets chirping. Wow, they invoked the "Gods of Codigo" even though it was not remotely a milonga. What do you think? I'm thinking that what they really wanted to say was "Get out of our territory, we are taking the "Master Classes" and therefore we are more important than you!" So true: we are indeed so low on the hierarchy of tango importance, we haven't even made it to the bottom rung of the ladder. We left them to their little kingdom.
When classes ended for the day, we went back to Santa Fe and Callao and shopped for paper to print our emails on. We are too embarrassed to ask for more paper from the front desk. Then it was back to the hotel for a shower, and then to Saraza in Caballito. We were running a little late so we flagged down the first taxi that came down the road.
It happened not to be a radio taxi, so I engaged the taxi driver in conversation all the way to the milonga. We talked about everything - the taxi driver even told us about his daughter, who was graduating from medical school (he pointed out the school as we passed it on the way). He was very proud of her. We talked about the weather in Canada, the profusion of chinese supermarkets all over the city ("You really like Buenos Aires? Then you should move here, and open a chinese supermarket!" he suggested helpfully), whether or not Buenos Aires is getting more dangerous (yes, he said, because of all the drugs from Mexico). When we got to the inner barrio streets we were still chatting away and trying to find Saraza together. In fact we were talking so much that the driver didn't pay attention to the road and almost crashed at the intersection!
Saraza is held in a Club de Barrio called Club Telégrafo y Crisol Unidos. Apart from the dance hall there's also a kickboxing/martial arts/fitness gym - for guys only, apparently. You can peer into the gym from the windows facing the cobblestoned street. To get to the milonga itself you have to walk down a very long corridor painted in white. We were there early, before the milonga patrons had arrived - because we wanted to take class with Osvaldo and Coca.
They were already there - we kissed and hugged each other hello, but their attention was focused the class which, including us, had eight people. There was a young argentinian couple (dressed in baggy clothing), a few singles, and one of Osvaldo and Coca's friends from Saturday night. It was still daylight outside, and the light filtered though into the room from the open air courtyard - all the french doors had been flung open to let the breeze come through. Osvaldo and Coca had brought a little portable stereo and played music from a CD that had their favourite performance and class music.
Osvaldo taught two or three simple and very short steps - all based on the walk. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to get it right, even among "advanced" learners in the class. Osvaldo's style is deceptively simple - it all looks like walking, but the fact that some people can find it difficult just shows how little of walking people have learned from their other teachers! After a bit of practice and lots of coaching, Osvaldo and Coca made each couple demonstrate the steps they taught to make sure they had got it. Man Yung got a lot from the class.
After the class we sat at Osvaldo and Coca's table at the back of the hall near the kitchen - people were starting to come in, and Osvaldo and Coca ordered Matambre. They asked what we wanted to order - and we said we weren't hungry, we had a huge meal before class. "What did you eat?" asked Osvaldo. We explained we had noodles...that came in a cup. Osvaldo rolled his eyes. Osvaldo and Coca's friends came - we all sat squished together at the long table.
By the way, we didn't have to pay the milonga entrada - it turned out that this was the exact same milonga we got free passes to from the milonga organizer Ricardo who came over to us when we were at Milonga del Centenario the previous Thursday! What a coincidence!
The milonga may have been free but we weren't feeling up to enjoying the evening. The music was ok. Lots of locals, cabeceo-ing each other from across the room. When we danced the people stared. An older, very animated lady with reddish brown hair and dressed like a gypsy came to congratulate us on our dancing - we pointed at Osvaldo and Coca and told her they were our teachers. She didn't know who Osvaldo and Coca were. She started to talk excitedly about folklore and we stood there nodding politely.
The standard of dancing at Saraza was very "barrio" (see Glorias Argentinas), but on the whole quite musical. It's the outsiders who look out of place. The young "nuevo" couple who took the class had a lot of skill, but the figures and the adornments they were trying to exert all over the music drained the musicality out of their dancing. There was also a guy with a big handlebar moustache, dancing (actually, it was more like shuffling) in fuzzy fringed suede moccasins while leaning back awkwardly. He was just as bad a leader as his partner was bad as a follower, but nevertheless she proudly put in every clumsy, ugly adornment from the women's technique classes and youtube videos that she could muster.
But they were no way as distasteful visually (and I'm sorry to say it) as the "CANYENGUE!" couple who showed up. Camicando alumni, unfortunately.
Canyengue really trains your ear for the music and looks pretty great when danced in a musical, subtle way. However, when danced to ALL the music (that means non-Canyengue music as well as Canyengue music - for some overzealous Canyengue aficionados, the whole Mundo de Tango is one big Canyengue party) with costume changes, uncontrolled enthusiasm and too much stamping of the feet (Man Yung compares it to roach-stomping) - it looks really, really embarrassing. We had seen the lovely couple before - drawing the spotlight on themselves time and time again at all the other Camicando events. It didn't look so bad when there were droves of other Canyengue couples around them (there is safety in numbers, I guess) - at Saraza, they stood out. We watched them prance about splendiferously - and why not, the man had a Canyengue "hat and neckerchief" thing going on while the woman did her share of roach crushing in open-toed, flat-soled, gladiator-style flip-flops. It was quite a show, especially with her booty exaggeratedly protruding in Canyengue embrace - her panty lines clearly visible under her diaphanous, transparent, white linen harem pants.
They saw us! We were hoping that they would not. They leisurely stomped and jerked over to the table, still in full Canyengue embrace - no, not to say hello. "Ha ha ha ha!" said the lady, looking at Osvaldo and Coca and then looking at us. "Lookie who's here! Taking classes with Osvaldo and Coca, heh?" She gave us a sly wink.
We predicted that this Auntie Number 8 in the see-through harem pants will lose no time and tell Martha and Manolo at the first opportunity that she had "caught" us taking classes (and hanging out) with Osvaldo and Coca. Good thing we told them beforehand.*
* Not like there is anything wrong with hanging with Osvaldo and Coca! In fact, Osvaldo and Coca taught classes at the first Camicando we ever went to in 2007. But from the way that the "CANYENGUE!" couple acted, it was like they had caught us red-handed in some kind of Canyengue Sacrilege!
It was all very tiring. We were ready to leave at 11 p.m. - and not because we had contravened any of the ten commandments of Canyengue. We let Osvaldo know that we wanted to go - and he got Ricardo, the organizer, to call us a remise. The remise came pretty quickly. "Have a good trip!" said Coca, cheerily (did she mean back to the hotel? or back to Canada?). Osvaldo came outside with us to make sure we got into the right car. Herding Chinese people (or is it Japanese? Korean?) is like herding cats.
When we got back to the hotel, Man Yung realized with a shock that in the rush, he had left his big red Crocs at Saraza. Sigh. It was quite an ordeal for me to try to explain to Ricardo on the phone what it was that we left at the milonga. Despite all our efforts at explaining (Ricardo probably got all the women sitting against the wall to stand up so he could look under the table), Ricardo couldn't find them.* Man Yung was inconsolable.
* That was because Man Yung didn't actually leave his big red Crocs at Saraza. He never brought to to the milonga - he left them at the hotel!
Can you blame me for not being hungry when we popped over to La Madeleine for late-night snack!
Irene
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Buenos Aires 2009, Part 9 - Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday March 2, 2009
Dear V,
The first day of the Camicando festival! We had attended both the 2007 and 2008 editions… and now it’s already Camicando 2009. Can’t say we are too enthusiastic though – we love spending time with Martha and Manolo, but we must be getting old because taking the festival classes make us feel so tired! Maybe it’s the hectic milonga schedule we have during the night as well. We were pretty exhausted from the previous night, and instead of getting up for breakfast we just stayed in our room and tried to get as much sleep as possible.
Not a promising start at all to the day – one step outside and we could feel how muggy and hot it was. We went to withdraw cash (650 peso limit!) and then we went to a modern looking restaurant half a block from the hotel called El Callao just for a change.
El Callao has a very clean, angular décor – all straight lines. The building itself is independent, set back from the street with a wide granite tiled plaza in front. Looks like a place where "executives" go to eat... The inside of the restaurant is quite impressive with its dark mahogany furniture and white tablecloths, but get this – not enough air conditioning. We were sweating while eating. The food itself was another disappointment – we ordered from the Executive set menu (told you - it's for "Executives"), and found the beef too dry and over-cooked. And you thought that the Argentinians couldn't go wrong with their beef. Nevertheless, the décor was nice, the service excellent. We had a very pleasant and cheerful waitress. The restaurant had a notice saying it won't take credit. Man Yung said to her - "I don't have any cash, only a credit card - I think you have to call the cops because we can't pay!" Oh, what a big flirt.
After this “meh” lunch (won’t be going back there again) we went back to the hotel to call Osvaldo to verify whether he would be teaching at Saraza. Yes, it indeed is true… so there was an extra item to squeeze in on Tuesday night.
This year’s Camicando isn't at La Nacional – apparently a few weeks before the event, the roof caved in and the venue was off limits until it could be fixed. Kind of scary! Camicando had to scramble for an alternative venue. They eventually found another place in San Telmo – the Salon Victorial.
Salon Victorial is located on one of the narrow streets in San Telmo – a stately and narrow house with the typical Buenos Aires turn-of-the-century architecture, stone steps, red tiled floors. A very impressive and nostalgic looking building. Once we walked in, we discovered it’s fatal flaw – no air conditioning. The weather was not cooperative either, it was so humid and hot.
There’s a restaurant I think on the first floor (it was all dark and empty when we peered in) – the festival was held upstairs. We saw Roxina (Martha and Manolo's direct student and one of the Camicando instructors) first on the steps, and her newlywed husband J. J has accompanied Roxina to Camicando every year since we started attending the festival (and perhaps even before), and he helps with the organization as well as some of the translation. We congratulated them on their marriage. Roxina looks more and more beautiful every year, I think it is the happiness of being in love!
Not much more to say about classes – Martha and Manolo are great, as usual. They give a lot of individual attention to all their students. We always try to slack off and take it easy but they will not let any of their students stop practicing! This year they have a new category call “Master Classes” – and you can see many international couples flocking to those at the festival. Anyone who has danced for more than a week in tango thinks they are a master already, ha ha!
It was really hot at Salon Victorial – sorry, but that is the truth. Sweat poured down our heads (instant shower!) even when we were standing still. We went to Canyengue (sticky hot close embrace) class first and Milonga (you can dance open, but you have to move faster) class second – neither of which made us feel any cooler.
It was nice to see familiar faces and not so familiar faces at the festival, partaking of the “Camicando Inferno”. There was E, an argentinian girl who has moved to the States – she brought her girlfriend, thus introducing a little of “La Marshall” to the canyengue scene. There was the very friendly couple from Chile we have seen every year, who we keep on trying to exchanging emails with… and with whom we never seem to connect through email. We never end up receiving any of their emails, even though they insisted they had sent them. No, we didn't go and delete them on purpose. I think our gmail has been screening everyone in tango (or is it just Canyengue?) and rejecting all the emails.
I have mentioned about every one thinking they are a “Master” – not only that, but everyone really wants to be a “Teacher”. There was a tall guy with sunken eyes and a shock of white hair at the festival – when the couple from Chile asked us a question about a step that Martha and Manolo was teaching, he stormed over and started "teaching" the Chilean couple before we had a chance to open our mouths to answer them. The Chilean couple still didn’t get it – now, should you blame the students or the teacher? Tango is filled with such “volunteer” instructors – any given night in the milonga they are blocking the line of dance with their instructive demonstrations and spur-of-the-moment lectures.
There’s a name in Chinese that we give to gossipy chinese women who believe they are better than you, can't refrain from letting you know that fact, AND they can’t seem to mind their own business – let’s term it the “Auntie #8 syndrome”. I actually have a couple of these Aunties in my extended family, rubbing everyone around them the wrong way. Well, guess what, there was one such lady at the festival! We must be magnets for such thing (or perhaps she gravitates towards other Chinese people so she could speak conspiratorially and patronizingly with us in Chinese) because she made a bee-line for us.
“So, who are Martha and Manolo? Are they any good?” she asked.
(Then why on earth are you taking their classes? At their festival?) “They have been our teachers since 2006. They are excellent teachers,” we replied.
She wasn’t interested in our reply. “You know, I came with a partner who speaks Spanish. We are from New York. New York tango is at a really high level. My partner is a really great dancer. He could give you pointers. ”
Like it was any of our business. We kind of shuffled over to get away from her (but that didn't stop her from coming over to us all the time and dropping more "words of wisdom" and hints about the greatness of her tango community, her tango partner - and by association, her own tango greatness)
Break time. The trouble with being in a historic building is that there are historic issues with the historical relics inhabiting the historic space. I had to go to the washroom which was located down a dark and creepy unlit corridor in a creepy back room with garish fluorescent lighting. Tried flushing - big mistake - the handle flew off and the flushing failed to occur. That toilet needs an exorcism, AND there was no soap (not that much of a surprise in Buenos Aires). Anyway.
We took advantage of the break to take some photos:
We took advantage of the break to take some photos:
No, I guarantee no haunting here at Salon Victorial...especially not in the washrooms!
Ghostly images appearing on the walls of the Salon Victorial (just kidding - the Salon is kind of a Bohemian Art Gallery as well as Camicando central)
"Don't jump!" we yelled. Ha ha, just a photo we took of the shirtless man in the building across the road from the Salon Victorial. Look at the gorgeous wrought iron balcony - typical of buildings in the San Telmo area.
The colectivo running through the streets of San Telmo
With Martha and Manolo in one of the practice rooms. "You can't make us practice more now, Manolo," we said, "We are on break!"
Salon Victorial has a little open air space in the middle of the building. During the break, many of us headed over there for some fresh air. We bought a beer for Martha and talked a little with her. We let her know that we were going to take Osvaldo and Coca’s classes on Tuesday night. She was ok with it. “Tell Osvaldo and Coca that Martha and Manolo send their love”, she said.
After classes, we headed back to the hotel – we were sopping wet from sweating and really needed a shower and a change of clothes. We were hardly in the hotel room for a few minutes when we were headed back out again - this time to Centro Region Leonesa. Guess who we saw there? It was Oscar Casas, looking down and waving at us from the second floor balcony! "I figured that it was the time of year again when you guys will make it down to Buenos Aires!" he said.
Inside the dance hall we said hello to Maryann as well, who looked stunning as always (and where does she get all those really gorgeous dresses?), sitting in the front row doing the cabeceo and dancing every tanda. As for us - we danced a little bit but didn't have fun. [I have here in my notes that Man Yung danced with "Josephine". Who is Josephine? Man Yung has at least one girlfriend in every milonga, even in Buenos Aires, and I can't keep track of them all - Irene] The sound system got on our nerves - the music blaring out was loud but thin and tinny. We were hungry - we ordered empanadas, but they weren't good because they were too mushy.
After about an hour Man Yung and I looked at each other and decided to leave and see what else was on. The Tango Map listed a place called "Milongueando" which wasn't too far from Leonesa, so we said bye to Oscar (Oscar was sitting with Ricardo Viqueira and his son next to the bar) and headed out.
Milongueando was only a few blocks away, but unfortunately, it wasn't a milonga - it was a practica. The venue was a "professional" tango school place (with spiffy modern renovation) and you could see into the school dance floor through the glass storefront. Some beginners in jeans were inside, practicing their ochos awkwardly in sneakers. We didn't even go in - but our taxi had already left. We saw another taxi down the street about 20 metres away, and tried to flag it, but it didn't come over right away. When it finally did, we asked the driver what he was doing, and the reply: counting money.
There wasn't much other choice - we decided to head to Gricel. The area around Gricel looked kind of sleazy, looked like it was a bar on the outside, with lots of people lining up to get in. When we finally got in, we saw that the place was packed - sardine style. Tables were placed edge to edge and you could hardly get up out of your chair without knocking over something.
The dance floor itself was overflowing - and dangerous. All sorts of tango styles converged in that area and it was a free for all as everyone tried to stake their territory with all their pointy appendages on any available space. There was air conditioning - but apparently only from one air conditioning unit in the corner of the dance floor near the entrance. Man Yung saw another of his tango girlfriends (actually, M from Montreal who took just one class at the Camicando festival) and danced with her a couple of tandas. Man Yung also almost thumped a guy who kept on bumping into us - the guy backed off when he realized we were for real.
Guess who we saw there? Osvaldo and Coca! They arrived after we did and sat by the table near the entrance (the one that Man Yung refused because everyone coming in would be disturbing you and trying to squeeze past - the organizer had to reseat us nearer to the bar because Man Yung was giving him the evil eye). Osvaldo and Coca were just as surprised to see us as we were to see them [And neither of us were stalking the other! We always end up bumping into each other at milongas even though we have no plans to meet]. Juan Esquivel came later and sat with them - he was also surprised to see us again so soon. He reminded us to see Milonguisimo, and let us know that we were dancing well. Not that you could tell with all the shenanigans on the dance floor blocking the view (perhaps Juan was just being nice!).
There wasn't much other choice - we decided to head to Gricel. The area around Gricel looked kind of sleazy, looked like it was a bar on the outside, with lots of people lining up to get in. When we finally got in, we saw that the place was packed - sardine style. Tables were placed edge to edge and you could hardly get up out of your chair without knocking over something.
The dance floor itself was overflowing - and dangerous. All sorts of tango styles converged in that area and it was a free for all as everyone tried to stake their territory with all their pointy appendages on any available space. There was air conditioning - but apparently only from one air conditioning unit in the corner of the dance floor near the entrance. Man Yung saw another of his tango girlfriends (actually, M from Montreal who took just one class at the Camicando festival) and danced with her a couple of tandas. Man Yung also almost thumped a guy who kept on bumping into us - the guy backed off when he realized we were for real.
Guess who we saw there? Osvaldo and Coca! They arrived after we did and sat by the table near the entrance (the one that Man Yung refused because everyone coming in would be disturbing you and trying to squeeze past - the organizer had to reseat us nearer to the bar because Man Yung was giving him the evil eye). Osvaldo and Coca were just as surprised to see us as we were to see them [And neither of us were stalking the other! We always end up bumping into each other at milongas even though we have no plans to meet]. Juan Esquivel came later and sat with them - he was also surprised to see us again so soon. He reminded us to see Milonguisimo, and let us know that we were dancing well. Not that you could tell with all the shenanigans on the dance floor blocking the view (perhaps Juan was just being nice!).
So our Monday night at the milongas was a bit of a bust. We were back in the hotel by 2:30 a.m. "Next time we are in Buenos Aires on a Monday, remind me to just stay all night in the hotel!" said Man Yung.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Buenos Aires 2009 Part 4 - Thursday February 26, 2009
Dear V,
Thursday morning started with the hotel breakfast and then a quick walk to the back of the block to get our laundry. We dropped off more clothes but they won’t take Man Yung’s dress pants as in their opinion they must be dried cleaned. The plus sized manager almost had an apoplexy explaining to us that the dress pants cannot be “just washed”, and that our whites MUST be washed separately with the colours. Otherwise it was prelude to ARMAGEDDON. The other girl (the petite sized one) who served us last time was much more easy going, she actually let us have both whites and colours washed together (sacrilege!).
After dropping off our clean laundry at our room, we went out again - and in the hotel lobby who did I see? Mr P., a co-worker from my office. Of all the places he could have chosen to stay in Buenos Aires - he decided to book the same hotel as us. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going to vacation, so the first thing he said to me was for me not to tell anyone else in the office (why, is it not socially acceptable to be found in Argentina?) He was shocked to see me.
He is skinny and tall and white with a very very very high forehead and a long long face - and was wearing a funny long sleeved purple round necked shirt (don't forget it was hot outside) with big blocky colour patterns in the front. So, you can see, he looks even more out of place here in Buenos Aires than we do, and we are Chinese. Because of this, or despite this - “Some SOB stole his wallet while he was changing money”. Oh well. He was making the staff make copies of his ID when we bumped into him - and snarling about the horrible service. He was full of warnings about the “dangers” of this unsafe place Buenos Aires. I guess he won't be coming here again. We were full of wonder that of all things we would bump into M, all the way on the other side of the world - and he doesn't even dance tango.
We had to get an electric kettle. The one we bought last time and brought the way back from Toronto was broken and leaking and a electrocution hazard (we were wondering, what the hell with all this water when we boiled water? The kettle was cracked and leaking. Not even double sided lingerie tape would hold the water in. So sad.) We went to Garbarino on Santa Fe, only about four blocks from the hotel, to check it out. There was one on the internet site for only 69 pesos. We considered going to Chinatown for another, but that would cost at least 50 pesos not counting the taxi charges, and then Garbarino you can pay with credit card. So the same 69 peso kettle was right there in the store - wonderful, but I forgot to bring my original passport. I had to get out my citizenship card and copy of passport before they were satisfied.
Before heading out again, we called Osvaldo and Coca. I prayed that Osvaldo wouldn’t answer the phone - he has trouble understanding what I say, and he gets pretty impatient! However, he did answer the phone. I survived the conversation - he was busy today but we could go and see them tomorrow at his house at 2 p.m.
We had another lovely free day to ourselves so we decided to walk all the way to Artesanaal on Riobamba (almost Corrientes). We went along Riobamba, staying with the shade as we went along.
We came across a hat store with lots of hats, and not touristy “TANGO” ones. Man Yung wants to get an English tweed cap, and they have lots of them for just 35 pesos. Next to the hat store was a swanky Italian restaurant - white tableclothes, dark shiny wood décor and different sized crystal wine glasses lined up in a row. Restaurants that we wouldn’t even dream of going to in Toronto are accessible for us in Buenos Aires. But we still end up eating at “cheap” places!
Riobamba is not as “exciting” as Callao - less stores and less people to gawk at, but less riff-raff. We took lots of photos along the way, because Man Yung loves our new camera with a screen that he could actually see without using a microscope. We took a photo of a red cylindrical mailbox (like the ones in old Hong Kong and in England!), the exterior of the Museum of Patrimony (free entrada), a school with students hanging around it.
When we reached Lavalle we decided to walk a couple of blocks up to the Buenos Aires Tango Club, just to see what it was all about.
There’s no storefront, just a gated doorway with a buzzer. If you look down the clean spartan white corridor though, the sign for Euro Records and Buenos Aires Tango Club is posted on the wall way at the end. After buzzing and getting in, we went up one flight to a very modest looking office. There was no mistake that this was a “tango” place though - from the tango souvenir figurines in the cabinet right at the door, to the “wall of tango Cds” facing the door. We were shown into the office with the “Mega wall of tango Cds” - housed inside cabinets. Two office desks. The female assistant took my list of Cd codes and started opening the glass and wooden doors in the cabinet of the “Mega wall of tango Cds” and picking out the ones I listed. Seemed like a lot of Cds indeed, she was looking up and down everywhere, but very efficiently. I took a seat opposite her “jefe”, the man with the coolest old school music studio/intellectual rectangular glasses I have ever seen. They had light amber lens and the lens merged into the frames like they were one piece, and the lens itself had the “tunnel vision of doom”/”Sci-fi house of horror” effect. Well, I ended with a mass of Cds - but how much did they cost? $100 US. We elected to pay in dollars and not pesos, because now I don’t have to rent an apartment from N's friend - I have a whole heap of dollars. So I decided to buy a few more Cds, discographies of various orchestras and Man Yung bought a tango figurine. Only $35 US more. Every time I bought something the gentleman with the glasses had to mark everything down in a big book with lots of item codes, etc. etc. It wasn’t very efficient, it felt, as Man Yung rightly put it, like “buying wholesale direct from the record company” - which was EXACTLY what it was.
As we made our way back to Riobamba, we encountered a DVD store for all the old Argentinian movies. We asked whether they had any tango movies, and they sprung out all the ancient ones with El Cachafaz. They didn’t have any instructional ones, and the lady said “you better look on Florida - because we aren’t selling these DVDs to tourists but to locals.” The DVDs cost 35 pesos each, and we bought 3 - I hope they work on our DVD player when we get home (the lady assured us that the DVDs were “multi-region”.
Back to Riobamba, it was only a short hike to Artesanaal. Right opposite we saw a barber’s shop with a sign outside that said a cut was 20 pesos. The door was open and two men were talking inside, and Man Yung wanted a haircut, so I said, “Why not try this place?” We walked in and asked whether they cut hair without washing hair (Man Yung’s pet peeve). The barber, a distinguished looking gentleman who looks like that Kelsey Grammer character from Frasier but with better (and more) hair said no way, snorting in disgust, he did not wash hair. His dad taught him how to cut hair but they never, ever wash hair. I guess, that means he will only wash hair "Only in your dreams", or perhaps "When Hell freezes over".
I said, “That’s great - my husband does not like to get his hair washed.” We didn’t even have to wait, Man Yung was seated immediately while two barbershop regulars sat around next to me talking to the barber while he cut Man Yung’s hair.
The barber’s shop is not one of those clean and sanitized no-nonsense places with nothing but mirrors, chairs, a striped pole and an ancient guy with scissors. This had a quirky, old world artsy décor - movie posters, different kinds of clocks - including a wooden one that was in a shape of an owl that told time by the direction of its eyes. There was another clock made out of the back of a chair. The barber was a funny guy but we were funnier. He wanted to trim Man Yung’s eyebrows but Man Yung refused. When he asked why, Man Yung said something difficult that I had to translate… and which I translated as “He doesn’t want to cut his eyebrows because it will affect his functioning in bed” which made all the guys laugh. They all had great hair, by the way. The barber was really skilled, and he was proud of his work, which is something that Man Yung has noticed in a lot of people here in Buenos Aires - respect and pride in their profession. In Toronto Man Yung’s barber would use an electric razor to trim and then use scissors to finish - much faster. Here the barber used his scissors first and razor to finish. The effect is less like a marine and more like George Clooney! Hee!
Right after our barbershop adventure we went to Artesenal. Man Yung says he wants shoes but I think he really only wanted to go there to play with the cat. And there are two cats! One a Siamese who always sleeps on the counter, and the other a tortoiseshell who sleeps on the boxes. V, you can just think about all that yummy cat hair sticking to your shoes (I know how much you love cats - not), and all those kitties who just want to kiss you because you are spending so much money in the store. Man Yung dangled string and it drove the kitties crazy. It didn’t work so well when he tried to do it to a Siamese cat on a leash that was being led by a little girl in front of Farmacity - but then that cat was more like dog? Anyway, after playing with the cats Man Yung had to buy some shoes - he got a black leather pair because he couldn’t get a black suede pair in his size. He got a red and black pair because they didn’t have a grey suede pair in his size. We paid in US dollars to get our discount of 10%…. Once again, heaps and heaps of US cash….
So, all the things I had planned that I had energy for were completed - I wanted to walk three more blocks to B. Mitre and Callao (El Arranque) to have empanadas at La Americana. I wanted to see if the empanadas at La Americana were really that much better than Santa Fe 1234 - and also because it was cheap.
Alas, Man Yung had other plans. The psychedelic glasses gentleman at Buenos Aires Tango Club gave us information on a Tango DVD place where we could find more DVDs because Man Yung wants to see examples of old tango dancing. Since we were right on Corrientes he decided to walk the three blocks up to check out this place. Now, that was not within my plans. I had had a sore throat since I arrived and I didn’t want to push myself too far. Going to La Americana and then taking the taxi home was as much as I could stand - plus a romp on Corrientes with it’s crowds of people and sea of traffic was not something that was going to make me feel better. Unfortunately, since I am not the Chairman, my objections were not logical and off we went to this mysterious DVD place.
Main thoroughfare like Corrientes and Callao invite caution - pickpockets abound. There was also a lot of traffic, so lots of exhaust and dust. Just overall unpleasant. I had not been feeling 100% since we arrived and I had developed quite a sore throat for a few days that I was quite worried about - sore throat but luckily without fever or swollen lymph nodes. However, it was extremely uncomfortable and Corrientes did not help. People everywhere - hot, dry, dusty and polluted. Man Yung keeping an eye on everything just in case. Some suspicious person with long greasy hair seemed to be deliberately observing and changing directions to follow us. Finally we reached the building where the DVD place was located.
It was located on the 5th floor of a building with one of those older one-building malls. Those places always make Man Yung cautious - they are dark and filled with “cheap” and suspect people. There’s one right next to our hotel where shady characters yell “cambio” at passerbys (maybe my co-worker changed his money there?). We found the elevator up to the 5th floor. People were nice to us in the elevator because we looked a trifle out of place. The doors opened - and the corridors were bare concrete and blank, like Hong Kong council flats. There weren’t any people - it was really quiet. Luckily the DVD store was just around the corner - very incongruent, the door was open although there was a chain across the front, and inside was wall to wall DVDs.
We asked the owner of the store whether he had any DVDs of tango - he had the usual instructional ones, which we didn’t care about. We said we wanted older footage, and showed him the DVDs we already bought - we wanted to find if he had other DVDs other than the ones we already bought. He asked his wife and they pulled out quite a few from the room behind the desk - but I didn’t have much faith that there would be lots to see in those DVDs. We decided to buy only one. Out came the official receipt book and they wanted to know where we came from too. I thought that was strange of them to ask, and they pulled out another receipt book where they had the receipt from when Bernard Caron from Montreal came and bought a bunch of DVDs of the old orchestras. I told him that Bernard Caron was a very well known DJ in Canada (OK, Quebec), and we had a wonderful time reminiscing about the way he looked (well, for about 5 seconds). Anyway, that little trip down memory lane seemed to make the proprietor and his wife very happy. They gave us key chains with Pugliese’s photo (and also their address at the back). The DVDs were 45 pesos rather than 35 pesos, but as the owner said “They are better quality). We’ll see.
I had enough of yucky Corrientes so I dragged Man Yung to a parallel street to walk to La Americana. It was much better on the next street - nice shade, less people. I had been looking for a fan to buy since mine broke - and Man Yung was saying, “Let’s look at the shops along the way!” Well, I was exhausted and my throat hurt and I just wanted to sit down and hopefully not pass out. But as luck would have it - we passed by a shop selling Chinese knick-knacks, and they sold fans! But it was wholesale, the owner lady (Chinese, so Man Yung spoke in Mandarin and gave me a rest) was not too happy we were only buying two. However, Man Yung had his usual charm and we bought two for 5 pesos each. Fan problem resolved.
We walked to La Americana but as we approached I saw a Confiteria in the old style across the street. La Americana had no air conditioning and it was filled with people, so I suggested that we check out the Confiteria L’Aiglon (Eagle or something) instead.
First, it had air conditioning. Second, it had the beautiful Buenos Aires old world décor (from the 20’s). Third, the prices were very reasonable! The price of the empanadas was cheaper than in Madeleine or 1234. And they had Parrilla, we ordered Parillada for ONE person for 41 pesos (even though the waiter said but it is for one person, we know that there would be way too much meat for one) - and shared it. When it came with it’s own brazier, spitting hot grease and smoke, it was as we had guessed, HUGE. I said to the waiter, “That’s for one person?!?”
The parilla was great - it had all the internal organs bits and the blood sausages. I had opportunity to rest and drink some water and a pepsi. Man Yung had Warsteiner beer.
We went back to the hotel for a rest - not that there were many hours, because at 9 p.m. there were classes with Martha and Manolo in La Salsera, which is way out in Almagro. Just before we headed out we received a phone call from Alberto. He was not feeling well. His blood pressure was up and his doctor told him not to go out for a few days. I said, “Yes, when I am with Man Yung my blood pressure also goes up.” Anyway, our plans to attend Elba’s birthday party were in jeopardy. We told him we didn’t mind, we can cancel so he can rest. I emphasized that to Paulina when I talked to her. Alberto insisted that he would call us at noon tomorrow to update us on his situation.
We took a taxi - we thought we would make it at 9 but it was not so. The police had blocked the usual route and so we went in a really roundabout way, all the way around Abasto mall, through some streets selling wholesale flowers, and then finally to this dark little salsa club where Martha and Manolo were teaching. The taxi driver was nice, we talked about what Abasto used to be (a fruit and vegetable market) and the safety of the area around La Salsera.
It was 30 pesos for two of us, and there were more students in the class than in the Escuela de Tango Argentino. Some were local people and had taken many Canyengue classes and danced quite well, Martha and Manolo introduced us to them. Some young people were absolute beginners, and the women were so stiff and heavy that Martha said it was like they had screws on their feet screwing them right into the floor. Martha had a sore back from teaching one of the women. The price of the class was cheap - even included a free drink. We took a video of us practicing Canyengue there.
After the class, we told Martha and Manolo that we were going to Viejo Correo and that we were going to take a taxi. They insisted that they were going that direction and drove us. Their car is the same one as two years ago - it would be going along, and then it would stall and they would have to start it up again. We talked about how much it would cost to buy them a “new” second hand car - around 15000 pesos. Man Yung was thinking of buying them a new second hand car, but it is too expensive - we suggested to Martha and Manolo that we would “say” that we would buy one, and when Martha and Manolo bought one, we wouldn’t pay (oh, the jokes we make)! Martha said that they wouldn’t want another car - the car they have is “a good car”. Just because it is old and broken you don't toss it out. It’s something to think about.
Viejo Correo is right opposite the Parque de Centenario, so the milonga of Nina Balbuena and Luis Cordoba is called “Milonga de Centenario”. It’s filled with local people who dance a little less well than the ones at Lo de Celia - more "vegetables". It was busier than last time we were there, they had cleared out the tables around the dance area so there would be more space. People were no longer doing all out “show tango”, but still they weren’t the greatest dancers. It was just a place for the locals to meet, relax and dance a little - like the way it should be, instead of a dance pageant.
Like Lo de Celia, people here did not play bumper cars. It’s not difficult to have a milonga that is not like a carnival ride. I think the only impediment is not skill but big heads - there were plenty of people here who do not dance as "skilled" as some of the people in Toronto.
The music there was populist. All the big later Di Sarli, Pugliese, with the greatest hits of D’Arienzo, Troilo etc. Man Yung liked the music - he doesn’t care for intellectual stuff, he wants stuff that makes him want to dance. Even the valses were big and brassy - Pugliese, Villasboa.
Nina didn’t quite remember us but we looked familiar. She gave us a big kiss (just to be safe) and we gave her a gift of a Chinese wallet. It wasn’t until later in the evening when we were talking (she asked me for my email) when I said I already have her email, and that we sent her a Christmas card - then she remembered! She is a sweet old lady, I love the way she makes her announcements so dramatic and filled with honey sweet sentiments when she thanks people for attending her milonga.
The milonga has black and white tiles, and they are always a little more sticky than the granite ones at Lo de Celia. We still had a blast dancing to the “Tango’s greatest hits”, with everyone looking at the two Chinese people. An older moustached gentleman came over to congratulate us and hint that he wanted to dance with me (but we didn’t), another gentleman came over to invite us “Sin Cargo” to his milonga next Tuesday in Caballito (not advertised in any of the tango magazines, however) and when we left, the people in the table behind us gave us the “thumbs up”. When we were leaving, Nina invited us to her house for asado on Saturday. We said, unfortunately, we had other plans, and we looked so regretful…. So she said ok, but we promised to return next week. And why not? It’s nice to go to places without tourists.
It was 2 p.m. when we finally left, the day’s many ordeals were too much for me and I couldn’t drag myself to La Madeleine. We went straight back to the hotel and ate instant noodles instead.
I am writing this to you on Sunday - see, still working hard just for your reading pleasure (or not). Friday to follow...
Irene
Thursday morning started with the hotel breakfast and then a quick walk to the back of the block to get our laundry. We dropped off more clothes but they won’t take Man Yung’s dress pants as in their opinion they must be dried cleaned. The plus sized manager almost had an apoplexy explaining to us that the dress pants cannot be “just washed”, and that our whites MUST be washed separately with the colours. Otherwise it was prelude to ARMAGEDDON. The other girl (the petite sized one) who served us last time was much more easy going, she actually let us have both whites and colours washed together (sacrilege!).
After dropping off our clean laundry at our room, we went out again - and in the hotel lobby who did I see? Mr P., a co-worker from my office. Of all the places he could have chosen to stay in Buenos Aires - he decided to book the same hotel as us. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going to vacation, so the first thing he said to me was for me not to tell anyone else in the office (why, is it not socially acceptable to be found in Argentina?) He was shocked to see me.
He is skinny and tall and white with a very very very high forehead and a long long face - and was wearing a funny long sleeved purple round necked shirt (don't forget it was hot outside) with big blocky colour patterns in the front. So, you can see, he looks even more out of place here in Buenos Aires than we do, and we are Chinese. Because of this, or despite this - “Some SOB stole his wallet while he was changing money”. Oh well. He was making the staff make copies of his ID when we bumped into him - and snarling about the horrible service. He was full of warnings about the “dangers” of this unsafe place Buenos Aires. I guess he won't be coming here again. We were full of wonder that of all things we would bump into M, all the way on the other side of the world - and he doesn't even dance tango.
We had to get an electric kettle. The one we bought last time and brought the way back from Toronto was broken and leaking and a electrocution hazard (we were wondering, what the hell with all this water when we boiled water? The kettle was cracked and leaking. Not even double sided lingerie tape would hold the water in. So sad.) We went to Garbarino on Santa Fe, only about four blocks from the hotel, to check it out. There was one on the internet site for only 69 pesos. We considered going to Chinatown for another, but that would cost at least 50 pesos not counting the taxi charges, and then Garbarino you can pay with credit card. So the same 69 peso kettle was right there in the store - wonderful, but I forgot to bring my original passport. I had to get out my citizenship card and copy of passport before they were satisfied.
Before heading out again, we called Osvaldo and Coca. I prayed that Osvaldo wouldn’t answer the phone - he has trouble understanding what I say, and he gets pretty impatient! However, he did answer the phone. I survived the conversation - he was busy today but we could go and see them tomorrow at his house at 2 p.m.
We had another lovely free day to ourselves so we decided to walk all the way to Artesanaal on Riobamba (almost Corrientes). We went along Riobamba, staying with the shade as we went along.
We came across a hat store with lots of hats, and not touristy “TANGO” ones. Man Yung wants to get an English tweed cap, and they have lots of them for just 35 pesos. Next to the hat store was a swanky Italian restaurant - white tableclothes, dark shiny wood décor and different sized crystal wine glasses lined up in a row. Restaurants that we wouldn’t even dream of going to in Toronto are accessible for us in Buenos Aires. But we still end up eating at “cheap” places!
Riobamba is not as “exciting” as Callao - less stores and less people to gawk at, but less riff-raff. We took lots of photos along the way, because Man Yung loves our new camera with a screen that he could actually see without using a microscope. We took a photo of a red cylindrical mailbox (like the ones in old Hong Kong and in England!), the exterior of the Museum of Patrimony (free entrada), a school with students hanging around it.
The mailbox and me decided this morning to wear matching colours
Riobamba just outside the Museo de Patromonio
Museo de Patrimonio. I think the building used to house the municipal waterworks
In Buenos Aires you find schools everywhere among the buildings, where you least expect. It's kind of like in Hong Kong, where there's not a lot of space, so you won't find many schools without a "buffer" round it with sports fields, playgrounds, etc.
The Lottery agency called "Irene". Coincidence? I think this was on Lavalle
When we reached Lavalle we decided to walk a couple of blocks up to the Buenos Aires Tango Club, just to see what it was all about.
There’s no storefront, just a gated doorway with a buzzer. If you look down the clean spartan white corridor though, the sign for Euro Records and Buenos Aires Tango Club is posted on the wall way at the end. After buzzing and getting in, we went up one flight to a very modest looking office. There was no mistake that this was a “tango” place though - from the tango souvenir figurines in the cabinet right at the door, to the “wall of tango Cds” facing the door. We were shown into the office with the “Mega wall of tango Cds” - housed inside cabinets. Two office desks. The female assistant took my list of Cd codes and started opening the glass and wooden doors in the cabinet of the “Mega wall of tango Cds” and picking out the ones I listed. Seemed like a lot of Cds indeed, she was looking up and down everywhere, but very efficiently. I took a seat opposite her “jefe”, the man with the coolest old school music studio/intellectual rectangular glasses I have ever seen. They had light amber lens and the lens merged into the frames like they were one piece, and the lens itself had the “tunnel vision of doom”/”Sci-fi house of horror” effect. Well, I ended with a mass of Cds - but how much did they cost? $100 US. We elected to pay in dollars and not pesos, because now I don’t have to rent an apartment from N's friend - I have a whole heap of dollars. So I decided to buy a few more Cds, discographies of various orchestras and Man Yung bought a tango figurine. Only $35 US more. Every time I bought something the gentleman with the glasses had to mark everything down in a big book with lots of item codes, etc. etc. It wasn’t very efficient, it felt, as Man Yung rightly put it, like “buying wholesale direct from the record company” - which was EXACTLY what it was.
As we made our way back to Riobamba, we encountered a DVD store for all the old Argentinian movies. We asked whether they had any tango movies, and they sprung out all the ancient ones with El Cachafaz. They didn’t have any instructional ones, and the lady said “you better look on Florida - because we aren’t selling these DVDs to tourists but to locals.” The DVDs cost 35 pesos each, and we bought 3 - I hope they work on our DVD player when we get home (the lady assured us that the DVDs were “multi-region”.
Back to Riobamba, it was only a short hike to Artesanaal. Right opposite we saw a barber’s shop with a sign outside that said a cut was 20 pesos. The door was open and two men were talking inside, and Man Yung wanted a haircut, so I said, “Why not try this place?” We walked in and asked whether they cut hair without washing hair (Man Yung’s pet peeve). The barber, a distinguished looking gentleman who looks like that Kelsey Grammer character from Frasier but with better (and more) hair said no way, snorting in disgust, he did not wash hair. His dad taught him how to cut hair but they never, ever wash hair. I guess, that means he will only wash hair "Only in your dreams", or perhaps "When Hell freezes over".
I said, “That’s great - my husband does not like to get his hair washed.” We didn’t even have to wait, Man Yung was seated immediately while two barbershop regulars sat around next to me talking to the barber while he cut Man Yung’s hair.
The barber’s shop is not one of those clean and sanitized no-nonsense places with nothing but mirrors, chairs, a striped pole and an ancient guy with scissors. This had a quirky, old world artsy décor - movie posters, different kinds of clocks - including a wooden one that was in a shape of an owl that told time by the direction of its eyes. There was another clock made out of the back of a chair. The barber was a funny guy but we were funnier. He wanted to trim Man Yung’s eyebrows but Man Yung refused. When he asked why, Man Yung said something difficult that I had to translate… and which I translated as “He doesn’t want to cut his eyebrows because it will affect his functioning in bed” which made all the guys laugh. They all had great hair, by the way. The barber was really skilled, and he was proud of his work, which is something that Man Yung has noticed in a lot of people here in Buenos Aires - respect and pride in their profession. In Toronto Man Yung’s barber would use an electric razor to trim and then use scissors to finish - much faster. Here the barber used his scissors first and razor to finish. The effect is less like a marine and more like George Clooney! Hee!
Right after our barbershop adventure we went to Artesenal. Man Yung says he wants shoes but I think he really only wanted to go there to play with the cat. And there are two cats! One a Siamese who always sleeps on the counter, and the other a tortoiseshell who sleeps on the boxes. V, you can just think about all that yummy cat hair sticking to your shoes (I know how much you love cats - not), and all those kitties who just want to kiss you because you are spending so much money in the store. Man Yung dangled string and it drove the kitties crazy. It didn’t work so well when he tried to do it to a Siamese cat on a leash that was being led by a little girl in front of Farmacity - but then that cat was more like dog? Anyway, after playing with the cats Man Yung had to buy some shoes - he got a black leather pair because he couldn’t get a black suede pair in his size. He got a red and black pair because they didn’t have a grey suede pair in his size. We paid in US dollars to get our discount of 10%…. Once again, heaps and heaps of US cash….
So, all the things I had planned that I had energy for were completed - I wanted to walk three more blocks to B. Mitre and Callao (El Arranque) to have empanadas at La Americana. I wanted to see if the empanadas at La Americana were really that much better than Santa Fe 1234 - and also because it was cheap.
Alas, Man Yung had other plans. The psychedelic glasses gentleman at Buenos Aires Tango Club gave us information on a Tango DVD place where we could find more DVDs because Man Yung wants to see examples of old tango dancing. Since we were right on Corrientes he decided to walk the three blocks up to check out this place. Now, that was not within my plans. I had had a sore throat since I arrived and I didn’t want to push myself too far. Going to La Americana and then taking the taxi home was as much as I could stand - plus a romp on Corrientes with it’s crowds of people and sea of traffic was not something that was going to make me feel better. Unfortunately, since I am not the Chairman, my objections were not logical and off we went to this mysterious DVD place.
Main thoroughfare like Corrientes and Callao invite caution - pickpockets abound. There was also a lot of traffic, so lots of exhaust and dust. Just overall unpleasant. I had not been feeling 100% since we arrived and I had developed quite a sore throat for a few days that I was quite worried about - sore throat but luckily without fever or swollen lymph nodes. However, it was extremely uncomfortable and Corrientes did not help. People everywhere - hot, dry, dusty and polluted. Man Yung keeping an eye on everything just in case. Some suspicious person with long greasy hair seemed to be deliberately observing and changing directions to follow us. Finally we reached the building where the DVD place was located.
It was located on the 5th floor of a building with one of those older one-building malls. Those places always make Man Yung cautious - they are dark and filled with “cheap” and suspect people. There’s one right next to our hotel where shady characters yell “cambio” at passerbys (maybe my co-worker changed his money there?). We found the elevator up to the 5th floor. People were nice to us in the elevator because we looked a trifle out of place. The doors opened - and the corridors were bare concrete and blank, like Hong Kong council flats. There weren’t any people - it was really quiet. Luckily the DVD store was just around the corner - very incongruent, the door was open although there was a chain across the front, and inside was wall to wall DVDs.
We asked the owner of the store whether he had any DVDs of tango - he had the usual instructional ones, which we didn’t care about. We said we wanted older footage, and showed him the DVDs we already bought - we wanted to find if he had other DVDs other than the ones we already bought. He asked his wife and they pulled out quite a few from the room behind the desk - but I didn’t have much faith that there would be lots to see in those DVDs. We decided to buy only one. Out came the official receipt book and they wanted to know where we came from too. I thought that was strange of them to ask, and they pulled out another receipt book where they had the receipt from when Bernard Caron from Montreal came and bought a bunch of DVDs of the old orchestras. I told him that Bernard Caron was a very well known DJ in Canada (OK, Quebec), and we had a wonderful time reminiscing about the way he looked (well, for about 5 seconds). Anyway, that little trip down memory lane seemed to make the proprietor and his wife very happy. They gave us key chains with Pugliese’s photo (and also their address at the back). The DVDs were 45 pesos rather than 35 pesos, but as the owner said “They are better quality). We’ll see.
I had enough of yucky Corrientes so I dragged Man Yung to a parallel street to walk to La Americana. It was much better on the next street - nice shade, less people. I had been looking for a fan to buy since mine broke - and Man Yung was saying, “Let’s look at the shops along the way!” Well, I was exhausted and my throat hurt and I just wanted to sit down and hopefully not pass out. But as luck would have it - we passed by a shop selling Chinese knick-knacks, and they sold fans! But it was wholesale, the owner lady (Chinese, so Man Yung spoke in Mandarin and gave me a rest) was not too happy we were only buying two. However, Man Yung had his usual charm and we bought two for 5 pesos each. Fan problem resolved.
We walked to La Americana but as we approached I saw a Confiteria in the old style across the street. La Americana had no air conditioning and it was filled with people, so I suggested that we check out the Confiteria L’Aiglon (Eagle or something) instead.
First, it had air conditioning. Second, it had the beautiful Buenos Aires old world décor (from the 20’s). Third, the prices were very reasonable! The price of the empanadas was cheaper than in Madeleine or 1234. And they had Parrilla, we ordered Parillada for ONE person for 41 pesos (even though the waiter said but it is for one person, we know that there would be way too much meat for one) - and shared it. When it came with it’s own brazier, spitting hot grease and smoke, it was as we had guessed, HUGE. I said to the waiter, “That’s for one person?!?”
Confiteria L'Aiglon - Asado, beer and heaping plate of fries
The parilla was great - it had all the internal organs bits and the blood sausages. I had opportunity to rest and drink some water and a pepsi. Man Yung had Warsteiner beer.
We went back to the hotel for a rest - not that there were many hours, because at 9 p.m. there were classes with Martha and Manolo in La Salsera, which is way out in Almagro. Just before we headed out we received a phone call from Alberto. He was not feeling well. His blood pressure was up and his doctor told him not to go out for a few days. I said, “Yes, when I am with Man Yung my blood pressure also goes up.” Anyway, our plans to attend Elba’s birthday party were in jeopardy. We told him we didn’t mind, we can cancel so he can rest. I emphasized that to Paulina when I talked to her. Alberto insisted that he would call us at noon tomorrow to update us on his situation.
We took a taxi - we thought we would make it at 9 but it was not so. The police had blocked the usual route and so we went in a really roundabout way, all the way around Abasto mall, through some streets selling wholesale flowers, and then finally to this dark little salsa club where Martha and Manolo were teaching. The taxi driver was nice, we talked about what Abasto used to be (a fruit and vegetable market) and the safety of the area around La Salsera.
It was 30 pesos for two of us, and there were more students in the class than in the Escuela de Tango Argentino. Some were local people and had taken many Canyengue classes and danced quite well, Martha and Manolo introduced us to them. Some young people were absolute beginners, and the women were so stiff and heavy that Martha said it was like they had screws on their feet screwing them right into the floor. Martha had a sore back from teaching one of the women. The price of the class was cheap - even included a free drink. We took a video of us practicing Canyengue there.
Irene and Man Yung dancing Canyengue in matching red Crocs. The HORROR, the HORROR....Bet you couldn't decide what is more horrible - Irene and Man Yung dancing, the Canyengue, or the matching Crocs, or the socks with Crocs! A veritable surfeit of horribleness. If you look carefully there is a couple behind us gawking in absolute HORROR.
After the class, we told Martha and Manolo that we were going to Viejo Correo and that we were going to take a taxi. They insisted that they were going that direction and drove us. Their car is the same one as two years ago - it would be going along, and then it would stall and they would have to start it up again. We talked about how much it would cost to buy them a “new” second hand car - around 15000 pesos. Man Yung was thinking of buying them a new second hand car, but it is too expensive - we suggested to Martha and Manolo that we would “say” that we would buy one, and when Martha and Manolo bought one, we wouldn’t pay (oh, the jokes we make)! Martha said that they wouldn’t want another car - the car they have is “a good car”. Just because it is old and broken you don't toss it out. It’s something to think about.
Viejo Correo is right opposite the Parque de Centenario, so the milonga of Nina Balbuena and Luis Cordoba is called “Milonga de Centenario”. It’s filled with local people who dance a little less well than the ones at Lo de Celia - more "vegetables". It was busier than last time we were there, they had cleared out the tables around the dance area so there would be more space. People were no longer doing all out “show tango”, but still they weren’t the greatest dancers. It was just a place for the locals to meet, relax and dance a little - like the way it should be, instead of a dance pageant.
Like Lo de Celia, people here did not play bumper cars. It’s not difficult to have a milonga that is not like a carnival ride. I think the only impediment is not skill but big heads - there were plenty of people here who do not dance as "skilled" as some of the people in Toronto.
The music there was populist. All the big later Di Sarli, Pugliese, with the greatest hits of D’Arienzo, Troilo etc. Man Yung liked the music - he doesn’t care for intellectual stuff, he wants stuff that makes him want to dance. Even the valses were big and brassy - Pugliese, Villasboa.
Nina didn’t quite remember us but we looked familiar. She gave us a big kiss (just to be safe) and we gave her a gift of a Chinese wallet. It wasn’t until later in the evening when we were talking (she asked me for my email) when I said I already have her email, and that we sent her a Christmas card - then she remembered! She is a sweet old lady, I love the way she makes her announcements so dramatic and filled with honey sweet sentiments when she thanks people for attending her milonga.
The milonga has black and white tiles, and they are always a little more sticky than the granite ones at Lo de Celia. We still had a blast dancing to the “Tango’s greatest hits”, with everyone looking at the two Chinese people. An older moustached gentleman came over to congratulate us and hint that he wanted to dance with me (but we didn’t), another gentleman came over to invite us “Sin Cargo” to his milonga next Tuesday in Caballito (not advertised in any of the tango magazines, however) and when we left, the people in the table behind us gave us the “thumbs up”. When we were leaving, Nina invited us to her house for asado on Saturday. We said, unfortunately, we had other plans, and we looked so regretful…. So she said ok, but we promised to return next week. And why not? It’s nice to go to places without tourists.
It was 2 p.m. when we finally left, the day’s many ordeals were too much for me and I couldn’t drag myself to La Madeleine. We went straight back to the hotel and ate instant noodles instead.
I am writing this to you on Sunday - see, still working hard just for your reading pleasure (or not). Friday to follow...
Irene
Monday, February 7, 2011
Martha and Manolo - Intensive Canyengue and Milonga Seminars, February 28 to March 4, 2011
Just received an announcement from Martha and Manolo about their latest seminars:
Hope you can make it! More information can be found at http://www.moccaseminarios.blogspot.com/
Hope you can make it! More information can be found at http://www.moccaseminarios.blogspot.com/
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Martha and Manolo at Salon Canning, October 25, 2010
Monday was the day of Martha and Manolo's big exhibition at Salon Canning. We found ourselves back in the same place - even the same table! - as on Friday night, when we were there with Osvaldo and Coca for their big show.
Manolo was feeling a bit better and coughing less. Martha and Manolo looked great - they always bring a bit of the old-style glamour with them, how ladies and gentlemen used to dress when they went for a night out at the milonga. We had to follow suit and dress up too - no sweat-stained t-shirts and tatty yoga-wear tonight!
The milonga was crowded but not as crazy busy as the previous Friday night. For some reason the floor had been invaded by older women and their teenage taxi dancers. It was ok when they were just dancing. But our skin crawled when we saw it was obvious that some of the women had more than dancing on their minds - and weren't ashamed to show it in public. One woman had her whole body plastered against her partner and her lips pouted out like a fish so she could "accidentally" kiss him. Her partner had to keep completely stiff and slightly angled away from her - so that he wouldn't collide into her lips when he tried to lead her. What a way to earn a living.
El Flaco Dany's brother, Jorge Garcia, arrived around midnight and said hello to all of us. Once he was settled down, he asked me to dance a tanda of Rodriguez. Now, I'm not writing this only to brag shamelessly about dancing with Jorge Garcia (hee!) - although this is a perfectly legitimate reason these days in the Tango blog world - but also for instructional purposes. You see, Salon Canning has a very crowded dance floor, with a lot of undisciplined dancers from all over the world trying to outdo each other with their own little exhibitions. How would a milonguero navigate on such a floor?
Jorge stuck to the very edge of the dance floor, and kept me on the side facing the tables. His back was almost always facing the writhing masses, so when we got kicked or bumped into (and this was often), he was the one who bore the brunt of it. Jorge's feet were constantly moving to the compas, but we advanced very, very slowly and very, very calmly with lots of pauses to wait for spaces to open up on the floor. When we did move forward we did it lightning fast since the dynamic of the floor with all the erratic dancers was always changing.
Jorge was an old pro at this - and I really appreciated his care. Social Tango is more than just expressing the music with your body all by your lonesome - you have to take care of your partner and "dance" with the people around you too when you navigate. In Toronto, I had the experience of dancing with one leader who knew lots of figures but had no concept of navigating the crowd. He needed space to do his figures - but when there wasn't any, he'd tried to do them anyway....until he shoved me right into the people next to us. And he'd stop, and start all over again... and I would hurtle into someone, and he'd stop.... This went on for the whole tanda. I felt lucky that I had karate training and could take a few knocks!
The highlight of the evening was Martha and Manolo's exhibition:
After Martha and Manolo performed, a flood of people came over to congratulate them and to tell them how much they loved their performance. Man Yung was no exception - he was so overcome with emotion, when he went to hug Martha he tried... to swallow her whole! (just kidding)
When we left with Martha and Manolo, people were still looking for an opportunity to talk to them. In the corridor, a young man came running after them - just to tell them how much he appreciated their performance. He had been dancing for some time but he hadn't seen the way the traditional dancers danced their Canyengue, Tango Salon and Milonga - this was the first time. It opened his eyes, and he couldn't stop thanking Martha and Manolo and telling them how wonderful it was, to have this chance to watch them perform.
The best way to learn how to dance tango - to really dance Tango, and not a pale imitation of it, with heart and soul - is to watch and learn from the example of the dancers from the older generation, like Martha and Manolo, Osvaldo and Coca, and Alberto Dassieu. If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity, don't let it slip - seize it!
Manolo was feeling a bit better and coughing less. Martha and Manolo looked great - they always bring a bit of the old-style glamour with them, how ladies and gentlemen used to dress when they went for a night out at the milonga. We had to follow suit and dress up too - no sweat-stained t-shirts and tatty yoga-wear tonight!
With Martha and Manolo at Salon Canning. The posters on the table have the schedule of performances at Salon Canning - with photos of Martha and Manolo as well as Osvaldo and Coca!
The milonga was crowded but not as crazy busy as the previous Friday night. For some reason the floor had been invaded by older women and their teenage taxi dancers. It was ok when they were just dancing. But our skin crawled when we saw it was obvious that some of the women had more than dancing on their minds - and weren't ashamed to show it in public. One woman had her whole body plastered against her partner and her lips pouted out like a fish so she could "accidentally" kiss him. Her partner had to keep completely stiff and slightly angled away from her - so that he wouldn't collide into her lips when he tried to lead her. What a way to earn a living.
El Flaco Dany's brother, Jorge Garcia, arrived around midnight and said hello to all of us. Once he was settled down, he asked me to dance a tanda of Rodriguez. Now, I'm not writing this only to brag shamelessly about dancing with Jorge Garcia (hee!) - although this is a perfectly legitimate reason these days in the Tango blog world - but also for instructional purposes. You see, Salon Canning has a very crowded dance floor, with a lot of undisciplined dancers from all over the world trying to outdo each other with their own little exhibitions. How would a milonguero navigate on such a floor?
Jorge stuck to the very edge of the dance floor, and kept me on the side facing the tables. His back was almost always facing the writhing masses, so when we got kicked or bumped into (and this was often), he was the one who bore the brunt of it. Jorge's feet were constantly moving to the compas, but we advanced very, very slowly and very, very calmly with lots of pauses to wait for spaces to open up on the floor. When we did move forward we did it lightning fast since the dynamic of the floor with all the erratic dancers was always changing.
Jorge was an old pro at this - and I really appreciated his care. Social Tango is more than just expressing the music with your body all by your lonesome - you have to take care of your partner and "dance" with the people around you too when you navigate. In Toronto, I had the experience of dancing with one leader who knew lots of figures but had no concept of navigating the crowd. He needed space to do his figures - but when there wasn't any, he'd tried to do them anyway....until he shoved me right into the people next to us. And he'd stop, and start all over again... and I would hurtle into someone, and he'd stop.... This went on for the whole tanda. I felt lucky that I had karate training and could take a few knocks!
The highlight of the evening was Martha and Manolo's exhibition:
Martha and Manolo performing Canyengue, Tango and Milonga at Salon Canning, October 25, 2010
After Martha and Manolo performed, a flood of people came over to congratulate them and to tell them how much they loved their performance. Man Yung was no exception - he was so overcome with emotion, when he went to hug Martha he tried... to swallow her whole! (just kidding)
When we left with Martha and Manolo, people were still looking for an opportunity to talk to them. In the corridor, a young man came running after them - just to tell them how much he appreciated their performance. He had been dancing for some time but he hadn't seen the way the traditional dancers danced their Canyengue, Tango Salon and Milonga - this was the first time. It opened his eyes, and he couldn't stop thanking Martha and Manolo and telling them how wonderful it was, to have this chance to watch them perform.
The best way to learn how to dance tango - to really dance Tango, and not a pale imitation of it, with heart and soul - is to watch and learn from the example of the dancers from the older generation, like Martha and Manolo, Osvaldo and Coca, and Alberto Dassieu. If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity, don't let it slip - seize it!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Adela Galeazzi and Rino Biondi dance CANYENGUE
We just had to share this with you....
Looks like Adela wasn't even thinking that Rino was going to dance Canyengue-style. It just shows that a world-class follower like Adela can follow anything, even improvised Canyengue. This is nothing short of amazing!
Adela Galeazzi and Rino Biondi dance to Canaro's "El Chamuyo" at Salon Canning, January, 2010
Looks like Adela wasn't even thinking that Rino was going to dance Canyengue-style. It just shows that a world-class follower like Adela can follow anything, even improvised Canyengue. This is nothing short of amazing!
Friday, February 5, 2010
Buenos Aires 2008 - Part 10
San Telmo (and not the part where you can buy souvenirs
and watch people perform tango on flattened cardboard boxes)
and watch people perform tango on flattened cardboard boxes)
Wednesday
| From: | Irene (--------------@------------.com) |
| Sent: | March 7, 2008 |
| To: | V (---------@-------.com) |
Dear V,
We are getting into the "Dance until the wee hours and sleep during the day" mode. After the excitement of "Tete" Tuesday, we slept until 10:30 a.m., had the hotel breakfast, went back to bed and woke up at 1:30 p.m. to go to the festival. We got there before the Canyengue class started and while Gabriela and Elias were still teaching their milonga traspie. Manolo looked at his watch and said that we were late, we answered "No, in fact we are early!" And he thought that was funny because that confirmed we are such slackers - we really never wanted to take the Milonga traspie class and preferred to sleep in!
I don´t think I have really talked about the classes. Well, we are taking only Canyengue and Milonga with Martha and Manolo, and since Osvaldo is too ill to return to the festival, Adrian and Roxina are teaching the last class as an extra Canyengue class as a substitute. Does Man Yung take it easy in class? You bet not. He is always on the go, practicing all the steps in class like there was no tomorrow. He claims that he is "taking it easy this year!" I don’t have the energy to keep up. I am glad to have Ms X. there to help me out with him – she can partner up with him while I try and sneak off into a corner and hide to take a break - but she can´t dance too much because she has bad ankles. By the way Ms. X is taking both the M&M and the R&A Canyengue classes and she is doing really well, Man Yung is looking forward to dancing Canyengue with her when she returns to Toronto.
The movie section today had videos of Osvaldo and Coca’s exhibitions. We really miss them. One of the main reasons we are in Bs As this year is because we really wanted to learn more from them, but it is impossible at this time. Osvaldo is still in the hospital, we heard that he needs an operation. We had hoped that he would get better in time to be released from the hospìtal on his birthday, which will be Monday. Anyway, we are all praying for him and hoping that he will get better soon.
We didn´t take the last class, we wanted to rest a bit before heading out to the festival milonga at Dandi. But instead of taking a nice long nap Man Yung watched soccer and I hand-washed clothes. It is a nightmare trying to get the washed clothes to dry in this humidity, it takes several days. We are starting to give up and using the hotel laundry service, at least for the big items of clothing.
Wednesday´s festival milonga was at Dandi, this tango hotel-classes-milonga full-service setup. It was quite a trip from Santa Fe and Callao to San Telmo, where Dandi is located. Our taxi driver smoked all the way, but instead of giving him a hard time, I talked to him about the smoking ban in Buenos Aires. He’s hurting, he can’t smoke wherever he wants anymore like they did in the old days. If he wasn't driving he'd be crying on my shoulder talking about this. He told us that the only places you can smoke are in the casinos and some of the bars. I remember you telling me about the crazy smoke-filled milongas the year that you went – well, the milongas are now smoke-free!
At last we arrived at Dandi – just seconds before Martha and Manolo! The dance floor at Dandi is very small and bisected by two big pillars. All the spaces on the side have chairs and tables crammed into every inch of space. There are lots of "Tango!" décor which I’m guessing is aiming for “authentic” but comes across (in my opinion) as “kitschy” and “touristy” instead. There’s even a fold-down stage on which graduated students of the "dandi tango program" can perform in their own tailor-made tango production. Dandi must make a lot of money because they can afford to put very attractive, very glossy, professional-grade advertisements in magazines. I read one at one point and it promised a shuttle from the airport, champagne welcome with live music, fresh fruit baskets and tango tv on demand in your room, in-house classes and milongas, escort and guided tours to the milongas outside, in-house bbq and shuttle to the airport when you leave. You can experience Buenos Aires and tango without taking a single step in Buenos Aires proper! Dandi is another place that caters, big-time, to tourists.
At the milonga, we saw the requisite “San Telmo Tango Show” teacher-performer (sharp suit and slicked back hair – except this one was a little long in the tooth) doing the whirling dervish giros and the requisite Nuevo guy teacher with the baggy pants and untucked shirt looking after the students and doing the high kickin’, boleo whippin’ and rhythmic boppin’ with the ladies. Someone has been doing their marketing work - people who are attracted by the idea of Dandi will gravitate to either of the two styles! The level of dancing was very very low - lots of people trying to do show tango and nuevo moves, but who can’t navigate for the life of them.
The festival people were all seated together at the back of the dance floor next to the bar and washroom, very squishy. Guess who came? Graciela Gonzales came to see Martha perform - they are "friends of the soul", as Martha describes it. Elias and Gabriela performed first, their famous milonga traspie and Chacarera. Elias was exhibiting a lot of "fancy" fast footwork. Martha and Manolo did really great milonga and milonga fantasia. After M&M performed, everyone went to congratulate them. Graciela was very moved and there were tears in her eyes. Man Yung saw that and gave her a hug and wiped her tears for her! By the way, Graciela has been such a big name in tango for so long, we were expecting someone as old as Martha, but in person, she is very young and pretty.
Man Yung danced a lot with some people from the festival, our european friends... and Graciela Gonzales! Graciela actually asked Man Yung to dance (well, she was sitting at the table with us and M&M and Man Yung paid for everyone´s drinks, but also because Martha explained that we were her friends and Manolo made Man Yung the keeper of his keys and wallet while he was dancing – that, my friend, means that Man Yung is FAMILY). They danced a tanda of later DÁrienzo. Manolo got very angry at Man Yung though - because when he was dancing, the pocket of his jacket flipped out and Manolo said that was very very ugly! It´s funny, on this trip, Manolo isn´t very concerned about Man Yung´s tango progress anymore, doesn´t correct him at all and thinks it is very amusing how inventive Man Yung is with steps. But he is always very strict on correct attire. The last time he got so mad was when Man Yung forgot to button his jacket!
Man Yung also danced with Adrian´s girlfriend who was an amazing dancer. She really followed beautifully everything Man Yung did and dancing with her was like dancing with honey. Apparently I whizz around too fast and I am too light, I should emulate this honey thing. Now I´m jealous!
We didn´t leave the milonga until it ended at 3! And we had a curious adventure when we were travelling back to the hotel. The taxi driver knew all about M&M and the Canyengue thing at Dandi. We had a long conversation about tango music, how to dance it, and how all the best dancers are from the south of Bs As - they are more inventive. The taxi driver was very authorative, and said he also taught tango. He had a lot of opinions about how people should learn to dance. I asked him for a card but he didn´t have one, he told me his name I think but I didn´t catch it and I couldn´t understand everything he said - but afterwards, I think he is Osvaldo Centeno, who is a milonguero who drives a taxi. I will have to ask Alberto to see if he knows him.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Martha and Manolo's Intensive Canyengue and Milonga Seminars - March 1 - 5, 2010
Just received news from Martha and Manolo about their intensive seminars on Canyengue and Milonga in March. For more information, please visit the website at www.MoCCAseminarios.blogspot.com.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Buenos Aires 2008 - Part 7
Monday
(day)
Camicando began today! Even though our first festival workshop didn’t start until 2:30 p.m., we still woke up nice and early at 9:30 a.m. I had scheduled some "kamikaze" shoe shopping for the morning, and I was eager to get going. Once the festival started, we would not have either time nor energy to do any shopping!
After breakfast, we went to the nearby Bank ATM for money. Big line up. Everything was busier today - the Portenos had just finished their summer break. At the machine, we found that there was a limit on withdrawals to 320 pesos per transaction [in 2009, the limit increased to about double - why, we don't know], so we had to make repeated withdrawals to get enough cash. It was a bummer, because that meant that we had to pay a substantial transaction fee per withdrawal.
Back to school, back to work - the traffic was more congested, there were more people on the street. Stinky black exhaust fumes filled the air. After getting our cash at the Bank, we took a swift taxi down Riobamba to buy Man Yung some shoes from Artesanal, located a few doors down from El Beso. Unfortunately, Artesanal wasn’t open yet - it was too early.
Double bummer! However, I am never easily thwarted. We hopped into a taxi and headed over to Darcos. It’s located on the “street of the infinite number of tango shoe stores” – the majority of which look rather tacky and touristy. Darcos was also marginally so.
Darcos is one of the official sponsors of the Campeonato, so every year we'd see the winners and runners-up photographed in the store with their Darcos prizes. If you have seen photos of Darco’s on the internet, they always focus on the glittering, slick displays of shoes, tangowear and CDs and the shiny happy campeones. From the photos, we thought that Darcos would look like a fine lacquer box - red, black and gold.
In reality, the store’s messy. Shoe boxes are stacked willy nilly; clothes and CDs are crammed in every conceivable corner. The décor is red, black and gold - but kind of worn out.
To their credit, Darcos has a lot of different models of women’s tango shoes, more than anywhere else we've seen so far. Unfortunately, some of them looked suspiciously like copies of CIF and NT, except without the same level of craftsmanship and with rather gaudy and jarring colour combinations. As for the men’s shoes, they were standard – you can get the same models everywhere.
The day was already heating up outside and to make it worse, the air conditioning was broken and the store was crammed with tourists. The two salespersons were polite and professional, but it was obvious that they were overwhelmed and couldn’t serve everybody in a prompt manner. We waited for about twenty minutes. I was starting to have an "existential crisis" in that mini heat wave, but Man Yung was fine – is he always fine just looking at tango stuff, or he was better at imagining that he was standing under cool cascading water in a waterfall? In any case, despite my discomfort and the wait, I was determined to get a pair of shoes for Man Yung. He needed comfortable shoes, and Darcos are reportedly comfortable.
A sleek, smiling but somewhat stocky young man served us. He had a kind of curt efficient professionalism, and he was very knowledgeable about his shoes. He knew right away what size Man Yung wore and gave quick recommendations as to style. We were quick to decide on a pair of black shoes with pinstripes. Seeing the customers pile up, the last thing we wanted to do was to inconvenience our sales clerk further, despite his smiles and cordiality.
There were many customers there but for some reason, one couple stood out. The woman tried on nearly every single pair of the ugliest shoes in the store – it seemed to us that the winning tactic that she was employing was that if it wasn’t ugly, she wasn’t going to try them on. Her salesperson had his hands full trying to accommodate her, and she still couldn’t decide what to buy. She wasn't unusual - it was her partner that was the strange one. He stood there, looking offended at everyone and everything, with his green sweat-stained t-shirt pulled tightly over his protruding pot belly. I couldn't imagine him dancing tango. He looked like he really, really didn't belong. Staring at us with the intensity of a participant in a staring contest [and we hadn’t even started writing our blog yet!], he was antagonistic without even opening his mouth. "Yikes! What's up with him?" I thought.
In Buenos Aires, you can meet Tete, Pocho, Juan, Julio... and if you are really lucky, even the "Grinch"
Man Yung’s Darcos were expensive – 300 pesos, as expensive as the CIF’s I bought a couple of days earlier. I was surprised.
By the time we finished with Darcos, Artesanal was open. The store on Riobamba was very serene compared to the chaos at Darcos. There weren't as many choices as in Darcos, but the place was organized and the place was not packed. Man Yung found a pair of shoes he really liked, with craftsmanship he admired. Only 260 pesos! With an additional 100 pesos off from Man Yung's winning lucky draw ticket from Glorias Argentinas the previous Saturday.
But the really special thing about Artesanal was that it was run by cats!* A calico and a siamese kept their eye on the till (they slept right next to it) and inspected all the customers that came through the door. Naturally, Man Yung couldn't resist hugging all these the "tango shoe store" cats and babbling to them in baby-talk. He even tried to sneak them out of the store in his shoe bag but luckily we stopped him.
Camicando was held at La Nacional again, just like last year. This year, the line-up of instructors included Martha and Manolo, Roxina and Adrian, Yuyu Herrera, Osvaldo and Coca, and and milonga traspie teachers Eduardo Perez and Gabriela Elias. Going up the turn of the century grand stairs (and running out of breath) to the big hall was like going home again. We saw many familiar faces at the festival. Like us, many participants from the previous year had made the trek to Buenos Aires again for more classes on Canyengue, Milonga and Candombe.
The festival started with a class of milonga traspie with Gabriela and Elias but we skipped that class and arrived just before Martha and Manolo's canyengue class. Our friend from Toronto, Ms. X, who had been impossible to reach by phone on Sunday, had also arrived to attend the festival with us. We were happy to see her.
Guess who else showed up? The strange couple from Darcos. The canyengue class began and everybody was diligently practicing what Martha and Manolo just demonstrated to us. That is, all except the couple. Instead of practicing, they looked bored. The man went from rude staring straight into obnoxious comments.
"Are you advanced dancers?" he asked me abruptly. "The class level here is kind of low."
My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. I could hardly stay civil. "We were at the Camicando festival last year, yes we are very advanced dancers, we are here taking classes with Martha and Manolo because they are excellent teachers and even advanced dancers must always work on their basics. That is very important to us." I was so annoyed by his obvious contempt for the students and for Martha and Manolo I couldn't help but abstain from my usual humility! But what I was saying was true - Canyengue is challenging if you want to do it right. We are always working on getting the right posture and on correcting our mistakes, and Martha and Manolo are the teachers to turn to for this.
We jetted over to the other side of the room to avoid any further confrontations with this man and his partner. We saw Martha and Manolo attending to this couple as well as all other couples with the same patience, dedication and care. We would never in a million years have the same kind of patience - if we have to teach class we'd probably break out the shinais and start threatening people push-ups or a hiding!**
After the class we watched a twenty five minute presentation of old video footage of Martha dancing with various dancers from twenty years ago, among them Cacho Pistola and Petaca. Martha was absolutely amazing - it seems implausible, but even Geraldine is just a shadow of what Martha was at her peak. Her feet seemed to "speak" even when she was not doing her trademark adornments, and even when her partners danced figures that were impossibly challenging for the follower. Every dancer had his own individual style. Man Yung was astounded by the inventiveness and athleticism of the old dancers, but because the video presentation went by so fast, it was impossible to remember all. It was too bad we were not permitted to videotape the films, and the films were not for sale. We had been shown some priceless treasures from the past.
Camicando is quite gruelling so we decided to take a break and skip Candombe class - it was late afternoon so it was a good time to have a nice snack. We went to have an empanada at a nearby chain restaurant, and bumped into the european family who was attending the Camicando festival with us. They were also at Camicando the previous year, so we were quite glad for the opportunity to sit down and talk.
Our european friend had been dancing for six years, and her mother and father for about ten.
She talked about taking lots and lots of classes with Graciela Gonzales, DNI studio, Aurora Lubiz, and others. She liked going to Villa Malcolm, Practica X, La Viruta, La Catedral - and was a little surprised that we had never gone to any of these places.
She also complained about not getting asked to dance a lot, either in her home country (one of the tango meccas outside of Buenos Aires) or in Buenos Aires itself. It's frustrating, because here she was - young, pretty, with a lively sweet personality and intelligent bright eyes, and not a bad dancer at all to boot. Was it just the immense competition or was she doing something wrong, like, perhaps not wearing a bikini to milongas or not doing enough face dancing? Or was it the milongas she frequented? A mystery - and the lament of tangueras everywhere in the world.
After the break, we headed back to La Nacional to take Martha and Manolo's milonga class and Osvaldo and Coca's milonga class. Man Yung remembered some of the steps (we had taken 52 hours of classes with Martha and Manolo in 2006 in the one month they were in Toronto and we attended Camicando the previous year, so a lot of the material was not new to us) but it didn't stop him from practicing and refining his technique in class under the watchful eye of Martha and Manolo. And it didn't stop him from still getting into arguments with me about what we were practicing!
We had been looking forward to seeing Osvaldo and Coca again and taking their class. Man Yung had been studying Osvaldo's style all year and from what he had learnt from him the previous year, had found the key to unlocking many of his steps and movements. Osvaldo and Coca remembered us from last year and they were really happy to see us - they are so sweet that they are always happy to see everybody - and Osvaldo was very impressed that Man Yung could remember what he taught last year and duplicate many of the steps that he hadn't taught! Unfortunately, Osvaldo was not feeling well, and the steep flight of steps to the hall at La Nacional did not help - Osvaldo had problems with breathing and only finished the class with much difficulty. By the end of the class he was wheezing for breath. Yuyu Herrera tried to massage his back to make him feel better, but it didn't really help. We were very worried for Osvaldo.
By the time class ended, it was too late to go back to the hotel to shower and change - we had promised ourselves that we would try and catch Milonguisimo at it's original venue at La Confiteria Ideal, and Monday was the only night that we were free to go. After a warm embrace and goodbye to all our wonderful teachers, we were off into the night, with our friend Ms. X in tow: Milonguisimo-bound!
* Just joking. Artesanal is run by people - but there's always at least one sweet-faced, good-natured cat in every one of their stores.
** Martial Arts people can sometimes get all worked up like this. One of Man Yung's favourite sayings: "Tango people have no discipline!"
(day)
Camicando began today! Even though our first festival workshop didn’t start until 2:30 p.m., we still woke up nice and early at 9:30 a.m. I had scheduled some "kamikaze" shoe shopping for the morning, and I was eager to get going. Once the festival started, we would not have either time nor energy to do any shopping!
After breakfast, we went to the nearby Bank ATM for money. Big line up. Everything was busier today - the Portenos had just finished their summer break. At the machine, we found that there was a limit on withdrawals to 320 pesos per transaction [in 2009, the limit increased to about double - why, we don't know], so we had to make repeated withdrawals to get enough cash. It was a bummer, because that meant that we had to pay a substantial transaction fee per withdrawal.
Back to school, back to work - the traffic was more congested, there were more people on the street. Stinky black exhaust fumes filled the air. After getting our cash at the Bank, we took a swift taxi down Riobamba to buy Man Yung some shoes from Artesanal, located a few doors down from El Beso. Unfortunately, Artesanal wasn’t open yet - it was too early.
Double bummer! However, I am never easily thwarted. We hopped into a taxi and headed over to Darcos. It’s located on the “street of the infinite number of tango shoe stores” – the majority of which look rather tacky and touristy. Darcos was also marginally so.
Darcos is one of the official sponsors of the Campeonato, so every year we'd see the winners and runners-up photographed in the store with their Darcos prizes. If you have seen photos of Darco’s on the internet, they always focus on the glittering, slick displays of shoes, tangowear and CDs and the shiny happy campeones. From the photos, we thought that Darcos would look like a fine lacquer box - red, black and gold.
In reality, the store’s messy. Shoe boxes are stacked willy nilly; clothes and CDs are crammed in every conceivable corner. The décor is red, black and gold - but kind of worn out.
To their credit, Darcos has a lot of different models of women’s tango shoes, more than anywhere else we've seen so far. Unfortunately, some of them looked suspiciously like copies of CIF and NT, except without the same level of craftsmanship and with rather gaudy and jarring colour combinations. As for the men’s shoes, they were standard – you can get the same models everywhere.
The day was already heating up outside and to make it worse, the air conditioning was broken and the store was crammed with tourists. The two salespersons were polite and professional, but it was obvious that they were overwhelmed and couldn’t serve everybody in a prompt manner. We waited for about twenty minutes. I was starting to have an "existential crisis" in that mini heat wave, but Man Yung was fine – is he always fine just looking at tango stuff, or he was better at imagining that he was standing under cool cascading water in a waterfall? In any case, despite my discomfort and the wait, I was determined to get a pair of shoes for Man Yung. He needed comfortable shoes, and Darcos are reportedly comfortable.
A sleek, smiling but somewhat stocky young man served us. He had a kind of curt efficient professionalism, and he was very knowledgeable about his shoes. He knew right away what size Man Yung wore and gave quick recommendations as to style. We were quick to decide on a pair of black shoes with pinstripes. Seeing the customers pile up, the last thing we wanted to do was to inconvenience our sales clerk further, despite his smiles and cordiality.
There were many customers there but for some reason, one couple stood out. The woman tried on nearly every single pair of the ugliest shoes in the store – it seemed to us that the winning tactic that she was employing was that if it wasn’t ugly, she wasn’t going to try them on. Her salesperson had his hands full trying to accommodate her, and she still couldn’t decide what to buy. She wasn't unusual - it was her partner that was the strange one. He stood there, looking offended at everyone and everything, with his green sweat-stained t-shirt pulled tightly over his protruding pot belly. I couldn't imagine him dancing tango. He looked like he really, really didn't belong. Staring at us with the intensity of a participant in a staring contest [and we hadn’t even started writing our blog yet!], he was antagonistic without even opening his mouth. "Yikes! What's up with him?" I thought.
In Buenos Aires, you can meet Tete, Pocho, Juan, Julio... and if you are really lucky, even the "Grinch"Man Yung’s Darcos were expensive – 300 pesos, as expensive as the CIF’s I bought a couple of days earlier. I was surprised.
By the time we finished with Darcos, Artesanal was open. The store on Riobamba was very serene compared to the chaos at Darcos. There weren't as many choices as in Darcos, but the place was organized and the place was not packed. Man Yung found a pair of shoes he really liked, with craftsmanship he admired. Only 260 pesos! With an additional 100 pesos off from Man Yung's winning lucky draw ticket from Glorias Argentinas the previous Saturday.
But the really special thing about Artesanal was that it was run by cats!* A calico and a siamese kept their eye on the till (they slept right next to it) and inspected all the customers that came through the door. Naturally, Man Yung couldn't resist hugging all these the "tango shoe store" cats and babbling to them in baby-talk. He even tried to sneak them out of the store in his shoe bag but luckily we stopped him.
Camicando was held at La Nacional again, just like last year. This year, the line-up of instructors included Martha and Manolo, Roxina and Adrian, Yuyu Herrera, Osvaldo and Coca, and and milonga traspie teachers Eduardo Perez and Gabriela Elias. Going up the turn of the century grand stairs (and running out of breath) to the big hall was like going home again. We saw many familiar faces at the festival. Like us, many participants from the previous year had made the trek to Buenos Aires again for more classes on Canyengue, Milonga and Candombe.
The festival started with a class of milonga traspie with Gabriela and Elias but we skipped that class and arrived just before Martha and Manolo's canyengue class. Our friend from Toronto, Ms. X, who had been impossible to reach by phone on Sunday, had also arrived to attend the festival with us. We were happy to see her.
Guess who else showed up? The strange couple from Darcos. The canyengue class began and everybody was diligently practicing what Martha and Manolo just demonstrated to us. That is, all except the couple. Instead of practicing, they looked bored. The man went from rude staring straight into obnoxious comments.
"Are you advanced dancers?" he asked me abruptly. "The class level here is kind of low."
My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. I could hardly stay civil. "We were at the Camicando festival last year, yes we are very advanced dancers, we are here taking classes with Martha and Manolo because they are excellent teachers and even advanced dancers must always work on their basics. That is very important to us." I was so annoyed by his obvious contempt for the students and for Martha and Manolo I couldn't help but abstain from my usual humility! But what I was saying was true - Canyengue is challenging if you want to do it right. We are always working on getting the right posture and on correcting our mistakes, and Martha and Manolo are the teachers to turn to for this.
We jetted over to the other side of the room to avoid any further confrontations with this man and his partner. We saw Martha and Manolo attending to this couple as well as all other couples with the same patience, dedication and care. We would never in a million years have the same kind of patience - if we have to teach class we'd probably break out the shinais and start threatening people push-ups or a hiding!**
After the class we watched a twenty five minute presentation of old video footage of Martha dancing with various dancers from twenty years ago, among them Cacho Pistola and Petaca. Martha was absolutely amazing - it seems implausible, but even Geraldine is just a shadow of what Martha was at her peak. Her feet seemed to "speak" even when she was not doing her trademark adornments, and even when her partners danced figures that were impossibly challenging for the follower. Every dancer had his own individual style. Man Yung was astounded by the inventiveness and athleticism of the old dancers, but because the video presentation went by so fast, it was impossible to remember all. It was too bad we were not permitted to videotape the films, and the films were not for sale. We had been shown some priceless treasures from the past.
Camicando is quite gruelling so we decided to take a break and skip Candombe class - it was late afternoon so it was a good time to have a nice snack. We went to have an empanada at a nearby chain restaurant, and bumped into the european family who was attending the Camicando festival with us. They were also at Camicando the previous year, so we were quite glad for the opportunity to sit down and talk.
Our european friend had been dancing for six years, and her mother and father for about ten.
She talked about taking lots and lots of classes with Graciela Gonzales, DNI studio, Aurora Lubiz, and others. She liked going to Villa Malcolm, Practica X, La Viruta, La Catedral - and was a little surprised that we had never gone to any of these places.
She also complained about not getting asked to dance a lot, either in her home country (one of the tango meccas outside of Buenos Aires) or in Buenos Aires itself. It's frustrating, because here she was - young, pretty, with a lively sweet personality and intelligent bright eyes, and not a bad dancer at all to boot. Was it just the immense competition or was she doing something wrong, like, perhaps not wearing a bikini to milongas or not doing enough face dancing? Or was it the milongas she frequented? A mystery - and the lament of tangueras everywhere in the world.
After the break, we headed back to La Nacional to take Martha and Manolo's milonga class and Osvaldo and Coca's milonga class. Man Yung remembered some of the steps (we had taken 52 hours of classes with Martha and Manolo in 2006 in the one month they were in Toronto and we attended Camicando the previous year, so a lot of the material was not new to us) but it didn't stop him from practicing and refining his technique in class under the watchful eye of Martha and Manolo. And it didn't stop him from still getting into arguments with me about what we were practicing!
We had been looking forward to seeing Osvaldo and Coca again and taking their class. Man Yung had been studying Osvaldo's style all year and from what he had learnt from him the previous year, had found the key to unlocking many of his steps and movements. Osvaldo and Coca remembered us from last year and they were really happy to see us - they are so sweet that they are always happy to see everybody - and Osvaldo was very impressed that Man Yung could remember what he taught last year and duplicate many of the steps that he hadn't taught! Unfortunately, Osvaldo was not feeling well, and the steep flight of steps to the hall at La Nacional did not help - Osvaldo had problems with breathing and only finished the class with much difficulty. By the end of the class he was wheezing for breath. Yuyu Herrera tried to massage his back to make him feel better, but it didn't really help. We were very worried for Osvaldo.
By the time class ended, it was too late to go back to the hotel to shower and change - we had promised ourselves that we would try and catch Milonguisimo at it's original venue at La Confiteria Ideal, and Monday was the only night that we were free to go. After a warm embrace and goodbye to all our wonderful teachers, we were off into the night, with our friend Ms. X in tow: Milonguisimo-bound!
* Just joking. Artesanal is run by people - but there's always at least one sweet-faced, good-natured cat in every one of their stores.
** Martial Arts people can sometimes get all worked up like this. One of Man Yung's favourite sayings: "Tango people have no discipline!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)