Flor de Milonga

We've been looking and looking... but all those trips to Buenos Aires and we have never had an opportunity to find a place which embodies the bohemia of Tango - something that was captured in the National Geographic's short documentary.  We wrote about it here, one of the very first posts that we posted on this blog - entitled, "Where it all Began":

http://ireneandmanyung.blogspot.com/2008/05/where-it-all-began.html

Early hours of the morning...a smoky common-place cafe...people from all sorts of life, young, old, happy, sad - listening intently to music of the guitar and a passionate voice...a tango...a vals..the magic of the moment in the memories and emotions that we are sharing through the music...

...Well, we've been so busy every night we have been in Buenos Aires that we have never had the opportunity to find and experience such a place.  That is, until we went to Flor de Milonga!

Flor de Milonga is a little Tuesday night milonga in San Telmo, run by the enchanting and beautiful La Flaca Lucia and her companion in life and dance, Gerry.  The milonga is held in a loft-like space in a historic building in the barrio.  Climb up the narrow stairs to the second floor, go through the shaded tiled verandah, and you've stepped into another world - quite unlike any of the other milongas you may visit in Buenos Aires.

From the impromptu and surprising works of art on the walls, the intimate lighting, the cafe seating, and the luminous yet friendly bar at the end of the room - you will feel like you have stepped into a bohemian caberet.  Expect to mix not only with dancers, but also poets, writers, artists and musicians.  It's Paris of Picasso and Hemingway of the 1920's again - except in Buenos Aires.

We were very fortunate to attend the milonga on the first Tuesday of the month, where there's always the extra treat of music by the live Orquesta Tipica Personajes, with Juan Serafini and Alfredo Molina on bandoneon, Guillermo Ayos on guitar, Guillermo Ferrer on bass, and Julio Rodolfo singing.  All the musicians have had long careers in tango, in many of the famous tango orquestras of the past - and what wonderful music they play!  In keeping with the playful and relaxed atmosphere, people are welcome to dance to the many sets of live music - with the members of the orquesta interacting with the dancers, encouraging them as they pass by, applauding when dancers "get into the groove" and manage to express the music with their dancing as intended by the musicians.

I don't think words could really do the experience of Flor de Milonga justice - so here we will attempt to show you what we saw with our photos!

Orquesta Tipica Personajes

Alfredo Molina on bandoneon and Guillermo Ferrer on bass - a virtuoso duel of the instruments!

Alfredo Molina and Juan Serafini on bandoneon

Guillermo Ferrer on bass

Guillermo Ferrer on bass, Alfredo Molina and Juan Serafini on bandoneon

Julio Rodolfo

Julio Rodolfo

A view of the dance floor from the vantage point of the Orquesta Tipica Personajes

Past midnight, there was an open mic at Flor de Milonga.  The audience had a chance to sing and perform too with the live band.  This gentleman who sang looked like he stepped out from the past - a tough-guy compadrito from the barrio!

Open mic at Flor de Milonga with the tough-guy compadrito again.  His songs were filled with lunfardo, the underworld slang of Buenos Aires

Open mic at Flor de Milonga

At Flor de Milonga, there's a chance that you will find the famed Malena of song and story again - here are some videos we took of the incomparable Mariana Alpert.  What incredibly passionate, courageous and heartfelt singing!

Mariana Alpert - Romance de Barrio

Mariana Alpert - Muñeca Brava

Mariana Alpert.  Man Yung filmed this from the other side of the room - you get a really good view of the bar and the atmosphere of some of the audience in the room.  I think we have finally stepped into National Geographic's documentary.

A second singer also left an indelible impression - Marcela Marina.  She is beautiful, but shy - she wanted to sing from the dark corner at first, away from the spotlight!  Eventually everyone convinced her to come out into the light.  What a soulful voice she has - in the tradition of singers like Nelly Omar and Adriana Varela:

Marcela Marina - singing "Sur".  Who is that dancing in the background?

We bumped into the lovely young couple Walter Champín and Adriana Reta at Flor de Milonga.  They are taking classes with Osvaldo and Coca too at El Tacuarí - imagine our surprise at seeing them at the milonga!  They are wonderful, elegant and musical dancers - and also artists.  Adriana's work has been exhibited all over the world, including even Canada.  The link to Adriana's website is here.

Walter Champín and Adriana Reta dancing to live music at Flor de Milonga

We thoroughly enjoyed our evening at Flor de Milonga.  Many thanks to La Flaca Lucia and Gerry for organizing this magical evening and being such welcoming and friendly hosts - and for all of you who haven't yet had the opportunity to check their milonga out, don't miss it!

What an evening!  La Flaca Lucia, Gerry, and members of Orquesta Tipica Personajes

For more information, here's the link to the website for Flor de Milonga.

Flor de Milonga's very pretty, very cute waitress Andrea.  Her eyes are really big - just look at how tiny our eyes are compared to hers!  And she dances tango too!

Birthdays

We celebrate Manolo's 79th birthday at La Baldosa.  It was time for friends, tango, and of course, flaming, exploding birthday cake!

Last week, I received a lovely email from Martha and Manolo, wishing me an extremely Happy Birthday with lots of hugs and kisses - all in UPPERCASE in giant purple letters.

It was very sweet - except it wasn't my birthday! "Luckily," I replied, "My birthday isn't going to be for another five months - so I have a chance to be young for a little while longer!"

I was just joking.  But if I think about the way I was brought up, I am extremely lucky I did not become a complete mental case when it came to birthdays.

Growing up, I had a vague idea that birthdays were supposed to be positive things - but the way my mother approached it, they were a cause of dread not only for her but for our entire family.  All through her late thirties and right up until she turned fifty, my mother would sport even blacker moods than usual when her "Special Day" was near.  Just breathing in her presence would annoy her - we walked on eggshells.  My mother's unhappiness made us nervous and jumpy, just waiting...waiting until she exploded, glaring and screeching with irrational fury at the slightest little thing.

What was it that made birthdays so unbearable for my mother?  She had three wonderful kids who never gave her any trouble (even though she claims disapprovingly that we are "sunken investments" - I have no idea what that means) and all of us made it through university.  My father was - and still is a devoted, loyal, loving husband - who listens and follows to whatever she dictates. My father and mother both had amazing jobs.   The house was fully paid for even before my parents turned forty - and they never needed to finance their cars.  And lastly, my mother looked, and still looks, great - she is still skinnier, taller, better proportioned than me, with the kind of frame that makes all clothes look spectacular on her.

Family, friends and acquaintances always envied my mother's perfect life.  But I have awful memories of her birthdays - including one in which she locked herself into her bedroom and my father told us to try not to make any noise - "Your mother has a headache", he said, fearfully.

Thankfully, my mother seems a lot better now than she was before.  Unfortunately, we are not the kind of family that talks about these things, so I will never know what was bothering her so much before.*  Was she worried about aging, losing her youth and beauty?  She had a husband who didn't care a jot and would love her anyway no matter what.  Was she disheartened that the years were passing and that she had not accomplished anything remarkable?  Raising three children in a completely new country far from home and being mortgage-free, is tremendous enough by itself.  Was she disappointed at the gifts that she got - that they weren't diamond rings or cruises or luxury leather goods?  OK, so we got her boxes of chocolate or pairs of socks with the pocket money we scraped together - it wasn't much to look at, but it was from the heart.

I giggled when I received that email from Martha and Manolo - I had to correct them, that it was actually Man Yung's birthday and not mine - but it didn't matter. We both appreciated their good wishes.  It was nice to know that they were thinking about us - we think of them and all our friends in Buenos Aires often too. We exchange emails, send messages on Facebook and call them every few weeks - just to see how they are, and they are overjoyed to hear from us too.

With great friends (and teachers) like Martha and Manolo and a wonderful husband like Man Yung, every day is a day I look forward to - living, loving, dancing, laughing.  Every day is "Happy Birthday".  I don't think you could beat that.

* I could only speculate that it was something like a mid-life crisis/depression thing going on.  Now that I am around the same age that my mother was when she was acting like that around her birthday, I am happy to say that I have no fear of turning into the same kind of monster that she became - probably thanks to Tango!  While her material life was as good as it gets, perhaps my mother needed some spiritual and emotional nourishment that she wasn't getting enough of.  My mother has taken up Tai-Chi in recent years, and it could be that this is helping her cope.

Alberto Dassieu in Portugal and Switzerland

This just in (actually, we received an inquiry) - the schedules for Alberto's workshops in Lisbon and Zurich over the next few weeks.

In Lisbon:

As for Alberto's Zurich schedule, the organizer Ms. Catherine Funk advised us that there will be workshops on May 14 and 15, 2011 at Club Silbando - from 13:00 to 15:00 vals, and 15:30 to 17:30 tango. 

For more information, please follow the link to the websites of La Morocha Lucena and Club Silbando.