For about a month after my lesson with Javier, I was feeling slightly rebellious against what he had taught me about my embrace.  Later I realized that I have been enjoying Tango more than ever, and it’s because I’ve been unconsciously doing everything that he told me.  Ha!  That guy’s good.

I have attended two milongas in Seattle so far.  At both, I consciously applied his philosophy to the way I embraced the tangueros of Seattle, which was to embrace the person - embrace who the person is.  Really HUG them.  With love.  Real love.  Just completely surrender and give myself, my heart to them, no questions asked.  I haven’t always done that… I’ve chased the ghost but sometimes have forgotten to simply love the person in my arms.  Truly love them.

I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be - I didn’t know if the guys here would be able to handle this chica coming up from South America and throwing her arms around them with complete surrender.  But you know what?  It worked out beautifully!  Each time, I felt the embrace and the warmth returned to me, equally.  I really, truly felt, with each dance, that I was sharing something special with the man in my arms.

Last year when I returned to Seattle from Buenos Aires I was kind of bummed out about the tango up north.  The warmth of the embrace just wasn’t there.  I’ve read numerous accounts of women going back to their hometowns from Buenos Aires and not quite feeling the same about tango.  I totally understand them - it’s not the same anywhere as it is in Buenos Aires.  That’s just not possible.  But one thing I hear - and something  I myself have said in the past -is that the embrace is colder outside of Buenos Aires.  But if that’s the case, then why has the embrace been so warm for me these past couple of days?

Do you suppose that we, upon returning from BsAs, are partly responsible and could stand to give more warmth to the guys up north, thus enabling them to open themselves up to us?  Because that’s what I think has happened with me.   For the first time on Seattle soil, I have just abandoned all expectations, all hesitation, all of my “oh I’m not in Buenos Aires so it’s going to suck” feelings, and really focused on the human being I was dancing with.

I said to myself, “Right now I’m dancing with XYZ.  I’m going to embrace him and all that I love about him.  I’m going to embrace our friendship as we dance, and think about all of the things we have shared these past few years.  I’m going to dance the love that I feel for him as a friend.  I’m going to hug him good.”

I hugged the heck out of him and he gave right back.  100%.  In a way that I have never experienced with him before.

And it happened this way with each man.  And each time I really focused on who the person was, what we had shared, how much I loved him in that moment right there.  And of course, because this is me, each time I made sure to give a little bit of my Buenos Aires to the embrace as well - there has been so much beauty (and ugliness) and magic in my life in Argentina and I hope I was able to share that with each man I danced with.  And they were all open to it.

I wonder what that’s about?  Did I just get lucky? Or do you think perhaps that we could stand to give ourselves just a little bit more?  Not always easy to do in this culture is it?

When I was first beginning five years ago, my friend Lachlan said, “Tina, tango is basically a big hug.”  So, upon hearing that, I gave him a big bear hug right there on the dance floor, and from that moment, our dance worked like magic.

Embrace = Hug

So far, I have noticed:

• The air is really clean, and sort of sweet
• There are a lot of tall people
• The tango community in Seattle has some really nice embraces! What a joy it was to dance yesterday!
• Coffee is really good, and there are so many varieties you can buy and none of them have sugar added
• It is really expensive here.  Really.  Expensive.
• The magazines don’t feature overly enhanced culos, instead they feature photoshopped toothpicks
• While Argentines have their meat, Seattle has it’s fish, and lots of it.
• The supermarkets are huge!

I’m glad to be here… and will also be glad to be back in Buenos Aires entre poco…

I know it must be hard to say goodbye to a friend as they leave for what’s supposed to be a month long vacation, only to have them write one day, saying, “I’m staying! I live here now!”. As enthusiastic I am about my change in life (which, it’s really not a change, but what I was supposed to be doing all along), I’m sure my friends in Seattle who I regularly see, while happy for me are probably wondering, “well what’s wrong with Seattle? What about us?”

That’s just the vibe I’m getting.

Well, you guys know who you are, and you need to know that I haven’t stopped loving any of you. I’d never forget you. Just because I’m in another land and feel less passionate about living in Seattle, does not negate how highly I regard our friendship. And just because I’m flourishing and fulfilling my destiny in another land, does not mean that I have stopped needing your friendship and support. I don’t only hope for friends to be there for me when I’m down, I need them when I’m happy too. So stop the pouting you guys and get ready for my upcoming visit - we’re going to have a blast!

I dug this up while going through my pictures… it’s a little collage I made of pictures I took in Pike Place Market. One of the things I love about Seattle.

This Friday night, December 7th, Christopher will be hosting our holiday milonga at the Russian Center on Capitol Hill, starting at 9pm, and going until 1am. Please attend if you’re in town!

I’ll personally be making Mediterranean Rice Salad as well as cantuccini (Tuscan biscotti) and there will be other appetizers and sweets too.

The Russian Center is good venue for dancing - in fact, it’s in that building that I learned to dance Tango (from Eva and Patricio).

Beforehand, there will be a beginning tango lesson taught by Michelle Badion at 8:30, so if you know anyone who is curious to learn tango, bring them!

Details can be found here.

I was asked to do a presentation on Tango (in Italian) and a dance demonstration for the Dante Alighieri Society, at their Seattle chapter meeting, which was last night. The topic was Argentina and its connections to Italy. They wanted Tango as well so they asked me if I’d do it. Sure!

I put together a nice print out of more or less this article that I wrote for my Italian friends while I was in Buenos Aires, and included a picture of the obelisco on 9 de Julio. Picked out some nice Tanturi, decided on my staple black dress that has been in my life faithfully for the past 6 years, purchased up in Canada at Le Chateau - the only place I buy my dresses because it’s the only place on this side of the pond that has dresses that fit me the way I like. Princess shoes for confidence and added effect (the shiny silver heel makes embellishments look pretty).

It went well! I was a little nervous about my Italian - I’m not good at speaking in front of a crowd (even though I studied theatre). I was also nervous about talking about Tango - it’s so hard to explain what Tango is. I did my best and in the end just told them to go to Buenos Aires.
My Italian was just fine, it came pouring out, perhaps a little fast, but that’s okay. I hope I made sense. I was nervous. We danced beautifully, I felt - it was very easy to relax. Dancing in front of a group is so much easier than talking. I can focus on the music and my partner and it soothes me.

We meant to dance to 2 songs, but wound up being asked to do 2 more after that, which was a huge compliment. And what nice people to dance for They were open, curious, and had very good questions for us - it was a lot of fun to be around a group like that. I’m pretty proud of myself. And I was happy that I could share my heart with people who were open to seeing it. I wouldn’t call this a performance so much as I’d call it sharing something I love with people who hopefully walked away from it feeling good.

I did get someone to take a video of us with my digital camera, and got it on to my computer right away so I could watch it and see how we did. I was pleasantly surprised - I look like I dance tango. Whew! We’re not Julio & Corina (I wish) but I’d say we’re at least nice to look at.  I won’t be posting it here, but if you’re curious and I know who you are, you can ask me for the link.

For anyone in the Puget Sound** area who happens to read this, tonight our beloved Anton is hosting a special edition of the Thursday night practica - A Night of Canaro.

Quoted from the announcement on allseattletango.com:

“Dancers love Canaro! He recorded some of the most danceable and most beautiful songs. Besides popular milongas and valses that we all know and love, the orchestra recorded so many tango songs that it is often a nightmare for DJ to sort through hundreds and thousands of his records. Tonight you will hear only best of the best of Canaro. We’ll cover different periods of his career, his most important singers, including Maida, Fama, Charlo, Roldan and a few popular women singers, including Ada Falcon and Nelly Omar. Do not miss it. As usual, we’ll play other great orchestras between Canaro sets and we’ll prepare handouts with information about the great orchestra and annotated list of Canaro songs that we are playing tonight.

Expect surprises:

Expect to hear songs that you have never heard before.

Expect to hear Canaro versions of some of the most popular tango songs of other orchestras such as …. (we are not going to tell you in in advance)… and maybe you will find that Canaro interpretations are as beautiful if not better.”

Details on place/time HERE.

**The Puget Sound, for those of you who are not from here and don’t know what I’m talking about, can be learned about here.

Last night (Monday) was the closing event for the Seattle Tango Magic Festival, and it took place at China Harbor. There is usually a milonga there on Monday nights, but this was made ever more special, as we were graced with a (double) performance by Sergio y Alejandra - um, they have a lot of energy!

The best part of the night for me, however, was towards the end. Over the weekend, We’ve had the fortune of getting to know Diego y Negracha a bit. Not only was this a great chance to improve my (lacking) Spanish (never mind that I was very timid at first), but I also think I have a new favorite couple in the entire world. I have never met such nice people - very humble and just so full of love for the dance (and each other).

Well, lucky me, I was able to share a beautiful, tranquil tanda with Diego. His lead is so wonderfully gentle, patient, sensitive…and sharp. He connected with the milonguera in me right away, and I was immediately able to relax and make myself vulnerable. What an experience!

“Muy bien! How long have you been dancing Tango?” he asked me. He seemed content when I told him 4-1/2 years (mas o menos). He wanted to know how I liked Buenos Aires, and I’m sure you can all guess how I answered. As we got more used to each other’s energy on the dance floor and our trust was established, he started leading me to do some fun things. I’m most pleased with the fact that I was able to relax with him.

Bliss…

First of all, happy 25 de Mayo. I don’t know much Argentine history but Mi Amor is changing that and I’m having a wonderful time learning.

Back to the milonga.  Argentines took over Il Bistro last night and good times were had.  The floor there is a little tough to dance on as it’s a restaurant, but Evan was completely on with his music.  I chose to wear what I’ve named my “Tigress” shoes from Comme il Faut.  I must say it feels good to be relatively walking distance from the milongas again.  Because of this, I arrived with much enthusiasm.

 Since I normally get distracted by the floor at this place, I decided to remember something Caroline at Tangospeak did.  I told myself to “Relax and wait”, and thus was able to allow my heart to open to the dance without worrying too much about the quality of the pista.  I was able to connect with someone that I’ve never been able to connect with before, and when dancing with people I always dance well with, the connections were that much stronger.  My tango heart is happy.

I’ve noticed, particularly after my trip to Buenos Aires, where I had some of the most emotionally satisfying tandas of my life, how many people in certain places aren’t dancing to the music when they dance tango - in fact let’s take that deeper: they’re not hearing the music through their partners.   There’s also quite a lot of “look at me” leg-flailing going on that I can’t really understand.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some great performers out there with beautiful movements, large and small… but lately I’ve been seeing a trend of… I don’t know what it is.  A trend of dancers who are SO eager to show off their latest nuevo-whatever move, that they forget to actually dance with their partner.  There’s no soul.  And it seems like people are actually believing that this is Tango.  And unfortunately it gets carried on to the dance floor.  They just don’t connect. 

There are those who still seek that great connection and who simply love dancing, but there is a little bit of hesitation that lingers, understandably - it’ s not like this is an easy dance, especially if you’re the one navigating.

Tango has been called a three-minute love affair, but I’m not seeing people actually revel in this.  It doesn’t matter what style you dance, but if you’re not connecting with your partner, what’s the point?  It’s so wonderful when two people are in love with the dance and in love with each other - even if for just a few minutes, even if they never learn each other’s names.  What are people afraid of?  Come on folks, feel the love, open your heart and spill it into your embrace and your dance. 

And please don’t use the crowded dance floor as a stage.  Thank you.

It was spring or summer of 2003, back in my intermediate days of Tango. Every Tuesday there was a milonga at Mr. Lucky in Seattle. It was a kitchy place with a bad wine selection but was a perfect space for tango, nonetheless. Somehow Evan always manages to get the lighting just right at his milongas.

I was having a pretty good night, dancing with my favorite leaders, talking with friends, truly enjoying myself. Only something was off. There was an older, stout man with glasses staring at me. And staring and staring. It made me a little uncomfortable and I kept avoiding eye contact because I didn’t know who this man was. I’d never seen him before, so for all I knew he was just some guy who came in to check things out, for the sake of curiosity. I noticed that some people I knew who were well-established in Seattle’s tango community were talking to him, but I still just tried to ignore him.

Later in the night I was standing with my friend Gregory, watching the dance floor. I was trying to concentrate on watching the other follows’ footwork, but couldn’t shake that staring guy. “You know, that guy won’t stop staring at me, it’s weird.” I pointed him out and Gregory matter of factly replied, “Oh. that’s Cacho Dante. I think you should make eye contact with him. And then you should dance with him. He wants to invite you to dance.” “Cacho WHO?” was my blank response. “He’s a legend. Go dance with him.” I hadn’t yet learned the codes of inviting at a milonga so I didn’t realize that he’d been trying to catch my eye to invite me to dance. And I sure had no idea who this Cacho Dante character was, but okay. I took a sip of my tasteless red wine, looked back at him, and and he motioned with his head towards the dance floor. Well, okay… here goes.

And thus began a very intimate, subtle tanda with a very sensitive milonguero who knew just how to take care of me… my perspective on Tango was totally changed, and I resolved never to judge a book by its cover again.