BsAs Trip blog No.12 – More videos from the trip

Paso Han & Rui Saito performing tango at milonga 10

chacarera in villa malcom

BsAs Trip blog No.11 – Tango videos from the trip

One of the performance I saw at Milonga 10, this is the video of first song. Btw, I loved the woman’s dresss:

Second song of their performance:

First song performance at one of night of Lucas’s Wed night milonga( Codigo De Barra):

Same couple, but performing milonga:

BsAs Trip blog No.9 – Breakfast/Cafe Si?

Way before my trip , most of my lovely Portland fellows who had been to BsAs had told me same thing over and over: If Argentine guys invite you to have breakfast or cafe alone, which means they want to take you home……

Therefore, I went to BsAs with my mind and brain so prepared to say No when that happens……

Before I talk about my breakfast/cafe invitation experience, one thing i want to throw it out and make it very clear, I am seriously not bragging about it and whoever gets invitation should never feel special or grow your ego!! To me, this is more of experiencing a different culture than anything else….

The first invitation I got was very sudden, someone I never danced or someone I never even noticed. He just walked to me and asked to go to cafe in spanish, and obviously the only reason I understood his spanish was because he used the word cafe! I quickly shaked my head, said :”No, and No espanio!” He said something else afterwards and I kept cool and shaking my head and he walked away. It happened very suddently and ended quickly too, i wasn’t annoyed or bothered, just laughed that it did happen the way all my friends had told me! ; )

What I really wanted to share in this blog is my very long-lasting 2nd invitation!! This guy had kept trying to invite me out for breakfast, the first couple time he used same cafe word so I understood it and responded No very politely! Although he kept saying bunch of things in spanish which I understood nothing other than I knew he was being persistent and trying to convince me! Mid-way through my stay there, I had danced with him for many times now every time we met in milongas, he always invited me to dance a tanda or two, he always still talked to me in spanish, always still trying to ask me out, but it always ended with me walking back to my table and walked out of milonga with my fellow friends and taxied home! One day, I was standing against the bar at canning by myself enjoying watching the floor, he came by and started talking to me again, he kept go on and on, while he was talking, i started saying:” si, si… as if i am saying hm, yeah, yeah in English while someone is talking!”, I had no clue what I had brought myself into, all I remembered was I saw a flashing smile in his face and he happily walked back to his table. In the end of the night, he walked to my table, and sat there waiting for me to finish putting my stuff to my purse. And that’s when I realized I might have accepted his “breakfast”-sort of invitation while i went si, si si…. to whatever he was saying……And that made me very nervous and also a bit of shamed of myself for what I did to myself. A friend of mine who went to this milonga with me that night came back to the table to collect her stuff, and I was so happy to see her so I invited her to join the breakfast. (I did also learn before i left for the trip, if you go to a breakfast or cafe with friend, then normally it will be ok because you can just leave with your friend) She looked at me with a bit of surprise on her face, and responded she wouldn’t be able to because he had to pack for her upcoming trip!! She walked away to say good bye to other friends, and I left alone again with him at the table. For a moment, i was a bit stressed out and worried , my brain probably run 400 rpm/min trying to figure out how I can get ride of him without being rude.  I started to walk towards outside of the Milonga , hugged people I know there said good-bye along the way, meantime he was following me a bit. I turned around and looked at him, shaking my head really hard and hoping he would understand, and then I left the place with my friend. Thanks to god, he didn’t follow me all the way out, otherwise I would really be in a bad position to get rid of him!! I walked with my friend a bit, and then I took taxi home!!

You thought after this this guy would probably be very mad at me and not bother to either say hi or dance with me again right? But couple nights later we met again and guess what he said this time. He said two words that I completely understood without doubt and believe me I was shocked and a bit “Touched” (Not in that way but in a different way). “My house” is what he said. Something more straight-forward than cafe or breakfast I guess, but at that moment, instead of feeling being bothered or annoyed, I actually felt he was being very cute!!!! In a way he reminded me of myself, when I want to get something, I try hard and persistant to work on it until I get it!!

I showed my wedding ring to him and told him I am married. He gave me this look of this meant nothing and after a while, he finally gave up and walked away………

From then on, he didn’t say hi or dance with me anymore, which of course I didn’t say hi or intend to dance with him either!

I am pretty sure any girls who goes to BsAs has stories about breakfast/cafe experience. Not everyone will write about it or talk about it because it is so personal. I wrote it like I said in the beginning really not to brag about it or laugh at those guys who did it, but really to me these kind of experience together with everything else I experience in BsAs together made my trip a complete story and an unforgetful trip!!!

BsAs Trip blog No.8- Experiencing 3 days SEMINARIO INTENSIVO DE TANGO ARGENTINO with 4 amazing teachers

The only group lesson I took during my whole trip was this 3 days Seminar intensive Argentine tango(details of the seminar: http://www.seminarioporteno.blogspot.com/)  with

Ariadna Naveira & Fernando Sanchez

Inés Muzzopappa & Federico Naveira

First time I saw these 4 amazing dancers was at Practica X on Nov, 24th (Although I felt like had met them somewhere else, really couldn’t recall where and when). Their performance was a combination of 3 songs if I remember correctly. 3 songs were all connected. They started the performance with Ariadna leading Ines and then Fernando entered  and started dancing with Ariadna while Ines stepped aside. later Ines danced with Federico, then two couples started dancing together. There were time they danced to exactly same movement in sync, there were also moments they danced to their own thing. What made me paid attention to Ariadna wasn’t all those interesting show elements, wasn’t all those movement they were doing, also wasn’t the way how she moved her body (Not saying it wasn’t beautiful the way how she moved her body), but, the LOOK she has in her face!!!!! I have to admit that I am much more of an emotional dancer vs technical type. I have always believed that emotional/feelings makes a dance alive!! How should I make this clear, in China we have a saying: “bring the painted dragon
to life by putting in the pupils of its eyes”. To me, having facial expression as part of expressing feelings and emotion in dance is just as bringing the painted dragon to life!!! There were moment her facial expression was so innocent as if she was wondering, there were moments she had a bit of anger, there were moments, she was confused………. I have to say, this is the only time that I was touched/attacted out of all performances I saw in every milonga I went to during my 17 days stay. Ok, enough of the look in her face, here is a video of part of their performance of that night from youtube, I didn’t take the video but practica X organizer did it I believe:

I walked to Ariadna after performance while she was leaning against the bar to rest. I expressed my feeling towards her performance and then asked for her contact information for private. She was very politically polite and wrote down her website for me so I can contact her via email about scheduling privates!

Second day, I heard that they were organizing a 3 days seminar so I decided to join without hesitation.  The reason why I want to blog about this seminar is because I want to share the way how they teach, and structure of their seminar:

• Each day we have 2 classes. Each class is taught by each teacher couple. Day 1: we started with Ariadna & Fernerdo taught us some basic warm-up exercises like staying on our toe up high, lean our body over with back flat and toe life up high…etc; It took us whole hr for the warm-up exercise, and then we moved on to Federico and Inez and we worked on gancho.
• Day 2: we started with Federico and Inez, and maybe 30mins on the same warm-up exercises, and then we started practicing pivoting outside turn on our own with control and you have to finish the pivoting without the free leg touching the floor. And we had to generate the momentum by turning our chest. And then they made it a bit harder for us, we have to inside turn with same specification, then later, we have to be able to do both inside and outside turn finishing with either front beleo or back beleo with control. I scanned through the floor, we have about 50 people at least in the seminar but I honestly didn’t see anyone who can do that with 100% successful rate of course myself included. : ) (P.S, teachers sometimes lost balance every once a while as well : ) ). Second class, we worked on beleos with Fernando and Ariadna. There was one beleo that was very challenging, basically woman do back beleo off man’s front cross step. Because the amount of torsion from woman and man, and both of players have to be in a perfect position, hip needs to be at same level, man have to lower down to allow woman slide up her arm to prevent blocking woman’s body to be closer to man to make this beleo happen. Geoff and I were able to do it but never felt it being perfect!! Here is the video I took on this movement:
• Day 3 is a combination of Practica and some games. I really liked the challenge games we played. So the first game we played is teachers gave us 3 elements in a particular order and asked us to put together a combination of movement. I remembered it was Gancho , beleo & Gancho. We all got 2 songs to work on that, and 2 songs over, teachers had students come to the center of the floor and demo what we had come up. Second game was same elements but in reverse order:  Beleo, Gancho & Beleo. Here is a video of 4 teachers participating in this game: 
• One of the classmates’s creation I thought was very creative:
• After this, they decided to be more creative, so each one of 4 teachers throw up a thing that they like and then asked us to put together a movement in that order.

Anyway, the idea is when you learn a combination of movement from anybody, when you learn it you can learn it the way you were taught but after that you need learn to break it down and explore other possibilities, sometimes you will find even better combinations than what you was taught. Interesting enough, this whole concept is so much similiar than work breakdown structure concept in project management. : )

Overall, it was an excellent seminar!!!!!!! Price was very acceptable too only 130 or 120 pesos for 3 days classes!! I will really recommend anybody who travels to BsAs to take either group class or private class from them!!!

BsAs Trip blog No.7- Tango shoe obssession

It is almost a must-do activity for tango dancers to go shoe shopping in BsAs, me, absolutely not an exception!

My first day there, Dani, my great friend who is also an Argentine took me to Neotango store. Believe it or not, I got 1 pair of shoe just on my first day there!!

My second shoe shopping trip was with lovely Apricot. We met up at the “Taconeando” store in Recoleta area. Designer of this brand happens to be Lungkuei’s friend, so we made appointment with the designer to assist us in choosing shoes. I got there with Brian, without waiting for my show shopping company, I started choosing and here is what I got:

No.2 : A very stylish and metalish looking shoe which is a great break from classical looking tango shoe with 4 inches high heel:

No.3 : Orange and green color combination pair, front part is very interesting kind of texture material and the cage part is covered with silk:

No.4: White leather pair with grey-greenish heel:

No.5: Green leather pair from lighter green heal and golden strip:

No.6: T-strip leopard skin front and yellow heal :

No.7: Leather practise shoe from Taconeando:

After nearly 2hrs shopping at Taconeando, Apricot and I left the store with biggest satisfaction we could ever imagine. But how could we left the area without paying a visit to Comme Il Fault which was just a few blocks away. Besides I was in mission to get my friend jingzi two pairs of Comme Il Fault.

No.8: Purple-Silver shiny pair from Comme Il Fault

No.9: Golden and black suede mixed shoe from Comme Il Fault:

No 10: Red classical suede Comme Il Fault shoe:

BsAs Trip blog No.6-2 times experience in Zorro Plateao Milonga(El Beso)

From the Buenos Aries Milongas list I printed from this website: http:www.buenosairesmilongas.com, there are total of 38 milongas for Friday. That hasn’t included some of the new milongas that launched recently, for example: my new friend Lucas’s Milonga “Codigo De Barra” at Scalabrini Ortiz 757 – Palermo.

Nov, 19th, my first Friday in BsAs. Some of friends like Sorin, LungKuei were going to El beso, so I decided to join them for a bit before I went to Later Viruta for the later night. I got to El beso around mid-night.  When I walked in, I saw a beautiful space that has colorful paint on the wall, beautiful chinese style lanterns hanging over the dance floor, and yes this place has amazing wood floor that was a shock to me!! In order to walk through the space, you had to walk pass a bar area and then people sit 3 other sides around the dance floor. The place was packed that night, I walked my way through the bar area and started to look for Sorin and Lungkuei. While I was standing in front of other people that were hanging around near the bar, in a sudden, an old elegant lady walked to me with pretty serious and upset face saying:

” You can’t stand here, there are other people waiting for a seat!”

At first, I was shocked and then I quickly woke up from the shock and responded politely saying :” I am not looking for a seat, I am looking for my friends!”.

The lady was certainly not satisfied with my response, she asked again:”What’s your friend’s name?”

“Sorin, Lung Kuei”, I responded knowing she probably won’t know who they are and where they sit.

She shaked her head and said plainly :”I don’t know them!” Apparently, she wasn’t too thrilled with my responses but what else could she say… She walked away with some level of disatisfaction which she failed to put into words to me……

But this certainly reminded me that El beso is a very traditional milonga place, we need follow certain code and rules here that I am not quite aware of yet. I intentionally stepped back couple steps instead of aggresively looking for them, I behaved a bit less aggressive.  Finally, the tanda was over, familiar face Sorin walked towards me. He pointed to me where they were sitting though Sorin did also tell me there wasn’t addtional seat for me. Seat is sensative in this place, isn’t it?! : ) I saidI just want to put my stuff down and put my shoe on.  : ) I run cross the dance floor, sit down in Sorin’s seat while he took a vibrate break. I put my shoe on, settled my purses and stuff. Sorin came back and invited me to dance. We danced one tanda and I walked back to the table. Shortly after I sit, I saw another guy who I danced with once at Canning. He was certainly a milonguero. He is at his 45 or 50’s, he was a beautiful dancer(His name is Sergio)!! I was very happy that he cabeceod me right after the new tanda started. I guess these two dances I got presented me very well, after that, my rest night in El beso was enjoyable and filled with lots of dancing!! I have to say, everytime I danced by the lady who gave me a hard time at the begining, I felt pressured as if it was a crime that I got dances for someone who didn’t “respect” her rules (Respect in her senseI guess!) ha ahaa…. The other milonguero I danced with also worth mentioning. His name is william, he wears nice shirt, and he is probably in his 50’s, at one point I asked him how many year he had been dancing and he asked me to guess, so I said 50 years, he started laughing with a bit upset. He raised his voice and  said :” 50  years, how old do you think I am!” : ) I am not that old!!! , 50 years!!” (Btw, his name is William) : ) I hang out in this place till about 1 am and left for La Viruta happily!!

Here are some pics of El beso: (P.S I didn’t take below pics, the pics I took turned out poorly, so I got below two pics from internet)

Nov, 26th, I had two choices for early milonga, either “Codigo De Barra” or “El beso”. I forgot the address of Codigo De Barra milonga so I had to go to El beso knowing I probably will be there alone by myself. My second time experince worth mentioning just because how that same lady changed her attitude towards me. It was a very fasinating experience! I got there, met William at downstairs the entry way. He hugged me friendly and welcomed me! I think we both were happy to see each other! : ) Iit was packed as last Friday. I didn’t expect anybody I know will be there, so I found myself a very hidden corner seat after I went upstairs, settled my stuff and changed shoes and stood up right away to prevent the same lady give me a hard time about me taking seat : ).  I certainly wasn’t expecting any dance for being in that kind of corner. But sometimes, when you least expect something, beautiful things happen. First, one of the mid-age guy(half-bald) who always sits in the exclusive table at La Viruta with bunch of other guys in suits noticed me hidding in the left corner , he walked through people and invited me to dance. I have to say that was a beautiful moment, he made me feel like he was a father who tried to take care of his “lost” daughter!! That look he had in his face as if he was saying :” We won’t let you be buried in the crowd, and let’s dance!!” The dancing part of it was nice but I was more touched by his loving action!!Isn’t argentine man sweet and lovely???I felt a bit guilty that I didn’t even ask for his name, but, you know sometimes name just isn’t as important!

(Just found a pic of this suit guy who did the mercy dance with me from someone else’s pic albumn:)

 

 

 

 

 

He escorted me back to my place, and I hided myself again until I noticed one of young guy who I apparently had met somewhere but I couldn’t remember, all I remembered was that he was absolutely a good dancers. So I smiled at him even he was talking with two of his other guy friends right next to me. He looked back and picked up my smile, and I officially cabeceoed him, and that WORKED!!!! It turned out he is a tango profession, his name is Martin (Don’t know whether it is how it is exactly spelled but it is how it is sounded), he performed couple days ago either at Practica X, or Milonga 10, or Villa malcom. : ) (Oh Yes, I know I have a very good memory!) It was such a rewarding experience dancing with him! Up till this moment, I could have left the place satisfied but I didn’t because I felt like I owe my old friend William a dance (Doesn’t that sound funny, you only met or dance with someone once, and you felt like you are friend of him already!) I looked at him, he looked back and laughed. I couldn’t tell that was a laugh of “hmm i know she is going to dance with me” or a laugh of ” I’m glad she is interested in dancing with me again!”………… you know what, that doesn’t matter! I danced with him in a way as if old friend danced. He said couple times in between songs that I like to jump…. Although I don’t quite get it, i think what he meant is my energy was a bit too much for the dance! : ) My second night at El beso story couldn’t end without mention the old lady (Organizer of the milonga) who gave me a hard during my first time. Somewhere during my 2nd time there, she walked to me, looked at me with a beautiful smile and said :”How are you?” while she held my hand as if she had known me for a while! Oh, that’s right, it was after I danced with Suit guy, William and Martin………..

I was very lucky and satified with both of my time to El Beso, but I think from my limited experience there, I learn something very Interesting and worth reflecting!! Attitude somtimes is not against people but against situation! Same people could be treatedly very differently depending on whether you getting dances, whom you dance with & how other people treat you……  Facinating, isn’t it!!

I think I will be back to El Beso again, really not for dancing but for experience!

Btw, if you’d like to meet this singer of “Sexteto Milonguero” tango orchestra, this is the place to stalk him! I heard from Felipe there are always lots of women trying to talk to him or take pics with him, so be aware the pressure is on! ; ) Here is a pic of “Sexteto Milonguero” playing at milonga 10 (Pic is stolen from Jenna’s BA pic albumn) : )