A group performed milonga!

What a fantastic group perfomance of Sebastian Archaval & Roxana Suares and Neri Piliu & Yanina Quinones

So clearly  and well timed steps!

Gender role test

Is there a leader behind your traditional follower look?  Or would you do a wonderfull follower but you are dancin as a leader today?

Or are the leader/follower qualities following the male/female pattern?

Anyhow you can test yourself here!

  To the TEST!      

       

Are you smelling bad?

Every now and then there is a campaign for more showers to the dancers! I agree it is nice to dance with someone who smells good or just neutral but it seems that the shower maybe is not enough for some of us.

According to this article there is two types of sweat glands; one for the heat control and the other to remove some substances from the body. So it is not always a missing shower causing problem but the ingredients in your meal can attract a partner or make him/her to break a tanda. It seems that there are several ingredients to be blamed - onions, cauliflower, curry, meat and so on . . .

Here you have a link to the article! Click this line

Personally I have noticed that fenugreek made me smell different, clearly different!


http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/blogs/8-foods-that-make-you-smell-funky

Is tango cliquish?

`

A question among others!

or should the question be like

 Is tango a more intimate dance than all the other dances?
you can be that intimate only with your near friends and therefor it is exclusionary


Other questions you can find via this link -  http://tangoclay.us/poll/

Korea Tango & Argentine group

There are benefits to train together with your peers! You learn about the musicality - more so with a good choreographer! How to relax in the moves so the the performance looks like improvised and still stay synchronized with your peers!

There were several groups in the competition but tis one I like a lot!




Tango Formation 2nd Round 2  2015 Korea Tango Championship


Chachirulo tango formation

Korean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBGMle69oE
Argentine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPY8O-c8LPI

Noelia and Carlitos — Their way into Tango...

They may tell themselves!





Here a really rough videofilm about their dancing!

The story: Leo and Eugenia in Stockholm!

Without a serious survey I still think that Leo and Eugenia are the couple who has done most performaces with a whole story placed into one song! Here you have one of them!

The newspaper game!

Encuentros are more safe

First time on an ordinary milonga this term and I fell to my knees in front of the follower!  (No living thing was harmed in the prosess!)

On the other hand I have managed 3 encuentro milongas in same pants without any problem. I think my feet are working differently in these two types of milongas! At an encuentro I never have had two feet in same leg . . . hmmm

(they are very wide  - 95 cm O )

At Philippines even children dance better than me

How old could they be?  Ten or twelve years?

But what a waltz these kids are showing us!

The choreography is fantastic too!
I will definitely pick some moves from it for private use! :)

They are working really hard for a good dance in the Asia! Check this choreography drill for Kyle!

Kyle Philippe & Zoe at Resorts World Manila - Argentine Tango Vals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnHtADbBsA0

Kyle Philippe - Argentine Tango - Milongahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_dLRYBZ36I

Tango from the skies!

This is a tango event organized by my home community!  One tango dancer was flying over on warm-air-baloon filming this video. It seems to be in the beginning of the evening so there is still only few dancers but the number of white chairs shows the expectations for this summer evening!

This is a facebook video so I cannot embed it here but if you click the link below you can get the whole thing with sound too! (It was posted 27th of July 2016)

HERE please!

Shanghai Festival

During last weekend they have been dancing in Shanghai! This is the 6th festival and the first time I *participated* - I did it virtually via a live link provided by my Korean Facebook friend. With other words I was sitting on my soffa at home watching the live link showing me the performances and later on the dancing!  All that without any delay!! The time difference is working for me because the performances were some time after the midnight but it was 6 or 7 PM here in Nordic so I could watch them simultaneously with my friends in Shanghai.

The live fb window looks like this with a red eye sybol and a number for the onlookers.

I cannot link any fb videos directly here you get just some links in public mode. 

Thanks 정연도 for the videos!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009788375964
(I didn't find any method to link individual videos but with this link you come to his fb profile and can find several performances and beautiful dance crowd videos there around the weekend 24.07.2016)

The organizers have exposed the female dancers most! In the program you can find Guillermina Quiroga, Stella Missé and Alejandra Gutty highlighted and their partners are presented further in to the site.

Here some lines about the organizers presented on the page:

TangoBang, started 2008, has been known the best Tango School and Organizers in Shanghai. Matias Sotto (Argentina) and Vivian Yeh (Taiwan) the two Tango Fanatics that have more than 10 years teaching and dancing experience met in Buenos Aires and are giving Tango lessons and organizing milongas together in regular basic, 5 days a week in Shanghai.

TangoBang has been working closly with Argentina Counsulate to introduce the Tango Culture to Shanghai. World Known Tango Masters have been brought from Buenos Aires for Tango Workshop and shows included: Geraldin Rojas y Ezequiel Paludi, Damian Essell y Nancy Louzan, Pablo Giorgini y Noelia Coletti, Fabian Peralta y Virginia Pandolfi, Analia Carreño y Luis Ramirez, Martin Maldonado y Maurizio Ghella. During 2010 Shanghai EXPO, the two parties hosted several successful Tango events in Argentina Pavilion, including the first ever milonga in EXPO, that brought Argentina Tango to Shanghai, China, and the visitors from all over the world.

In 2011, TangoBang successfully hosted the 1st Shanghai International Tango Festival. Tangueros around the world joined the festival was impressed by the passion and the standard of dance in Shanghai.

I have found no videos from the Festival 2016 so I post one from last year but I promise to update as soon as I get to know a new one!

Below you will find the organizers, Mattias and Vivian, performing!

If you want to check the site please follow the link below!
http://www.tangobang.cn/shanghai-tango-festival/?view=6#/en/11402

SketchUp your dream shoes!

Here you have a tool to sketch up your dream shoes!







The free Google Sketchup tool can help you to visualize even your other dreams!

Alejandra y Aoniken the most touching

They are thr most touching couple for me thesee days!
Often times I am near the tears through the video and I watch it again and again. Not happening with any other couple!

Her body moves like a floating whiplash to music and he seems to offer the adventurous enough interpretation of the music for her!

Vibrating music!

These nobs were vibrating to music! 

 It was a strange experience and I returned every now and then to feel 

how a specific song or cortina feels to my hands.

Try it!  I am sure you will find different physical objects vibrating to your favorite music!

At a shoe shop in Lillehammer

A shoe shop needs a proper piece of furniture!! Don't you agree?!

Encuentro in Lillehammer!

The Saturday afternoon milonga in Lillehammer, Norway was the most crowded one! 

I enjoyed it deeply!!    I really felt I was dancing

In the same night we lost a significant number of dancers to TV  

an important football game was more interesting for many participants!  

(this goes totally beyond my understanding . . . .)

The afternoon situation!

(what is going on with this photo???  we seems to be streched vertically??)

                                                     . . . . and the dizzy feeling of dancing in a crowd!

Some were enjoying the cortias too!!

Argentine Tango Documentary 1993-94

They still post some old videos you don't have seen yet!

Foxtrot suitable as a milonga?

The following discussion was if this was a foxtrot or quick step and if it could be danced as a milonga

What do you think? Could this be a good break during a loooooong  tangonight?

Tango ads with local flavour

Here two tango advertisement from the Finnish tango community!

The first one has it's connection to sauna - a very central concept in the Finnish everyday life - here it gets it's place on a  marathon ad. I think it is quite natural  this marathon will be warm, very warm!

The second one is about the REAL men in Finland!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1533288880324937/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208944079897053&set=a.2326296554678.2134386.1167596991&type=3&theater

If you think high heels are complicated; Try this!

If you think high heels do complicate your dancing!  What about this?!

Revealing your dancing level?

According to this news clip the body temperature pattern can reveale if you are in love. The consequensies for a couple could be devastating if a free test will be available in future. There could be terrifying options for bodies which are functioning significantly different and test results will segregate them to a lonely life.

On the other hand there could be different use for this kind of checks! For example there maybe is a difference in temperature when you are in a PRACTICA mode and your brain is monitoring your movements and planning the coming steps compared to when your are actually dancing. I think that in the DANCING mode your brain is in a different state and the emotions are more active, you feel your dance. This could produce a different thermographic pattern, noticable in an external device. It could reveal at what level your dancing shifts back to practica level, when you need to think how to dance. This shift is different for different dancers and it goes together with the skil level. The more skilled couple the later the shift comes!

So in the future the organicer asks you to dance, points her mobile phone at you and places you to level x on the workshop weekend!

Here you have the link to the love version of the body thermography test:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/wonder/thermographic-cameras-can-tell-if-youre-in-love/vi-BBtunXP?ocid=spartandhp

 

The brooms as a partner

He   r e a l l y  knows the follower movements!

If you want to twist your brain try it!
                    I will push your leader skills and learning much further, deeper!

          

POCHO PIZARRO EL BAILARIN DE LA  ESCOBAS Bailando QUEJAS DE BANDONEON

A tip from a DJ

Are you a DJ and for the moment unsure about a song; Is it danceable or not? Does it put the dancers in fire?

According to a colleague of yours you can use the Youtube as tool to check it out!

If there is a lot performances using that song it could be a real hit at your milonga!


But pay attention! There are fals friends like Libertango

It is enormous popular as a exhibition song but it is very seldom played in a milonga. I think the only occasion per year for me is the summermilonga; a large informal outdoor milonga for several hundreds of dancers every Friday night - there we will hear it even this summer the Gace Jones version, please!

Here is the portal I builded around this song. The subtitles poping up give you a playlist, just cklick the smal video icon to choose that path!

(This youtube solution works only on a computer, sorry for that)

mixed couples - Roxana & Fernando

During this song they are dancing with a new partner and the new kind of song adds up a lot to the complexity of the performance! This is really testing the edges of their combined skills.

I have a deep respect for the Fernando Sanchez skill and technical knowledge he has. I have had only one weekend with a few workshops to base my opinion on but he is a great leader with a clear analysis how the movements are created and easy way to communicate his points to a student.

Roxana has developed to be a radiant performing diva without the negative sides of that word. Together here they find the music wonderfully and the performance is playful joyful


Check her smiles on the way!

Roxana Suarez y Fernando Sanchez, 26/04/2015, Brussels Tango Festival, Random couples #2/5    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdtqoOVo5Kk 

.

Tango moves shown as colors/patterns

Murat Erdemsel is a visual artist too and he has made many efforts, more than anyone I know, to show the dance and music in visual form. Here is one where Sigrid and he have devices attached on their bodies and the researchers show the colorful dance pattern on the wall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCIelzTvceg

Murat's pista training

The first part of pista training is formed as a information section on a flight. You may use these clips as a information before a milonga - posted in an information mail about the event or on a facebook site.

Improve floor craft on tango dance-floors PART-1

Improve floor craft on tango dance-floors PART-2

         

Improve floor craft on tango dance-floors PART-3 

Peninsula - An Asian lady leader

Peninsula has been in Argentina for long periods studying tango and Spanish. If I do remember it right she started her tango studies as a Copes student and for a later days her development has been guided by the appreciated tango pedagogues Carlos Peres and Rosa Forte.

Here she is dancing a walz with Yasmin Karatuna, a gorgeous follower.

Jinsuk Muchacha was her follower on the first videos I spotted at Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOYVFwXDEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di0lBhslFII

Female leaders 2009

I want to share a playlist of early female leaders dancing in public! Check your favorites!

One of my favorites is the number 13 on the list. Alejandra Mantinan is leading and she is doing it REALLY well!

https://youtu.be/Xj10sM2U5QQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8UI-llsDLQ&list=PL-XFTL-1U1LN6L0GnFrViuli5RnYq1QPB&index=10

An early female leader

Fabiano Sharna is a longtime female leader who started among the first female leaders in the world to lead in public!

Here some of the thoughts she want to share with us others

. . . report greater satisfaction with their overall social tango experience when they share learning and dancing time with other women.

. . . Beyond my own story, though, one of the biggest reasons I continue to offer events for women is simply to keep them dancing! I want tango to be healthy and inspiring for women and the truth is that it is not always that.

. . . Because when women DO stay involved for the long haul, and find ways to enjoy tango on their own terms, everyone wins! The community as a whole grows stronger and benefits both from their dancing skills and also from a multitude of creative contributions that range from DJ-ing to dressmaking.


The whole story you can find via the link below:
http://www.sharnafabiano.com/blog/2016/4/27/lady-leaders

She has been working on these aspects for a long time. Here her thoughts from 2011

Uneven lovely dance - is hard compensation

"If we are dependent on having a “good partner”, then we aren’t actually very good dancers."

This was the essence of the blog linked below!

When you are only dancing with partners who are vigorously compensating your low skill level to keep the dance going on you are developing a wrong image about your skill. You probably are not working on the most severe problems in your technique because you are not aware of them, you newer meet your devils.

The whole story!
https://karenkaye.net/2015/06/13/delusions-of-competence/

I still think that the BEST COMBO is when the partners are about at the same level!

Demography of some BA milongas

I do not know the origin of this graph but it is fun to check and as I see it has some real relevance!

To predict a break up of your tango group

It seems that there is quite concrete way to find out if a group has reach a stage when a polarization of the group will split the it to two parts. When I was aware of this mechanism I became more calm and the split was easier to accept.

Mathematical analysis of the break point for a group. Read it because it could do your day some easier too!

This article points out that the dynamics for groups and relationships seems to have different mechanisms. For groups the high number of shared connections is good but for relationship more separated friendship clusters are stabilizing the couple.

http://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2015/09/30/can-we-predict-a-breakup-social-network-analysis-with-matlab/

Ridiculous difficulties!

During my tango years I have become aware of the fact that we are transforming a simple process of dancing to something difficult!  We define the distances, the way we approach the dance partner and all the other small details presented.

Your can open a door but if you need to do it in the Finnish way - then the whole process will turn to  VERY complicated collection of steps which are nearly impossible to perform smoothly!

When watching this old video you could think about your tango history in a class!

    the rhythmically correct way, the critical left foot step, to change weight correctly

 some other similarities? 

There are English subtitles for you if your Finish language skills need some support

Shouldn't we start to reclaim the easy way to learn?

The mishmatch shoes

She visited Buenos Aires and bought shoes. Different colors but same model, the only one fitting her capricious feet.
At home the pairs were worn out after months of dancing but she liked the model and the old lady who was running the shop was trusted. So the next pair was ordered at distance and was delivered across the Atlantic.

It was a disaster. The new pair did not fit.

After some time she was traveling to Buenos Aires again and the shoes with her!

The shopkeeper took a good look at the model, checked the dimensions, asked some questions about my friends special needs and when there wasn't any she said that the shoes were wrongly build!

The front part was size 37 as it should but the heel belonged to a size 38. That was the reason of the bad fit. But that wasn't a problem for her because they could rebuild the shoe, open up the heel and place a correct size 37 there.

When my friend showed the reminds of the earlier pairs, the highly beloved ones, she offered to restore them. Her team could open up the shoe, replace some of the worn out parts and then complete the reparation. That message gave back happy pista for her and some of the other followers my friend met there!

Korea tango - historic and modern

Asia did participitate in the tango boom before the wwII. Here we have a Korean dancer singing a tango.  Seung-Hee Choi - A Garden in Italy 1936

Yuna Kim is not a dancer but a skater and she is sharing the underlying Korean musicality! You may watch the whole performance but if in a hurry check the link to the English speaking commentator who is extatic about her musicality! Starts at 3m10s

https://youtu.be/Vh-850kqJoE?t=3m10s

Here the whole performance - a tango hardly recognized as so . . .

Yuna Kim 2007 World Championships SP El Tango De Roxanne

(British EuroSport Ver. / Kor sub)

And at the end some actual Argentine tango dancing

(Rare!) Seung-Hee Choi - A Garden In Italy (1936)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5x8Ms3s2So

Yuna Kim 2007 World Championships SP El Tango De Roxanne
(British EuroSport Ver. / Kor sub)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh-850kqJoE

Popes birthday dance!

No he is not dancing but the enthusiastic crowd is doing it! Here is the evidence:

Another documentary is quite a lot longer if you are interested!  :)

Even leaders dance at 96

Most of the videos featuring an old tango dancer, a real old one, have been about the followers, about the great grannies!

Here we have a video showing that a leader can be in charge at 96!

96th Birthday Milonga for Alex Turney with Fernanda Ghi, Guillermo Merlo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GweF98USo

The new layout!

As you see it looks different now! Hopefully it is easier to find the postings you are interested in!

Some of the old functions are hidden in the very right side edge! Just hover around there and they will pop up again like in this picture attached.

This dynamic layout provides us the possibility to explore the blog in different ways - YOU decide!!

Check the alternatives under the blog name  CARAMBA!

My personal favorite is the second alternative from the left, the light grey one - Flipcard!
You get a thump nail for every posting and this gives you a easy overall picture of the total blog content.

Try it!!  Which is your favorite!

Encuentro Notches de Invierno

Just after the New Year I participated in the Encuentro Milonguero Notches de Invierno in Raichenau, Austria. This was my second time and the event was nice and as well organized as ever!

I had my new camera with me producing videos only in H265 format and it seems to be a bigger problem to get good editing option for that . . .

Here anyhow some of the photos taken with the high speed option!  With other words the base for these GIF animations are ordinary photos taken in sequence.

The dancing one of the nights!

. . . and clearing the pista!

Address to the website
http://www.nochesdeinvierno.com/en/

Shoe storage you didn't think

I am reorganizing at home  - a smaaaal one room flat - and run across this!

You can also use it as a feet rest after an arduous milonga night!

The idea is at the end of this video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2xoemzJjmc

The knitting needles in new hands!

According to the stories from the early days of tango the mothers were following their daughters to the milonga! They were sitting there and watching what was going on and taking care of the young family members. I can see the virtual scenery where these mothers are sitting in the back ground, in the shadows of a milonga and some of them are knitting so the time was not waisted.

Yesterday evening I have seen the opposite!

The daughter was sitting in the milonga sofa and knitting! She was knitting and meanwhile her mother took the tandas!

A giant shoe building!

No one mentioned the word tango in the article below about the Church in Taiwan but there  m u s t  be some energetic followers behind this building!

Your find the BBC article via the link below

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35320373