Music for a private workshop

Here are the songs we were working with on the musicality section. You find the music and one or two couples dancing the same song.
The range of emotions here are all the way from a sad song to a musical joke!

Viento Norte 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EweUUTfkEaQ

Derecho Viejo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYG5mAi4O5s

This song has been around for a while and *some* years ago it looked like this!

El Espiante
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmQ6ItX33Rs

A playful musical joke on the pista!

The Addams Family Masochism Tango

Year 2000 (about) this was quite ok as a part of a tanda in our community. Only one leader had problems to dance it because of the serious laugh attacks putting him bend over knees!  Others were just dancing.

If you have had it in a tanda lately, please tell how it was going on! I am badly curious!!






Here you have the creator Tom Lehrer at piano - The Masochism Tango

You find some more information and the text for this song in the end of wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_Wasted_with_Tom_Lehrer

The singer changes it and the follower liked it!

During many pauses at late milonga backstage I have heard frustrated dancers to burst out: The dj has SINGERS all the time!! I can not take it anymore this night!!

Many of them were too frustrated to be able to tell why; others told me about the disturbing issues, but I never really understood what the problem was. I found my way through the songs without problems, I was listening the music in a different way I thought.

Now I have got a clue about it! I visited a milonga with live music for a part of the evening. The instrumental songs were really nice to dance to, but then the singer came in: The forward movement, which was created by the instruments, was pushed back and the voice slowed everything down, made it different. I could still dance, but I did not enjoy it. My follower heard the same but she felt that the steps became unsecure, changed to be fragile and matched the music. 

 All the songs were beautiful and beautifully performed but for me it would have been better to stop dancing, sit down and enjoy instead!

Anyhow now I have shared the experience my friends have had so many times; I understand them better now!

History impact on a tanda

In Athens:  the girl told me 
she took some steps on her own 
during our tanda.

She told it's because of her origin,
because she is from Sparta.

I did not noticed, it was ok

Wikipedia:
In ancient Sparta in contrast to Athens, the girls were reared much like boys, including physical fitness training. 









http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Sparta

Military impact on Tango in Thailand

The community has changed the start to be earlier. But the content is still the same despite the military take over.

*SATURDAY MILONGA BY LYNN tomorrow, new hours due to curfew, 16:00 - 19:00 pm, Red Pepper, Rembrandt Hotel, Bangkok, Sukhumvit Soi 18, Asok station. Still includes food/bev. Bt 350. Come early to enjoy full three hours of tango!*

Facebook address to one of the organizers in Bangkok.

The different goals on one pista

It is not so easy to notice that on this very same pista people have different goals, which are driving the split of the group to different subgroups.

We could compare the possible groups in a runner's world to see the activators there and to compare those with the dancers' world. We maybe could agree about following groups: Sunday stroll, Easy training for health, to Get Good at running and the Long Distance Runners who are testing their personal edges.

Can you identify the corresponding groups in your dance community? 

I think the social aspects are strongest for the *Sunday stroll* group and least of importance for the *LongDistance* dancers. There are maybe some health aspects too but not for the Long Distance dancers who are pushing themselves through pain and injuries. The skill development must be extremly important for the LongDistance group and even for the GetGood dancers who are travelling for workshops and milongas around the world .

Which of these would be your group? 

I think your dance life will be much more pleasurable if you can identify the group which suits your interests. If you can find the other dancers with the same goals in your community, establish relationships with those dancers and you will create the most harmonious atmosphere possible for your dance life.

A milonga with max 10 followers

If the milonga is three hours long the organizer should allow at maximum 10 followers to attend the venue. That is the only change to give a good service.

When a DJ is using medium long cortinas there will be four (4) tandas per hour. In this case I can have two rests during the night. With other words I will dance 4tandas, rest one, dance 3, rest one and then dance 3 tandas again.

This kind of small milongas would make it possible for me to offer a tanda to everyone, if they are interested. It would also be easy and natural to say hello to each and everyone. 
What a releaf for a leader!

......................          

written on a dark day      

......................          

I desperately appreciate the followers who can handle a frustrating situation, who can see the actual situation even for the leaders and who are willing to work persistent for the tandas they are longing for. You have my eye! If you are interested.

Café de Hansen is found by archaeologists

There is very little relicts to be found in tango history. Most of the important things of sounds, steps, atmosphere and words do dissappear when completed. Therefore this peace of archaeological excavations feels so interesting.

Café de Hansen opened the doors 1877 and were hosting the tango visitors to 1912. There is discussions about the information if people were actually dancing there or if they just listen to the music while eating and refreshing themselves.

You find a more detailed story in the Tango Chamuyo blog - better English is it too!
http://jantango.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/cafe-de-hansen/

The Spanish version here:
http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/areas/cultura/cpphc/sitios/detalle.php?id=4

The desert flower opened

I have been longing for Alvaros music for a long time and got it at Tango Brujo tonight!

Most of the musicians and singers on the playlist were born long time after golden ages and I felt how something opened up within me, like a flower after a long dry period. A song could sound totally impossibly but was easy to dance to.

It seems that I need a wide range of variety and this is available so seldom.

Thanks!

Check what is happenig on *El Tango Brujo* : http://www.eltangobrujo.com/

This picture is from the late night, nearly at the end of the Milonga so we were only a few left.
I just couldn't take a break earlier!

Dreaming away

Sometimes my colleagues have told that they have driven a car for several miles without any possibility to recall what happened. They remember how they started the engine and then the next thing was that they find themselves at home in front of the garage door.

Most of the times this happened during a period of high stress level or tiredness.

I believe though,  that this kind of state of mind, where your body is working properly but the mind is absent, can occur for the dancers too.  Especially for the followers who can close the eyes, and just relax in the movement. It could be a kind of meditative state and I think that the followers, who have experienced of loosing the awareness of time during a tanda, have been somewhere there.

The abrazos, back and forth

During my leader years I have become accustomed to hear the price and glory of the Argentine leader abrazo. Many followers got something unfocused in their eyes when they remembered back to those days in South America.

These statements include a serious criticism to the European leaders and their abrazos. But it seems to be ok to tell.

I have heard only a few stories about how European leaders are experiencing the Argentine follower abrazos and cannot now catch the content.

The other way round - how the Argentine leaders and followers are experiencing the European abrazo - I do not have a clue about it today.

I start to listen.

Floor breaking birthday milonga

It feels that a piece of tango historia will turn alive again when Pino together with his own family, is planning to reopen Pele, an old family restaurant.

His parents bought it earlier but from 1994 they have had tango actitivities there and it was here I came when the wether came chillier and I needed to find a place to dance inside. So to Pele we went and met our friends!

Yesterday we started the process by celebrating Pinos birthday and after dancing several hours we broke the floor and carried it out! The new floor will come shortly we hope!





Pino is also His wife organizing one of the oldest and biggest festivals in South Sweden, Tango Camp.

http://www.tangocamp.se/tc/sweden/welcome

Housekeeping music!

During several weeks I have been listening to this playlist of Enrique Rodriquez songs when the flat needs to be cleaned up. The songs are runing in brisk rhythm and glad melody as well as I am! A great help!






It seems that the window above doesn't open the playlist - here a new try!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN2D4gpMA2k&feature=share&list=RDCN2D4gpMA2k

Visual pleasures hit my stomach

Every time when I ask my non dancing friends to come and see my hobby their eyes are catched by the biggest movements and highest boleos. That is tango! they say.

I maybe was like that too during the early days. Today I am more looking for the musicality, how the steps are connected to the beats. Some relaxed, experienced dancers can hit very down to my stomach with simple steps cleverly connected to the music. This is not a metaphor, but some videos are tickling my nerves and the feeling of enjoyment is nearly painful.

I have started to think that there is maybe a path this evolution goes; that you can predict what stages you have before you when you take your first steps.

Lady and the bandoneon

Koh Sangji is the foremost bandoneon player in Korea. She and her band have been playing in milongas, music festivals, concert halls, and have gained a very enthusiastic following in Korea.

She has studied with Komatsu Ryota in Japan and Federico Pereiro and Nestor Marconi in Buenos Aires. She graduated from La Orquesta Escuela de Tango Emilio Balcarce in 2011. She will be playing at Seoul tango festival in May and you find some more information by clicking the link far down.

The Youtube video is of bad quality - filmed and uploaded from a mobile - but it gives you a different picture of what a tango concert can be. In this way the public can be far beyond the conservative group of dancers!






http://www.seoultangofestival.com/2014/04/2014-seoul-tango-festival-live-tango.html

Are your ears HURTING? what ? WHAT?

Some of the dancers claim that they want to feel the music in the breast bone!

**But not me! Sometimes my ears are aching even when I have the earplugs in place. 

It is difficult for a DJ to navigate between a variation of demands during a whole night milonga, and usually the most persistant or with highest ranking in hierarchy gets the volume adaption! Therefore I have started to use an app on my phone showing the decibel levels. It is easier to discuss with some numbers in my hand! 

I am sure Your can find your own at your area  and download it for iPhone or Adroid.

In Sweden you get them here: 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.av.buller https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/buller/id418022274?mt=8 http://www.av.se/teman/buller/app/

An advantage of a new focus!

Sometimes it is helpfull to find a new focus point. One of my followers is a nervous kind of person, very like me there, worrying to make mistakes. I could feel it in her body because it was stiff and somehow jumping in to the next step. But one day that was different, up to the degree that I commented it. She told that she got tired to be so nervous and has decided to focus on music and leave the leading to me. If I did not fix her feet, she would give me a second try! :)

Intuitive dancer

The process of becoming a fluent speaker in your native language is quite similar to the process I have had to get fluent in stepping to tango music; by communicating with the people around me. After reaching a certain level in your language you start to feel if the words are not in right order or if the verbform is not correct, you don't know why, you just feel that it is not correct. I also developed a feeling indicating that I am relating my steps to music in a good way or the opposite.

Are you with me?!  Are you also an intuitive dancer?!

The Smallest Milonga in Stockholm

I have not been in a smaller milonga in Stockholm. Yes the private ones, but this is open for everyone. The owner of the coffee shop, is a true collector of things she now shares with all of us. To find new details is such a pleasure, that I occasionally forget to dance!

Every other Thursday she opens for tango but other weekdays have other pleasures and there is allways place for a plain coffee or beer!

parallel vs. connected dance

Within tango you often hear the word connected. I think one of the important aspects explaining the difference is the source of the movement, where the movement starts.

Parallel
Both partners are initiating their own movements when they understand that the other person is reacting on music. You can start a serie of steps when you see/understand that the other person is going to start on a certain beat in music.

Connected
In connected dance you take a step when you in your body feel what kind of step the other person is doing. The information goes both ways and often simultaneously.

I think in most of the couple dances the dancers are growing towards the connected dance, but for the Argentine tango it is the starting point.