THEY ARE HERE - time to face the truth

They are here, very relunct. I decided to spend money on a pair of these: not because they are beautiful, or sexy, or great ( I love my pratica ugly shoes to death), but because I had to find a  way to fight this annoying height difference ( why is everyone in LONDON so TALL (!) (!) (!)

... now, will I able to dance on them at all (?) lets see ...
( or if is the coming back to the pratica shoes)

One thing for sure, if I cannot keep my balance on speedy boleos, they have to go BACK .

Now - this is what TANGO should be all about + some fresher visual look

Mouth dropping ... just wish the newess would have stretched a tiny bit to the look too ( styling ) - but this is me really just taking it too far - they are abs. brilliant - and in the end it is the dance that needs to do the talk.

Monday Tango Pratica

Mondays are always loooooong days ... leaving home 7.30 for my weekly asthanga follow up (self practice) and returning home after the Tango pratica anything between 12.00 and 1.00 am.

Its really a punch start of the week. But I must say, asthanga has made such a difference , it really energizes me for the all day - better late, them ever - I found my energy balance secret.

Finishing the day with Tango practise is always so nice, especially since the I had the pleasure to be adopted (kinda off) by the lively Germans ( Lukas, Gabriel and Jana) - theyre great (!) def. makes Tango more fun.

Just a couple of shoots of the last pratica -  featuring Miss Jana,  Mr Lukas, Grabriel, Joel (sorry I hope I got the name right).

Lukas and Joel

beautiful tango dance partners (!) (?)

he usually dances with me but this time I got swapped (lol)

Lukas teaching some basics to Joel -  he is an actor and doing a new project

 its own piece translating/fusing Shakespeare and Tango (Tango and Text)

he is a a very creative  Tango dancer

and I really like to dance together

he is fearless and very free in his approach,

so we always try new things

(really exciting) (!) 

and of course, my favorite male tango shoes in London

  Jana and Gabriel

Jana is a flower artist ( we are planning to do a project togheter) 

Gabriel does graphic design - he is really cool -  but he likes to wear tango followers distractive t-shirts (lol)

They are soooo nice :)))

Geill (!) (!) (!)

A BIG jump to Tango@SPITALFIELDS - London

Some photos of Tango@Spitalfields this weekend -  was TOO HOT -  so I preferred to take photos instead. The muses were Hiba + Rene (my teachers) +  a mysterious styled girl.

Sometimes watching is way better than dancing ^^

feet syncronicity

where is Hiba (?)

THE embrace

Rene - got caught (!) ^^

and them the bags stopped the music

Entangles: bags versus music - 1

working (?)

Entangles: bags versus music - 2

                                                                 the BAGS must go (!)

                                                         Entangles: bags versus music - 3

victory - music wins (!)

Entangles: bags versus music - 4

the virgin lookalike girl in white stocks + red skirt + chinese top + white hair + lots of hair

who is she (?) - 1

here she is  + the EXOTIC taste of BRITISH MEN

(really strong hair)

who is she (?) - 2

He is REALLY fascinated - so was I (!)

who is she (?) - 3

I follow 

NEVER to LATE to DANCE

(backstage bus action)

and  moi -  doing a forward ocho (?) (!)

the other day@ Regents Park

There is something to learn here ...

So, despite many of  my blessings and the genuine, warm welcoming support of some really nice and talented people ... I am still not enjoying Milongas ...

It is kinda off pushing me against the wall  making me question on sensitive personal ground ...

The first thoughts are ,well just stop going ... why would you spend time in places you dont relate to
 ( especially with good weather on the doorstep and a new exciting range of extravagant, wild friends...)

The point is, striking,  that there is somehow the screaming believe that it was no coincidence I have decided one year ago to pursue Tango instead of developing my flamenco ... that there is in fact something here to LEARN...

The promise that there is something to learn here ...

The wall flower phase ...

After a 3 month gap, due to my foot injury ... I could not wait to get back to dancing again.
But the coming back was a bit least warm than I have wished for...
Recently, I have read a tango blog where  the author refers to the term "wallflower"  related to (female) dancers in Milongas. She claims that at some early stage all followers had to be submitted to this kind off gentle torture, while one weaves up into the complex (somehow disturbing- I find) Milonga social/hierarchy net.

I am in no doubt going trough a wallflower phase... I dont enjoy it, I dont understand it, but I will endure it ( even if it takes me scarifying my out friday nights with friends to sit in boredom, motionless, watching other people dance)... if there is one thing I know about myself, is that I am stubborn, really stubborn...

I have been explained several times, that this is the way it is .... to be patient, that it takes time ... on one side Tango is this wonderful, intoxicating movement perfume  you want to embrace, pursue, follow right away and on the other hand it is this old, rigid, irascible old man wrinkled face, a tight knot of rules, who has been dictating behavior (and perhaps who knows life's...) since god knows when...

I wonder if wallflowers and cliques are really essential ... maybe they are, maybe they are not... I will discover tough, eventually... meanwhile,  cant we not just dance?

I want to finish this post by thanking once again, my supportive teachers, who kindly and patiently, keep on wisely advising me and inspiring me...



.

M-I-L-O-N-G-A-S

Milongas...
Here we go, and face the beast.

I was just asking myself why do I do it?

Yes, why do I travel in the night to some remote place 1.30m away from my flat, sit in boredom for 2 hours or so, waiting for some weird man to come and ask me to dance?

And further more, why am I so decided to keep on doing it?

It is the game of the follower, of waiting ... and I am determined to play it right, at least once in my life.

I keep on doing it because I love dancing... thats why.

All round beauty ...

Because this blog is about people too, I want to post about a person I admire  as a dancer, and artist.

I find strangely easy to pick up a word to pin Hiba on my mind - since I haven't met her for so long - and that word is beauty. I speak of a beauty that comes from being genuine, from an sincere easiness - she is that kind of person that when she smiles at you, you feel at home - ( by all means pls be noted that she has the looks too).

It is this same dispretensious and sincerity I came to admire in her work too, as a photographer. Looking trough her work I felt an easiness, almost familiarity passing by images of people and places my eyes or feet have never touched - a direct sense of understanding ( no subtitles or intros needed). If you understand, you connect - and is this not what a image wants to convey in the end?

Tango Lives and Tango Homes are two of these wonderfull projects that tour us into the privacy of some really unique places and ultimately people, who overall are linked trough Tango. If youre not into Tango, you will probably be after you see some of these...

It is about reporting in a very particular intuitively way, the existence ( thank God) of some very unique and exciting individual points of view in Tango.

The only IF... is that she is a bit of a teaser, and only gives you a very little peak into her work and world ... but thank you for these anyway.

(Tango Lives, Tango Homes, Entangled)
Photograhy by Hiba Faisal
http://www.hibafaisal.com

  

 

The physio did not quite worked ...

After 6x weeks od physio, I am afraid to say it did not quite worked...

But ay least I got to meet someone utterly different from my background, someone who plays Polo, and which would it not have been trough the medical net I would probably would never had met ... how exotic.

I speak about my physiotherapist Peter C., to which I want to thank for all its dedication, enthusiasm and for sucessfully entertaining me over this dull, and somehow painful process.

I dont think, I ever quite encountered such a curious and energetic person ... in the medicine field I mean.

(Still intend to ask, what is your secret  ...what food supplement do you take?)

Only by looking at the photos now I have realized how small my feet are and how tainted my skin is ...

oh well, it goes with my hair ...

     

 

Big Toe bondage ....

So I got my foot toe cramped, 12 weeks ago and have been enduring since them, a painful long recovery from a very stubborn tendinitis.  How could I have guess at that sunny afternoon in SA that a pair of flip flops could have this result ... 

Lesson: Flip flops are evil ....

This is my poor little foot after a one class attempt this past Monday ... but the dancing felt great!

And to my surprise I did not forgot all due to this gap ...

Trying to conclude and trying to see the BIG picture: the fact I am not able to pursue dancing, now that I finally have the time, is starting to take a toll on me... At the moment I am falling in a grand scale to understand the strange ways of fate and why this is happening to me ...

I found myself know envying 50 year olds who are able to run smoothly trough the dance floor, I have know realized I am starting to have toe envy!

( and that sounds incredibly bad...)

Something creative ... Tango and Cocorosie together

Ensayo I from Adán Cohen on Vimeo.

Previous rehearsal for video-dance project.
Music: "Bear Hides and Buffalo" by CocoRosie
Maru Garcia - Adán Cohen

I was super excited when I saw this ... just perfect - one of my favorite bands ever (Cocorosie) and Tango improvisation, brought together.

Apparently, this is just a "ensayo", so we will probably be treated to more ... good things happen :)

Apart from the creative musical choice ( who would have tought to Tango at Cocorosie?), I really like the all spontaneous feel, the spontaneous experimentation of movement and the upper body, and I particulary like the fact that we dont see any feet, but still it is very obvious it is Tango we are speaking about.
There is something somehow disconcerting, chaotic and simultaneously harmonic - the connection is not only there, but as well in the end with us, the observer ...

Again, I am just happy to have seen this, and to have the reassurance, that out there (in la Plata.Arg. to be more precise), people are doing new things and taking Tango out of the old dusty days ...

So, heres to mr. Cohen and his vision to bring these two together - Thank you for having this idea!

Something different ...

(Santiago Dorkas - Cecilia Garcia ...Ensayo)

As a creative, the new and freshness of ideas has always been what makes me thick and want to go for it...
Most people ask me why I got into Tango ...
At first I struggle to answer, I cant really see why, superficially the all tacky Tango melodramatic scene never has appealed to me, neither the tight red dress or the net stockings...
I was first drawn to Tango, because one day I fell the urge to learn how to listen ... it has always been something I have struggled with...
To listen one must be in silence, and recently in this silence I found not only I could listen to others butt myself better too ... them you start to discover interesting things ...

Them I had my first great dance connection, and got addicted to the feeling of dancing again ... and I feel, as I hopefully progress on my level I can start to explore the many, new, unique, new ways out there to explore and feel Tango...
Like all arts, is all about having a new, unique point of view ...
and there is really nothing more exciting than this journey ...


Now, how come I dont get to see Tango like this in London often??
Lets shake the dust a little bit and try something new, something different ...