Taipei Tango Festival 2009
The annual Taipei Tango Festival is set to kick off next week (16-21 September). Despite the worldwide economic gloom and doom, four fantastic couples from Argentina will be featured, namely
- Javier Rodriguez & Andrea Misse (the regulars)
- Leandro Palou & Romina Godoy (2nd time for Leandro)
- Esteban Moreno & Claudia Codega (4th trip)
- Damian Esell & Nancy Louzan (2nd time)
Having attended four festivals in the past, I can say that this is definitely one of the premiere annual events in the tango scene in Asia and highly recommended. Unfortunately, after spending much of my holiday budget in the earlier part of the year, I will be missing it for yet another year.
Since the first edition of the festival (maestros included Javier Rodriguez & Geraldine Rojas, Leandro Palou & Andrea Misse and Guillermo Merlo & Fernanda Ghi) in 2003 that I attended, the community in Taiwan has been going from strength to strength. In contrast, having been in the tango community in Singapore since almost the beginning, I can only lament the many missed opportunities in the past 8-9 years. I guess things are really put into perspective when, with the departure of a handful of men to the Taipei festival, the weekend milongas are almost certain to be very quiet during the festival weekend!? Well, with top-class maestros making trips to Singapore regularly for the past 3 years now and more large-scale events on the horizon, there may still be hope yet! 😉
Foot exercises
Something for the followers to strengthen their feet, courtesy of Mari of “My Tango Diaries”.
Transformations
Had an unusual experience a couple of months ago.
Despite the extremely slow start to the night – it seems people are choosing to arrive later and later for the week-night milongas – I still ended up having a good night of dancing. Halfway through the night, since I am always trying to adopt the notion of “free-ness” and completely “going with the follower” these days, small matters like feet placement, or passing/closing of feet were thrown out the window for the night. However, after quite a few dances, I was suddenly worried that my dancing might be getting a little “messy”!? When I commented to a friend, I was pleasantly surprised by her reply. Apparently my dancing from time to time reminded her of another friend who danced a “milonguero” style, which was a little puzzling initially because during the recent trip to Buenos Aires I had taken only a single private class with a recognised milonguero.
Well, I guess it’s just one of those subtle transformations that people can experience after a trip to Buenos Aires? Nevertheless, I did enjoy myself that night. 🙂
Grocery list
To add on to the main lessons I learnt from BsAs, here I attach a short list – to serve as a reminder for myself – of the important technical things I picked up, and need to revise…
Group classes at Escuela de Argentino Tango
- steps and leads that can be used for milonga (as in the music style)
- lossening of the embrace and yet have a closer connection with my partner
- some slightly fancy enrosque patterns that requires the leader to be a bit more “selfish” in keeping his balance/axis (in the highly-hyped Villa Urquiza style 😈 )
Privates
- how to dance freely
- going with follower’s axis/weight so that she can also move freely and not be restricted by me
- the mental attitudes to project
At the milongas
- feeling the music
- joy of dancing
- truly dance with each other
- patience and yet be quick to react to music and situation on the floor