Field trip
Will be going to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend to attend the “Extended Tango Weekend with Nazareno Listur Borda and Mariana Mendina Gourgues”, organised by Tango Malaysia. Incidentally, this couple recently competed in the World Stage Tango competition that was part of TREX Games 2008, Busan, Korea – you can read about the competition from the representative for Hong Kong here.
I think this will be a great opportunity to get to know our Tango neighbours so to speak. In the meantime, I am hoping to quickly get over the flu that has been hassling me since Sunday so that I can enjoy my dancing over the weekend!
ps. Just realised that my last Tango trip there was over 4 years ago!
Slow and steady valses
A short and quick one.
Here are some suggestions for “slow and steady” valses, that are supposed to be suitable for people learning to dance to vals rhythm. As I don’t have all of these tracks (or the right versions), the usual disclaimer YMMV. 🙂 However, it is sometimes rather refreshing to see other people’s choices.
- Francisco Canaro – Ronda del Querer
- De Angelis – Sonar y nada. Not too quick and fairly steady, but has some nice different phrases (rhythmic – lyric) alternating.
- Roberto Firpo – Olas Nocturnas
- Roberto Firpo – Nunca Me Olvides
- Roberto Firpo – Horas De Pasion
- Lucio Demare-Sus Éxitos con Miranda, Berón y Quintana – Dos corazones
- Lucio Demare-Sus Éxitos con Raúl Berón – Al pasar
- Lucio Demare – No Nos Veremos Mas
- Lomuto Francisco – Un vals
- Lomuto Francisco – Congojas que matan
- Lomuto Francisco – A su memoria
- Pedro Laurenz-Creaciones inolvidables con Podestá y Bermudez – Paisaje
- Pedro Laurenz-Creaciones inolvidables con Podestá y Bermudez – Temblando
- Pedro Laurenz – Mendocina
- Anibal Troilo – Troilo-Fiorentino Vol2 – Pedacito De Cielo
- Troilo – Un momento
- Troilo _Glorias De Tango Vol. 2 – Romance de Barrio
- Canaro-Glorias de Tango Vol.1 – Sonar y nada mas
- Canaro-Glorias de Tango Vol.1 – Bajo el cielo
- Francisco Canaro – Tres Jolie (Muy Lindo)
Cacho Dante
It seems that one of the well-respected milonguero and teacher of the milonguero style – Cacho Dante – now also has a personal website! Hopefully this will make it easier to locate his classes from now on.
For those who have yet to meet him (me included), here is a short scene from the movie The Tango Lessons, showing Cacho dancing with Sally Potter. He appeared from ~0:30-0:58.
ps. I have included this clip so this incident will not repeat itself in future…
Thoughts on teaching
I recall a comment made by Andrea Misse in one of their group classes with her and Javier Rodriguez (J&A for short) during one of their visits to Singapore, perhaps sometime last year!?.
It was something to the effect that, when teaching group classes, they do not start with the intention of trying to completely replace a person’s pre-existing way of doing things. Instead, they try to complement and enhance what each one of us already has.
Consider this: by the time many of us who are outside of Buenos Aires took up Tango, it is likely that we had already been walking for a good 10-20 years, if not more, and therefore had developed our unique style. Good or bad, this is “us”. So, what is a visiting Tango teacher to do under the circumstances, given that walking (for social Tango) is such an integral element? Well, J&A’s approach as they said during that class is to try to add something on top of what we have naturally, rather than trying to eradicate everything and replace it with “Javier/Andrea memories”.
