BEEN A TOURIST

I never had the intention of becaming a typical tourist in Buenos Aires. I only want to dance tango! Funny enough my sister is visiting me for one week "forcing" me to go to all tourists atractions since she does not dance. In the beginning I was really annoyed since I want to spend my time here either in bed during the day or in the milongas on the night time. Anyways I had to be a good host and gave in and it has been really cousy going to the fairs in Recoleta and San Telmo. In those fairs you can buy all sorts of handmade craft, I bought myself a really cool bracelette made in leather and silver. It´s also really nice to go around Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo watching tacky tango shows and listening to live orquestas. Me and Kolja even got to performe at "El Indio" Benaventes outside milonga. A great experience that definitely added some flavor to our trip.

Teachers Training in Buenos Aires

I´m really in the capital of tango in the world. Here I can take classes with world famous teachers everyday of the week for between 10-30 pesos witch is no money compared to what you have to pay in Europe. One thing to take in consideration when you are going to choose teachers or classes to go is that the best dances are not necessary the best teachers and the same applies the other way around, the best teachers are not necessarily the best dancers. My sister is visiting me and she wanted to take some classes and since DNI are the only ones that seems to have class for beginners we went there. All dancers in DNI are extremely young and talented with very high social skills, with a lots of hugging and kissing . The new studio is located in a old colonial house with big rooms. My sister was suppose to take a beginners class and I was going to take an intermediate class since I like to work with the basics. The girl in the reception told me that they are now going to introduce a new method so they will have the beginners together with the intermediate. I thought, OH NO!!!!!! The reason why I reacted that way is that usually the teachers here spend more time talking then teaching. In my opinion there is a big misunderstanding about the human brain,learning process and different learning styles. They started with an warm up and then started the class, first showing the so called "beginners sequence" witch was absolutely NOT for beginners. The first teachers couples spend 20 minutes showing the figure, then another couple popped up and showed the same figure with a more "advanced" idea. They spend another 20 minutes talking. My poor sister looked like a question mark and I had to ask then if this really was the right level for her. Yes! they said and one teacher had her for 20 more minutes having almost a private lesson in a room filled with 30 people.
We were so tired in our heads afterwards that we ended up living the class before the end and she did not feel that she had learned anything. Her brain was completed overheated. This is unfortunately a common teaching situation here in Buenos Aires in in many other places of course, I have experienced the same in festivals around Europe with top dancers. And of course I have had very good teaching as well along the way . For me the best teachers are the ones that are good in presenting their idea in a clear way and that let the students have the chance to try out the movements. I have to add that ALL the teachers I have been taking classes with are extremely committed with what their are doing, for me the problem is the pedagogical tool and the amount of information plus the unnecessary never ending talking. Fortunately there are many teachers here in Buenos Aires that have already started questioning their teaching skills and they have a wish to became better teachers so in one week the first Teachers Training based on a tool called NLP will take place in Buenos Aires at Villa Crespo. The teachers crew in M2Tango studio in Copenhagen have already taking it and it´s going to be exiting to be a part of it here in Buenos Aires. I´m really curious to hear how they perceive themselves as teachers and for sure DNI will get an invitation to participate because they have a great potential to became amazing teachers! More blogging about that soon! If you are interested in the seminar take a look at http://coachkolja.blogspot.com/ or check my wall on facebook.

Some very good teachers I can really recommend in Buenos Aires right now: Olga Besio, Lucia Mazer, Marcelo "El Chino Gutierrez" and coming soon to give a seminar Gustavo Naveira.

LA MUSICA!!

We have now been in Buenos Aires for two weeks and we have two more weeks to go! So far I have been enjoying myself a lot in the company of my husband, friends and my sister that has arrived from Brazil to visit me for one week. I have been out almost everyday to different milongas, so far to the moust popular milongas in Buenos Aires and I´m quite happy with the music. I have heard a lot of Troilo (They play it always!), Pugliese, Canaro, Tanturi, Biagi, D`arienzo (A lot!), De Angelis (a lot), D`agostino with Vargas, Caló (quite a lot), Laurentz and some Malerba. Unfortunutly less Lomuto, Donato and Rodriguez. I hear some Di Sarli here and there but actually not as much as back home. One thing that I like is that they don´t play electro tango, on the other hand the dj:s play Chacarera that gives certain atmosphere to the milongas and it´s amazing to see so many people in the dance floor making beautiful formations. They also play a set of rock and roll, salsa, cumbia or other non-tango music. They do this in the most traditional milongas witch surprised me. I think that is amazing since we in Europe are a little bit too "snobbish" about music and tango. As a DJ I would not dare to put a hole tanda of salsa or rock and roll without risking to have some unhappy dancers sitting down and woundering what on earth I´m doing :-). Before my Buenos Aires trip I would probably feel the same, I would think that I´m here to dance tango not salsa! But the dance crowd in Argentina is not going out just to get some good dances, they are going out to have fun, meet friends and socialize in a relaxed way. Yesterday they even played the Argentinian national song at Nino Bien to celebrate 9th of July, independence day.

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING

We have now been here for one week and have developed a daily routine that consists in taking classes, going to milongas, sleeping and eating. The food part is a really sad one! In Buenos aires you can find a large variety of vegetables, meet and fish of good quality but it does not look like anyone can cook around here. When you go to a restaurant the first thing you get is a basket with very dry white bread and a tasteless vinaigrette and some kind of mixed dry herbs swimming in oil. The salads have no taste either and the coffee is too hot. I have been tempted to eat all the good looking sweets and bakery but thats the same! It is dry and a chocking sweet experience. If you know a good restaurant, please write to me!!

Well, the food is not the highlight of this trip, fortunately there are other small things to be happy about here. One thing is the kindness we experience every day from the taxi drivers, waiters, milongueros, milongueras and all people we have been in contact with. I really like the Argentineans and they seam to like Brazilians too., specially now that we have been kicked out of the world cup :-)

I have not really started with the shopping for real, I only bought one pair of shoes from Silvia Alanis that has a small shop at Diagonal Norte 936 and some jeans at The Dark King, a hip hop shop that has very nice jeans for men and women. Otherwise it has been difficult to find a good shop for women clothes in general but I´m getting there.

Tonight everybody seams to go to El Beso so we will try that too. See you very soon with Baires updates!

BODY AND HEART

After almoust one week in Buenos Aires I have finally started to take classes. It´s amazing how many tango classes and teachers there are! We started at Mora Godoy studio. They have classes everyday with very good teachers. The teaching is pretty traditional, they show a sequence and go trough technical details and you do your best :-). I also have been to one women technic class with Carolina Buenaventura in her studio in San Telmo. The technic class has in a very high tempo and to be honest it felt more like a gym workout but with tango steps. I could see that she is an amazing dancer but I´m not sure if this is the right class for me since I´m more interested in details and to have someone to explain the technic properly and not only focusing in making steps as fast as possible, thats why I have now booked my first private class with Olga Besio, a legendary tango dancer and teacher that also is a very sweet lady. I ran into her when I was in San Telmo taking classes with the fun and young Greta Hekier. That class was very very interesting! We made a lot of unconventional exercises. The aim was to develop a greater warness for each other, your own body and the space you are sharing with others. After the exercises she instructed us to dance and to have a focus in different things, for exemple the embrace. In the mean time Olga Besio arrived and she participated of the discussion giving her point of wiew on the matter. She feels that first of all the embrace is been taught in tango classes as something mechanical and not for what it is! An embrace! Then we talked about what is a comfortable embrace and what do we need in order to be comfortable and feel connected with our partner. The class took 2 hours and afterwards everybody was welcome to stay and share a meal. Very cousy! I will definitly go back next week! I have to say that the level of the teaching is very high! Actually you don´t need to take classes only with the big names since everybody here seems to share the same idea of the technical part of the dance. I will try to combine hard core tango trainning with a more philosofical aprouch because for me tango is body and heart.

Other updates

As usual we are going out almoust everyday. My favorite night yet has been in the old traditional milongas. I love the atmosphere and the fact that everybody follow the rules, it gives a sence of security that you can´t really feel in a non traditional milonga. The music is also taking my breath away. La Gricel has in my opinion the best dj I´ve ever heard! And I´m defitly going back next week.
Today I bought my first tango cd, De Angelis with singer Julio Martel. The name of the cd store is Zivals and I was very surprised that they did not have any cd´s of Donato!!! Porvafor!! :-(

Tonight we will try Nino Bien! Well, stay tuned for more updates from Buenos Aires!

Ciao!

MILONGA RACE AND SAMBA FOTBOLL!

Salong Canning with dj Mario Orlando

We finally had our milonga premier! First night we went to a new milonga called "Espacio Yatay". I knew we would see a lot of good dancers everywhere but I was not expecting such high level. The crowd was mainly young and danced very good. I´m still on the panic mode so I could not wait untill it was time for other more known places so yesterday we went to both Canning and La Viruta. We arrived quite early to Canning because we wanted just to take a quick look. We got a front row table and decided to stay for a few hours. It was so fun to see the milonga game live! I was of course forbiden fruit since I arrived toguether with Kolja. Canning is very traditional and the old milongueros are proud. But I had a plan!! So I flirted myself trough and with Koljas permission (Yes, they asked Kolja for permission) I danced my first dance on salong Canning with a cute and very old gentleman called "Fernando". After that I was on the "market" and had very nice dances with milongueros that have been dancing since they were "pibes". I felt honoured.

La Viruta with no dj but a damm good CD!!

La Viruta is the place to be at Sundays, but not untill 1! Before that they have a rock and roll night! I was very close to leave the place at one point since I arrived to "early". After 1 it was heaven! Again: Very high level dancers, mainly young and they were amazing! I have never seen so many good dancers in one spot, not even at the european marathons. Other good things is the shiny sun, Brazil closer to the title, good music, few tourists and plenty of time to enjoy Buenos Aires!

Bife the chorizo, fotboll and milonga panic!

I have to admit! It feels very surrealistic to be in Buenos Aires right now and it felt very weird to land in Sao Paulo this morning without getting off the plane. The reason why I never got to Buenos Aires before is because Brazil always had the priority when I came to South America. It has been like that for 17 years. I could sence the vibes of my family pretty close to me but I was "stuck" in the plane waiting to take off to our final destination. I got a little sad.

We landed early in the morning, the weather was ok, 14 degrees with little sun wicht is perfectly ok for a brazilian that normally has to face much lower temperatures in the awful european winter. We are staying in a cousy little flat with an amazing terass pretty close to the new DNI studio and the new hot milonga "Mi río de la plata" so it feels pretty save so far. As expected the only topic here is fotboll! The mini market owner and the guys at the parilla restaurant in the neighbourhood already know that I m a brazilian (according to them it´s going to be Brazil-Argentina at the finals and I totally agree!) and they have told Kolja that Denmark is out! As he did´nt know :-)

It´s saturday night and the perfect day to have the obligatory milonga panic. Where to go?? Where to start?? Confeteria Ideal? Cachirullo? Me rio de la plata? Glorieta?Milonga 10? La Viruta? Canning? Sunderland?

Well..Let´s the adventure begain!