Buenos Aires - it really is a wonderful place to visit in a lot of ways: a sort of compromise between Paris (without the Parisians) and a Tuscan Village.   And in the last few years it's really started to open up and join the world of today.  There's a lot more available, and it's much accessible.

It's also a great place if you like to dance - and not just tango.   There's just ton's of it, of nearly every type, as you can see in the ‘Dance' magazine.  And not only dance is available.  It seems that the Argentineans like to take courses, particularly in Dance and Body related subjects. There are an enormous variety of classes in Pilates, Yoga, FeldenKrais, Alexander Technique, Euthonia, GyroKinysis, Barre sur la terra, and on and on.  And they are pretty adventurous.

In DNI, the whole company have been using contemporaneo (modern dance) as a more dynamic way of strengthening their centres and increasing awareness and control - and why not?  Everyone's dancing has certainly improved, and their performance as a dance troupe (a new venture) is impressive.  So in November, DNI started offering a Contemporaneo class - Susannah Mueller style.  It can certainly be a fun class to take and an interesting way to improve…

And perhaps if you speak reasonable Spanish you might well decide to try another contemporaneo class as well, such as Cristina Barnils' class in Graham technique.  (An interesting and enjoyable class and there a lot of tango people in it - some of them quite well known.)  It has the reputation is of being the very good for grounding and using your centre.  It's not surprising to discover that Josef Pilates and Martha Graham were contemporaries and ‘borrowed’ extensively from each other.

DNI really is a rather subversive organisation in a number of ways (at least in Argentinean terms).  It's pretty well organised, rather efficient, and it teaches dance technique not steps or style. And what they teach and the way they teach it isn't static - it just goes on developing and improving.  What they teach is very good indeed - although some of what is introduced at the advanced levels may be a little bit more than the casual social dancer wants.  (For instance, ‘taking energy from the floor’ sounds pretty exotic - probably involving years of study under a great tai-chi master and so forth.)

Now there is a whole new level of tecnica to be mastered, and you are taught how to use it in the milonga, as well as where there's a lot of space.  And this year there is tremendous emphasis on the musicality in every class. 

This can sometimes involve some fairly exotic concepts such as you and your partner moving on different beats, and even different directions.  And of course the next stage is to get into relating the quality, type and dynamics of movements to the music, and the interconnections between them and between successive movements.  (And levels- lets not forget the levels!)

Word of the day - precision and eleganceAnd of course the word of the day in all the classes (Tango and Contemporaneo) is precision and elegance! Unfortunately even going mad doesn't help - it just goes on - and on - and on - and...

On a side note - DNI has become popular so sometimes there are a lot of people in the classes.   Since there is quite a lot of emphasis on space management so this is usually not a problem, but occasionally when someone new tries out a class it can get very difficult.  A few months ago in one class a newly arrived Danish gentleman managed to take up about 25% of all the available space - and even then (he told me) there wasn't enough to do the sequence.  Should he visit Hong Kong I would recommend a second dance floor for him alone: preferably with crash barriers.

DNI also offers classes in Chacadera and Canto (singing), has a shop offering their own lines of dance clothes, Shoes and Sneakers, and you can eat small meals and snacks on the delightful terrace.

Dance Scene 

As to the BsAs scene - it seems to me to have started to change in a very fundamental way.  In many ways BsAs used to seem stuck in the 1940s.  And certainly that was the feeling in most of the milongas - particularly in traditional milongas in places like 'Lo De Celia'.

Well somehow people have woken up and moved on.

There are still local milongas and they are quite nice (Canning on a Sunday for example).  However the 'codigos' (like asking by eye) have become much more practical and realistic than they used to be.  They happen, like organising music in Tandas, because they work rather than for some arcane reason.  And the range of music has certainly expanded as more has become available and people are less concerned with preserving the 1940s atmosphere..

There are also a lot of frankly tourist milongas (Canning on Monday and Niño Bien for example.) They are often full of Milongueros who aren't, Porteños who are there to seduce and/or exploit tourists (mainly female), and of course tourists.  Dancing in these milongas is sometimes pretty problematic because most of the dancers (mainly, but not only, the tourists) seem to have problems with space management, and even with the music.  And let's not even talk about the prevalent illusion among some of the visitors that they can dance milonguero style.

Best experienced very late at night so there's enough space.

And then there are the practicas that are really informal milongas (El Motivo Tango and TangoCool at Villa Malcolm, for example.)  They are somehow quite reminiscent of Hong Kong and cater for people who like the emerging style: a kind of variable distance Salon with strong connections with both Nuevo and Milonguero.

These practicas are really a lot of fun since most of the serious dancers (of both sexes) go and very few of the people who one all too frequently can't avoid meeting in a milonga.  And a lot of the people you meet there are very interesting, like the teacher who spent about 10 minutes telling me exactly how his embrace is derived from Akido.

The scene is opening up in other ways too.  Far fewer people (except tourists) dress up to go to the milongas - they are much more informal.  And there are now all sorts of courses like "tango in theatre" or "Tango with Limon" (a type of Contemporaneo).  Nearly all interesting and some probably worthwhile.

I can't help remembering one Porteña who told me when I visited Buenos Aires that tango is a feeling and talking about the fundamental importance 'El arranque tanguero' - 'the basis of tango' (by which she meant the walk.)  It seems that she was right - but that the feeling is changing.  And isn't that to be expected in a living dance (as opposed to stylised one like Ballroom) that is a reflection of a culture that is changing itself?

The style of a few years back was the last almost dead blooms of the 1940s: nostalgic, melancholic and a sweet retrospective of something wonderful (which probably never existed.)  And when one danced with a Porteña/o (and with just a few foreigners) one could feel something of it in their reaction to the music - and somehow it was the walk - a souped up version of the natural walk here - and the embrace that made it work...

Well, wonderful to relate, tango is coming alive again and it transmits the feeling not of the 1940s but of the young people who are reinventing it.  And it's very much the same and yet completely different and somehow despite the extensive foreign influence it's very very Argentinean - and still very much the walk and the embrace that is at the heart of it all.

So yes - Tango is still alive and well and Buenos Aires is still the centre of it.  So come and visit at almost any time of year.  Just remember though that things tend to slow down from Christmas until the end of January.

Related Items:

1. DNI - a new way of learning tango

Related Links:

1. Estudio DNI Tango
2. TangoTang, the Hong Kong Tango Club

Last update: 13-02-2007 13:51

Published in : Blogs, Travel