The fact is that for a lot of you, 2 weeks in Buenos Aires is all you can really manage. You’ll go, spend scads of money on airfare, apartment, shoes, clothes, privates with X and Y, and then spend every waking moment taking class after class after class in those 2 weeks. You’ll be filled with Tango morning, noon, and night. Milongas, classes, food, more milongas, more classes. Your every waking moment will be tango, tango, tango…which is the whole reason you’re there in the first place. You didn’t fly 10000+ miles to sit on your ass you know!
From a Leading perspective, yes you’re going to get your head handed to you from the moment you land, yes you’re going to be intimidated, and yes you’re going to have more than a few dances with people from all over the world that will challenge you, change you, and bless you…all at the same milonga in the same night. That’s day one. The rest is an uphill climb for a variety of reasons.
From a Following perspective, same as above. You’ll see footwork that will confound you and then you’ll want to take privates to be able to do just that. Go ahead, knock yourself out.
The Dancing Reality is:
a.) You’re not going to be able to retain 90% of what you’ve seen, heard, or practiced. Even if you video the end result. The “how” you got there will elude you. And it’s the ‘how‘ part that’s insanely important!
b.) Most of what you have seen, heard, or tried to practice, you’re going to screw up and misremember. You’ll think you’re doing one thing, when in fact you’re doing another! The kicker is that you won’t notice it.
c.) Most of what you will see, hear, and learn will screw with your head because a good portion of the information is specific to just BsAs. Meaning that it only applies to BsAs.
d.) Most of what you will experience from shows and classes is showy noise that does not and can not work in the line of dance. The trick is to focus on the social stuff that you can actually use in the line of dance. The real trick is being able to see the difference between Tango for Export and Social Tango!
d.) The trick to getting the most out of your trip to BsAs is working on your foundation (your walk, your stability, your underlying technique). This can create change in you. Steps, patterns, figures, or dancing like X, Y, or Z will not help you. Change comes from how the foundation is put together. 🙂
e.) The Argentines are a lovely people. They are. They’ve been through hell and back again. There is one immutable fact, no matter how ‘nice’ they are, they’re STILL not going to dance with you until you prove that you have a handle on this Tango thing…that means:
From a Leading perspective: Following the line of dance, not killing your partners with crazy, bullshit vocabulary (all 502 Sacadas known to man, or the 410 types of volcadas, etc all thrown into one song), and not bumping into anyone causing blood or limb loss. While at the same time looking elegant. All the while, making it musical, fun, and engaging for your Follower partners and showing them off! This may prove to be challenging for you because the embrace will be filled with levels of compression, and the walk will be a near constant ‘impact’ that you’ll feel of the follower’s foot on the floor – not to mention the hanging, the pulling, and the pushing. If you’re looking for ‘stellar’, you’re lookin’ in the wrong place! Good luck!
From a Following perspective: Dancing with the locals is a bit easier. They’re actually wanting to dance with you, and not because you’re stellar either. It’s because you’re Norte Americano. The fact that you’re female and susceptible to their charms is…icing on the cake! Truth be told you’ve never had a man woo you like an Argentine man will. And the attention is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced (unless you’re Italian, or from NYC, and in which case you got this).
f.) The floors, at certain times of the years, are packed. Read that as Jan – Mar. That’s the ‘high‘ season. When every teacher in the known universe is in Buenos Fuckin’ Aires. The floors are packed with teacher/dancers…of a sufficient quality that will quite literally blow your mind. The rest of the year, if you’re looking for that experience…good luck with that. It’s like a ghost town by comparison. Keep that in mind when you’re booking your trip, and looking for the dancing reality that is Buenos Aires.
g.) Two fucking weeks is not fucking long enough. Quite honestly, you’re wasting your time and your money by spending two weeks there. It’s a waste of money to rush down there for 2 weeks. You ideally want to be there at least a month, and really 3 and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Quite honestly those first 2 weeks is just getting the lay of the land. The rest of the time is figuring out how you’re going to extend your stay by another 2 to 3 months! Realistically, you’ll be afraid and isolated the first few days. You’ll wonder how on earth you got yourself into this mess. Going to the Milongas and classes and wonder ‘WTF!‘. In the end you’ll be so sad when you leave that you’ll have forgotten the depths of the horrors your were thinking just a few days earlier.
h.) Learn to pace yourself. All the running around you’re going to do is going to tire you out no matter how old or young you are. You can not do it all. Realistically it’s about finding good experiences, not about the quantity of those experiences. Quality is the order of the day. And learning how to pace yourself in the face of those quality experiences in the mass that is BsAs is quite essential.
i.) You’re going to find people that you groove with, and not groove with. You will dance really well with some people and not others. There’s a reason for this: You’re all at very different places in your tango development. The more experienced you are as a dancer will allow you to dance with nearly everyone and create a ‘nice’ experience, and know how to manage those dances to make them palatable for both parties. The less experienced dancer (the ones that hang, pull, push,can not navigate the floor musically. And then a few days later…you’ll ‘magically‘ be able to dance with X, Y, and Z for some reason. Again, simple reason, you’re getting in tune with the pace of Tango, and the idea of Tango that is BsAs. That getting in tune will leave you when you go back home.
j.) Tango is very different at home than what you’ll experience in Buenos Aires. Very different. And yet…it is the same thing. Which is to say that while it looks the same, the music is the same, the people are the same…the experience itself is vastly different for a reason: Dancing in Buenos Aires is about a way of life. At home, you’re trying to imitate that way of life in a 4 or 5 hour time period through a Milonga. The Milonga is a way of life in Buenos Aires, better known as “Tango Es Vida”. Once you understand this thing, Tango then takes on a whole different way of being as does your ‘two weeks‘ in BsAs. ©Tango Topics.