Cherie Magnus's Blog, page 3

Free Download B.A. Tango #213

This free all-inclusive bilingual magazine of all things tango in Buenos Aires comes in three parts for better graphic quality.

  B.A. Tango #213 Part 1 


B.A. Tango #213 Part 2 by Cherie Magnus

B.A. Tango #213 Part 3 by Cherie Magnus

Taking the "A" Train No More

From the archives on the occasion of the original old cars of the Subte's A Line being retired yesterday.

Originally published February 2006 in the-vu.com

We all love trains--the waiting, the leaving, the whistles. Who can hear the distant “woo-woo” of a train without feeling something…a longing, nostalgia, the urge to hop on and leave your old life behind? Literature abounds with romantic train symbols: The Polar Express, Streetcar Named Desire, Train to Nowhere, The Last Train Home.The same for tunnels, which can be passages to somewhere mysterious and unknown. Aren’t the words, “secret tunnel” exciting? Tunnels are a metaphor of life and death? Mystery and secrets? The birth experience, with light and life at the end?

And when there are trains in tunnels, well, in the old movies Hollywood movies during the moral censorship days of the Hayes Code, when a train went into a tunnel, the audience knew the stars were having sex.

Most people don’t find the subway so romantic. But taking the A line of the Buenos Aires subway is usually an opportunity for me to be transported to realms other than the stations of Peru, Piedras and Pasco.

The “A” line is the oldest in the Buenos Aires subway system, or Supte. Construction began in 1911 and opened to the public in 1913. It’s a short line of only 13 stations, beginning from the Plaza de Mayo. There the President’s Pink House and the Cathedral sit at right angles around a plaza full of history, monuments, protests, and souvenir stands hawking blue and white Argentine flags.

A couple of cars have been replaced, but generally when I ride to my Castellano class or to church, I take one of the original wooden cars. At times it’s almost a mystical ride, especially early in the morning or late at night. As I sit on the wooden slat benches, the train rocks me from side to side, the rings hanging from the ceiling swing hypnotically. The original incandescent lighting is still in use in old-fashioned glass shades, and the light glows on the wood, brass and beveled mirrors. These original cars have windows at both ends so you can see right through to the next car or to the black tunnel you have just left or into the one you are entering. The world up top seems so far away.During the day, cars passing over the grills on the street above, make daylight come and go as the train rumbles along in the dark tunnel.

Light in tunnels is a strong metaphor. During a series of site-specific dance performances in Los Angeles by Collage Dance Theater in the year 2000, abandoned subway tunnels from the 20’s were used in the work, SubVersions. A brilliant idea full of symbolism, dancers dug through rubble for lost hope, and waltzed as phantoms through the elegant art deco Terminal building. Finally they built a makeshift boat full of happy passengers waving goodbye, which was borne on shoulders, down the dark tunnel until its light disappeared.

Because tunnels are so appealing, wise businessmen around the world put the lure of exploring history underground to good use. In Seattle, Washington, a popular tourist attraction is a walking tour of the subterranean tunnels under Pioneer Square, once the main roadways and ground-floor storefronts of old downtown.

The abandoned silver mine shaft in Zacatecas, Mexico, was turned into an amusement park-type of attraction with an underground disco. Patrons take the old mine train from the entrance and pass the centuries old chapel with flowers and burning candles still honoring the miners who lost there lives there underground.

In Paris, tourists line up to explore the Catacombs, and not too long ago they also went on underground sewer tours.

Here in Buenos Aires are forgotten old tunnels as well. El Zanjón de Granados, on Defensa in San Telmo, is 150 meters of tunnels, 4 meters wide, dating from the beginning of the 19th century. And under the Manzana de las Luces are Jesuit tunnels even older.

I’m not a spelunker, or cave explorer. I don’t belong to any narrow gauge or steam train club. I don’t search out the roller coasters of the world. I’m not about to climb into an old well or abandoned mineshaft.

I’m just going to keep on taking the A Train. It’s not hard to imagine, as the train appears from nowhere in the station, that the next stop is somewhere ethereal and strange. I take my seat and vanish into history.

B.A. Tango #212 Free Download

Here is the latest quarterly edition of the best tango magazine in Buenos Aires. It's in Spanish and English, and has everything you need to know about tango teachers, milongas, practicas, shoe stores, music teachers, singers, instrument shops--as well as interesting articles in two languages.

(It's in three parts for better graphic quality.)

B.A.Tango  #212 Parte 1 Oct, Nov, Dec. 2012



B.A.Tango  #212 Parte 2  Oct, Nov, Dec. 2012



B.A. Tango  #212 Part 3 Oct, Nov, Dec. 2012

Heroines!

In honor of Breast Cancer Month , I'm reposting this photo and poem by Deena Metzger.



Tree

I am no longer afraid of mirrors where I see the sign of the amazon,
the one who shoots arrows... --Deena Metzger


October is Breast Cancer Month.
I am a 2-time survivor.

Gloria y Eduardo -- 40 Years of Tango

The first tango dancing I ever saw was on stage at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. It was 1986 and I saw Tango Argentino, which later changed my life along with that of so many other future tango aficianados. We were impressed with the entire show, but especially by the lead couple--Gloria y Eduardo Arquimbau.



On my first visit to Buenos Aires in 1997, I came on a Tango Tour which included classes with Gloria y Eduardo in La Confiteria Ideal and a tango dinner show at Michelangelo in a gorgeous antique brick building in San Telmo where they still perform.


Gloria y Eduardo with tangocherie after their performance at Milongueando 2012

Here the legendary couple is dancing a milonga at Sunderland in 2009. Still today they travel internationally giving classes at festivals and workshops. They are old-school, stage dancers who choreograph their routines as opposed to milongueros who dance social tango, but their performance quality, energy and personalities make them always entertaining to watch.  Gloria y Eduardo Arquimbau are classic. As they themselves say, Forty years of dancing tango is not nothing!

My Sexy Shoes

Because the topic of shoes is never out of date, I'm republishing this post from 2007. Some things never change.


How tall am I ? Honey with hair, heels and attitude, I'm through this dammed roof! --Ru Paul

My sexy shoes are black silk stilettos with an ankle strap. They are also my tango shoes which, depending on my partner and my point of view, can be the same thing. I first realized a few years ago why high heels are so sexy: they make our legs look longer, sure, but the real reason is that they make us more vulnerable. We can’t run away. (Or it looks like we can’t.)

But amazingly we can dance in them, which takes practice and skill. We must remember just how high the heels are so that we can go up on our toes and down again without whacking the heel. We have to learn how to keep those heels 1/4” off the floor, and to put them down with control so that the wood doesn’t clunk and we can spin like dervishes during the tropical tanda.

Dancing shoes have a mystique all their own. There’s no way we can dance ballet, tango, jazz or salsa without the right shoes. Well we can, but we don’t want to. If our feet are looking good, well then, we’re going to be dancing great. We’re more than half-way home.

In Cuba, the salsa homeland, where they don’t have the right shoes for anything, they dance in whatever or even in no shoes, but it’s no problem. If fact, our fancy specialized shoes seem kind of silly down there, where the best dancers are torching the floor in sneakers and old sandals.

But in the hot salsa clubs and smoldering tango salons both to the north and south of the Equator, looking the part is part of it. And it all begins with the barest, strappiest, sexiest shoes we can spin in, and if they match our outfits, so much the better.

We pick glittery and jeweled shoes (or white) if we have great footwork and are proud of it. The rest of us go for basic black if we don’t want glow-in-the-dark feet, but also, what is more sexy than black? And it goes with everything.

Soul to sole: what about Reflexology, when pressure is applied to certain areas of the bottom of the feet to promote relaxation and healing in other parts of the body?
Is that why we feel so great after an amazing night of dancing wearing the right shoes?

Your dancing shoes can have soles of suede, smooth leather, felt, rubber—depending on your feet and the floor you are dancing on. If you aren’t happy with the soles you’ve got, you can take the shoes to a cobbler and he can put on a different kind. As for your dancing soul, just let it out!

Unlike soles, which are of light-to-medium interest, heel height is a huge and passionate issue. Whenever a group of women huddle together at a milonga, if they’re not gossiping about a man, it’s heels of another sort that have their attention. (Actually the higher heel helps us to keep our weight forward in tango, so there’s more than aesthetics involved.) Sometimes short women like to wear the highest of the high (over 4 inches) and even platforms, and tall women opt for lower altitude.

I am tall (5’ 7”) and it has actually happened to me that a man has told me I’m a great dancer and he’d love to ask me to dance, but I am too tall! (How rude is that? I’m not too tall, he is too short!)

One night at The Mayan in Los Angeles years ago, a man invited me to dance, and when I stood up in my stilettos, he looked panic stricken as he gazed upward to the top of my head. Then he told me his recurring nightmare was to dance with a woman taller than he. But when we got into the groove, he loved it! Dance after dance, he tried new spins, lifts, jumps and dives. I finally had to beat him off with a clave!! He was overjoyed to realize he could dance well and have fun with a tall partner! He wasn’t exactly my mercy dance of the evening; I had fun, but I looked on the experience as educational for him--he will never hesitate to ask a tall woman to dance again.

A lot of women of my distance from the ground choose low-heeled shoes to minimize any height difference and to perhaps get more dances. I’m sorry, but I think you should wear the shoes that are right for you, that you dance fabulous in, that make your feet even more gorgeous and sexy. If a man can’t handle how tall or short you are wearing them, that’s his problem.

But for hot moments after the dance, we just need to know how to gracefully get undressed with those shoes on. Sometimes we go to bed wearing our shoes, and then we have to not forget that we are wearing stilettos that might get buried in some guy’s torso, or worse.

We have to know all these things about our sexy shoes. And even if we look vulnerable, we must learn not to be. Sometimes we can even take those shoes off.



[image error]argentine tango

Bomberos y Bohemios

Once in a while we get out of our rut of attending our favorite milongas, and recently we went to two that I've never attended, although Ruben has. As a matter of fact, many years ago he used to organize a milonga at one of them.

So we went to the Milonga de Elsita at Plaza Bohemia (5-10 p.m., Fridays, 2540 Alsina) one dark and stormy night with some students. Even though it was pouring down rain (outside and inside) there were lots of familiar faces on the floor, some I hadn't seen in ages. The level of dancing was quite high. The ambiance was cozy and warm, and Elsita very welcoming. My only complaint besides the leaking ceiling was the floor, of course made worse by the water. It is very hard tile.





On Saturday night after attending Los Consagrados we went to Bomberos de Lanus (Bld. Gral. Rodriquez 1039. Lanus E), actually in the firehouse. I've always wanted to go there as firemen are my heroes. (Unfortunately none of the firemen attend the milonga!) This salon is where Ruben used to organize a milonga many years ago. This is a typical club de barrio where everyone knows each other and dance lots of cumbia and merengue as well as tango; not a place to attend solo in hopes of cabeceo'ing partners. The floor is wonderful, like in Lo de Celia ; not wood but smooth tile to glide over.














Before the milonga begins

Nice bar
La pista in full swing









As we were leaving, the alarm rang, and a couple of minutes after these photos were taken, these guys were in full action! (Sorry to report that they don't have a fire pole that they slide down on.) Bravo, fellas. Let us know when you dance tango in your nice salon next door!

Dream Partners?

Ruben y Cherie, Finalists in 2006


We are almost at the end of the Tango Championship Season (or the World Cup of Tango as they now call it). It's controversial every year, but getting less so as everyone in Buenos Aires is just a bit tired of it...well the real tango lovers in the city and dancers who live the tango all year round.

The Argentina Independent, a fun and informative online newspaper recently gone to paper as well, published an article that tries to show the various points of view, that of yours truly tangocherie included. Check out Tourism and Tango: Dream Partners or Four Left Feet?

FREE Kindle Download Today Only!

My book, The Church of Tango: a Memoir, is available now until 11:59 p.m. tonight Pacific Time, for free kindle download from Amazon !

Milongueando in San Cristobal

Ruben and I were invited to the Gala Milonga at the Region Leonesa of Susana Miller's annual Milongueando Festival. We love this ballroom--the home of the Milonga de los Consagrados on Saturday afternoons where we are a permanent fixture. It's always fun to see a crowd that is completely different from the usual Buenos Aires milonga suspects, as it was probably 90% foreigners.

Being there last night proves how no matter if the salon is the same, each milonga has its own personality based on the organizers, dancers, the DJ, the lighting, sound system, arrangement of tables and chairs, and even the tablecloths. It seems weird that it's so, but last night the ambiance was 100% different from Los Cons on Saturdays.


















Although we love the ballroom, the event wasn't our cup of tea last night--lights very dim, bad sound, everyone grouped together with no way to cabeceo. There were exhibitions by Maria Plazaola y Ricardo Viqueira, Susana Miller y Chiche Ruberto, with special guest stars, Eduardo y Gloria--the first tango dancers I ever saw when they performed in Tango Argentino at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles in 1986. Now we are neighbors in the barrio of Boedo. Life is funny.

Maria y Ricardo


Maria y Ricardo
Maria y Ricardo
Maria y Ricardo

Susana Miller y Chiche Ruberto
Susana y Chiche
Gloria y Eduardo

Eduardo y Gloria, and me


The well-known guitarist Esteban Morgado and violinist Quique Condomi of Tanghetto, Esteban Morgado Quarteto, and other recordings, took center floor and played several wonderful renditions of familiar pieces. My favorite was the smash-up of Paul McCartney's "Blackbird' with the tango "Uno." Below is a video from YouTube of another performance, but unfortunately it cuts off right after the tango begins. Last night's passionate rendition was so much better than this video, sorry that I didn't record it. I'm also sorry that the photos are not the greatest, the fault of the lighting, distance, the camera, and my lack of expertise. But you get the idea.

Here's the photo of the musicians from my point of view, which was unfortunately the back, but their sound was fantastic and professional, unlike the music for dancing.