Last Tango in Buenos Aires?

I went to a milonga last night with Larry and his cousins. Mike met us there.

Hernan told me he used to take tango lessons at this place, which has a name but we just call it by it's address (because we don't know the name) it's 444 Maipu (pronounced my poo).

He told me he didn't like the space, which is why he didn't want to go. I think there is another reason. I really wish he had come and danced with me though. I'm going to see if I can get him to dance tango with me, because that is really something I want to do while I'm here. After last night though, I am feeling like I'm not going to get the tango practice I thought I would.

The space was nice in my opnion, not spectacular, but it was a fairly large dance floor with round tables set up around it. Tables had white table cloths and every other table had a black or red tablecloth on top of the white one.

When they started the lesson, the first thing we did was learn how to walk. It was good, but the floor was too crowded and I kept stepping on Mike, who was beind me, when we were walking backwards.

It was very different from my beginning tango classes in San Francisco, and he didn't teach us the tango basic step that they use, and I think is very helpful. Instead, we did a lot of walking back and forth, then we did some other steps like forward and back ochos - an ocho is a figure eight, that usually the follower does. It involved putting one foot in front across your body, stepping with the other foot at a diagonal and turning. It's hard to explain, but it is a challenging thing for a first timer to do.

Anyway, after a lot of walking back and forth and ochoing back and forth, he separated the beginners from those who had taken classes before. I went over with the more advanced group and I missed the instruction, but he simply told us to dance, while he worked with the beginners. Everyone paired up and I was left with two women. One asked me if I lead or follow and I told her I prefer to follow, she said she did as well. Then another woman came up and asked if we dance. We told her we were both followers. She said she was a leader. I let the two of them dance and went over to the beginners group.

The teacher had put a line of chairs dividing the floor into sections. The section for the beginners was smaller than that for the more advanced students. It reminded me of a swimming pool with a baby pool - proportionately, it was about the same. We had a very small space. He had us take a partner and just walk in circles. I ended up dancing with Mike.

It wasn't fun for me. After going in circles for a while, I finally told Mike I'd had enough and sat down. The teacher was dividing his time between the beginners and the more advanced group, but the more advanced group was more demanding, so he gave them more attention.

Anyway, after about an hour, the class was over. They dimmed the lights and dancing began.

It was great to see people really dancing tango, and not the show style stuff, but dancing like normal people. Some people were a little more showy, but I prefer the more understated, passionate kind of dancing that is really in touch with the music and about the connection between partners and not about fancy moves.

I didn't see how it would be possible for me to get practice there. Everyone seemed to know each other, and it didn't seem like it was set up for people who were new to be able to meet other people and dance. So, we sat there and commented on people's shoes. I also told Mike that I had noticed that a lot of the hairstyles we thought were dead and buried seemed to be alive and well in Buenos Aires. There was one guy who had a very long ponytail, only it wasn't a full ponytail, it was this long thin braided, ratty piece of hair. I think it was very popular in the 80's. I've noticed lots of shags, and of course, the mullet seems to be popular here. Well, last night I didn't see shags or mullets, just this one guy with a tail that I really wanted to cut off.

He was a good dancer, but unfortunately his tail and his shoes with silver stripes that didn't match what he was wearing, made him look kind of ridiculous. We also noticed a guy who had a little pouch clipped to his belt with some pens in it - kind of like the pocket protectors people used to wear (or still do?). Why would someone wear that to a milonga, we wondered.

They opened up some chocolates and put them on a big plate and a woman who seemed to be somewhat in charge of things, or at least assisting, came around and offered us chocolates, which I found to be not very good. These were to celebrate the first day of winter (Is that today? Is it December?)

After a few hours of dancing they had a raffle. They called the first number - 6 - which was my number! I never win anything, but at gay dances, I seem to be lucky (at least at winning things). So I got up and went over the the MC who was a teacher that yelled at Larry when he took the class several years ago, and we all decided he was an evil queen... Larry pointed him out when he first walked through the red velvet curtains at the entrance. I noticed that he parted the curtains like he was walking onto a stage. He was wearing one of those suits with a jacket that came down past the hips, and he kind of sauntered about, kissing everyone, like he had made his grand entrance. Later he took off his jacket and underneath had on this short-sleeved polo kind of shirt which had these big wings on the back and in sparkly letters said "Big Buddha Experience" - I didn't like the fact that he yelled at Larry when Larry took the class before - I don't think that was a big Buddha experience, or at all Buddhist. So, as I walked over towards him, he asked in Spanish, "are you Latin?" - I really didn't know how to answer that, because being Italian, I am Latin, and since so many Argentines are of Italian descent, the only thing that makes me "non-Latin" here is that Spanish is not my native language, but, rather than get into a philosophical discussion of what Latin means, because I knew this guy was an evil queen and wouldn't take to it very well, I simply said, "no". He then asked, "where are you from?" and I said "the US". He handed me a small bag and said "un regalo para ti" - the woman standing next to him, who seemed to want to be an equal participant in this whole thing, but evil queen wasn't having any of that, said to me in English "a present for you" - evil queen shot her a glance that seemed to chide her and that was it - no "welcome to Buenos Aires", "congratulations" no kisses or anything. So I took my bag and made my way to my seat. They called the next number - 22 - it was Mike's number. Now evil queen seemed really irritated that the Americans were winning all of the fabulous prizes and he said something like "oh, another estadounidense" , which I found bordering on, perhaps actually being, condescending. Mike got up, got his little bag and came back to his seat. Evil queen then said he was going to pick a higher number so a "Latino" would win, and finally an Argentine won. He seemed happy about that.

So I opened my bag and there were two bottles. One, some sort of body spray that was very fruity, and the other a small bottle of some sort of hand lotion with flowers on the label, which I didn't smell, but imagined to be also very strongly scented. Were these prizes for 80 year-old women, or what? There was also a piece of paper in the bag which I think entitles me to a free facial.

I gave my prize to Larry's cousin Diane (minus the free facial because she's leaving today), who seemed to appreciate it more than me. I hope Mike doesn't come to class today smelling like melon and gardenias.

I had written to someone about tango classes and got an e-mail back telling me I should come to the class at this milonga and then we could discuss finding a teacher. There were two links in the e-mail. Turns out one of them is for evil queen. I'm not sure what his name is, but the name of the place is La Marshall - I sure hope he doesn't call himself La Marshall! If you want to see pictures of him being fabulous, you can check his website.

Finally, about 2 a.m., I decided to call it quits. Mike stayed and the rest of us left.

I was close enough to walk home, but walked with Larry and the cousins to 9 de Julio, which was about 5 blocks from where we were.

There had been a big soccer match and the Boca Juniors won. Boca Juniors are the team from La Boca, the area where they paint their houses with bright colors. Boca has a reputation for being fanatic about their soccer team. This is where Maradona comes from. The police were all lined up around the obelisk when we went to the milonga, preparing for this victory. To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about running into happy fans from La Boca.

Larry walked really fast and I couldn't keep up with him (and I think I walk fast), so I said good-by to his cousin Dave and headed down Suipacha, which brings me right to my apartment, so that I could avoid the scene at the Obelisk. On the way home, I passed lots of guys urinating on the sidewalks, people waving yellow and blue flags, and a busload of fans singing and stopping their feet. I was very glad to finally make it home and get to bed.