Tangodurians

Milonga tonight at Avare apartments near KLCC. Slightly apprehensive, nervous, not sure what to expect, don't know whether I can dance anymore (probably can't reconnect for a bit). Why does this dance have to be so emotional! Seems like yesterday two naive girls walked into their first milonga and fell in love. Is this going to be it again then?

Posting up Julio Bassan and Carolina Mueller's tango vid from Triangulo suddenly got the passion going for Tango again. Amidst the pain of moving and job search and saying goodbye to a loved one and packing and oh the CHAOS I definitely lost the spark. But just listening to a good piece, or watching the musicality and gorgeousness of some of the dancers, I realize that this Tango journey is FAR FAR FAR from over. If anything, it gives me a reason to visit any city in the world and check out their Tango scene. This is way exciting. I think I'm gna try Hong Kong next =). It's funny, Tango reminds me of the time when you're being picked for teams. Not even in the sporting field, but in peer groups. You naturally gravitate to a certain bunch of people and for the rest of your schooling life you're almost pigeonholed into that role. Sometimes waiting for someone to ask you to dance is just nerve-wrecking. Milongas always seem to feel like I'm warming up an engine, ...

When I said bye to Ann Arbor and when I said bye to Tango. I was really saying goodbye to a way of life that has made me so utterly joyous for the past 9/10 months. Withdrawal hasn't been easy, it's weird to say that a dance changed my life but it honestly did, and now that I've left the cradle of comfort that was Ann Arbor, which I had known for three years of my life, I was floundering. I checked out Practica here, found new people to say hi to, found an Avik reminder which I was SOOOOOOOO happy about. Maybe life isn't quite over yet.

i've not been immersing myself with dancing as much as i should or would a few months ago. The feeling of euphoria after a dance has slowly dwindled down to just merely feeling satisfied that I have not screwed up yet another tanda with another dancer. It's been that way for a while. I've felt numb about Argentine Tango and maybe that's the reason I've been nonchalantly missing the few milongas and classes I was all gung ho about last term. It's been difficult. Maybe in trying to deal with so many other things and feelings, I've neglected to supplement my own desires and needs in dancing. Tango became a chore for me in April. I went to classes because I've paid for them and not because I really wanted to go. It just morphed into this thing I had to continuously do because I've started on it and not because it gave me a certain degree of joy in execution. I have since then taken a step back. I removed myself from tango events and everything that cam...

Bye Ann Arbor. Bye Mtango. Bye MATC. Bye Tios. 10 months since my first encounter with Tango. Some people still don't understand my obsession with it, some kind of do, some are hooked. How do I describe the first Milonga. The first time we sat there, nervous, hoping no one would ask us to dance because, heck all we knew was to walk. The people waltzing past us, confident, swirling movements, faces contorted with emotion. I fell in love right there in that darkened gothic-ish bavarian setting that will forever be my first memory of Tango. Oh life. It's only months but looking back it seems like years.

I was sticky and hot at practica and far from being in the calm zen state of mind in a nice cold room which is what Tango calls for. In fact, I was so far from being calm that I ended up flouncing out of the room due to some immature spat on my part a mere half hour after dancing with the instructor. I guess my state of mind was so forced I could barely enjoy my last practica. My eye was wandering so much that I couldn't be 100% civil to the poor beginner in front of me or attempt to help him with his ocho lead. But he'll learn. If he stays. I had a convo with someone about really feeling a dance because I kept doing what I "thought" I was feeling. Then I realized it really was a cycle, that I'm at this stage where I miss the naivety of learning steps for the first time and really connecting with the concept of a feeling and being open to new moves whereas now with a bit  more moves to my repertoire I start to confuse feelings with forced movements, just becau...

Tango is something that requires investment. Not only time and money, but above all emotional. It reflects our moods, or more precisely, our moods are reflected in the way we feel when we dance. In the past few months, going to Tango was like going to Church. Not to say I'm even Christian, but it was the same idea, dedication, devotion, immersion. In rain/snow/heat we'd trudge to Mason hall's 3rd floor, eschewing appointments, turning down dinner appointments in order to spend 3 hours learning new moves, connecting with new people. Slowly we see the road unfurling, looking back when ochos looked impossible. Adjusting to stabbing pains in the feet after 5 hrs of solid dancing. Blisters from shoes, elated when we got the move, frustration descending when we didn't. I haven't been blogging for sometime because Tango is like a partner, for now my emotional investment is somewhere else. So, temporarily I have had nothing to write, except to acknowledge the fact tha...