Flying down to Buenos Aires Part 2

One of my dreams is to dance the Tango in a milonga (dance hall) in Buenos Aires. Now why do I want to do this? I became fascinated with the Tango when I watched Carlos Saura's Tango. The movie starts with a view of the sunrise over the harbor of Buenos Aires. After watching that movie I was hooked. The trailer is here http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1033175321/. Other Tango movies also enchanted me. Sally Potter's The Tango Lesson was beautiful and romantic movie. (Yeah, I can be a sucker for romantic movies provided they are not "chick films"). Robert Duvall's Assassination Tango was also interesting because as Roger Ebert said in his review "The tango is a fragment to shore against his ruin."

Is the tango a "fragment to shore against my ruin? I don't know. It'has been one of my dreams to travel to Buenos Aires and dance in a milonga. I realize that it may be a colossal mistake. But as my recent trip to Santaigo de Compostela in Spain shows, failing spectacularly is not only expensive, it's can be a lot of fun.

On the train ride from Santiago to Madrid, the movie on the train was a the Spanish language version of Richard Gere's Shall We Dance. The trailer for Gere's movie is here http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi619053337/. Now if I were superstitious, I considered watching the film on that train as some sort of sign. But I am not that superstitious. But it was an interesting way to take my mind of the fact that I had to leave a $900 bike at the train station in Santiago de Compostela.

Now two years after that glorius fiasco, a new journey starts with a single step, or my case an hour's worth of dance steps. Logic dictates that if one wants to dance the Tango in Buenos Aires, one should learn to Tango in Bakersfield. So my first tango lesson is tonight. I signed up for lessons with Barbara Bates, the Iron Lady of the Bakersfield ballroom dance scene. Since I currently have problems with arthritic knees, it will be interesting to see if I can last for the lesson.

If my knees won't allow me to take lessons, that is no loss, I am going to Buenos Aires anyway. If I can't dance, I'll just sit in the milonga and watch the dancers. When I was making a fool of myself in Spain, I learned that the Spanish word for "Folly" is "Tonteria" So Tango in Buenos Aires. Esto es mi neuva tonteria.

Or as Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges says

"The tango is a direct expression of something that poets have often tried to state in words: the belief that a fight may be a celebration. " “El Tango es la directa expresión de lo que comúnmente los poetas han tratado de definir en palabras como: la creencia de que la lucha puede ser un festejo” Jorge Luis Borges.
source: http://www.nytutoring.com/libertango/tangology/quotes.html



Wish me luck.



Capitano Tedeschi

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Flying down to Buenos Aires Part 2, copyright June 24, 2009 by Jamie Jacks