el cuarto

I like taking part to tango marathons. Well, someone I know would now say I keep complaining about organisations and am always tired or not really in the mood for dancing lately, but well, I’m saying it now, I like marathons.
Marathons are special events for tango dancers, who gather in some place in Europe and dance. That’s it. Marathons usually take place during a weekend, and without break. For three days, from friday to sunday, people taking part to the event know that in some room they will have their loved music playing and favourite dancers coming from all Europe for a whole weekend. It’s a way for tango addicted dancers to meet their similars they know they dance well with. In the same room people eat, sleep (there is always onother room for sleeping but many try not to get too far from the dancing floor) and dance. Djs alternate to assure a continuity with no break of music.

Usually, tango marathons are not really advertised, but passed by word of mouth, which make them a sort of conspiration. This doesn’t seem to be appreciated by everyone, but it’s actually a way to keep the level of dancing “high”. No “stars” usually enjoy the events, but many tango professionals, and definitely only very active tango dancers. Marathons are a northern Europe product. They take place in Sweden, northern Germany and Holland. People come specially from northern Europe, but also Switzerland, France, Spain. Not many from Italy, where marathons are not very well known.

In december, I took part to the Tango Marathon in Lomma, close to Malmö in Sweden, where these pictures and others were taken. It was nice (technical, not-too-important notes: floor very slippery and a little too far from the town place, very good food prepared by eager cooks and fine shift working organisation), I enjoyed the dancing, the music and the atmosphere. I am not really able to dance for hours. I attended about three marathons already and understand that I actually interpretate the marathon as an event where you can find tango at any time, not that one can find you at any time dancing on the floor. Probably I am not physically prepared. There are some dancers who can do that, they just dance all night long, you go sleeping at 6.00 a.m. and when you wake up at 11.00, you’ll find them still dancing. I am envious. I know I have to work more on my training: target for 2008.

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Happy new year to everyone visiting El cuarto!

I chose Tangoloft with a friend from Paris visiting me and Berlin for our new year’s eve milonga. Appearently, everybody in Berlin would go there. Fortunately, we went to a very nice dinner and to a funny party in Kreuzberg before, because the dancing was quite disappointing. Unfortunately, I have to say Tangoloft is always quite bad for the quality of dancing.
It’s a pity, because Tangoloft is a perfect space for milonga: wonderful wodden floor, very nice atmosphere and light, very large room, nice furniture (top couches, very comfortable and useful for bored people). There is a very good bar and a kitchen, which give the idea of a very cosy and warm place to the visitor.
The problem is, essentially, the music. Djs here (I don’t know them) don’t know much about 1) the importance of playing tango on a tango night 2) sequences of tangos according to who’s dancing. I would say, they play the music they like, which could go from electronic music to Mozart, without taking care at all of the fact that someone comes in order to dance only tango. I think it’s a choice of the owners dued, in my opinion, to the common idea in Berlin, that people should be free to do what they want, that here tango is to be reinterpretated as people can and want. So, they don’t make a milonga, but a club where, sometimes, they play and dance tango. Those who expect a milonga should know they could be very disappointed.

By the way, Tangoloft is also a tango school, where good tango classes take place, and a nice practica too, on wendsday night. There, people can actually try everything they want, chose the music they want, and this is a very good opportunity given by the berlinian tango attitude.

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Credo che niente possa spiegare meglio lo spirito ballerino di Chicho come l’intervista trovata da Voglia di tango e tradotta da Daikiltango. E anche dare la sensazione di trovarsi davanti a una persona che ha davvero delle cose da dire, con il tango e non solo.

Intanto continuano ad essere youtubizzati i video di Mantova, questo è tra l’altro quello che ho visto io:

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Sto viaggiando molto per motivi diversi.
In particolare, sto facendo molti colloqui in giro per la Germania. Mi rimborsano i biglietti (a Berlino della metro, e me lo faccio rimborsare anche se ho l’abbonamento), in altre città per l’aereo e i vari spostamenti. Vedo la Germania e capisco che Berlino non è molto tedesca, probabilmente. Monaco, laggiù, ha il freddo alpino, la gente vestita con i vestiti tradizionali e in generale male, come in effetti mi ricordavo i tedeschi sono soliti fare. E’ ricca e ostenta Mercedes e BMW, ha grandi aree industriali, non mischia lavoro e fancazzismo come sa fare bene Berlino. Amburgo è vivace, grigia ma con carattere, anche lei internazionale, da sempre aperta verso gli altri. Il centro mi ricorda incredibilmente Genova: il porto è proprio un carattere, bisognerebbe fare una per niente guida delle città portuali.
Preferisco il nord, almeno in Germania, è meno noioso, più abituato al confornoto, religioso, linguistico, anche lavorativo, la gente è sorprendentemente più allegra. Ma c’è meno lavoro, e meno soldi. Chissà perché mi trovo così bene sempre nelle situazioni più sfigate. La risposta sarebbe semplice, ma siccome sono in una fase in cui mi devo vendere bene e quindi credere molto in me stessa, non sarò io a dirla.
Ora una piccola pausa e un ultimo viaggio per il 2007, in Italia per Natale, sarà strano non avere il rimborso.

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Adoro planare in arrivo con l’aereo da qualche parte.
Questa volta è stato dalle Alpi imbiancate, passando sul Lago di Garda, lentamente verso la pianura, il pilota era davvero costretto a spettacolari virate su un paesaggio mozzafiato. Era solo l’inizio, la danza fluttuante verso una meravigliosa breve vacanza, rigenerante, piena di gente nuova, a Brescia, Bergamo, Mantova, di buone cose da mangiare, di ballo, di risate, anche un po’ di pianto liberatorio, di un sacco di chiacchiere.
Fantastico il bagno, nella nebbia e nel buio di domenica sera alle terme del Parco Termale del Garda, una sorpresa inaspettata, perché nella mia ignoranza totale non sapevo assolutamente dell’esistenza di questo paradiso. Stratosferico il massaggio al cioccolato, pare anticellulite (ma dopo tutte quelle mangiate il valore anticellulitico si sarà eliso…)!
Chi l’avrebbe detto, la felicità in Val Padana… Grazie!

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The huge, Christmas lightened, lost in the foggy Po lowlands in the industral area close to Mantova sport centre is unfortunately yet the place where the Mantova Tango Festival, probably the most important in Italy, takes place. I’ll only mention the fact that the floor is in linoleum and the dancing area is in a very cold, tall ceilinged gym, lightened with cold and annoying spotlights. Still, it is a big happening, attracting people from many countries in Europe, and always guesting very important dancers, who don’t seem to be bothered by these things. It could be a question of affection (it’s a relative old festival in Italy), or maybe the assurance to meet here a lot of people who come to the festival anyway, like me, even if they mumble all the time about these downsides.
The entrance for dancing and performances, on Saturday, was 22 Euros, which is not a lot, considered that on that night every guested dancer performed, but I had to pay 3 Euros for the registration to Faitango, the italian Tango association, even if I won’t probably use it anymore. Well, another little mumbling…

The performances were interesting for very many different reasons, which are also difficoult to resume. I will tell about very personal impressions, which could be also wrong, and also based on a “just one night visit” to the festival.

I got the feeling that Gustavo Naveira changed a bit the atmosphere, which I can compare with the one of two years ago. Naveira has been missing from Europe for quite a long time, he is now dancing after this break in all european countries again , and in Mantova there were lot of expectations about him. Also, he is the “teacher” of dancers who performed: Chicho and Arce in particular. In a way, Naveira represents the beginning of a tango style, but also, somehow, the tradition, that all the other dancers have to respect. Actually, Chicho Frumboli, Mariana Montes, Sebastian Arce are dancers who developed in Europe new tango ideas which Naveira started. New dancers had more freedom, here in Europe, to dance as they wanted, without being looked as tango killers by traditional dancers in their country. Naveira kept teaching new ideas, though not so extreme like those of Chicho, in Buenos Aires, and later, tango nuevo had its chance in Buenos Aires too, also because of the success new tango dancers, Naveiras followers, had in Europe.

Anyway, I don’t know wether it was because of Naveira’s presence, but Chicho, for istance, seemed “easier” to me, not so complicated in his sequences as he often is. I would even say he looked happier than usual, dancing with his young, sweet, good new partner Juana Sepulveda. A smile is something I always missed in his on a musical and interpretation point of view perfect dancing, and that’s why I appreciated his performance even more:

Sebastian Arce and Mariana Montes were, if possible, more technical perfect than ever. It depends on the fact that they know each other by heart, and they can dare trying experiments on movements which have a lot to do with physics, and always less with tango music. On the contrary, their dancing is a kind of “contact” dancing with a tango embrace, which can be danced with every music, as, in fact, they did in their performance. Very tricky.

Julio Balmaceda and Corina De la Rosa: kings of milonga, they could show it again. It is so funny and so joyful the way they dance milonga, it can’t be compared with noone else. I love Corina, because she is different.

Personal note: I danced with him, and this was worth the whole festival to me!

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In Germania ho scoperto una cosa incredibile: Derrick non se lo fila nessuno.
E’ opinione italiana diffusa che quegli scenari tristi, un po’ verdolini, di Derrick, fossero praticamente un emblema della Germania. E invece, sorpresa, ho capito che dire che Derrick è tipicamente tedesco è come dire che Al Bano e Romina fanno la vera musica italiana.

E’ in effetti indubbio che il genere, il Krimi, lo sceneggiato poliziesco, ha un successo incredibile, e qui ne vengono prodotti in serie numerose. Ma il vero e proprio culto, e quando dico culto non esagero neanche un po’, in Germania, è Tatort, il luogo del delitto. Pare che vada in onda da 35 anni con rarissime eccezioni, come i Mondiali e, immagino, la caduta del muro, che ha segnato il raddoppiamento del suo pubblico. Questo in caso il 9 novembre 1989 sia stato di domenica. Perché Tatort vuol dire domenica sera, e viceversa. Non otterrai mai alcun appuntamento con alcun tedesco domenica sera dalle 20 alle 21.30. Persino la pubblicità, che non è da meno rispetto alla programmazione italiana, si ferma per un’ora e mezza.

Ho deciso che mi dovevo tatortizzare solo da poco, perché un’amica mi ha convinto ad andare in uno dei locali dove, tutte le sante domeniche alle 20, proiettano Tatort come in Italia le partite, su grandi schermi. La mia amica, mia coetanea e quindi cresciuta con Tatort, in questo locale riceve senza chiedere quello che ha sempre ordinato, e incontra un gruppo di persone con le quali altrimenti non avrebbe nulla a che fare. Tutti dicono che è il modo ideale di chiudere il fine settimana.
In effetti anche io ho subito un po’ il fascino di Tatort, certamente per la tradizione, ma anche un po’ per lo sceneggiato in sè. Ogni puntata ha luogo in una città tedesca diversa, e il pubblico mano a mano ha imparato a conoscere i vari commissari delle diverse città, le loro storie anche private. Ogni tanto succede che in una puntata si incontrano i commissari di Monaco e di Francoforte, per dire, e tutti sono molto emozionati. Chiaramente, c’è una caratterizzazione regionale dei personaggi e forse anche dei casi, della lingua, certamente, del cibo. Lo salva dal diventare un bel polpettone nazionalpopolare il fatto di essere un krimi e di diventare occasionalmente davvero politically incorrect, e attuale. Tutti i principali attori tedeschi recitano o hanno recitato almeno una volta nella serie, e credo sia una vera e propria scuola di regia e sceneggiatura per tutti quelli che escono dalle varie accademie di cinema, per la solita capacità dei tedeschi di ottenere un servizio sociale da qualunque cosa.

Nella puntata di stasera ho capito immediatamente chi era il colpevole che, nella sua prima apparizione, è seduto alla propria scrivania di capo aziendale, e casualmente si ritrova due corna sulla testa, dovute a un non meglio identificato oggetto alle sue spalle. Volevo dirlo al mio vicino, ma era tutto preso dalla trama, come sempre anche abbastanza contorta.
E comunque, non v’è scampo, nonostante Totort nel corso degli anni abbia seguito le evoluzioni della regia televisiva e messo alla prova le tecniche di ripresa, la luce è sempre un po’ verdolina. Secondo me è dovuto alla luce della scritta Polizei, la luce che illumina il mondo.

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I like fancying Gustavo Naveira will remember this date and this performance, as well as everybody is used to remember his performances very well. Yesterday, in a sold-out Salon Rixdorf, at the end of a long, generous, and as usual perfect show, he told us it was the celebration of the first day he danced with Giselle, and they danced for us the same song they danced twelve years ago, La Cumparsita of course. Not a slow, romantic dancing of this classic tango, but perfectly in Naveira style, without renouncing jokes and his typical musical reinterpretation of repertoires.

After having seen so many videos and pictures of him dancing, I finally saw Naveira live, and I was not disappointed. Gustavo Naveira is not the kind of dancer who needs a lot of advertisings of his performances and teachings. Everybody knows he invented a personal style, studied and forwarded to other meanwhile popular dancers the techniques and the movements of actually meeting on a dance floor with a well known partner always as if it would be the first time. But he does not need to make up a cool picture of himself as a “tango nuevo” dancer. He does not invest in flyers or web sites, and the result is that when you see him you are happy he didn’t really get so different, older and bluer than how he used to be during the shooting of the Sally Potter’s Tango lesson movie which made him and the other guested dancers so popular.

I don’t know wether Naveira will actually remember us, I guess he always has this kind of ideas for his shows, because he is a true entertainer, with his typical, funny way of being professionally natural, unstudied. Not a single Naveira’s dancing movement makes sense without the music of that single moment, which is not odd for a contemporary dancer, but that, with his incredible technical mastery and experience, and with his sense of humor, is at the moment definitely unique.

Gustavo Naveira went very early, yesterday night. He has got a family. We (don’t, and) stayed, as usual, dancing for many hours at Rixdorf, talking about the performance of course. I heard from many people that Naveira was very professional, but a little bit cold. This would be the worst aspect of tango nuevo. I think people want to see the heart beating in tango. For many it’s the only thing tango is worth of, even if that could mean fake and artificial dancing. My opinion is it is possible, in Naveira’s tango, to see his heart beating for what he is doing. It is maybe this taste for almost making music while dancing and joking with tango ideas that makes his and our heart beat.

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…questo, per un iPhone! e… poi basta :-O

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Roter Salon: dancing in a red, low ceilinged charming space, reminding the Kubrick’s “Shining” movie set, drinking a beer, not recognizing people in its darkness, forgetting about time.
Roter salon has always been, I have to say, my favourite Berlin’s milonga. It is the atmosphere, the music, the dancers, the bar, the floor that make of the “Roter” the nicest place for dancing here.

This is a very popular and special place in Berlin, it is part of the Volksbühne, the most important theater of the former eastern Germany and probably in Berlin now. It is a secondary small room of the theater, being together with another one, on the opposite side of it, called “Gruener Salon”, because of its green furniture and lights while, in Roter’s, everything is red. In these two rooms secondary events of the theater take place: parties of companies and groups having their shows in the Volksbuehne, and even of important happenings in Berlin like the Berlinale.
The red furniture and lights are really typical here, and I would say in Berlin. The furniture is also kind of “vintage”, very charming and special, also because of the Lenin’s portrait hanged above the dj’s head.

On wednesday, starting from about 22.00, the milonga takes place. Everything works really well here. Michael’s music selection is more inspired here than anywhere (I don’t know why), dancers stay here till late, and the milonga goes on until people dance. Though during the week, this milonga is always crowded and, even more interesting, you can find many people, often from Argentina, but also from other places just coming here for dancing. Good dancers like this milonga going on and offering a nice floor till late. For those who don’t have to work on thursday, the tradition is getting quite late to the milonga, maybe doing something else before, and dancing at least till 4.00 a.m., when the tube works again. Also very tipical here, and probably caused by the argentinian presences, is the very chilled-out athmosphere. People don’t dress fancy for dancing here, many come here for taking their drinks and relax, and maybe dance sometimes, when a nice tune is playing or with a special dancer. I would say Berlin is a city where you can easily find this kind of attitude, sometimes even more than in Buenos Aires.

Not every wednesday is so nice in Roter’s but, well, you can have a lot of fun here, and I would anyway say it is worth, if you are planning a tango journey to Berlin, to bring a wednesday in it.

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