First Tangos in Buenos Aires
Rachel in Buenos Aires
And tango I did!
On Friday morning, I sat at home with my Spanish tapes playing in the background, Hazel´s and Michele´s recommendations spread out before me and the Buenos Aires A-Z in hand. After working out where and when everything was, the choice was clear: about four blocks away along the street behind mine is a place they both mentioned called Confiterie Ideal, which had an afternoon milonga. As added incentive, Michele had pointed out that this street is home to a cluster of tango shoe shops.
It did take a bit of courage. Anyone who told me before I left London that I was being brave, now I know what you meant! I will confess to wandering into a few shops on the way to distract myself - ooooh, those heavenly beautiful shoes!! - and I did almost walk into an adult cinema that seemed to be at the address I was after and almost sent me right back to the flat. What I was looking for was two doors down and something else entirely.
The Confiterie Ideal is simply fabulous. Think Prague after communism, or Vienna in ´The Third Man´ - very grand and very down at heel. The building went up in 1912 and has high moulded ceilings, white marble floors and walls clad in mahogany panelling, generously punctuated with huge mirrors. Above the panelling though, the plaster is bare and pock-marked; great holes remain in the mouldings where a suspended ceiling may have been removed; an assortment of fans hang down, some working, others just covered in dust. I daresay one day somebody will restore it to its former glory but I am so glad to have seen it in all its shabbiness.
The ground floor is a huge ritzy tea room but I didn´t let myself be distracted by the cakes. The music drifting down the marble staircase drew me up, around the ornate iron lift to the tango hall. Luckily for me, another single woman arrived just ahead of me so I watched and followed her in. I paid my ten pesos (less than two pounds, a little over three dollars) and asked where to sit, then in I went. What a gorgeous place. A couple of hundred tiny tables arranged around a vast area set aside for dancing. The place was very busy and on each table, there was something to indicate that it was taken - a drink, a jacket etc. Right at the far corner of the dance floor, I found my spot - on the front row with a perfect view of all the dancing.
I changed into the gold strappy dance shoes I bought in China last year: for my first milonga I wanted something I knew I could dance in and didn´t dare try the foxy, foxy killer heels that Linda gave me before I left. Barely had I done up the straps and looked up to survey the scene, than I picked up a signal from a man in a pink shirt. Next thing I knew, I had nodded at him and he was approaching me for a dance. Magic! It had sounded impossible in London, this obscure way of getting a partner, but in fact it is the easiest thing in the world. If you want to dance, you look around at the men and if there is someone you want to dance with particularly, you can stare at them. If they want to dance with you, they hold your eye and slightly tilt their heads. To say yes, you nod back and stand up; to say no, you look away and he comes no further. It is pretty subtle but at the same time quite clear. In fact a couple of men actually walked towards me in order to catch my eye because the floor is so big you´d need bionic eyesight. I tried the ignoring thing when someone was walking towards me and it did make him change direction. On the whole though, I didn´t feel like being too picky and I danced for most of the next four hours.
So, the man in the pink shirt was a lovely dancer; he was experienced enough to test out my limits and flexible and forgiving with me when I reached them, missing a couple of his cues for moves I could not follow. At the end of the first song, I said "Gracias para mi primero tango en Buenos Aires!" which I think means "thank you for my first tango in Bs As". He looked a bit stunned and I said I danced in London and had arrived yesterday, then he took my face in his hands, planted a big kiss on my cheek and said "bienvenuto en Argentina". How perfect is that! So we danced the rest of that set and chatted a little too. He was very complimentary about my dancing and said he was glad to catch me on my way in as I would soon be spoilt by all the attention. Just what a girl wants to hear!
The men were mostly a generation or two ahead of me in age and mostly quite charming. On the whole, they were very good dancers, although I did have trouble with a couple of them, much as in London. One held me too low in the back in a vice-like grip that made it really hard to move. Another held me at arm´s length and gave such a subtle lead that I just tripped around hanging onto him for the first half dance. I had watched him dancing very elegantly with an elderly lady earlier and thought how much they looked like Geoff and Mary Midgeley - however incongruous that might be. Anyway, by the end of the set, I was more or less following him. Then I danced with a man who dressed a lot like Saul from the London ballroom scene and had about as many moves. Well, rough with smooth - I shall be careful not to catch his eye again! There was also a man a lot like Danny deVito, who got me dancing some serious clippy moves to those dramatic Pugliese numbers.
My favourite partner was Oswaldo, a lovely gentleman with thick white hair and the moustache of a retired general. I felt as if I was responding really well to his lead and I caught myself in the mirror a couple of times and thought I looked pretty good! Again he was very complimentary and charming. He came back later to dance a milonga and we had a terrific skip around the floor, including some new steps for me. It is always gratifying when new steps come in and I manage to pick them up and not trip over. We chatted quite a bit and I hope to dance with him again. I know he will be at Ideal this afternoon but I think I will leave it today as I hope to go to a class this evening.
I stayed until the dance finished at eight in the evening, then strolled home taking a slightly scenic route down some new streets. It will be fairly hard to get lost here in the centre as the city is laid out on a grid and I live on the biggest main street, within view of the huge Obelisk monument. There was a record shop open, so I bought a couple of cheap CDs - Pugliese, Gardel and something folksy with a gaucho on the cover sporting the biggest beard. The supermarket was open too, so rather than go to a restaurant, I popped in and filled a basket with some unrecognisable stuff to try out, plus a huge steak for about 50p. The wine section was too big to ignore, so I had a quick look round and chose a bottle called Aberdeen Angus, in honour of my father´s insistance that the only reason the Argentinians have decent beef is that the cattle come from near his home town in Ayrshire, Scotland.
It was a nice friday night in, with my grilled steak and red peppers, a glass of wine and the new music on the stereo. I was in bed by eleven and up at half seven the next day - it seems I have found my natural time zone!
And tango I did!
On Friday morning, I sat at home with my Spanish tapes playing in the background, Hazel´s and Michele´s recommendations spread out before me and the Buenos Aires A-Z in hand. After working out where and when everything was, the choice was clear: about four blocks away along the street behind mine is a place they both mentioned called Confiterie Ideal, which had an afternoon milonga. As added incentive, Michele had pointed out that this street is home to a cluster of tango shoe shops.
It did take a bit of courage. Anyone who told me before I left London that I was being brave, now I know what you meant! I will confess to wandering into a few shops on the way to distract myself - ooooh, those heavenly beautiful shoes!! - and I did almost walk into an adult cinema that seemed to be at the address I was after and almost sent me right back to the flat. What I was looking for was two doors down and something else entirely.
The Confiterie Ideal is simply fabulous. Think Prague after communism, or Vienna in ´The Third Man´ - very grand and very down at heel. The building went up in 1912 and has high moulded ceilings, white marble floors and walls clad in mahogany panelling, generously punctuated with huge mirrors. Above the panelling though, the plaster is bare and pock-marked; great holes remain in the mouldings where a suspended ceiling may have been removed; an assortment of fans hang down, some working, others just covered in dust. I daresay one day somebody will restore it to its former glory but I am so glad to have seen it in all its shabbiness.
The ground floor is a huge ritzy tea room but I didn´t let myself be distracted by the cakes. The music drifting down the marble staircase drew me up, around the ornate iron lift to the tango hall. Luckily for me, another single woman arrived just ahead of me so I watched and followed her in. I paid my ten pesos (less than two pounds, a little over three dollars) and asked where to sit, then in I went. What a gorgeous place. A couple of hundred tiny tables arranged around a vast area set aside for dancing. The place was very busy and on each table, there was something to indicate that it was taken - a drink, a jacket etc. Right at the far corner of the dance floor, I found my spot - on the front row with a perfect view of all the dancing.
I changed into the gold strappy dance shoes I bought in China last year: for my first milonga I wanted something I knew I could dance in and didn´t dare try the foxy, foxy killer heels that Linda gave me before I left. Barely had I done up the straps and looked up to survey the scene, than I picked up a signal from a man in a pink shirt. Next thing I knew, I had nodded at him and he was approaching me for a dance. Magic! It had sounded impossible in London, this obscure way of getting a partner, but in fact it is the easiest thing in the world. If you want to dance, you look around at the men and if there is someone you want to dance with particularly, you can stare at them. If they want to dance with you, they hold your eye and slightly tilt their heads. To say yes, you nod back and stand up; to say no, you look away and he comes no further. It is pretty subtle but at the same time quite clear. In fact a couple of men actually walked towards me in order to catch my eye because the floor is so big you´d need bionic eyesight. I tried the ignoring thing when someone was walking towards me and it did make him change direction. On the whole though, I didn´t feel like being too picky and I danced for most of the next four hours.
So, the man in the pink shirt was a lovely dancer; he was experienced enough to test out my limits and flexible and forgiving with me when I reached them, missing a couple of his cues for moves I could not follow. At the end of the first song, I said "Gracias para mi primero tango en Buenos Aires!" which I think means "thank you for my first tango in Bs As". He looked a bit stunned and I said I danced in London and had arrived yesterday, then he took my face in his hands, planted a big kiss on my cheek and said "bienvenuto en Argentina". How perfect is that! So we danced the rest of that set and chatted a little too. He was very complimentary about my dancing and said he was glad to catch me on my way in as I would soon be spoilt by all the attention. Just what a girl wants to hear!
The men were mostly a generation or two ahead of me in age and mostly quite charming. On the whole, they were very good dancers, although I did have trouble with a couple of them, much as in London. One held me too low in the back in a vice-like grip that made it really hard to move. Another held me at arm´s length and gave such a subtle lead that I just tripped around hanging onto him for the first half dance. I had watched him dancing very elegantly with an elderly lady earlier and thought how much they looked like Geoff and Mary Midgeley - however incongruous that might be. Anyway, by the end of the set, I was more or less following him. Then I danced with a man who dressed a lot like Saul from the London ballroom scene and had about as many moves. Well, rough with smooth - I shall be careful not to catch his eye again! There was also a man a lot like Danny deVito, who got me dancing some serious clippy moves to those dramatic Pugliese numbers.
My favourite partner was Oswaldo, a lovely gentleman with thick white hair and the moustache of a retired general. I felt as if I was responding really well to his lead and I caught myself in the mirror a couple of times and thought I looked pretty good! Again he was very complimentary and charming. He came back later to dance a milonga and we had a terrific skip around the floor, including some new steps for me. It is always gratifying when new steps come in and I manage to pick them up and not trip over. We chatted quite a bit and I hope to dance with him again. I know he will be at Ideal this afternoon but I think I will leave it today as I hope to go to a class this evening.
I stayed until the dance finished at eight in the evening, then strolled home taking a slightly scenic route down some new streets. It will be fairly hard to get lost here in the centre as the city is laid out on a grid and I live on the biggest main street, within view of the huge Obelisk monument. There was a record shop open, so I bought a couple of cheap CDs - Pugliese, Gardel and something folksy with a gaucho on the cover sporting the biggest beard. The supermarket was open too, so rather than go to a restaurant, I popped in and filled a basket with some unrecognisable stuff to try out, plus a huge steak for about 50p. The wine section was too big to ignore, so I had a quick look round and chose a bottle called Aberdeen Angus, in honour of my father´s insistance that the only reason the Argentinians have decent beef is that the cattle come from near his home town in Ayrshire, Scotland.
It was a nice friday night in, with my grilled steak and red peppers, a glass of wine and the new music on the stereo. I was in bed by eleven and up at half seven the next day - it seems I have found my natural time zone!
posted by Rachel in Buenos Aires at 2:24 pm
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