IT ACTUALLY DID (GET BETTER)

Today the Festival and Mundial de Tango came to an end with a great closing milonga at the Harrods building in downtown Buenos Aires. As milongas go, we expected people to attend and the live orchestra to thrill the crowd that would come to listen and those who came to dance. The dancing exploded into the street, and Calle Florida become another dance floor.

Well, there he was Anibal Gomez recreating the sounds of the Orquesta Caracteristica Feliciano Brunelli and the place was packed wall to wall. The characteristic orchestra in the 40’s and 50’s was like a Lawrence Welk-like all around orchestra that played fox trots, polkas, cumbias, valses, pasodobles, and milonga among many other popular rhythms favorites at the time. The sound of the accordion was predominant and the rhythm section was supported by guitar, bass, and drums.

But the icing on the cake was the Los Reyes del Tango Orchestra alternating sets with the Caracteristica for an incredible evening full of spontaneous dancing in every available space of the old mega store of the fifties.

A beautiful aerial view of one of the dance floors inside the Harrods building. People were dancing, people were watching, everyone was sharing a state of unadulterated enjoyment on an unforgettable hot Sunday evening in the Buenos Aires winter.

Dancing with the Anibal Gomez Orquesta Caracteristica

Dancing with Los Reyes del Tango

This is for our sponsors, friends and fans for their loving support,

IT CAN’T GET BETTER THAN THIS

It can’t get any better when being in Buenos Aires during the 2009 Tango Festival, we get the unbelievable chance to see the legendary Quinteto Pirincho playing at the milonga in Harrods. Enjoy a bit of our unforgettable experience: hear and dance with the original sound of one of the oldest tango ensembles. After we Flipped, we danced!

BEHIND THE SCENES

Summer in August is how the TV anchors call this glorious day in Buenos Aires. Having made peace with the fact that we’re no longer on the vortex of the tango competition, we’re looking forward to a full week of sightseeing, visiting friends and relatives, and dancing for the fun of dancing, which is what we enjoy the most. No heartaches when we dance tandas after tandas surrounded by other people in a real milonga environment. Yes, I could have been a contender, but the prize I won back in 1995 is still the best and most treasured.

Here is a look behind the scenes at the process we went through before stepping on the dance floor at La Trastienda.

DANCING FROM THE HEART

This is  Alberto writing.

Last night we couldn’t sleep on account of the anxiety and uncertainty we were experiencing about the outcome of our struggle to make it through both days of qualifying rounds. The truth is that one week before traveling, the good doctors at Tulane hospital wanted to look for possible artery blockages in my (Alberto) body, and were not too happy about my refusal to let them poke his veins, and his insistence on traveling anyway.

Our adventure in Buenos Aires has been full of excitement, including me getting very nervous with uncontrollable anxiety and dancing with pain in the chest. Yesterday he chewed two aspirins before our round, and after the second song he put a nitroglycerin pill under the tongue. That helped a lot, and our dance was a great deal better than the day before. We actually enjoyed it so much that our hopes were raised to a reasonable level of expectation. We were so proud of each other.

The morning started with a very pleasing surprise, we received an email that read,

Alberto and Valorie, how is everything,?

What a surprise seeing you participating in the Dance World Cup! I did not know that you were in Bs. As. nor that I’d be judging your dancing yesterday! I congratulate you for your simple, elegant and musical dancing, and for the courage it took to join 470 participating couples! It was odd having to give a score to people I love and admire. I hope you are chosen to continue

No judge knows the points the other judges score. We are constantly watched and monitored so we don’t speak with each other or even exchange looks. So I don’t know how you fared… The score range is from 5 to 9 points, but nobody gives a 9 to anybody, because if the points given by a judge are too high with respect to the others, it is discarded. So I gave you an 8 to make sure it counts and gets added to the total score.

Much luck today!

It certainly helps being noticed and recognized, but that could actually work both ways. Anyway, we got on our way to Festival headquarters with mixed emotions, already wondering how my heart would handle the added excitement of the competition, even God forbid if we’d made it to the finals. We were certainly disappointed when our names were not called among the list of 65 couples moving on to the semifinals Friday. We actually placed 150 with a total score of 6.583. But considering all we had to deal with, we are very grateful of being able to be here, to have participated in two intense journeys, and to have danced our hearts out, literally and physically as well.

We are forever grateful to our sponsors, our friends and our peanut gallery for the unconditional show of love and support.

ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO

This Monday at 3 pm the qualifying rounds of the Tango World Championship got underway to a standing room only at La Transtienda, in the heart of San Telmo. An expert panel of judges kept a close eye on those couples that next Friday will be competing on the semi-finals.

427 couples from 25 countries are taking part in these competitions. Besides the couples registered for the competition, other couples who have won the semi-finals at other international tournaments held in Australia, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, and Venezuela as well as in Argentina, classified at preliminary competitions in Comodoro Rivadavia; San Martín de los Andes, Neuquén; San Salvador de Jujuy, Jujuy; La Falda, Córdoba; Resistencia, Chaco; La Plata, Bs. As. and Vicente López, Bs. As. will be competing at this instance. Also taking part in this competition will be the winners (from the second to the fourth position) of the 7th Tango City Competition which took place in May this year.

It was an indescribable excitement to be part of the experience, and now is one down and one to go. We danced our qualifying round at La Trastienda and even thought the adrenalin was wrecking havoc in my chest, we managed to finish standing up. We did PIROPOS with Troilo, LA VIRUTA with Gobbi, and EL REY DEL COMPAS with D’Arienzo.

The place was full to capacity and the stage was hot and colorful. We did everything the rules call for, including handling several back step attacks by an Eight Count Basic Stepper hot dog dancing in front of us. We were happy to receive warm rounds of applause. We had fans in the audience and here is the video of round five,

Video courtesy of Dante Proaño

THE DANCE WORLD CUP GETS UNDERWAY

We’re getting ready for our first qualifying round this afternoon, 2:30 pm local time, at La Trastienda, Balcarce 460. Our second round will be tomorrow. Each day we will dance three tangos selected by the Association of Dancers, Teachers and Choreographers of Tango,and each day we will receive a score from the five judges. The 65 couples totalling the highest scores will move to the Semifinals, along with the 20 winning couples from the regional championships. The results will be announced Wednesday at 11 am.

Go couple 151!

DANCING WITH THE DEVOTED

It’s Saturday and the options for dancing are plenty, however our desire is to find a floor crowd enough to get the feel of a milonga but large enough to test our ability to circulate without breaking the integrity of the embrace while connected to the music.

The dance floor at Centro Regional Leonesa, home of the very popular Thursday night milonga Niño bien, fits the bill on the early hours of the evening when the milonga of Los Consagrados runs from 4 pm to 10:30 pm.

This video was recorded by Dante with his phone and it shows us dancing to a Troilo piece

This video was recorded by Dante with our Flip and it shows us dancing to two Calo pieces

This video is a primer on the actual purpose of a cortina and what a non tango tanda really looks like.

THIS IS IT

The great annual challenge: the best dancers compete in Buenos Aires for the world title in the categories of Salon Tango and Stage Tango.

Hundreds of couples, from Argentina and abroad, will be judged by a panel of remarkable artists. The two exciting finals will be held at the mythical Luna Park stadium.

Accreditation for registered participants

Accreditation will take place at Harrods, Florida 877 in the following days:
Sunday 23 from 1 pm to 6 pm 13 to 18h: Salon and Stage Tango Accreditation
Tuesday 25 from 11 am to 2 pm: Stage Tango Accreditation

Competition dates

ELIMINATION ROUNDS

LA TRASTIENDA, Balcarce 460
Salon Category: Monday 24 and Tuesdays 25 from 3 pm to midnight
Stage Category: Wednesday 26 3 pm to midnight and Thursdays 27 from 11 am to 8 pm

SEMIFINALS

TANGO PORTENO, Cerrito 570
Salon Category: Friday 28 from 11 am to 5 pm
Stage Category: Fridays 28 of 7 pm to 1 am

FINALS

LUNA PARK, Bouchard 465
Salon Category: Saturday 29 from 8 pm to midnight
Stage Category: Mondays 31 7 pm to 11 pm

LA SALIDA

A video log of our first day of travel and arrival in Buenos Aires, complete with first salad, first wine and first milonga.

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Evaluation Criteria for the Salon Tango competition (unrestricted entry for amateurs and professional dancers)

Once a couple assumes the embraced position, the partners must not separate as long as the music is playing. This means that the embrace, which is considered the tango dance position, must not be broken. For the position to be considered correct, the body of one of the members must be constantly held by the other by means of the embrace. In certain figures the embrace may be flexible, but this should not last throughout the entire song.

All movements must be performed within the space allowed by the couple’s embrace. The Jury will evaluate the couple’s musicality and walking style as fundamental to the qualification. Within these guidelines, contestants may perform any figure commonly used, including barridas (sweeps), sacadas al piso (close to the floor), enrosques (twists), etc.

Ganchos (leg hooks), saltos (jumps), trepadas (climbs) and any other typical choreographic stage tango possibility shall be completely excluded.

Couples, as in a real dance hall, shall constantly move counterclockwise following the imaginary line of dance, and shall refrain from remaining in the same place for too long, obstructing the normal circulation of dancers around the dance floor. No contestant may raise his/her legs above the knee line.

a) Qualifying Round: all the couples that entered the competition will participate in this stage with a single performance.

b) Semifinal: for the couples selected during the Qualifying rounds and the couples that won the various competitions endorsed by the 7th Dance World Cup. Couples will dance twice, on different days. During this stage, in the Salon Tango category, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires will be represented in the Semifinals by the couples that took places two to five in the 7th City Dance Championship, held in April and May 2009.

c) Final: for the couples selected in the Semifinal. During this stage, in the Salon Tango category, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires will be represented by the winning couple of the 7th City Dance Championship, held in April and May 2009.

Couples will compete in group performances, dancing three pieces, either with recorded or live music, selected by the Organizers.

We think we can do this, now the question is, what will the judges think…