November 28th - Thanksgiving day - no Firehouse Milonga

Firehouse Tango will be closed on Thanksgiving Day: Thursday, November 28th.  We hope you'll enjoy the day with your family, as we all will - and, of course, we'll look forward to seeing you on the following Thursday evening, December 5th.

Happy Thanksgiving!

December 5 Christmas/Hanukkah/Thanksgiving

December 26  New Year's

Since Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Days are on Wednesdays, it was difficult for us to decide when to have our traditional Firehouse holiday milongas.  We decided on Thursdays, December 5th (Christmas/ Hanukkah/ Thanksgiving) and December 26th (New Year's.) 

Each of the holiday milongas will feature:

•  Fabulous door prizes
• An extra half hour for dancing
  
• Special food
• Festive atmosphere with decorated hall
• Dress up for the holidays
• Holiday cortinas
• Keep your eyes open for our yearly visit from Santa
  

As always, our $15 milonga admission charge will include beginner (7 - 8) and intermediate (8 - 9) lessons taught by Fran Chesleigh; a buffet dinner; and dancing and socializing with some of the nicest folks around.

Bring a dish to one or both Holiday Milongas (December 5th and/or December 26th)

 This is what we have so far for December 5:

• Sue Dallon    Brisket with potatoes, carrots, and string beans and sweet potato souffle
• Terri Lopez    Chicken
• Jan and Carl    Something
• Eva Roth            Something
• Lou and Faye    Fresh pineapple
  
• Judy Assisi       Dried fruit compote with Grand Marnier
• Flo Salierno      Dessert
• Elena Syrett      Dessert
• Michael Wainer Cake
• Heidi Feder       Cake and cookies
• George Ngo        Empanadas
• Judy and John Wynne Pumpkin chocolate nut bread
  

If you would like to contribute something for the Christmas/Hanukah/Thanksgiving milonga and/or the New Year's milonga, please let me know.  You can send an e mail to firehousetango@gmail.com  or tell Tibor at the front desk.  It can be an appetizer, main dish, or dessert.  It doesn't even have to be home made.

Fran's vals lesson last week was awesome.  Next week, we go back to our normal schedule of a basic tango lesson from 7 to 8 and an intermediate tango lesson from 8 to 9. 

December 5 - Holiday Milonga and Bao Vo's birthday

See above for information

December 12 - Elena Titova Birthday and Veronica Diaz

        Veronica 

Veronica, my Spanish teacher, is a native of Buenos Aires and loves Argentine Tango. She misses her Thursday nights at Firehouse only when her very busy schedule interferes. 

Months ago, Veronica  made sure that I wrote down her birthday because she was so excited about celebrating with us.  We are delighted to do so, and we urge all tangueros to join her birthday tango.  You definitely should not miss dancing with this awesome tanguera. 

        Elena

Elena joined us about a year ago, and she has quickly become a great Firehouse friend.  Check out her smile, which lights up the room.  We're so happy to be able to celebrate her birthday at Firehouse on December 12.

December 19 - Cris Grapa Birthday

December 26 - New Year's Milonga

See above for information about our New Year's Milonga on December 26

Bao Vo Birthday December 5



Don't miss Bao's birthday tango on December fifth.   Last year, she brought a chocolate on chocolate birthday cake that was absolutely delicious.  I'm sure that this year's will be just as good.


November 21st - Anniversary of Walter Monteblanco and and Gay Fallows Monteblanco

 For the next few weeks, we will be playing Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years cortinas.

MamaJuana Cafe  570 Amsterdam Ave. (Bet. 87th & 88th) 212 362-1514

Monday   !ESMERALDA'S TANGO OESTE! hosted by Lucille Krasne 212 777-6053

                Dancing 7:30-11:30 (or later) Cover $10

                Beginner Lesson included 6:30 to 7:30 

From Mike Porro - Tango Loco IV November 30th in Midland Park

The highlight of the evening of the evening is the auction.  Last year we had many contributions of items near and dear to the donors and that made them all that more special and unique.  Steve Maish made his bread, of example, and Pat made jelly.  Together they donated a picnic basket of homemade goodies.  So, the auction is a great way to give a little of ourselves to the cause and to promote our businesses too.  Firehouse Tango donated admission tickets and Dave Porro, ballroom lessons.  So, don't be shy about stepping up.  Anything great and small is appreciated and they make the evening all the more fun.  Please get a description of your items to Mike via his email at porro@erols.com ASAP.  Many thanks.  FYI- 100% of the money taken in during the evening will go to recipients.  Expenses are picked up by a few angels.  This year we will include the people of The Philippines as well as our two local food banks as recipients.

From Deb Glaser

 Dear Sue and Joe, Your celebration last night was delightful. Sue, your tribute to Joe was beautiful. Blessings,Debbie

From Elena Syrett

Dear Sue and Joe and dear Terri, Carl and Tsipoyra too

 What an amazing celebration that was! The love, warmth, care, and commitment they have for each other was expressed by Sue eloquently and from the heart. Terri and Tsipoyra were so thoughtful getting that wonderful cake!

 Carl, of course, was a stroke of genius by Terri.  His singing, which held us speechless, added solemnity, originality and sheer beauty to the event.  Rightly so for a 25 year wedding anniversary....

 Thank you to all

Elena

From Vivianne B

 Happy 25th Anniversary Sue and Joe! Sorry I couldn't make it.  Thursdays are generally not a good evening for me anymore. 

 I would like to know when your Argentina excursions will be. Would you kindly keep me updated? 

 Thanks and have a great day!!

From Inna D.

Dear Sue and Joe,

 Happy 25th Anniversary!

 We would like to wish you a continuous bond filled with peace, happiness, harmony, smiles and laughter!

 Kind Regards,

 Inna and family.

From Lillian S.

Dear Sue and Joe,

 A very happy anniversary and best wishes for the next twenty five years!

 Best wishes always,

Congratulations on your milestone anniversary. Wish we could be there to help you celebrate.

We're thinking of a short NY tour in April.

love to you both

Sue & Joe,

We wish you a Very Happy 25th Anniversary and we are sorry we could not attend, but you know why we could not be there.  We are happy your celebration turned out well and that you had a good time.

We are getting accustomed to this area of BsAs with the help of a very special woman.  Eva has been giving us pointers for everything.  She is a very remarkable person.

Something that will amuse you.  I could not connect to the Internet using WiFi.   I kept entering the password as (clave arnet) and it was rejected each time.  I did not know that "clave" meant password and was not part of the password. 

Keep dancing and be well.

Abrazos y besos,

Jerry and Adele

Hi Sue:  "Happy, Happy Anniversary". I am glad that you all had a great time!

Yesterday afternoon, Jerry, Adele and I went to Chique for the lessons given by a woman I stayed a while for the milonga and left.  They stayed for a while.

Today it is very windy, and we are getting ready to head out to La Ideal today Friday.  Tomorrow, we are going to Marabu, let's see what it is on Saturday.  Sunday I may go to A Lo de Celia or Las Glorietas.  A week from this coming Sunday, I will be comfortably seating inside the plane on my way to Kennedy.

I wrote to Debbie and Mike wishing them a quick recovery - that I will be at their milonga and will bring something from here for their raffle.

Other than that, life continues.  Looking forward to seeing you on December 5th.  Love - Eva

Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. If you were at the Firehouse this Thursday, you know that I focused on Argentine Waltz, usually called vals, vals criolla, or sometimes valsita. Waltz is one of the three types of music played at Argentine social dance events (which are generally called milongas), the other two being tango and milonga.

Because I concentrate almost exclusively on tango in the dance lessons I teach at the Firehouse, many students assume that when I switch to a lesson in Waltz, they'll be learning a whole different vocabulary of patterns. The reason for this no doubt is that in this country we think of any given dance as consisting of a series of discrete steps or figures which are specific to that particular dance. This well-ingrained predisposition has been an integral part of our social dance tradition as far back as any of us remember -- and for good or ill it has been strongly encouraged and amplified by dance teachers and dance schools at least as far back as Vernon and Irene Castle.

In Argentina, however, the social dance tradition is different. One of the first admonitions I was given, when I started studying tango, was "In tango there are no steps."

"What? How can anybody dance without steps?"

The Argentine answer to this question is that leaders learn to move, using a series of simple elements (forward, backward, to the side, in place, pause, and pivot). These elements enable them to create (or improvise) an entire dance -- a dance which belongs exclusively to each individual dancer -- without having to memorize any preordained vocabulary. In this way, leaders and followers can focus on the music, on the rhythm, and on the intimacy between them rather then on the abstract and severely limiting components of fixed dance figures.

Of course, right now you may be asking yourself "Why, then, do I learn figures in virtually every lesson I take?" My answer to this is "Oops, you found us out." Every dance teacher I've ever encountered - myself included -- teaches steps. As much as we might like our dancing to be pure in-the-moment improvisation, we all invent material in a calculated way so that we can repeat it whenever it suits the moment. Or we "borrow" figures we like from other dancers (not to mention YouTube). All the great milongueros had a repertoire of steps that they claimed belonged exclusively to them. And even if these figures were originally created in the context, let's say, of vals, it doesn't mean that they can't be transported over to tango or milonga, if you think it will work in that other dance.

When I teach vals -- as you learned on Thursday evening at the Firehouse -- I don't come up with a special vocabulary of figures which are found in that dance alone. Pretty much any series of movements I or any other dance teacher might offer can generally be part of vals, in tango, or in milonga. I say "generally," because the one crucial factor that does come into play with each of the three Argentine social dances is speed.

You may have discovered for yourself by this time that some of the movements you've learned (or made up on your own) just don't work, when the music is too fast. A very obvious example of this is a double-time figure or traspie. When the music is slow or even medium tempo, you have no trouble executing the figure -- but with music that is very fast, it suddenly becomes virtually impossible. If you're relatively new to dancing, you may have assumed that you don't yet have the skill level necessary to perform such figures at high speed. But this isn't the reason. It's the music itself!

What I hope you will take away from this Tango Tip is that Argentine Dancing is a very special way of responding to music and moving improvisationally with a partner. It is not a series of specific patterns which you can codify into a separate vocabulary for tango, for vals, and for milonga -- as students seem to do in contemporary American dancing. I recommend that you spend your time attempting to master the skill of leading and following along with assimilating the unique stylistic character of each dance through a better understanding of and feeling for the music -- rather than endlessly memorizing one abstract dance figure after another.

Asi se baila el tango!

The following folks helped set up, break down and clean up before and after the milonga. Without them, there would be no Firehouse Tango.

• Terri Lopez - 
• Terri's son Tony
• Joe
  
• steve turi 
• Steve Maisch
• Tsipoyra Sartan
• Jesse Barton

• Barbara Lombardi
• Heidi Fedor
• Jack Messing
  
• Bill Krukovsky
• George Ngo
• Naum & Slava Khromov
• Jean Shedlock
• Enrique Zuniga
• Bob Brillo
• Charles Moorman
• Hilda & Rafael
• Simon Kreymerman
• Francis & Marie
• Ken Berard
  
• Eduardo Campos
• Terri Lopez