Can it be five years since we rejoiced at the marriage of our very good friends Walter and Gay?  We will remember their anniversary with great joy next Thursday. 

After the couple starts the celebratory dance,  I will make sure to be the first lady to cut in on Walter.  Terri will certainly be second, and a free-for-all will follow.  Gay is a beautiful dancer, so you guys can and should fight for the chance to tango with her.  I can't wait. 

Walter has been a close friend and supporter since the very beginning at Paramus Firehouse # 4, and Gay came soon after.  When they aren't traveling, they come to Firehouse often.  Walter also teaches private lessons by appointment. 

From Horatio Piccioni

As usual I enjoyed the tango nights at the Firehouse. The group contains one of the most interesting galleria de personajes, where you can find almost everything in a short space of time. Together with a couple of milongas in BA. (also organized by women,)  it represents the most authentic expression of social tango. Felicitaciones a la organizadora. Chau

La Organizadora {Sue} is honored to receive this lovely note praising Firehouse Tango from my "maestro de español".

Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. One of the things that makes Argentine Tango so difficult for people in this country to learn is the preconception we have that dance equals motion. Without questioning it, the overwhelming majority of us take for granted that whether we're talking about ballet, jazz, tap, modern, folk, or social partner dancing, when we dance, we move. The dance starts; we move through space. The dance is over; we stop.

Does this sound like what you think? That's what I always believed. I wouldn't say that I had a conscious idea in my head that dance equals motion -- but if someone were to ask me "What does dancing look like?" -- I would certainly have answered something like, "People moving through space."

Wouldn't you? It's a given.  It's just how we perceive dancing to be -- people in motion.

Okay, so what's wrong with that? Well, nothing at all, if you're dancing, let's say, American Foxtrot. But Tango -- I mean, Argentine Tango -- is a whole different story. Do you remember hearing me say "Tango is a dance of motion and stillness" during our dance lessons? I went on to say -- and I now repeat, " In Tango, learning to stop, or to remain in la pausa is every bit as important as learning to move." (I'm sure you vividly recall that little tidbit, right?)

All right, now we're getting somewhere. Learning how to dance Tango means incorporating this unique idea into our minds. Sometimes we travel through space; sometimes we remain in place. This leads me -- and, I hope, eventually you -- to the idea that developing skill as both a leader and follower in Tango involves the proper execution of a single step. That's right, just one individual step. To be good at dancing Tango, you have to be able to:

Start each step through the complex mechanism that we call "lead/follow."

Travel through space as a result of the lead/follow invitation.

Come to a perfectly balanced stop at the end of the movement.

Notice that I didn't say that you have to be able to make a smooth transition to the next movement. I would have said that, if I were teaching Foxtrot. And I would have spelled out in detail exactly how I think you should go about the process of making a smooth transition. But we're talking about Tango here. Making a smooth transition to the next step is (in my opinion, at least) secondary to learning how to come to a balanced stop at the end of each step.

So, what can you do with this information? If you're a leader, you can start learning to come to rest at the end of each step in your dance. I'm not saying that you have to dance Tango like this forever. I'm just trying to encourage you to learn this crucial skill as a primary part of your learning process. Once you've assimilated how to come to a stop in balance, phase two is to learn how to continue by leading and accompanying one or more additional steps, each of which contains the potential for a stop at its completion.

If you're a follower, you can begin to recognize that in social Tango you have no idea from one step to the next what your leader has in mind. The implication of this is that you need to overcome the inclination to keep moving -- a very powerful inclination, as you know by now -- and assume that every step you're led to take involves coming to a balanced stop at its completion.

I teach an exercise, which I call "single-step motion," which incorporates this skill. It involves having the leader invite each movement -- forward, backward, side, and in-place -- with definite stops after each step. You may have experienced this exercise during one of our lessons. If you're like most new leaders, you may have thought to yourself, "Why is Fran wasting time with this useless exercise, when we could be working on some nice, fancy sequence like they do on YouTube?" If you're like most new followers, you might have thought, "Why do I have to learn how to stop -- nobody ever leads me to do this on the dance floor; in fact, they never stop moving."

My response to these thoughts is this. The good dancers in Argentina take the notion of coming to stops at the ends of steps absolutely for granted. In fact, I once asked a well-known teacher from Argentina how he felt about this unique idea of (at least potentially) stopping between steps. He said, "We do that as a matter of course, don't you?" Remember that unconscious mindset we have about dance equaling traveling, which I described above?  The Argentine mindset seems to be exactly the opposite of ours.

The bottom line here is that if we want to learn to dance their way, we have to start by becoming aware that Argentine dancers think quite differently from the way we do, and don't realize it. Then, we have to adopt their idea of conceptualizing the way to move -- exactly what I've been talking about throughout this Tango Tip -- and learn for ourselves how to develop this skill.

Let's start now.

Every Saturday, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Dance Manhattan, Fran and Pat host a special beginner/intermediate practice, geared toward helping you bring your skills up to speed. The cost for the practice is $10 per person. (Bringing a partner isn't necessary.) Fran and Pat are always on hand to answer any questions you may have about your dancing, and to help you with material you're working on. If you'd like a private lesson, call Fran directly at 212-662-7692, or email him at franchesleigh@mac.com. For the practice, all you have to do is arrive with $10 and your dance shoes in hand.

 Every day, our dear friend and teacher in Buenos Aires posts a historical tango fact of the day. These interesting and informative tidbits always include English, Spanish and Italian  information and a relevant recording. You can see all of them and listen to the recording by simply joining Monica Paz PractiMilonguero Facebook page. Below is a link to the Facebook page, where you can hear the music:

September 11th, 1955

FRANCISCO FIORENTINO dies. Bandoneonist, composer and singer. With Aníbal Troilo he was a brilliant example of vocalist in an orchestra for dancing. His artistic life with Pichuco lasted six years during which they recorded approximately sixty-one themes (twice MALENA). The vast majority of these recordings were excellent, something unparalleled in tango. The title of the first one was a premonition: here it is.

♫ YO SOY EL TANGO. Aníbal Troilo y Francisco Fiorentino (1941)

Note from Sue - This is one of my favorite tangoes.  Make sure to listen to it on Monica's calendar.  The link is below.

⊙ CD Nº6 Colección Natucci (40 CD)

 https://www.facebook.com/MPTango

And the following one for her latest interview (She regularly posts interviews that she does with surviving old milongueros) : 

MP Tango Interview

MPTango Presents Eduardo "El Nene" Masci at PractiMilonguero

Click on cc underneath the screen for English subtitles.

Special guest teachers and performers - Carolina Jaurena & Andres Bravo

Andres & Carolina are one of the best known Tango performing couples and Instructors in the New York City area.

Expect a great Tango performance...

More information about them at http://www.andresycarolina.com/

Class at 7:00pm, social dancing from 8:00pm
Couples, singles and beginners welcome!

Admission $15, including home cooked "delight"

         Location: VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars)

                                     725 Franklin Avenue (corner of Pulis Avenue)
           Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417

                                       For directions click here                            

For more information contact us at:
info@lospitucos.com
and visit our website at
http://lospitucos.com

We look forward to the reopening of Domingo Tango Club after a well-deserved summer break.   This is our favorite New York milonga with our favorite New York DJ, Rich Ariza.

Sunday Evening:

6:30 'till 10:30 PM

hosted by Richard & Eddie

TRIANGULO

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

• Tsypoyra Sartan
• Elena Titova
• Elena Syrett
• Hilda and Rafael
• Debbie Glaser
• Steve Maisch
• steve turi (in absentia)
  

And of course, without Terri Lopez, we would have to close up shop.

• Eva Roth - Chicken with Vegetables
• Bonny - Guacamole & Chips
• Herb & Judy - Rum raisin ice cream C
• cake - Birthday cake
  
• Tsipoyra - Birthday cake
• Glenn K. - Huge box of danish
  

• George Ngo
• Rifky Mackeen
• Edna Negron
• Bob Brillo
• Mike Porro
• Horatio PiccioniEduar Krukovskysddf