Hi everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. With our Tip last week, we talked about taking a more effective approach to your learning process. Basically, it involved making a decision to learn Tango in the right way rather than toying with YouTube fantasyland. (You can read all about it by accessing last week’s Tango Tip in the Firehouse Tango archives.)

Today, we’re going to set our sights on heading to Argentina for what we’ll call a working vacation. During the 1990s, a lot of students started taking group tours to Buenos Aires to learn more about Tango. Typically, their hosts encouraged them to sign up for stage shows; they bought shoes, and they took lots of lessons during their stay. Some of the braver tourists actually visited a real milonga or two; but, frankly, many were too timid for that kind of in-your-face exposure.

When you take your trip to Buenos Aires in 2017, I’d like to suggest a somewhat different strategy. First of all, if you’re looking for stage Tango, you can get all you could ever ask for these days right here in the U.S.A. Secondly, if you want to take lessons with a teacher from Argentina, you’ll find that most of them are here, too. Since the Tango explosion in the late 1980s, the majority of professional Tango dancers/teachers from Argentina have based themselves either here in the U.S.A., or in various places in Europe — where they have found a more lucrative source of continuing income.

What you can’t get here — and what I think you should concentrate on, when you visit Buenos Aires — is the experience of seeing and studying for yourself exactly how Tango is danced in its native environment; i.e., in the milongas of Argentina.

In Buenos Aires, you have the opportunity to spend time at the milongas practically all day and all night. While you’re still in the planning stages of setting up your itinerary, if you Google “Tango dancing in Buenos Aires,” you’ll find several Web sites, which will direct you to all the venues currently offering Tango. You’ll notice that milongas are scheduled either during the day or in the evening. Starting around 3:00 pm, you’ll have a choice of several daytime venues. During evening hours, starting anywhere from 7:00 pm up to 10 pm or as late as 11 pm, you’ll have a generous schedule of nighttime venues to choose from.

My advice would be for you to set up a daily schedule of visiting one milonga during each day, and one each evening. As a primary strategy, start with a few afternoon milongas where things are usually fairly relaxed. If possible, find a comfortable seat near the dance floor, and plan to simply watch what the dancers are doing.

Try to focus on the somewhat more mature Argentine dancers — rather than the American, European, or Asian tourists, who are usually attempting to demonstrate everything they’ve been learning in their stage Tango lessons. Notice how most Argentine people keep the dance quite simple, how they consistently pay close attention to the comfort of their partners, how they expertly and effortlessly navigate the dance floor, no matter how crowded it may be, how they never (well, almost never) try to draw undue attention to themselves.

You may, of course, feel the urge to actually get up on the floor, and have a dance or two yourself. If so, I would suggest waiting for at least day two or three for this experience. In my opinion, you should take what is really a golden opportunity to experience first-hand how the dance is really done by carefully observing all that you can — before taking the bull by the horns, and joining in on the fun.

This leaves us with just one more crucial consideration: buying shoes. Oh yes, while you’re not busy closely examining the way the dance ought to be done done with your fast-developing critical eye, you can while away the rest of your time in Buenos Aires by finding your way to the many specialty stores — Comme il faut, Flabella, Darcos, lots of others — that offer the very best, most beautiful Tango shoes you could possibly ask for — at prices you’ll never be able to match anywhere else on the planet.

Go to these establishments. Bring your credit card. Buy a pair; buy two; oh, what the hell, buy as many as you want. It’s good for Argentina’s economy — not to mention your soul.

Please join us for our Saturday Practica at Dardo Galletto Studios, 151 West 46^th Street (between 6^th and 7^th Avenues), 11^th floor; 2-4pm, $10 per person. (Bringing a partner isn't necessary.) Pat and I will both be on hand to answer any questions you may have about your dancing, and to help you with material you're working on. Plus you get a new “must-have” tango move each week! If you’d like a private lesson, you can visit our website at www.franchesleigh.com, call Fran directly at 212-662-7692, or email him at franchesleigh@mac.com Join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/franchesleighllc

Traspie!

Put some MAGIC in your steps

A special workshop with Fran Chesleigh and Pat Altman

Sunday, November 5, 2017

12:30 -- 3:30 p.m.

Pearl Studios

519 Eighth Avenue

(between 35th and 36th Streets)

12th Floor, Room F

A sudden blizzard of double-time steps transforms what might have been an ordinary Tango sequence into absolute magic! And who made the magic happen?

You did with TRASPIE!  

•    Unlock the three basic secrets of creating authentic traspie sequences

•    Build a powerful traspie vocabulary

•    Learn exactly how to lead/follow any traspie — no matter how complex

•    Take your Tango/Milonga/Vals closer to the way they’re danced in Buenos Aires

THE BEST DEAL IN TOWN!

Don't miss it!

Register online now : $40 per person at franchesleigh.com

$45 per person at the door on Sunday, November 5.

Checks and cash accepted. No refunds. No exchanges.

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

• Steve Turi
• Lynn Gross
• Tsipoyra Sartan
• Jesse Barton
• ​​​​​​​Rafael and Hilda
• Bob Brillo
  
• Judy Koski
  
• ​​​​​​​Mike Porro
  
• Steve Maisch