Fishnets & Fedoras

Today In Tango…

Dancer (Virgo) – he was born in El Ferrol but raised in the neighborhood of San Telmo in Buenos Aires… …as a young man of 14 he was selected to carry the tail of the dress of Princess Isabella of Spain when she was in Buenos Aires for the Centennial of 1910..he started working as a stage hand for the Teatro Nacional.***His break came in 1918 when he acted and danced, in a borrowed tuxedo,  in the play “El Cabaret”… from then on he was a favorite with the critics…he would appear in innumerable stage productions and  nearly 40 movies always playing essentially the same part, the happy-go-lucky dancer…in March of 1977 as a guest on “Grandes Valores del Tango”, he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered passing away 5 years later

via todayintango.wordpress.com

A new blog charting an event in tango history that happened on the same date as the post…

Fishnets are Optional

While I really don't want to start pigeon-holing this irregular blogette as a tango fashion thing, this post from Eyes Wide Shut, in which the author has a surprising bathroom fashion experience, is too good not to share:

It has to be pointed out that this milonga is one of the more casual ones. People “dress up” if they want to, but there’s dressing up (i.e.: nice shirt, pants, skirt, whatever) and then there’s dressing up as if you’re about to go on stage in Forever Tango. I am sure you’ll agree that there’s an ocean of difference between the two.

Inspired by a Passion for Tango

In the occasional catefory of tango posts in unusual places:

She went on to explain that she really didn’t want to go into banking or finance with her Bachelor of Commerce degree, but that her family expected her to do so. “No,” she said, “that’s not what gives me life.” You see she’d kept a secret from her family while she’d been away. She had fallen in love. With the tango.

Conversation Agent uses a woman's secret passion for tango to illustrate the importance of keeping your passion for your profession.

Tango Blogs: Kids, Passion, BsAs and Getting Ready to Tango

All the kids are dancing tango, apparently. I feel so much more trendy now…

I'm lovin' TangoCherie's updates on the Buenos Aires tango scene. I may never get down there, but she's letting me live the life vicariously.

Debbie of an Ever Fixed Mark bullseyes the scary passion of some online tango communities:  

This is why I left a tango list. It got to the point where I was not reading any posts anymore because I did not want to deal with all the assertions of right and wrong about an art form that in its essence is improvisational, and therefor fluid. I know people who are anti-nuevo, anti-traditional, anti-alternative, anti-Piazzola, anti-occasional dancer, and so forth and so on. And they are all right and they are all wrong. It's all opinion and preference. And yet the force with which they assert their beliefs sometimes takes me aback.

TangoBaby gives us an insight into her preparation regimen before going out to tango.

And lastly, have you seen the new tango product?

A Guy Starting Out in Buenos Aires

So many of the bloggers in Buenos Aires are women, so I'm really enjoying ...where my tango journey begins, because it tells things from the perspective of am inexperienced guy. I enjoyed today's post in particular:

It is harder for a guy who is a relatively new face in a milonga to get good dances. Experience dancers don't look at you unless they have seen you dancing on the floor. The ones who easily accept your cabaceo are normally foreigners or not-so-good dancers.

Right now I don't mind not getting dances any more. I would rather have one or two great tanda a night then dancing 10 tandas. It is about the quality not the quantity. Like in everywhere else, I am building my dancer card one at a time.

Tango Oink

Funniest. Post. Evar.

New Tango Blog: Tangologue

Every time I turn my virtual back for a few months, the number of tango blogs seems to grow exponentially. I've got a browser window full of tabs with interesting new sites from devotees of the dance, and I'll try to share as many of them as I can.

Let's start with Tangologue, written by Ricardo of Tango Warwick in the UK.

Ricardo doesn't beat about the bush. When he likes something, he tells us. And when he doesn't, he makes that very plain too...

Lost Posts: August

Herein starts a new, and brief series of posts.

I'm desperately, embarrassingly behind on my tango-related RSS feeds, and am catching up now. I'll link to the best posts you might have missed as I go…

A Stolen Moment of Tango Pleasure
La Planchadora plays hooky and gets a moment of tango bliss

All About My Tango Shoes
Royce dissects her dancing footwear

Everyday Cabeceo
Some thoughts on invitation etiquette in Singapore. And taxis...

Return of the (Not So Good) Beginner

Pablo, he of the life as a not-so-good tango beginner (aren't we all?) is back blogging with a fancy-dancy new Wordpress blog.

Hurrah!

Voxy Classes, French Tango and Mind Games

I've been waiting for some tango to surface on Vox, a blogging service I love, and, at last, it's happened. Smoke is blogging about tango classes in great detail:

I started going to an Argentine Tango group class at Starlite. At first, I was not sure how to lead the Cruzada. Cruzada means "crossed"; in this case, Cruzada refers to the position of the legs. I was not sure how my partner was supposed to physically feel when doing this move. The correct way of leading the Cruzada is when the follower's right foot touches the floor, the leader should push her with his right forearm toward the left. This "push" is actually a pulse instead of a continuous push. Also, my parm is on her back, so I can't use my hand to lead this move.

Vidéos Tango is a French site, that compiles You Tube videos of (you guessed it) tango…

Equally French is Line55, which has a good selection of tango photos under the title Station Tango.

And did you know that Tango is a mind game?