Saturday, February 23, 2013

Tango, Car Chases, and Grinders

I'd ordinarily start with the usual "while I barely cling to any semblance of tango organizational involvement this weekend [yadda yadda yadda yadda]" BUT this segue into my actual evening of our penultimate practica at the Blue Moon has been preempted by a car chase just slightly more enthralling than that one involving OJ and the Ford Bronco. Last night I received a chat from my sweetie that read something like "A83951" at roughly 5:00 p.m. (be still my heart!) Since he has voice-chat set up to inform me when he passes various milestones on the commute up north, and I knew he was on the road, I assumed that voice to text was being quirky, and thought little more of it until my follow-up chat mentioning that this was the license plate number of the car he thought had hit him.

Naturally, now that my car crash trial is concluded, it was well-time for another vehicular debacle to arise - and some cargo van in Everett apparently agreed.

Although I would not receive the details for a good hour or two later, they would eventually reveal that (1) while in stop-and-go traffic, a cargo van careened into the rear of my fella's SUV (this is quite fortunate, considering that SUVs are actually somewhat sturdy and therefore it appears to have sustained minimal damage, whereas my kia - which crumples at a slight wind - would no longer have had a back seat in similar circumstances, (2) while pulling to the side to exchange passenger information Mr. (W)right realized that the rear-ender did not have any of the same intentions, and instead continued to pull off down Highway 2, (3) Mr. (W)right steadfastly followed suit, locating a white passenger van and keeping pace with it for a good twenty minutes or so before it took a turn that he could not follow, (4) after which he called a state trooper and passed along the aforementioned license plate, and that (5) as it would turn out this was not actually the van that hit Mr. (W)right so far as the police could tell (so probably quite fortunate that Andrew did not give into his impulses to recreate the "This is why you don't tailgate" scene from Lost Highway.

At any rate, the car and its cargo (my boyfrianceband) appear to have emerged relatively unscathed, if outrageously inconvenienced. The whole debacle added a certain aura of intrigue to the evening, even as it culminated with a phone call to Geico while I set up for the aforementioned practica.

The moral of the above is one I may already have known well-enough: Driving sucks! Driving in Seattle sucks more! Everett is a hell-hole.



The moral of the rest of this will likely be: even though it's kind of a lot of work, and a dauntingly exhausting thing to anticipate at the end of a long week, putting on low key and fun tango event is gratifying. The turn-out of our petite practica was appropriately wee, due to one swathe of the scene departing for Valentango and another swathe one-upping them and heading for a tango-retreat in Mexico. But blessedly, the lead to follow ratio was placidly and miraculously even, and there were just enough couples to avoid any partner-fatigue. And, to my advantage, there was momentarily a glut of leads. This forced me to unsedimentize myself from the front desk and dutifully dance with members of that delightful surplus... a burden, of course, but one that I abrazoed with steely grit.

A particular "burden" was dancing with my HPL (who no longer resembled Harry Potter any more than Daniel Radcliffe does, but sometimes names endure past all reason). I find that with a certain category of lead - those who are not regular partners, but with whom I feel a great connection - I become obstinately shy and avoidant. It's a mix, I believe, of not wanting to diminish my marginal returns by making the rare dance occasions dull with overuse, a fear of discovering that our positive experiences were mere fluke, and a touch of insecurity that I shall be "discovered" as not really that great. I suppose people in this category are the dance equivalent of the blokes with whom flirtation stretches into infinity, because neither person ever wants to rend the gossamer tat of unfettered potentiality with a clumsy foray into reality and all the mess that accompanies it. At any rate, while I eulogize such inclinations to save leads for special occasions, I also find it quite insipid on my part. I was glad to break the detente with a mini-tanda (our practica is quite special in that we do two song tandas, because why not? Four is standard. Three is all the vogue these days... so it was really either two or ten, and ten could tend towards tedious).

Our practica also does "demos." These are the conception of Doug, the tango crusader of the trio. He tends to handle the big ideas, sneak in food, and find people to "demo" and/or "explain." Kristi's the brains and music. I'm the requisite Farrah Fawcett character who generally adds little tangible value, but has cute hair and knows the right people. Oh and I have cute socks.

Anyways, the idea is that each practica has a separate "movement focus." Ochos, for instance. Or barridas. Generally the local WWU empress, Caileen, will explain what the move is and give a few tips about how it works, and then she and/or another couple will "demonstrate" the move and some variations. Then people may chime in or not and eventually we go back to just free-form dancing. Caileen wasn't available, so I offered to get up off my cushy front-door seat and do that part with HPL, her partner.

We're both kinda silly people who maybe aren't entirely sure what is expected - just yet - from this "demo" thing, so we kind of turned it into a minor Laurel and Hardy routine while I windmilled in circles around him (we were demonstrating the molinete) and became increasingly giddy and nonsensical. Crucial to the demo was the preparation of grinders (molinete is the same has a "giro" which is pronounced roughly like hero, which is a kind of sandwich rather like a.... tango joke! Just as bad as my legal jokes! bwahaahaha),  and the fact that "anything can happen down there" for the lead... I leave that to your imagination. Anyways, it was a blast to do something that was both unstructured, but also entertaining and possibly even informative. I don't teach with too many different partners, so it's always interesting to pick up a collaborative style off-the-cuff and see what each new dynamic brings

"It's like we finish each other's..."




So, a fun evening for me and apparently for the other attendees (knock on wood). The practica even turned a profit if you discount the money Doug spent on cheese and crackers. It will be interesting to see what happens come April. The Blue Moon is closing (proper eulogy for that to come separately, I suspect), in March. At the same time, another couple is intending to start up a weekly Sunday practica. This has been tried previously (at the Blue Moon, in fact) and attendance eventually lags as the concentration of attendees is dispersed across several events. But then again, no community remains static and things are about to change. Both of the WWU tangurus are graduating this year, and the other younger organizers will be moving back to Seattle at the end of the year. And I'll be an old married lady living lord knows where (double-knock on wood, Andrew has a few open applications hanging out there and we'd like some of those call-backs soon!!) This could make minimal impact or it could have seismic implications. Only time will tell.

Until then, our next month's theme is follower's embellishments: a few of our favorite things. And yes, I'll be presenting mine in song of course!

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